Sputnik News
Date: 23.05.2020
By: Wilmer Leon
The Critical Hour
On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Caleb Maupin, journalist and political analyst who focuses his coverage on US foreign policy.
"The US State Department has approved a possible sale to Taiwan of 18 MK-48 Mod6 advanced technology heavyweight torpedoes and related equipment for an estimated cost of $180 million, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement on Wednesday," Reuters reported Wednesday. What will happen next as tensions rise with China?
Venezuela and Iran, two countries that the US has decided to make adversaries, and which have been "stung by sanctions and hobbled by the coronavirus, are forging a closer strategic partnership, providing embattled President Nicolás Maduro a vital lifeline and offering Tehran the prospect of a new center of influence just across the Caribbean Sea from Florida," the Washington Post reported Friday. "The most public display of the deepening relationship: five oil tankers now steaming across the Atlantic Ocean to Venezuela, carrying what analysts estimate to be 60 million gallons of Iranian gasoline … The first of the ships is set to arrive in Venezuelan waters as soon as this weekend, to relieve fuel shortages so dire that the sick can’t get to hospitals and produce is rotting on farms." How will the US react to this as the ships get closer to Venezuela?
US President Donald Trump continues to attack China for what he describes as "worldwide killing" from COVID-19. This message is likely to be relevant in the 2020 US presidential campaign. "The White House salvos have sought to keep a focus on China's early response to the virus and what Trump has called a 'China-centric' deference at the World Health Organization. China, in turn, has portrayed itself as a good global citizen willing to work with the United Nations and other countries to defeat the pandemic," the Washington Post reported Thursday.
In David Lindorff's recent piece for RT, titled "COVID-19 is massacring US elderly in nursing homes, neglected for years by a power-hungry industry," he states, "The elderly in US care institutions are dying disproportionately from COVID-19. The pandemic has revealed the extent to which their wellbeing and safety have been sacrificed by an industry that prioritizes profit and influence.” How is this happening? [FULL STORY]
