11 hours ago, Malcador said:

International Business Times

Trump Admin Renames Iran's $300 Billion Reparations Deman...

A draft US-Iran agreement reportedly includes a £224 billion ($300 billion) investment fund for Iran's reconstruction, with officials avoiding the term 'reparations.' The deal has not yet been signed

Don't really rate the source that much, but it is on brand for these monkeys

I wouldn't take the framing of this type of story too seriously

I mentioned this before but the war in Iran has been characterized by the worst example of fake, sensationalized and selective "updates and news " I have ever encountered on any war or geopolitical conflict

Its makes the fake news around the Ukraine war seem like the paradigm of truth

And I would guess its because this war is the perfect intersection for the main contributors of global fake news and SM sensationalism. Everyone is involved for different reasons

Its not just the expected and predicted fake news anti-West\US bots from Russia and or Iran but Israel is also involved and then Trump plays a huge part with his own impulsive and contradictory SM comments...its very rare that the US president is also responsible for constant misinformation but thats the reality of Trumps presidency

Since this war started I have lost count of the number of " real " stories I have heard but they include

• Netanyahu is dead

• The oil price is going to get to 150-200$ and the global economy is going to collapse

• thousands of US soldiers have actually been killed

• the US navy is in full retreat

• Iran has no more missiles\drones and its ability to attack other countries has been neutralized

• China is going to go to war with the US over its blockade or WW3 is IMMINENT !!!

This story is similar, the US is never going to fund the rebuild of Iran in the same way Iran is never going to be able to get permanent control of Straits

There is an ongoing objective about some of Iran's frozen assets being released, $30 billion or so which the link mentions

But Trump will never commit to this type of money\investment being given to Iran because this would be seen as worse than what Obama did around releasing Iran's frozen assets and yet we can now see the Obama deal was a good deal because it allowed monitoring of Iran's Uranium enrichment

And Trump was the one who ranted about that " being the worst deal ever "

So what they talking about in the article is US companies investing in Iran and rebuilding it through partnerships. Thats always possible if you think of Venezuela but its highly unlikely Iran would allow US companies to rebuild and invest in its energy sector especially since the US attacked Iran

But thats why they calling it an investment fund, its not the same as the US giving Iran billions of dollars to rebuild as part of negotiations

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by BruceVC

I am completely out of the loop. Haven't watched news about any of this in weeks now. Is the straight still closed? Is that war still going on?

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

I am completely out of the loop. Haven't watched news about any of this in weeks now. Is the straight still closed? Is that war still going on?

There is a ceasefire which is more or less holding, you see the occasional action

Both blockades are still ongoing but some ships still get through

The main event is the ongoing peace talks and both sides wanting certain terms

5 hours ago, Lexx said:

I am completely out of the loop. Haven't watched news about any of this in weeks now. Is the straight still closed? Is that war still going on?

Yep, they're still shooting at each other. Not sure where this new kind of ceasefire in which you don't cease firing came from.

Trump admin is terminating a vast network of ocean monitors

We ought to know by now not to bother billionaires with pesky facts and data when there are oil profits to be made. I mean, who would want to know what's happening on 70% of the planet's surface anyway?

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Not sure where this new kind of ceasefire in which you don't cease firing came from.

For all the snark about cease fires now meaning "you cease, we fire" or being agreements to stop killing civilians so quickly* most cease fires historically were practically just agreements to stop shooting so much at each other. In the hope that they'd become permanent in the case of open ended ones. eg the longest running current ceasefire on the Korean peninsula where they still semi regularly end up shooting at each other.

They have mostly ceased firing. Except Israel of course, and they have at least ceased firing, at Iran. The problem is the one everyone foresaw except Trump himself- he can't get an agreement that even looks like a win. Which he needs, and Iran knows that he needs.

*given the US justification for their strikes the "aggressively placed their country/drones near our peaceful and purely defensive military bases/ drones" cliché is relevant as well.

@rjshae

I see the idea of the DOJ $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization " fund is over when a judge ruled against it. Good news for the importance of the independence of the judiciary and Congress in the US

Remember how most of the GOP Congress also rejected the idea of it

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkpyj41m15o

"The Trump administration has abandoned plans to create a $1.8bn (£1.3bn) fund to compensate individuals who claim they were unfairly targeted or investigated by the government, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

"We're not moving forward with the fund, period," Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday.

The proposed "anti-weaponisation" fund was announced to settle a lawsuit by President Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

The plan drew strong criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who argued it could result in payment to people prosecuted over the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, including those convicted of assaulting police officers."

Last week, US Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily stopped the creation of the so-called compensation fund.

Brinkema barred the Department of Justice (DOJ) department from taking any steps to stand up or operate the fund - including processing or dispersing claims - until a preliminary hearing on 12 June. "