#forei

[wazafam]

By BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG from Opinion in the New York Times-https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/opinion/samantha-power.html?partner=IFTTT Can the new head of U.S. foreign aid make America good again? Samantha Power Still Believes America Can Help Save the World New York Times

[dailymagazinblog]

The sale of beer and foreign liquor has seen a marked spike in Gautam Buddh Nagar, with the alcoholic varieties registering estimated sales of Rs 574.84 crore so far this fiscal year, according to official data. from IndiaTV India: Google News Feed https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india-noida-greater-noida-guzzle-beer-foreign-liquor-worth-rs-574-84-crore-in-this-fiscal-year-so-far-497472

[berniesrevolution]

Is This the Beginning of the End of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance?

Lobbying firms, tech companies and politicians are under pressure to break with the increasingly rogue state.

The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi last Tuesday is threatening to upend the terms of the decades-long alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the nine days since Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian resident of Virginia and a Washington Post columnist, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, politicians, media figures and foreign policy elites – even those who have fawned over the authoritarian Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman — have grown increasingly critical of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

The U.S. has long given the Saudis a blank check, politically and militarily, and there have been voices advocating for a rethinking of that decades-old relationship for nearly as long as it has lasted. But the widespread belief that the Saudis assassinated Khashoggi inside their consulate has brought those voices squarely into the center. Suddenly, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States is being called into fundamental question.

President Donald Trump initially responded to questions about Khashoggi’s disappearance by saying “I don’t like hearing about it, and hopefully that will sort itself out.”  But on Thursday, he began to sound much less confident in his defense of Saudi Arabia, the first foreign country he visited as president. He said that it was beginning to look as though Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince, was indeed murdered, but worried that jobs would be at risk if arms sales to the country were halted.

In the Senate, the kingdom is starting to lose its traditional bipartisan support, with almost every member of the Foreign Relations Committee calling on Trump to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has devoted extraordinary resources, both on the reporting and editorial side, to the case of its columnist.

Washington-based lobbying firms that do business with Saudi Arabia — particularly Hogan and Lovells, the Glover Park Group, and Brownstein — are facing a difficult decision, as pressure mounts across the board to break with the kingdom. The New York Times has withdrawn its sponsorship of an upcoming technology conference in Riyadh. Meanwhile, the Economist editor in chief Zanny Minton Beddoes and CNBC Squawbox co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin have announced they will pull out. A CNN spokesperson told Buzzfeed News they are reconsidering their sponsorship, and a spokespeople for CNBC and Fox Business told The Intercept they are “monitoring the situation.”

The shift in discourse over Saudi Arabia is palpable in the think-tank world as well.  The vice president for security at the Center for American Progress, an influential liberal think tank, called on the United States to freeze arms sales to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Magsamen, a former Bush and Obama National Security Council staffer, also warned that the affair had the potential to unify a bipartisan “anti-Saudi sentiment.” Just two years ago, the think tank was arguing for keeping the U.S.-Saudi relationship more or less the same.

Prominent right-wing columnist and Council of Foreign Relations fellow Max Boot, a long-time defender of the U.S.-Saudi alliance, warned that if the Saudis did indeed kill Khashoggi, there “must be hell to pay.”

The conversation about Khashoggi’s disappearance has been extremely muddled, with conflicting reports from Turkish and Saudi officials over what happened, but the evidence of foul play by Saudi Arabia has piled up. We now know, through reporting by the Post, that U.S. intelligence had picked up conversations between top Saudi officials discussing a plan by bin Salman to capture Khashoggi and render him back to Saudi Arabia for detention.

Turkish officials, meanwhile, while remaining anonymous, have said that a team of 15 Saudis, many of them part of bin Salman’s personal guard, traveled in two private planes to Istanbul on the day Khashoggi was scheduled to venture into the consulate, and left that same day. The professional backgrounds of the Saudis give it the clear markings of a kill or capture squad, and official Turkish sources have said that Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the consulate. Surveillance video shows Khashoggi walking into the consulate, but never walking out. NBC News reported that Khashoggi checked his phone just before heading in but has not checked it since. (The Intercept has independently confirmed this claim.)

The Saudis, meanwhile, have denied any wrongdoing. Their official line is that Khashoggi left the consulate shortly after his arrival, but they have not offered surveillance footage or any other evidence to back up that assertion.

(Continue Reading)

[newsdock]

Russia is considering relaxing new rules imposed on foreign credit and debit card companies Visa and Mastercard after they stopped serving several Russian banks because of U.S. sanctions, a source close to the central bank said on Thursday. Russia's parliament passed a law in April to oblige foreign card companies to pay a security deposit of 25 percent of their average daily turnover in Russia to the central bank once a quarter from July 1. Both Visa and Mastercard - the world's two largest credit and debit card companies - had protested against the new rules, saying they would create significant complications for their business in Russia. Source: Reuters

[could-you-pass-me-a-pen-blog]

I know better than to expect a sob story. I wasn't expecting anything of the sort really. Perhaps I just wanted to see a more humane side of you. And on that note, since I'm giving out prompts left and right, here's one for you, though this is optional, as always. Write a prompt for John dying outside of the Arena and Sherlock's reaction.

Humane is terribly boring.

((Response to prompt))

A gunshot distracted Sherlock from the body. He was about to yell for Lestrade to control his men when he heard the panicked shouts. Annoyance  flowed to curiosity, which grew into... could it be... worry? Sherlock admonished himself. You found them all. They're safe. 

He'd spent three and a half years hunting down every loyal worker of Moriarty. After he'd found the last of them holed up in Indonesia, he had finally come home. He'd made sure there was no one left to go after his... friends (the word still sounded forgien). They weren't in any danger.

Yet he heard the name John, coupled with cries of Help! and Call an ambulance! He slowly turned, and the world slowed with him. John was lying face first on the ground, a red puddle pooling around his torso. The bullet hole had taken a chunk out of his jumper and Sherlock could tell it went straight through his heart. Sherlock had the answer before he realized he'd asked a question.

John was dead.

Sherlock briefly wondered if a bullet had hit him. Concentrate. His closed his eyes and detached himself from the situation. Just another body. Just another case.