Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Did Ireland's minister distort the truth about Israel's settlement imports to lawmakers?

Coveney/Woulfe
© Niall Carson/PA Wire/Zuma PressIrish FM Simon Coveney • Legal advisor Seamus Woulfe
Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney may have misled his fellow lawmakers during a debate on forbidding goods from Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank. Coveney has been the key obstacle to introducing such a ban.

Two of the three parties forming Ireland's new government have supported the Occupied Territories Bill - as the legislation banning settlement imports is called. Yet Coveney vetoed its inclusion in the program for the new coalition.

The bill had previously been approved by a majority in both houses of Ireland's parliament, the Oireachtas. Despite how the bill had won such broad support, Coveney and his colleagues in the right-wing Fine Gael party prevented it from coming into effect.

Coveney remains foreign minister in the new government, a post he has held since 2017. Last year Coveney made a statement against the legislation when it came before the Dáil, the lower house in the national parliament.

He alleged then that the Occupied Territories Bill was at odds with European Union law and if it was implemented Ireland "would be exposed to potentially very significant fines." Penalties imposed by the EU could be as high as "tens of millions of euros" per year, he said.

Coveney claimed that Seamus Woulfe, then Ireland's attorney general, had "confirmed clearly that passage of the bill would put Ireland in breach of EU law and would expose Ireland to legal action by the European Commission." But, Woulfe's advice was not as clear cut as Coveney suggested.

Briefcase

Michael Flynn's defense team says new DOJ documents contain 'shocking exculpatory evidence'

Michael Flynn
© AP Photo/Carolyn KasterIn this Feb. 1, 2017, file photo, then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House, in Washington.
FBI 'did not believe General Flynn was acting as an agent of Russia' the documents state

Newly released documents about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn show additional "exculpatory evidence" linked to a Justice Department review of the case investigators built against him shortly after President Trump's election, his lawyers argued in a court filing Friday.

"These documents establish that on January 25, 2017 - the day after the agents ambushed him at the White House - the agents and DOJ officials knew General Flynn's statements were not material to any investigation, that he was 'open and forthcoming' with the agents, that he had no intent to deceive them, and that he believed he was fully truthful with them," Flynn's attorneys wrote. "In short, there was no crime for many reasons."

Flynn's lawyers said that top Justice Department officials and the special counsel's office knew about the documents for three years before they were able to obtain them, following U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeffrey Jensen's review of the case.

Comment: While its good to finally see how Flynn was wrongfully accused and persecuted coming to light, what's horribly egregious is how federal judge Sullivan, who is presiding over the case, refuses to dismiss it - in what is clearly a politically motivated maneuver.

Others in Washington in are not giving up however:






Smoking

WHO partners with Johnson & Johnson, Amazon & Google to launch new AI-based anti-tobacco program

No smoking
© republicworld.com
The World Health Organisation has partnered with Johnson & Johnson, Amazon and Google in its new anti-tobacco program aimed at introducing new tools to quit smoking. The WHO has been warning that the globe's 1.3 billion tobacco users are at higher risk during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiative includes developing nicotine patches and artificial-intelligence-fuelled support to tackle both the physical and mental challenges to quitting tobacco at once.

The Access Initiative for Quitting Tobacco program will begin with Jordan, which has the highest rates of tobacco users in the world and will eventually be rolled out to other countries. Dr Ruediger Krech of WHO said that the partnership with tech and pharmaceutical industries will improve people's health and save lives during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Comment: See also:


Black Cat

Peak hypocrisy: Netherlands govt. to take RUSSIA to European Court of Human Rights over 'role' in MH17 crash

MH17 wreckage 800px
© Sputnik / Andrey SteninWreckage of MH17 on July 18, 2014 in Shaktarsk, the day after it crashed.
The Dutch government has said it will file a suit against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It alleges that Moscow played a part in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

"Today, the Dutch government decided to bring Russia before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for its role in the downing of Flight MH17,"said Stef Blok, the Dutch foreign minister, as cited by his ministry's website.

Achieving justice for the 298 victims of the tragedy, two thirds of whom were citizens of the Netherlands, "is and will remain the government's highest priority" and by going to the ECHR it's "moving closer to this goal," according to the official.

Comment:


Info

UN 'Independent' Commission on Syria cannot guarantee credibility of its own data

UN ‘Independent’ Commission on Syria Cannot Guarantee Credibility of Its Own Data
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, which reported "crimes" of the official Damascus in Idlib, cannot guarantee the credibility of the information it disseminates, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday following a videoconference with his counterparts from the African Union trio (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt and South Africa).

"We believe that all issues regarding the Syrian or any other conflict must be viewed and solved only based on concrete facts, on information that the relevant organization can be held responsible for," Lavrov stated, according to TASS.

"This independent commission cannot be held responsible for its own statements, which has been proven repeatedly," he added.

Comment: Good on Lavrov and others in the Russian Federation for continuing to call out the UN, the OPCW, and other Western-influenced organizations who have been tasked with wholesale lying to the world about Syria and Russia.

See also:


NPC

AOC: 'Only entitled moaners think cancel culture exists' (in a post complaining about her critics) - social media bites back

ocasio cortez
© REUTERS/Andrew KellyU.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) strikes what she hopes is a heroic pose
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has denied the existence of cancel culture, suggesting it is an invention of privileged moaners who can't handle criticism. Her thesis prompted speculation that the powerful lawmaker has no self-awareness.

The rookie New York congresswoman, whose 'woke' Twitter takes have made her a hero to many on the Left, attempted to debunk the concept of cancel culture in a series of profound posts.

"People who are actually 'cancelled' don't get their thoughts published and amplified in major outlets," she argued, adding that the whiners who complain about being 'cancelled' are actually just entitled and hate being "held accountable" or "unliked."

Comment:


Syringe

UK's quantitative easing ponzi-scheme injecting even more cash than during the crash of '08

bank of england
© Getty ImagesWe are hooked on the economic equivalent of crack cocaine
The FTSE-100 index of leading stocks is over 20 per cent up since Britain went into lockdown — 'bull market' territory. The government borrowed £55 billion in May, nine times more than the same month last year — yet borrowing costs are down, with some investors now paying to lend to an increasingly indebted nation.

Who cares if the UK economy will shrink some 10 per cent this year, as our national debt rockets above 100 per cent of GDP? Stocks are up, bond prices are up and the laws of economics have been suspended. It's different this time — and all because of quantitative easing.

Back in 2009, with the global banking system on the brink of collapse, QE was a justifiable emergency measure. But this one-off post-crisis necessity has now morphed into a lifestyle choice. For a decade since the financial crisis, QE has pumped up share prices and suppressed bond yields, allowing governments to borrow cheaply. But as state spending has surged post-Covid, we've become dependent. QE is now the economic equivalent of crack cocaine.

Comment: See also:


Eye 1

Meet the Israeli intelligence-linked firm using AI to profile Americans and guide US lockdown policy

Israeli AI
An Israeli government contractor founded by a former Israeli spy has partnered with one U.S. state and is set to announce a series of new partnerships with other states and U.S. healthcare providers to monitor civilian health and use an IDF-designed AI system to profile Americans likely to contract coronavirus and to inform U.S. government lockdown policy.

A company tied to Israel's military signal intelligence unit, Unit 8200, has recently partnered with the state of Rhode Island to use an artificial intelligence-based system developed in tandem with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to profile Americans potentially infected and/or "at risk" of being infected with coronavirus, then informing government authorities of their "risk profile." Once flagged, state health officials can target those individuals as well as their communities for mandatory testing, treatment and/or more restrictive lockdown measures.

The firm, Israel-based Diagnostic Robotics, is poised to announce a series of new such partnerships with several other U.S. states as well as major U.S. hospital systems and healthcare providers in the coming weeks, according to a company spokesperson. The first of these announcements came on June 30 regarding the firm's new partnership with Mayo Clinic, which will soon implement the Diagnostic Robotics' "artificial intelligence platform that predicts patients' hospitalization risk." They have also been in discussions with Vice President Mike Pence about the platform's implementation nationwide since April.

Comment: See also:


Radar

Washington's bipartisan torpedo against the agreement for withdrawal from Afghanistan

soldiers in Afghanistan
Hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, over 2,400 US soldiers killed (plus an unknown number of wounded), about 1,000 billion dollars spent: this is the budget summary of 19 years of US war in Afghanistan, to which the cost for NATO allies (including Italy) and others, who joined the US in the war, is added.

Bankruptcy budget for the USA also from a political-military point of view: most of the territory is now controlled by the Taliban or disputed between them and the Governmental Forces supported by NATO.

After lengthy negotiations, the Trump administration concluded an agreement with the Taliban last February against this background, which provides for the reduction of the number of US troops in Afghanistan from 8,600 to 4,500 in exchange for a series of guarantees. This does not mean the end of the US military intervention in Afghanistan, which continues with Special Forces, drones and bombers.

The deal, however, would pave the way for a de-escalation of the armed conflict. A few months after signing, however, the agreement was broken: not by Afghan Taliban but by US Democrats.

Comment: See also: And let's not forget Afghanistan's biggest cash crop: Opium production in Afghanistan up 50-fold since US Invasion


Bad Guys

Is the US planning to invade Venezuela through Colombia?

Colombian troops
Colombia is under a pro-Washington government. The country's current president, Iván Duque Márquez, has been noted for a series of policies of alignment with the United States, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, former president Juan Manuel Santos, who has made Colombia a NATO's "global partner", allowing the country to participate in joint military operations of the Western military alliance. In general, the long scenario of crises and tensions in Colombia, marked by drug trafficking and the conflict between criminal factions and rebel parties, has driven its governments towards a policy of alignment with Washington in exchange for security, which has increased in recent years.

However, not all Colombian politicians approve these measures. Recently, the leftist senator Iván Cepeda asked Colombian Congressional President Lidio García to convene a session to investigate and legally control the government in its collaboration with the constant arrival of American soldiers in the country. According to Cepeda, the presence of these military personnel is hostile to Colombia, deeply affecting the maintenance of national sovereignty.

Comment: See also: