Politics

Submitted by Peter Diekmeyer via Sprott Money

Bill Morneau took centre stage last week in the Canadian Parliament and didn’t disappoint. The new Liberal finance minister’s first budget jacked up program spending across the board, to be paid for by borrowing and, eventually, presumably, money printing. His rhetoric was coated with suggestions that “economic growth” would solve the country’s problems. The only folks left out were taxpayers and savers.

The US is training “dozens” of  Syrian rebels to fight ISIS  in Syria, despite the failure of the Pentagons previous multi million dollar effort. Washington previously struggled to define which fighters ‘deserved’ to get US funds and equipment, with most of the equipment and recruits somehow getting lost or ending up on the side of terrorists. RT reports: “Dozens of people are now being trained,” US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the US-led coalition, confirmed to reporters.

The North Korean ambassador to the UN told reporters that a semi-state of war exists in the divided Korean peninsula. Pyongyang remains defiant in the face of threats of a nuclear first strike and will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile programs as a deterrence measure against US and South Korea, according to top Pyongyang envoy So Se Pyong.

President Barack Obama has indirectly attacked Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, saying he knows very little about foreign policy  and not much when it comes to “the world generally.” Obama was referring to Trump’s latest proposal to arm Japan and South Korea with their own nuclear weapons to fight it out with North Korea and China themselves. Trump believes America is not a great nation any longer and needs to sit it out and count the pennies while the rest of the world sort out their own problems, including nuclear proliferation and such other important worldly matters.

The Russian infantry’s weapon of choice for hazardous missions is the Uranus 9 Military robot. Russia Insider reports: Deadly Russian War Robots Are Now Reality (Video) The war in Syria has served as a magnificent laboratory for research and testing. Benefits gained have not been limited to equipment developed years ago but hitherto never tested in combat, but also to experiment with new kinds of technology in a real-world, battlefield environment.