USA

17 June 2019; AFP: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed Sunday that the US will guarantee free passage through the vital Strait of Hormuz, as he accused Iran of recent attacks on oil tankers and the downing of a US drone.

Pompeo confirmed in an interview with CBS that a US MQ-9 "Reaper" drone was shot down June 6 with a missile fired from Yemen "that we assess had Iranian assistance."

CORONA, Calif. (AP) — An off-duty police officer opened fire inside a Costco Wholesale warehouse store, killing a man who had attacked him and wounding two others, the Corona Police Department said.

Kenneth French, 32, of Riverside assaulted the Los Angeles Police Department officer Friday night while he was holding his young child, the department said in a statement Saturday. The officer fired his gun, hitting French and two of French’s relatives, the department said.

French was killed, the department said. The relatives are in critical conditions at hospitals.

Washington, Jun 16 (AFP/PTI) US President Donald Trump on Saturday accused The New York Times of "a virtual act of treason," after it reported the US is stepping up digital incursions into Russia's electric power grid

Current and former government officials have described the classified deployment of American computer code inside Russia's power grid and other targets, the Times reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Donald Trump’s reckoning, an Iran tamed by him no longer cries “death to America,” the border wall with Mexico is proceeding apace, the estate tax has been lifted off the backs of farmers, the remains of U.S. soldiers from North Korea are coming home and China is opening its wallet to the U.S. treasury for the first time in history.

These statements range from flatly false to mostly so.

Here’s a week of political rhetoric in review:

IRAN:

15 June 2019; DW: Vladimir Voronkov, a Russian diplomat who heads the United Nations Counterterrorism Office, is set to visit the Xinjiang region in western China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday. While saying Voronkov was in China, UN officials would not confirm whether the visit would bring him to the Xinjiang region.

In China at the country's invitation, Beijing has planned an itinerary for the counter-terrorism chief, whose office helps countries implement a global counter-terrorism strategy adopted by the UN General Assembly. 

15 June 2019; DW: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres late Friday called for an independent investigation into apparent attacks on tankers transiting through the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman.

"We believe it is very important to avoid, at all costs, a major confrontation in the Gulf," said Guterres in New York. "At the present moment, we don't see a mechanism of dialogue possible to be in place."

Washington, Jun 15 (AP) The Trump administration has suspended a complaint it had made against China to the World Trade Organization, a shift that might signal a slight opening in the administration's trade war with Beijing.

The WTO says it's granted a request to suspend work until December on the administration's complaint that Beijing has failed to safeguard the intellectual property of US companies operating in China a major issue in the trade war.

NEW YORK (AP) — Chipmakers suffered broad declines Friday after Broadcom warned that its business is being hurt by the U.S. trade dispute with China, including the Trump administration’s efforts to curb sales to the Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

WASHINGTON, June 15 (Xinhua) -- For U.S. bike companies, China is almost everything. Whatever they need -- whole bikes, components, or safety accessories -- can be manufactured and sourced from China in large scale, at competitive prices and with great quality.

WASHINGTON, June 15. /TASS/: The US intelligence community apparently has no single opinion on Pentagon’s claims that Russia carried out nuclear tests in recent years, in breach of its international commitments and domestic moratorium, a senior international non-proliferation expert told TASS on Friday.