Mike Pompeo

US Peace Delegation to Iran February 2019 outside of Iran’s Foreign Ministry. From CODE PINK.

RT CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle and The Duran’s Alex Christoforou take a quick look at the Vietnam summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
No joint agreement was reached between the two countries after Kim insisted all US sanctions be lifted on his country, while White House National Security Adviser, John Bolton played the role of last-minute spoiler, influencing President Trump’s negotiations so as to produce an ultimate failure to agree.

“Sometimes you have to walk and this was one of those times.”  That was US President Donald Trump’s remark about something he has been doing a lot of lately: walking away from agreements or understandings in the hope of reaching the ultimate deal.  North Korea’s Kim Jong-un had been pressing his advantage in Hanoi with an attempt to convince Trump that sanctions needed to be eased. He ended up seeing the back of Trump after the appropriate handshakes.

Below is a diary, edited slightly for style and clarity, directly from Facebook posts of mine from January 24, 2019 through the culminating day — for now — of Saturday, February 23, 2019 when the US propaganda whirlwind and concerted campaign caught up with the political realities on the ground. Although I have not been a regular user of Facebook, resisting the entreaties of friends, in this period I found it a compelling vehicle to follow, speak out, and get feedback on the Trump Administration-led drive for a military coup and the accompanying propaganda build-up.

Travelling with Hugo Chavez, I soon understood the threat of Venezuela. At a farming co-operative in Lara state, people waited patiently and with good humour in the heat. Jugs of water and melon juice were passed around. A guitar was played; a woman, Katarina, stood and sang with a husky contralto.
“What did her words say?” I asked.
“That we are proud,” was the reply.

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris take a look at U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s comments on Fox News Sunday, that the Maduro regime’s days are “numbered” and that “every option” is on the table toward making that happen.

Imagine, the President of the self-declared, exceptional and unique Superpower, Donald Trump of the United States of America, has the audacity to threaten the Venezuelan military with their lives, if they keep standing behind the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro, and defending his Government. An open threat – yesterday, 18 February, at a Miami University, in a speech of ‘fire and fury’; this time against socialist Venezuela with which he wants to finish, like with all other socialist nations – especially those in his ‘backyard’.

[Prefatory Note:The following post contains my responses to questions posed by Sputnik News Agency a few days ago. The effort to warn European countries not to use equipment from the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, is part warning and part threat. It claims to be a matter of security, but seems like an effort to avoid the competitive challenge posed by the superior technology of Huawei by claiming a threat to the security of European countries because China will be able to engage in unauthorized data surveillance.

U.S. Department of State Follow Spokesperson Nauert Delivers Remarks at a Reception in Support of the United States’ Bid to Host the 2023 World’s Fair at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 2017. [State Department Photo/ Public Domain]Heather Nauert, who was nominated by President Trump in early December to succeed Nikki Haley as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, has withdrawn from consideration as of Feb. 16, 2018.

Ever since the Netanyahu regime in Tel Aviv convinced a weak Trump Administration to withdrawal from the JCPOA Iran Nuclear Deal, Israeli war machine has been gradually gearing-up for a confrontation with Iran. The Israeli press has been running repeated stories emphasizing how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is considering a military attack on the Iranian, allegedly to destroy a nuclear weapons program which Israel claims exists, but no one has ever seen any evidence of.