Late on Thursday evening, it was announced that Trump had been diagnosed with COVID-19. He was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday. Since that time, it has been a challenge to get accurate information on his condition. What are we to make of all of this?
Taiwanese and the US officials and military experts will meet over video conference for the 2020 US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, which began Monday, "to discuss which weapons would be best for the island’s self-defense as tensions escalate between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait," the South China Morning Post reported Monday. Is this just another conference, or should we be paying closer attention to what’s going on here?
Initially, it was rumored, and now it is being reported that it has happened. "Iraq's prime minister on Saturday confirmed at least 2,500 US soldiers have withdrawn amid increasing 'annoyance and concern' from Washington over repeated attacks on assets in the country," The New Arab reported Sunday. What are we to make of this?
"Venezuela’s gasoline shortages look like they’re going to be relieved, at least for now," Antiwar.com reported Sunday. "The third of Iran’s three fuel tankers that were dispatched has entered Venezuelan waters this weekend, and the first two tankers have already docked and begun delivery." Is this a signal that the US is not willing to directly engage with Iran on this issue?
"Two days ago Columbia College undergraduates voted overwhelmingly to divest from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians under 'apartheid' law," Mondoweiss reported Saturday. "The university’s president Lee Bollinger promptly repudiated the vote saying it was a 'complex' issue on which no campus consensus exists." Rashid Khalidi, a professor of history at Columbia, is quoted by Mondoweiss as noting, "There was a similar vote at Barnard College in 2018 and another recently at University of Illinois [Urbana-Champaign]." What's going on here?
"The international chemical weapons watchdog said on Friday that two investigations into alleged attacks in Syria could not establish whether or not chemicals were used," Antiwar.com reported Friday. "The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) reports on two alleged attacks, one in Saraqib, Syria, on August 1, 2016, and one in Aleppo, Syria, on November 24, 2018." What are we to make of the fact that the findings are inconclusive?
Russian intelligence alleged that Hillary Clinton backed a plan in 2016 to tie then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, according to a letter last week from US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, which Democrats have dismissed as a smear. What else is alleged?
"The United States and Russia will hold a round of nuclear arms control talks in Finland’s capital, Helsinki, on Monday to follow up on negotiations in Austria this summer, the Finnish president’ office said," the Associated Press reported over the weekend. Is this substantive or window dressing?
Guests:
Dr. Jehan "Gigi" El-Bayoumi - Internal medicine specialist and founder and executive director of the Rodman Institute of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
George Koo - Journalist, social activist, international business consultant and chemical engineer
Seyed Hossein Mousavi - Former Iranian nuclear negotiator and current researcher at Princeton University
Yves Engler - Montreal-based writer, author and activist
Nino Pagliccia - Venezuelan-Canadian statistician, author and activist
Miko Peled - Author and activist
Alexander Mercouris - Editor-in-chief of The Duran
Ray McGovern - Former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Peace
Mark Sleboda - Moscow-based international relations and security analyst
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