Politics

In what appears to be a desperate, early-morning marketing push to avoid the embarrassment of his tax reform package meeting the same fate as his Obamacare repeal effort, Trump released the following tweet storm touting the "unprecedented $5.2 trillion" in stock market gains since his election and promised those gains would "grow by leaps and bounds" if "Congress gives us the massive tax cuts (and reform) I am asking for."

In a much anticipated televized briefing, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy formally demanded the Catalan leader clarify whether independence has been declared, saying that is needed before he can decide what steps to take. The Spanish leader announced that the central government has moved to take the first step towards suspending home rule in Catalonia on Wednesday morning.

"Cabinet has agreed to notify the Catalan government [so that it may] confirm if it has declared independence", he said.

North Korea is preparing to fire multiple short-range rockets around the opening of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress on Oct. 18, the Seoul-based Asia Business Daily reports, citing an unidentified person. According to the newspaper, the U.S. and South Korean militaries have recently spotted about 30 Scud rockets being moved from Hwangju, south of the capital Pyongyang, to a missile maintenance facility in the western coastal city of Nampo.

More from the report, google translated:

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

NATO has announced the launching of their multinational Black Sea Force, based in Romania, and including an entire Romanian brigade of 4,000 troops.

“We are sending a very clear message: NATO is here, NATO is strong and NATO is united,” Stoltenberg told assembled Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers.

The force is there to target Russia in the Black Sea region.

Authored by M.K. Bhadrakumr viaThe Strategic Culture Foundation,

The mishap at the Moscow airport on Wednesday when the Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz arrived on a historic visit, was a wake-up call that even the most carefully choregraphed enterprises may hold unpleasant surprises.