Saudis say US sought 1 month delay of OPEC+ production cuts

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia said Thursday that the U.S. had urged it to postpone a decision by OPEC and its allies — including Russia — to cut oil production by a month. Such a delay could have helped reduce the risk of a spike in gas prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections next month.

Saudis say US sought 1 month delay of OPEC+ production cuts

Related:

Saudi Arabia Defied U.S. Warnings Ahead of OPEC+ Production Cut

The one-month delay requested by Washington would have meant a production cut made in the days before the election, too late to have much effect on consumers’ wallets ahead of the vote.

To entice the Saudis to delay their decision, U.S. officials told the kingdom they would buy oil on the market to replenish Washington’s strategic stockpiles if the price of Brent, the main international benchmark, fell to $75 a barrel, according to U.S. officials and people inside the Saudi government.

Quid pro quo, huh?! 🧐💭

Republicans Plan Debt Crisis to Force Cuts to Medicare, Social Security

The November elections will likely give Republicans control of the House of Representatives as a platform from which to oppose the Democratic-controlled White House. And one thing Republicans will do with this power, in all probability, will be to try to provoke a crisis in order to extort Democrats into accepting spending cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Republicans Plan Debt Crisis to Force Cuts to Medicare, Social Security

How family friendly!? Just throw Granny to the street! /s

The Flaws in the “Assessment” Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on China

By Alfred de Zayas

On 31 August 2022, the last day of Michelle Bachelet’s 4-year tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office released a 46-page document, which I believe should be discarded as propagandistic, biased, and methodologically flawed. This document, which was not mandated by the Human Rights Council and responds to pressures on OHCHR by Washington and Brussels, bears the superficially neutral title “Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”

The Flaws in the “Assessment” Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on China

Related:

Xinjiang-Related Report Shows OHCHR ‘Serves US & EU Geopolitics,’ Ex-UN Independent Expert Says

*Xinjiang*

The Chris Hedges Report: Ukraine and the crisis of media censorship

Throughout the Ukraine war, Western news outlets have mindlessly parroted the opinions of a ruling elite and overseen a public discourse that is often unhinged from the real world.

Patrick Lawrence was a correspondent and columnist for nearly 30 years for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the International Herald Tribune and The New Yorker. He is the author of Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World and Time No Longer: America After the American Century.

The Chris Hedges Report: Ukraine and the crisis of media censorship via The Real News Network

Podcast:

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the loss of credibility within the western press, inflicting, journalist Patrick Lawrence argues, irreparable damage.

The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Patrick Lawrence Examines How the Western Press Has Become a Propaganda Tool of the War Industry and Ukrainian Government

Xinjiang-Related Report Shows OHCHR ‘Serves US & EU Geopolitics,’ Ex-UN Independent Expert Says

Xinjiang-Related Report Shows OHCHR ‘Serves US & EU Geopolitics,’ Ex-UN Independent Expert Says

“The UN Human Rights Council is in the service of US and EU geopolitics and pursues a skewed human rights policy – much lip service to universal principles, but selectivity in application, double-standards in assessment of country situations,” Professor Alfred de Zayas claimed.

“Experience shows in the cases of Belarus, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, etc. that the Western Information War has been effective in distorting the picture,” Professor Alfred de Zayas emphasized.

“The current proxy war against Russia is using Ukraine as a pawn with a view to weakening and destabilizing Russia. Among the activities of many US-funded organizations we recognize the systematic use of the Uyghur card against China, unfortunately with a degree of success.”

“Many NGO’s are financed directly or indirectly by the United States and its allies… The US National Endowment for Democracy finances a great number of non-governmental organizations and think tanks whose purpose is to disseminate fake news and skewed narratives about Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, etc. By virtue of the information war, ‘color revolutions’ have been conducted in many countries, including the run-up to the coup d’état against the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, in February 2014,” the expert noted.

“It demeans the word and constitutes an insult against those who have been victims of genocide, including the genocides perpetrated against the Armenians, the Jews and gypsies during the second world war, the Tutsis of Rwanda, the Yemenis,” the former UN independent expert added.

He pointed out that this use of the term “genocide” by the US and others also constitutes a violation of article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which “prohibits war propaganda and incitement to racial hatred” and is contrary to the letter and spirit of the UN Charter and of the UNESCO constitution.

Previously:

Updated (with video): UN Accuses China of ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ in Xinjiang

*Xinjiang*

Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics…And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That

Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics… And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That

Related:

Google Maps Regularly Misleads People Searching for Abortion Clinics

“When my partner left the room, I mentioned that I was in an abusive relationship,” said Chey, who asked that her full name be withheld for medical privacy reasons. The staff working at the CPC said that was all the more reason to have the baby. “They told me that carrying a pregnancy could help repair my relationship, that it would cause my partner to step up as a man, and that I would find purpose in life again.”

Domestic Violence And Pregnancy

Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than any other cause of death.

A significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.

Domestic violence during pregnancy puts your life and the life of your baby at risk.

Domestic violence is the number one cause of injury to women.

Abusive partners do not stop their violence after the baby is born.

Abusive partners do not become good fathers after the baby is born.

Abuse and Domestic Violence During Pregnancy

Steve Bannon calls for ‘4,000 shock troops’ to dismantle US government ‘brick by brick’

Steve Bannon calls for ‘4,000 shock troops’ to dismantle US government ‘brick by brick’

According to Axios, Mr Trump wants to install Maga loyalists in all ranks of the federal bureaucracy in a second administration to “accelerate controversial policy and enforcement changes, but also enable revenge tours against real or perceived enemies, and potentially insulate the president and allies from investigation or prosecution”.