#COVID19 and #Trump’s #War on #China

Your Freedoms Don’t Have to be Muzzled Just Because You’re Wearing a Mask

By John W. Whitehead, April 29, 2020

It was 4:30 a.m. on March 12, 2020, in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that has most of the country under a partial lockdown and sheltering at home, when this masked SWAT team—deployed to execute a “high risk” search warrant for unauthorized firearms—stormed the suburban house where 21-year-old Duncan, a software engineer and Second Amendment advocate, lived with his parents and 19-year-old brother. The entire household, including Lemp and his girlfriend, was reportedly asleep when the SWAT team directed flash bang grenades and gunfire through Lemp’s bedroom window.
 

Covid-19 Is the Perfect Catalyst for Trump’s War Against China

By Johanna Ross, April 28, 2020

It was just a matter of time before the blame game would begin. Donald Trump has long viewed China as an economic adversary. On the presidential campaign trail in 2016 he was accusing China of ‘raping’ the US and that the nation was responsible for the ‘the greatest theft in the history of the world’. The rhetoric has not changed much since then. Trump vigorously pursued his trade war with China in 2018 when he literally ‘ordered’ US companies to cease trading with the east asian nation. The President has attempted to influence policy beyond its borders too; pressurizing the UK not to embark on a deal with Huawei, the Chinese mobile phone network provider, to set up 5G across Britain. The US has never disguised its hatred of the firm, launching its own special vendetta against it, including the organisation of the arrest of the Huawei founder’s daughter and Chief Financial Officer in Canada in 2018.

 

The U.S. Wants to “Purchase” Greenland from Denmark

By Andrew Korybko, April 28, 2020

Greenland returned to the news late last week after an American official disclosed that his country will grant the world’s largest island $12.1 million in economic aid following reports last summer that the US was interested in purchasing this strategically positioned and energy-rich territory from Denmark. The author wrote about that at the time in his piece about how “Greenland Is Trump’s For The Taking If He Really Wants It“, which explained how the US could simply seize it from Denmark without suffering any serious consequences apart the negative press coverage that it would inevitably provoke across the world. Instead of undertaking that dramatic course of action, however, Trump is almost somewhat uncharacteristically opting for a much more subtle approach aimed at gradually swaying the island’s inhabitants and their local authorities to his country’s side through what can best be described as “economic diplomacy”.

 

Iraq: Official Warns of US Plot to Transfer ISIS Terrorists from Syria to Iraq’s Al-Anbar

By Drago Bosnic, April 28, 2020

The official warned of the US attempts to transfer a large number of ISIS terrorists from occupied regions of Syria to Iraq’s western desert province of al-Anbar. The terrorists pose a great danger to inhabitants of this area, as well as the bordering areas with Syria. The aim of the US and its NATO and regional Wahhabi partners in crime is quite obviously fomenting tension and unrest in Iraq in the future, giving them an excuse to continue occupying Iraqi and Syrian territories, all under the pretext of “fighting terrorism”.

 

Is Trump Using the U.S. Military for Regime Change in Venezuela?

By Barbara Boland, April 28, 2020

U.S. policy towards Venezuela has been a head-spinning series of contradictions lately, with no end in sight. From placing a bounty on the heads of President Nicolas Maduro and a dozen current and former Venezuelan officials, to upping sanctions and sending the largest fleet ever to the Southern hemisphere to stop drug trafficking from Venezuela, the U.S. appears to be pursuing an inexorable path towards regime change.

 

Reports of North Korean Leader’s Death Greatly Exaggerated

By Stephen Lendman, April 28, 2020

CNN’s chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto claimed he was “told by a US official with direct knowledge that the US is monitoring intelligence that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is in grave danger following a surgery.”

 

US Launches Campaign to Accuse Syria of Inability to Curtail Coronavirus, Claims Syrian-Russian Joint Statement

By Sputnik, April 25, 2020

The United States has launched a propaganda campaign by accusing Damascus of its inability to effectively combat the spread of COVID-19 in Syria, the Russian and Syrian coordination centres said in a joint statement. According to the statement, the United States has influenced the development of a UN plan for sending a humanitarian medical mission to the camp.