"Macron strives to bring US back to Paris climate deal" by Sophie Yeo Washington Post July 15, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s suggestion during his visit with President Emmanuel Macron of France that ‘‘something could happen with respect to the Paris agreement’’ awakened hopes that he might be willing to reverse the decision to pull the United States out of the climate agreement.
It won’t be that simple for the United States to get back into the agreement, if it really does exit — ‘‘Yeah, I mean, something could happen with respect to the Paris accord. We’ll see what happens,’’ Trump told reporters. ‘‘But we will talk about that over the coming period of time. And if it happens, that will be wonderful, and if it doesn’t, that will be OK, too. But we’ll see what happens.’’
From what I saw, and contrary to ma$$ media distortion, is Trump simply put the process in motion and the way the globalists wrote it was such that it will take so long as to outlast his presidency. In that case, the next figurehead -- probably a swing back "left" in the search for change -- will be able to put the brakes on it before withdrawal even begins.
Laurence Tubiana, the French official who was one of the architects of the agreement endorsed by about 195 countries, acknowledged there was ‘‘nothing revolutionary’’ in the president’s remarks. Other politicians and diplomats across Europe also warned against reading too much into Trump’s words.
Even as he promised to withdraw from the accord on June 1, Trump said he would be willing to renegotiate the terms of the Paris agreement to create ‘‘a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers.’’
Diplomats regarded Trump’s ‘‘something’’ as yet another reference to reopening the deal — a proposition that has already been dismissed by European leaders, including Macron.
‘‘Until further advice or interpretation is given from Washington, I wouldn’t see this as differing from that slight opening he gave when announcing withdrawal,’’ Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s minister of climate and environment said. He added that renegotiation would ‘‘not be on the table.’’
He also suggested that Trump could have been referring to remaining in the Paris agreement on that basis that the United States could significantly weaken its UN climate targets, known as its nationally determined contribution.
The United States would be legally entitled to do so, Helgesen said, although he added it would be ‘‘against the spirit’’ of the deal.
Others were more dismissive of the president’s efforts to appease.....
All this coded baloney meant to call certain images and events in your mind, and I'm tired of the gas.
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Related:
"Two days after treating President Donald Trump to a Bastille Day parade, Emmanuel Macron welcomed yet another world leader -- the Israeli prime minister -- to Paris. As Benjamin Netanyahu arrived for talks Sunday, the French president condemned anti-Zionism, or opposition to Jews retaining their biblical homeland, as the new form of anti-Semitism. The backdrop for their meeting was the 75th anniversary of a Paris Holocaust roundup, and Macron used the occasion to reiterate his declaration that the French state bore the responsibility for the arrest and deportation of approximately 13,000 Jews in 1942....."
To equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is so rank, and it's emblematic of Macron groveling at his master's feet.
What such positions will be used for is quite obvious, although the penalty may not be (masters expo$ed, though). This ain't South Africa.
"An American journalist and at least nine Congolese security guards have disappeared after militia members attacked a security station in a nature reserve in the northeast part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a local official said Saturday. The attack was launched Friday by the Mai Mai militia outside Mambasa. Authorities do not have proof this was an abduction, and had no details on the missing journalist (AP)."
"A Rwandan academic was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of genocide. Leopold Munyakazi was convicted Friday by a court in the south of the country. Munyakazi was accused of playing a key role in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were killed. He denied the charges. He was ordered held in solitary confinement (AP)."
It's France's sphere, so I thought I would include them.
"Macron said, "We will not surrender to anti-Zionism, because it is a reinvention of anti-Semitism."
"Your struggle is our struggle," Netanyahu said, referring to Friday's attack in Jerusalem, when Arab Israeli gunmen shot and killed two Israeli police officers. "The zealots of militant Islam, who seek to destroy you, seek to destroy us as well."
How 9/11 of him, and I had to go to Arkansas to get the other part of my print pos.
"French president faces test of his authority as head of military quits" Bloomberg News July 19, 2017
PARIS — The resignation of the head of France’s military has thrown the spotlight on President Emmanuel Macron’s lack of experience and may prove to be the first major test of his governing style.
Following a public dispute with Macron over defense budget cuts, General Pierre de Villiers, chief of the general staff, said Wednesday that he “no longer feels capable of assuring the continuation of the military model” needed to protect France.
The resignation is a first by a head of the French military since Charles de Gaulle remade the constitution in 1958 and represents one of the biggest challenges to Macron’s authority since the president took office two months ago.
The newspaper Le Monde called it the “moment of truth” for France’s new president.
“It sends a negative signal and shows dissent at the helm of the state,” said Christelle Craplet, a pollster at BVA institute in Paris. “Macron is at a crucial moment: the end of the political honeymoon with voters and the beginning of the reality.”
Macron, 39, is the first French president who has neither been in the army nor done mandatory military service, which has now been scrapped.
While Macron has shown a liking for the French military, visiting troops in Africa and ostentatiously being filmed jumping onto a nuclear submarine, he was quick to censure de Villiers when he complained about military spending cuts.
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"France’s Macron visits air force base amid military crisis" Associated Press July 20, 2017
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron promised an ‘‘unprecedented’’ hike in defense spending next year and vowed to safeguard the country’s nuclear deterrent, as he tries to show his commitment to the troops amid a crisis over the military budget.
What a hot dog.
Macron flew in a C-135 military jet and visited nuclear forces at the Istres air base in southern France on Thursday, a day after the head of the French military quit in a damaging dispute with Macron over budget cuts.
His replacement as chief of staff of the armed forces, General Francois Lecointre, was at Macron’s side for much of Thursday’s event.
Macron promised to boost spending by $2.1 billion to $39 billion next year. He has also pledged to bring defense spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2025 to fulfill pledges to the NATO military alliance, from about 1.8 percent of GDP currently.
This as he also attempts to shred the social safety net.
Macron's a war-monger, and that's why my pre$$ loves him.
‘‘This increase in the budget, in a year where no other budget except the army’s will see an increase, is unprecedented, and I want to you to understand how important this is,’’ he told officers gathered at Istres.
He called France’s nuclear arsenal ‘‘the heart of our defense.’’
And yet Iran and North Korea can't have one.
France’s youngest-ever president, Macron has sought to establish his authority over the military, notably by touring a nuclear submarine and overseeing last week’s military parade for Bastille Day alongside President Trump.
Didn't he already have it?
But Macron ran into conflict with former armed forces chief of staff General Pierre de Villiers, who resisted cuts announced last week to this year’s budget.
You gotta hand it to Macron, he can speak out of both sides of his mouth with the best of 'em.
Villiers’s departure Wednesday rattled the normally quiet, loyal French military and exposed simmering concerns about neglected facilities and dwindling resources.
Villiers notably argued that France’s military is being stretched more and more to fight Islamic extremist threats at home and abroad.
But the dispute was as much about Macron exerting authority as it was about money, with Macron lecturing military leaders ‘‘I am the boss’’ and de Villiers cautioning that ‘‘no one deserves to be blindly followed.’’
From my experience over here, they don't take that to well.
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Meanwhile, what is the opposition in France concerned about?
"Sacre Bleu! French Lawmakers Lose Ties as Sartorial Rules Flag" Bloomberg News July 20, 2017
France’s parliamentary elections in June didn’t just oust the two parties that have dominated French politics for a generation. They also upended the legislative body’s sartorial standards.
The National Assembly’s administrative office said Thursday that male deputies don’t have to wear jackets and ties.
Some of the 17 deputies from far-left party France Unbowed, including party leader and two-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, showed up to the first day of Parliament on June 27 in open neck shirts and sweaters, leading to complaints from other deputies. The National Assembly’s administrative office said that there’s no written rule saying that men must wear a jacket and tie, simply that dress be “respectful of the institution.”
President Emmanuel Macron’s political movement Republic on the Move won a majority in the National Assembly, which has been dominated since the early 1980s by either the Socialists or the Gaullists.
As a candidate, Macron sometimes went without a tie or even a shave. Since his election he’s only worn dark sober suits at official events, even when he tried his hand at several Olympic sports to promote Paris’s candidacy for the 2024 Games.
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Sorry, no jacket, no service.
NDU:
"Libyan rivals in France agree to cease-fire, election" by Elaine Ganley Associated Press July 26, 2017
LA CELLE SAINT-CLOUD, France — Two rival Libyan leaders committed themselves on Tuesday to a cease-fire, working toward presidential and parliamentary elections, and finding a road map to secure lawless Libya against terrorism and trafficking of all kinds, according to a document released by the French presidency.
The meetings at a chateau in La Celle Saint-Cloud, west of Paris, brought together Fayez Serraj, prime minister of the UN-backed unity government, and General Khalifa Hifter, the Egyptian-backed commander of Libya’s self-styled national army. French President Emmanuel Macron met separately with each ahead of the session between the two Libyans in the presence of the UN’s newly appointed special envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salame.
Those two guys are two sides of the same coin, meaning Libya is being intentionally kept in chaos. They say Hifter is backed by Egypt, and that well may be, but anybody that knows anything knows Hifter is a US agent.
‘‘There is political legitimacy in the hands of Mr. Serraj. There is military legitimacy in the hands of Mr. Hifter. They have decided to work together,’’ Macron said.
The 10-point joint declaration that capped the encounter was the first of its kind since Libya spiraled into chaos after the 2011 toppling and killing of leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Looking back now, that was a huge war crime, a la Iraq, and is one of three wars Obama owns all by himself (the others being Syria and Yemen).
The French president said later that the goal is for balloting in the spring.
Macron’s bid to work toward laying the groundwork for a state with a functioning government and institutions is a priority of his presidency.
Talks were centered on creating a propitious climate for elections next year, security and military issues, respect for human rights, and economic development of the oil-rich nation where residents struggle despite the resources, French officials said.
Macron, Salame, and Serraj, along with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, walked into the chateau to begin the first set of talks after shaking hands before Republican Guards in their ornate gear. Hifter arrived later.
The encounter was never expected to resolve the knotty problems of Libya, politically fractured and awash in militias and human traffickers preying on migrants who use the Libyan coast as a jumping off point to Europe, mainly Italy. But it was seen as a way to lay the basis for the UN envoy to come up with proposals in the weeks and months ahead.
Paris has made clear that the French initiative is not meant to brush aside numerous initiatives by others, including the European Union, the African Union, and individual countries, like Morocco.
France ‘‘wants to facilitate a political entente’’ and ‘‘mark its support for efforts to build a political compromise, under the auspices of the United Nations,’’ that includes all actors in the country, a statement Monday by the president’s office said.
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UPDATE:
"UN says Congo military ‘elements’ dug dozens of mass graves" Associated Press July 26, 2017
DAKAR, Senegal — Congo military ‘‘elements’’ are responsible for digging at least 42 mass graves in three Kasai provinces after clashes with alleged militia members in recent months, the United Nations said as experts were appointed Wednesday to look into a growing crisis that has killed hundreds and displaced more than a million people.
Human rights have deteriorated alarmingly due to the ‘‘brutal and disproportionate repression against the Kamwina Nsapu militia by the Congolese defense forces,’’ the UN Joint Human Rights Office in Congo said in a new report.
Congolese soldiers have killed more than 428 people, including 140 children, in the once-calm Kasai provinces as of June, the office said. The militia has killed at least 37 people in that time, it said.
The UN human rights chief appointed a three-member panel to investigate.
In a separate statement, the UN Security Council said such abuses ‘‘might constitute war crimes under international law.’’
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