June 14, 2018 – Astute News

June 14, 2018

The Key Word in the Trump-Kim Show

The Trump-Kim geopolitical reality-TV show – surreal for some – offered unparalleled entries to the annals of international diplomacy. It will be tough to upstage the US President pulling an iPad and showing Kim Jong-un the cheesy trailer of a straight-to-video 1980s B-grade action movie – complete with a Sylvester Stallone cameo – casting the two leaders as heroes destined...

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June 14, 2018

Japan is Seeking Balance in its Relations with the US, China and Russia

The sudden burst in Japanese foreign policy efforts over the last few months cannot go unnoticed. It is hard not to note Tokyo’s attempts to influence and probe the state of its relations with Washington, Beijing and Moscow. It is worth mentioning that the political landscape in the critically important North East Asia sub-region are shaped by these four capitals....

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June 14, 2018

How Jordan’s Economic Crisis Exposed Saudi Arabia’s Leadership Vacuum

Saudi Arabia did not come to Jordan’s rescue with a $2.5bn aid package, although King Salman very much wanted to appear as if it had. What happened was an attempt by King Salman to take the credit for the money that Kuwait had already pledged. What resulted was a scramble by rival Gulf states to support Jordan. ‘Substantial financial support’...

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June 14, 2018

What Does It Really Matter If NATO Won’t Help Israel Against Iran?

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg articulated the bloc’s policy during an interview with the German publication Der Spiegel, explaining that Israel isn’t a member of the alliance and therefore ineligible to receive multilateral mutual defense commitments from it. This came as a shock for some people who had hitherto assumed that the organization would take Israel’s side in any prospective conflict...

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June 14, 2018

Singapore Slings and Arrows: How Donald Trump Confounded His Enemies

Little more needs to be said about events in Singapore. Slings and arrows finally parked after a 65-year war in which millions died on a divided Korean peninsula where a nuclear slingshot was assembled and decommissioned. The world was taken to the brink of war and then back again. That Donald J Trump will now become a Nobel Laureate is...

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June 14, 2018

Trump Rises to Occasion for Peace

Stranger things can happen. Maybe – just maybe – the United States and North Korea can find a way towards securing a lasting peace – despite being sworn enemies for the last seven decades. Recall how only a few months ago, President Trump and Chairman Kim were threatening to go to war. Trump infamously had said at one point that he was prepared...

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June 14, 2018

The Corporate Media’s World of Illusions

For several years now, I have been writing these regular blog posts with one end in mind: to help open a door for readers and encourage them to step through. I select issues, usually those that dominate western media coverage and represent a consensus that we might term the Great Western Narrative, and try to show how this narrative has...

Opinion Comment: 1

June 14, 2018

The “Dark Arts” of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as both a boon and a threat. It uses our personal data to influence our lives without us realising it. It is used by social media to draw our attention to things we are interested in buying, and by our tablets and computers to predict what we want to type (good). It facilitates targeting of...

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Daily Archive: June 14, 2018

The Key Word in the Trump-Kim Show

Japan is Seeking Balance in its Relations with the US, China and Russia

How Jordan’s Economic Crisis Exposed Saudi Arabia’s Leadership Vacuum

What Does It Really Matter If NATO Won’t Help Israel Against Iran?

Singapore Slings and Arrows: How Donald Trump Confounded His Enemies

Trump Rises to Occasion for Peace

The Corporate Media’s World of Illusions

The “Dark Arts” of Artificial Intelligence