The United States will add 700 individuals and entities to its Iran blacklist and pressure the global SWIFT banking network to cut off Tehran when expanded sanctions are put in place Monday. But eight countries, including Italy, India, Japan and South Korea, will receive temporary waivers allowing them to continue to import Iranian petroleum products for a limited period as long as they end such imports entirely in the future. It's been reported that Turkey and Iraq have also been granted waivers. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wants Tehran's Shiite clerical regime to withdraw from war-ravaged Syria, where it is a critical ally of President Bashar al-Assad, and to end longstanding support to regional militant movements Hezbollah and Hamas. The US also wants Iran to stop backing Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are facing a US-supported air campaign led by Saudi Arabia. What's going on here?
The US economy added 250,000 jobs in October, federal economists reported today in the government's last labor market snapshot before the midterm elections. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7 percent, a 49-year low, and the typical worker's earnings rose by 3.1 percent over the year that ended in October, the biggest leap since 2009. These are economic numbers that most political parties would love to have and would be the center of their messaging. Why are Republicans in fear of losing the House of Representatives, and dropping seats in the Senate and in state Houses?
Bolton promises to confront Latin America's "troika of tyranny": US National Security Advisor John Bolton gave a speech yesterday afternoon at the Freedom Tower in Miami, right before the mid-terms, denouncing the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. "This troika of tyranny, this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere," Bolton said. "The United States looks forward to watching each corner of the triangle fall… The troika will crumble."
This story broke on Saturday, but it impacted our news this entire week: Armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and three handguns, Robert D. Bowers, shouting anti-Semitic slurs, opened fire inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this past Saturday morning, killing 11 congregants and wounding four police officers and two others. There has been so much made about the rhetoric from the president and the language from some of those on the other side of the aisle. The attack has also highlighted divisions within the Jewish community, with some Zionists in Israel claiming that Tree of Life is not a synagogue but a place with Jewish flavor and blaming the victims for their plight.
We've got these topics and so much more as we analyze this week's biggest stories!
GUESTS:
Jon Jeter — Author and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist with more than 20 years of journalistic experience. He is a former Washington Post bureau chief and award-winning foreign correspondent.
Caleb Maupin — Journalist and political analyst who focuses his coverage on US foreign policy and the global system of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. He has appeared on Russia Today, PressTV, TeleSur and CNN. He has reported from across the United States, as well as from Iran, the Gulf of Aden and Venezuela.
We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com
