Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Palestinian PM's warning: 'We will declare a state' if Israel extends sovereignty over West Bank

Oleg Burunov
Sputnik
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 15:47 UTC
Shtayyeh
© Islam TimesPalestinian PM Mohammad Shtayyeh
Last month, head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas stated that they had terminated all their agreements with Israel and the US amid Tel Aviv's intention to extend its sovereignty over parts of the West Bank.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has warned that if Israel extends its sovereignty over West Bank areas, the Palestinians will unilaterally declare a state based on the pre-1967 lines.

Speaking to reporters in Ramallah on Tuesday, Shtayyeh described Israel's sovereignty extension drive as an "existential threat" to the Palestinians and a serious violation of Tel Aviv's agreements with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

He spoke as Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in an interview with The New York Times that
"we don't want things to reach a point of no return and that Tel Aviv's West Bank-related sovereignty extension means no return in the relationship with Israel. Either they backtrack on annexation and things go back to how they were, or they follow through with annexation and they go back to being the occupying power in the whole West Bank."
He said that Israel would have to "take full responsibility" for the repercussions of the move, adding that "it could go back to like it was before Oslo", in an apparent nod to the 1993 Oslo Agreement which established the PA and gave it limited powers.

Comment: Moscow weighs in on Israel's annexation of West Bank:
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and Special Presidential Envoy for the Middle East and Africa Mikhail Bogdanov said on Tuesday that Israel's plans to annex Palestinian territories in the West Bank will put an end to the prospect of a two-state solution and will most likely provoke a new round of violence in Palestine. Bogdanov, in an interview with the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper, posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website said:
"It is possible that the new Israeli coalition government may start acting on these statements very soon, extending Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank. We believe that such an action would have extremely adverse consequences. We agree with the assessments and warnings against this which are reflected in the Arab League's recent decisions regarding this matter. In our opinion, the annexation of some Palestinian territories by Israel would preclude the implementation of the two-state solution and would most likely provoke a new round of violence in Palestine and further aggravate the already high discontent in Arab quarters."


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Target

FBI attacks 'foreign' alternative media outlets that challenge US foreign policy

Gareth Porter
The Gray Zone
Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
FBI monitors
© unknownFBI media censorship
Under FBI orders, Facebook and Google removed American Herald Tribune, an alternative site that publishes US and European writers critical of US foreign policy. The bureau's justification for the removal was dubious, and it sets a troubling precedent for other critical outlets.

The FBI has publicly justified its suppression of dissenting online views about US foreign policy if a media outlet can be somehow linked to one of its adversaries. The Bureau's justification followed a series of instances in which Silicon Valley social media platforms banned accounts following consultations with the FBI.

In a particularly notable case in 2018, the FBI encouraged Facebook, Instagram and Google to remove or restrict ads on the American Herald Tribune (AHT), an online journal that published critical opinion articles on US policy toward Iran and the Middle East. The bureau has never offered a clear rationale, however, despite its private discussions with Facebook on the ban.

The FBI's first step toward intervening against dissenting views on social media took place in October 2017 with the creation of a Foreign Influence Task Force (FTIF) in the bureau's Counterintelligence Division. Next, the FBI defined any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to US national security.


Comment: Afraid of a free-thinking public? Muting those that might question the propaganda already in place?


Comment: Every person should be reassessing what they perceive and believe. It is not our own minds at work. As this article warns, there are layers and hierarchy in place 'to make foolproof' false perceptions in order to restrict 'our choices' and reinforce a particular narrative. By snuffing out alt media, the man behind the curtain is exposed - a critical alarm to our psyche should we choose to pay attention.

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Post-It Note

Memo from Trump: A new fleet of Arctic icebreakers to be made operational by 2029

David B. Larter, Joe Gould
Defense News
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
Coast Guard Cutter Healy
© NyxoLyno Cazngemi/Coast GuardThe Coast Guard Cutter Healy about 715 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, in the Arctic.
U.S. President Trump ordered a review of the country's requirements for icebreaking capabilities in the Arctic and Antarctic, with the goal of getting a fleet in place by 2029, according to a memo released Tuesday.

The memo was directed at the Defense, State, Commerce and Homeland Security departments, as well as the Office of Management and Budget.

Much of it directs work already in progress - including building a fleet of at least three heavy icebreakers - but says the remaining ships not under contract should be reviewed for what can be done to maximize their utility in the frozen poles.

The memo calls for "an assessment of expanded operational capabilities, with estimated associated costs, for both heavy and medium [Polar Security Cutters] not yet contracted for, specifically including the maximum use of any such PSC with respect to its ability to support national security objectives," which is due in 60 days.

Trump's directive to assess the current plan to field an arctic maritime capability over the next decade is the latest sign that that the administration is increasingly concerned about Russian and Chinese activity in the arctic could threaten crucial chokepoints such as the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap.
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Cell Phone

Take two? A decade passed since Blair's ID project failure, now pushes for Covid-19 'disease status' version


RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:09 UTC
Blair
© Reuters/Toby Melville/Steven WattFormer British PM Tony Blair
Ten years after Tony Blair's contentious British ID card scheme was binned, the former PM says a digital version is urgently needed so that people can prove their Covid-19 "disease status" as the world transitions out of lockdown.

Speaking at the Virtual CogX technology conference on Tuesday, Blair argued that it's only when citizens can easily show they're coronavirus-free that sectors such as international travel will be able to restart. The former UK Labour prime minister insisted that such a system would operate alongside the government's track-and-trace program as the economy is rebooted.
"It's a natural evolution of the way that we're going to use technology in any event to transact daily life, and this Covid crisis gives an additional reason for doing that."
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which has been making a range of coronavirus response recommendations to leaders around the world, published a paper on Tuesday calling for a digital health 'passport'.

Under the proposals, people would download a digital wallet app secured with either a fingerprint scan or facial recognition. This would allow them access to their personal health data, such as a test proving they're Covid-19 free.


Comment: Proving you are not guilty/infected? This presumes you are.


Comment: There would be no interest in this endeavor were there nothing in it for Blair and his ilk.

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USA

American police state's Reichstag Fire

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 18:50 UTC
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — George Santayana
Flag on Fire
© Snopes
Watch and see: this debate over police brutality and accountability is about to get politicized into an election-year referendum on who should occupy the White House.

Don't fall for it.

The Deep State, the powers-that-be, want us to turn this into a race war, but this is about so much more than systemic racism. This is the oldest con game in the books, the magician's sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

It's the Reichstag Fire all over again.

It was February 1933, a month before national elections in Germany, and the Nazis weren't expected to win. So they engineered a way to win: they began by infiltrating the police and granting police powers to their allies; then Hitler brought in stormtroopers to act as auxiliary police; by the time an arsonist (who claimed to be working for the Communists in the hopes of starting an armed revolt) set fire to the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building, the people were eager for a return to law and order.

That was all it took: Hitler used the attempted "coup" as an excuse to declare martial law and seize absolute power in Germany, establishing himself as a dictator with the support of the German people.

Fast forward to the present day, and what do we have? The nation in turmoil after months of pandemic fear-mongering and regional lockdowns, a national election looming, a president with falling poll numbers, and a police state that wants to stay in power at all costs.

Note the similarities?

It's entirely possible that Americans have finally reached a tipping point over police brutality after decades of abuse. After all, until recently, the legislatures and the courts have marched in lockstep with the police state, repeatedly rebuffing efforts to hold police accountable for official misconduct.

Then again, it's also equally possible that the architects of the police state have every intention of manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.

It works the same in every age.
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Oil Well

US sanctions on Russian gas pipeline illegal & 'an assault on Europe's sovereignty' - Bundestag member to RT


RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 18:40 UTC
Nord Stream 2
© nord-stream2.com
The new sanctions by Washington targeting Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline are "absolutely unacceptable," Klaus Ernst, chairman of the Bundestag Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, told RT.

He explained that sanctions could stop the completion of the project, and if the pipeline is not finished, "this will increase gas prices in the EU."

"The US is trying to accomplish its economic interests through illegal extraterritorial sanctions, which it directs at their partners and allies. I assume this as an assault on Europe's sovereignty. These actions are seriously damaging the transatlantic relationship," explained Ernst.

The new North Stream 2 pipeline "doesn't imperil either European or US-American security," Ernst said, adding: "It's of as little danger as car imports from Germany are to the US, which the Trump administration called a threat to US security last year."
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Bad Guys

China takes hard line in border talks with India, claims all of Galwan Valley, chunk of Pangong

Ajai Shukla
The Wire
Tue, 09 Jun 2020 17:28 UTC
China india border dispute map
© Google Maps/The WireMap of Ladakh, near the Chinese border
During the military-to-military dialogue on Saturday, China refused to even discuss its intrusions into the Galwan River valley, instead claiming ownership over the entire area.

Three days after Indian and Chinese military commanders met on Saturday at Chushul, in Ladakh, to discuss the crisis caused by the occupation by thousands of Chinese soldiers of territory traditionally patrolled by both armies, top army sources in India sought to portray a rapidly improving situation.

Claiming that both sides - the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army - have "retreated a bit" after the Saturday meeting, the army sources revealed that another Sino-Indian meeting would be held on Wednesday at a more junior level.

However, sources on the ground paint a far bleaker picture of Chinese intransigence along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). They say that during the talks, the PLA interlocutors flatly rejected the Indian demand for Chinese troops to withdraw from areas they occupied in May and restore the status quo that prevailed in April.

Comment:

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Corona

Coronavirus: Robin Swann didn't make Northern Ireland best-case scenario public

Conor Spackman and Chris Thornton
BBC
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 18:24 UTC
Robin Swann
© PACEMAKERRobin Swann did not want the public to have a false sense of security
NI's health minister decided not to make public the best-case scenario laid out in pandemic modelling, a BBC Spotlight investigation has revealed.

A leaked executive document showed that Robin Swann chose to keep the scenario secret to try to ensure public adherence to the lockdown.

On 1 April, Mr Swann shared some of what new scientific modelling of the pandemic said.

It said 3,000 people could die in a "reasonable worst-case scenario".

What Mr Swann did not say was that the modellers put the best-case scenario at just 250 deaths.
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Hammer

Sadiq Khan sets up a commission for tearing down London's statues as he attempts to drag the capital from 2020 to Year Zero


RT
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:44 UTC
Sadiq Khan
© Global Look Press via ZUMA Press / Omar MarquesSadiq Khan
The London Mayor is forming a new body to look over the capital's landmarks to ensure they "reflect the city's diversity," in his latest attempt to pander to woke causes, following a weekend of violence in the city.

Seemingly inspired by the people's remodelling of Bristol over the weekend, Sadiq Khan has leapt at the opportunity to engage in a bit of cultural iconoclasm in Old London Town. The formation of the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm was announced this morning and will focus on "increasing representation among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, women, the LGBTQ+ community and disability groups."

Further explaining his decision, Chairman Khan added: "Our capital's diversity is our greatest strength, yet our statues, road names and public spaces reflect a bygone era. It's an uncomfortable truth that our nation and city owes a large part of its wealth to its role in the slave trade."

It's good to know the mayor has got his priorities in order. He's presiding over a city that's in the middle of a pandemic, has witnessed days of violent protest, has seen huge increases in knife crime, is so expensive that those with above-average incomes can't dream of owning a home here, and has witnessed three successful and several foiled terror attacks in less than three years. But, yes - "racist" statues are the real plague of the capital.
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Burka

Hamas will hang on to power in Gaza 13 years after takeover


Sputnik
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:00 UTC
Hamas Gaza
© REUTERS / Ibraheem Abu Mustafa /FileHamas soldiers
After seizing control over the coastal enclave in 2007, the Islamist group has improved its attack capabilities, says a former security officer who witnessed the bloody events that paved the way for Hamas' control, adding that getting rid of the organisation, deemed terrorist by Israel, will be a mission impossible.

Mohammed Ibrahim will never forget that hot summer day in mid-June when Hamas, an Islamist group deemed terrorist by Israel, took control of Gaza, ousting the Fatah officials that had governed the enclave since 1993.

Back then, Mohammed, who is now 36, was serving as a police officer in the headquarters of the National Security, located in the heart of Gaza, when he heard a loud noise and a series of shots.

Comment: Hamas was covertly constructed by Israel to be a counterweight to Arafat's PLO. It appears they've escaped their creator's control and are now a force to be reckoned with. But Israel still foments and profits from the Palestinian division they created.

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