TDB Top 5 International Stories: Friday 9th September 2016

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5: Obama administration offered $115bn in weapons to Saudi Arabia: report

The Obama administration has offered to sell $115bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous US administration, according to a new report.

The surge in sales is in part to reassure the Saudi monarchy of US backing in the wake of last year’s nuclear deal with Tehran, which raised fears in the Gulf that Washington would tilt more towards Tehran in its foreign policy.

The report’s author, William Hartnung of the Centre for International Policy, said another factor was a drive by US arms manufacturers to boost sales to compensate declining procurement by the Pentagon. However, the most recent deals – such as the offer to sell more than 150 M1A2 Abrams battle tanks for an estimated $1.15bn – were principally intended to replenish the Saudi arsenal, depleted in the war in Yemen.

The Guardian


 4: Hillary Clinton’s National Security Advisors Are a “Who’s Who” of the Warfare State

HILLARY CLINTON IS meeting on Friday with a new national security “working group” that is filled with an elite “who’s who” of the military-industrial complex and the security deep state.

The list of key advisors — which includes the general who executed the troop surge in Iraq and a former Bush homeland security chief turned terror profiteer — is a strong indicator that Clinton’s national security policy will not threaten the post-9/11 national-security status quo that includes active use of military power abroad and heightened security measures at home.

The Intercept


3: Turkey suspends 11,000 teachers for suspected PKK links

The Turkish government has suspended more than 11,000 teachers over suspected links to outlawed Kurdish fighters.

The move on Thursday came as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey was conducting its largest ever operation against PKK fighters in the country’s southeast.

“We will be removing civil servants with links to the PKK,” Erdogan said at a governors’ meeting in Ankara. [This] is a key element of our fight against them.”

Aljazeera


2: FULL Exclusive Report: Dakota Access Pipeline Co. Attacks Native Americans with Dogs & Pepper Spray

On Saturday in North Dakota, security guards working for the Dakota Access pipeline company attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray as they resisted the $3.8 billion pipeline’s construction. If completed, the Dakota Access pipeline would carry about 500,000 barrels of crude per day from North Dakota’s Bakken oil field to Illinois, where it would meet up with an existing pipeline that would carry the oil all the way down to Texas. The pipeline has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of nearly 100 more tribes from across the U.S. and Canada. On Friday, lawyers for the tribe filed documents showing how the very land where Dakota Access would bulldoze on Saturday was, in fact, a tribal burial site. Democracy Now! was on the ground on Saturday, and we bring you this exclusive report.

Democracy Now!


 

1: One in Ten Young Aboriginal Men Rate Their Happiness at Zero

A new report released by Mission Australia says addressing the disadvantages faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people needs to be a national priority. Surveying 18,727 Australian young people aged between 15 and 19 years old—1,162 who identified as Indigenous—the report found the happiness levels of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were critically low, compared to those of other young Australians.

VICE