Congress wants the Pentagon to hold the Saudi-led coalition accountable for paying off the last of its overdue refueling bills for the Yemen war.

The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, released today, calls on Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan to notify Congress each month of any outstanding bills for the $299 million cost of the three-year refueling mission until the federal government is repaid in full.

The Pentagon refueled warplanes for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates starting in March 2015. The assistance ended in November 2018, when both sides agreed to terminate the mission as Congress pressed to end US support for the Yemen campaign.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says his kingdom does not want war
But he 'will not hesitate to deal with threats to its people, its sovereignty or its vital interests', according to comments published by Saudi-owned newspaper.

The US have also claimed Iranians fired a missile at a US drone in the area hours before the attack but missed, an official told CNN.

The tankers were attacked in strikes south of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route and major transit route for oil.

'The kingdom does not want a war in the region but it will not hesitate to deal with any threats to its people, its sovereignty, or its vital interests,' he added.

Tehran and Washington have both said they have no interest in war - but this has done little to assuage concerns the arch foes could stumble in to conflict.

KYIV -- The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented more than 500 cases of ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, and torture by both Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists since the conflict erupted in April 2014, the mission’s head said in Kyiv on June 13.

“We believe, however, that this is the tip of the iceberg, as torture is a systemic issue in Ukraine that was exacerbated by the armed conflict,” Fiona Frazer told reporters at a press conference where she presented a new UN report.

In many instances, Frazer said, “the alleged perpetrators are the state security services and the so-called ‘ministries of state security’ of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.”

Chinese technology giant Huawei is in the process of launching its “Hongmeng” operating system (OS) to replace Google’s Android OS, the firm’s vice president of public affairs and communications Andrew Williamson, has said.

Huawei was blacklisted last month by US President Donald Trump’s administration which accused the company of spying for the Chinese government. The world’s biggest maker of telecoms network gear was barred from doing business with US tech companies, including Alphabet’s Google, whose Android OS is used in Huawei’s phones.

Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee has threatened to “bury” the US government if they keep harassing him over unpaid taxes, promising to leak a huge trove of files proving corruption throughout Washington and its allies.

“I’ve collected files on corruption in governments. For the first time, I’m naming names and specifics,” McAfee warned in a string of tweets stretching back to Sunday. Vowing to release over 31 terabytes of “incriminating data” to the press if arrested or otherwise “disappeared,” he posted the names of a “corrupt CIA agent and two Bahamian officials” along with claims they’d taken bribes and been involved with drug trafficking, apparently to show he was not bluffing.

On Thursday, a contractor for the US Environmental Protection Agency started an operation to remove barrels containing defoliants from Wallowa Lake in Oregon.

Last August, recreational divers Lisa Anderson and William Lambert came across barrels labeled as containing 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, which are defoliants, chemicals that when sprayed on plants cause their leaves to fall off. The two defoliants combined are also known as Agent Orange.

The United States is concerned about China’s deepening investment in Israel, and its latest military budget bill explicitly warns its Middle Eastern ally against doing business with Beijing, citing “security implications.”

Though President Donald Trump has repeatedly talked up his unwavering support for Israel and its now troubled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the US Senate is becoming restless over China’s growing ties with the Jewish state.

In particular, Israel’s decision to lease a port in the northern city of Haifa to the Shanghai International Port Group has come under intense scrutiny. A draft text of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act – which sets out the US military’s budget and priorities for the forthcoming year – includes a specific reference to the port.

The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff.
He told RT America that Britain and its central bank have shown themselves to be “under the thumb of the United States.”

“That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it’s not the safe place as it once was,” he said.

Vladimir Putin had a lot to say about the US at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, warning that Washington's policies may turn global economy into battle royal and suggesting that dollar's role should be revised.

Even though the Russian president didn't always identify the US or the Donald Trump administration by name, he didn't mince words about America's aggressive economic policies either.

'US hegemony contradicts aims of humanity's future'

After a Chinese company was found manufacturing circuit boards for the F-35 jet, the UK Ministry of Defense insisted there is nothing to worry about, rendering the fuss over omnipresent Beijing spies increasingly silly.

Exception PCB, a Chinese-owned company based in Gloucestershire, England, manufactures the circuit boards that control the engines, lighting, fuel and navigation systems of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive weapons system ever made. While the UK’s Ministry of Defense insists the company is an established supplier to the defense industry and presents “no risk,” months of flogging the China-spying narrative have done their job, and UK media and politicians are up in arms over this “shocking revelation.”

The past couple of days have seen interesting developments. The US or Israel struck a Japanese ship with small rockets and tried to blame it on Iranian mines. The Japanese ship owner put a halt to the false flag event. He pointed out that the damage was above, not below the water line and that crew members observed objects approaching in the air. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/06/no_author/the-gulf-of-credibility/

Indonesia says it won’t become yet another world “dumping ground” after it returned five containers of waste back to the US, joining the growing number of Asian nations to recently turn away Western ‘recyclables.’

The waste arrived in Indonesia from Seattle back in March. The cargo, shipped by a Canadian company, was supposed to contain paper recycling material, but the Environment and Forestry Ministry discovered multiple “impurities” inside five containers and ordered them to be “re-exported.”

The containers were filled with “significant amounts” of various plastic waste and shoes, in addition to other rubbish such as wood scraps, fabrics and even diapers. “Although the containers were originally from Canada, the country of departure was the US,” said Waste and Hazardous Waste Management Directorate General Secretary Sayid Muhadhar.

The UK’s decision to extradite WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to the US should be taken as a warning to all liberals who still have any faith in ‘American liberal democracy,’ says cultural philosopher Slavoj Zizek.

The Slovenian sociologist told RT that signing of the extradition order is just one of two recent events that really worry him. The other “ominous” event was the Ecuadorian government’s invitation to US authorities to take possession of Assange’s property from its London embassy when he was taken to prison, including book manuscripts, computers and other personal possessions.

“The nightmare is that the accuser was directly invited to take possession of all these documents. This breaks even the elementary the norms of legality,” Zizek explained.

Hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton has steered the Trump administration towards multiple conflicts. However, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou tells RT he’s learned that Bolton’s days in the White House may be numbered.

Since joining the Trump administration in April of last year, Bolton has taken the hardest line possible on every geopolitical flare-up. From advocating “humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela, to briefing journalists about a plan to deploy 100,000 troops to the Middle East, to rumors of him “sabotaging” Trump’s summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un last year, Bolton has trumpeted escalation and confrontation as a panacea to all of America’s foreign policy ills.

The attempt to extradite WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange from the UK to the US is not only about locking up the Australian, but about “shutting down dissent” and “investigative journalism,” claims journalist John Pilger.

Speaking outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Friday following the decision to open a new, full US extradition hearing in February 2020, Pilger insisted that the motivation of the American authorities in pursuing Assange was clear to see.

... [It] is quite clear that on a wider level this is an attempt to shut down WikiLeaks and put Assange away, but it’s also about shutting down dissent. It’s mainly about shutting down investigative journalism.

President Hassan Rouhani has renewed Iran's ultimatum to scale back its commitments under a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal in the absence of "a proper response" from the remaining signatories.

Rouhani said Saturday Iran's compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has repeatedly been verified by the UN nuclear agency.

The president touched on the US pullout from the JCPOA and its reimposition of illegal sanctions on Tehran, saying Iran still believes that the remaining sides could play an important role in increasing regional global and stability if they honored their obligations.

"Obviously, Iran cannot unilaterally remain the sole party committed to the JCPOA," Rouhani told the 5th Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe.