Puppet MastersS


Handcuffs

Arrest of Hamas co-founder by Israeli security forces denounced as attempt to undermine Palestinian reconciliation

Sheikh Hassan Youssef
© AFP/Abbas MomaniSheikh Hassan Youssef
Israeli security forces have arrested senior Hamas leader Hassan Youssef. The two rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah, have both condemned the move as being politically-charged and a bid to ruin their reconciliation talks.

Youssef was taken at his home in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning. While Israeli authorities have not provided any official information about the move, local media reported that the Hamas co-founder was detained over alleged "renewed" activity by the group.

After helping to found Hamas in the late 1980s, Youssef was repeatedly arrested by the Israeli authorities and spent years behind bars. Hamas has always maintained he was only involved in its political activities, and not associated with its military wing. His arrest was condemned by both Hamas and its rival, Fatah. Hamas claimed the arrest was a politically-motivated move, designed to destabilize the ongoing reconciliation process between the two groups.

Star of David

Israeli tourism minister resigns to protest Netanyahu lockdown policies

Asaf Zamir Israel tourism minister
© Israel KnessetAsaf Zamir, Israel's Tourism Minister
Israel's tourism minister resigned from the fractious government Friday, saying he doesn't have an "ounce of trust" in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accusing him of putting his personal and legal issues ahead of the response to the coronavirus crisis.

Asaf Zamir is a member of the centrist Blue and White Party, which battled Netanyahu's right-wing Likud in three stalemated elections in under a year before forming an emergency government with it in May to combat the pandemic.

Israel went into a second nationwide lockdown last month and is now grappling with one of the worst outbreaks in the world on a per capita basis. The emergency government has been roiled by infighting and has faced widespread criticism over its confusing and often contradictory response to the pandemic.

Comment: 'Pandemic' or no, the Palestinians continue to suffer:


Ambulance

Ex-Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko hospitalized with Covid-19, diagnosed with 'bilateral pneumonia'

Poroshenko
Former Ukrainian President and current lawmaker Petro Poroshenko speaks during a rally in central Kyiv on December 8, 2019.
As Ukraine struggles with a surge in Covid-19 cases, ex-President Petro Poroshenko has been hospitalized with the virus, according to his wife Marina. One of their daughters has also been admitted to hospital for the same reason.

"Despite the fact that my husband has bilateral pneumonia, he has a strong will," Marina Poroshenko wrote on the Facebook page of the former head of state's political party, European Solidarity.

Petro Poroshenko, who ran the country from 2014 to 2019, was diagnosed with Covid-19 at the end of September, and his condition has since deteriorated. The 55-year-old ex president has diabetes, and therefore could be more vulnerable to the virus.

Comment: Ukraine's response to the virus has indeed been chaotic, a product of decades of corruption. Will Russia generously offer Ukraine their Sputnik vaccine?


Yoda

John Pilger: Assange 'forced' those behind war crimes 'to look in the mirror,' now faces revenge

john pilger interview assange RT
© RTJohn Pilger and 'Going Undground' host Afshin Rattansi
Assange exposed Western hypocrisy and discovered "too much truth," so his trial became a form of "revenge," journalist and filmmaker John Pilger told RT's Going Underground.

The main part of the extradition trial of Julian Assange came to a conclusion this week, and a decision is now expected to be announced in early January. Pilger, a long-time supporter of the WikiLeaks founder, closely monitored the proceedings, which were barely covered in the Western media despite the serious repercussions for journalism that a ruling to extradite Assange would entail.

Comment:


Info

The insanity of elite-defined "sustainability"

sustainability
"Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War" - Plato.
This wisdom is as valid today as it was 2,500 years ago. Wars go on and on. They are exactly the anti-dote of sustainability. They may be the only "sustainability" modern mankind knows - endless destruction, killing, shameless exploitation of Mother Earth and its sentient beings, including humans.

Yes, we are hellbent towards "sustainably", destroying our planet and all its living beings, with wars and conflicts and shameless exploitation of Mother Earth - and the people who have peacefully inhabited her lands for thousands of years.

All for greed, and more greed. Greed and destruction are certainly "unsustainable" features of our western "civilization". Not to worry, in the grand scheme of things, Mother Earth will survive. She will cleanse herself by shaking and shedding off the destroyers, the annihilators - mankind. Only the brave will survive. Indigenous people, who have abstained from abject consumerism and instead worshipped Mother Earth and expressed their gratitude to her daily gifts. There are not many such societies left on our planet.


Comment: Some non-indigenous people who have a respect for the planet - but who aren't caught up in the ideological nonsense and/or "climate crisis" lies - may see a new day too; we can only hope.


In the meantime, we lie about the sustainability we live in. We lie to ourselves and to the public at large around us. We make believe sustainability is our cause - and we use the term freely and constantly. Most of us don't even know what it is supposed to mean. "Sustainability" and "sustainable" anything and everything have become slogans; or household words.

Comment: See also:


Stock Up

Michigan Governor's Covid orders tossed by state's top court

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
© Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesGov. Gretchen Whitmer
Dozens of Michigan executive orders issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to fight the coronavirus pandemic are unconstitutional, the state's high court ruled Friday in a split decision.

Four of the seven justices ruled that the 1945 statute giving Whitmer (D) unilateral power to issue orders addressing the pandemic violated the state constitution because the law delegated too much power to the governor's office.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruling invalidates orders ranging from business restrictions to mask mandates, and will require Whitmer to compromise with Republicans on any health emergency orders that extend 28 days.

Comment: See also:


Cell Phone

Secret recordings show Melania Trump was frustrated about criticism of Trump 2018 border separation policy: CNN

melania trump
First lady Melania Trump expressed frustration that she received criticism for the Trump administration's 2018 border separation policy, according to secret recordings released by CNN on Thursday.

The first lady's former friend and senior adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff secretly recorded the first lady after she left the White House, according to CNN.

"They say I'm complicit. I'm the same like him, I support him. I don't say enough I don't do enough where I am," Melania Trump said.

Comment:








See also:


X

Joe Biden again tries to distance himself from the Green New Deal, trips over his own website

joe biden
As we told you last night during the presidential debate, Joe Biden was asked about the Left's Green New Deal, and he said the plan "pays for itself" but was then asked if he supports the GND, and the reply was "no."

Today Biden was again asked about the Green New Deal, and he explained that it "is not a bad deal" but instead he backs the "Biden Green Deal":


Comment: See also:


Chess

Explosive stakes on Armenia-Azerbaijan chessboard

Armenian soldier
Pulling Russia back into the Nagorno-Karabakh morass means more Turkish freedom of action in other war theaters

Few geopolitical hot spots across the planet may rival the Caucasus: that intractable, tribal Tower of Babel, throughout History a contentious crossroads of empires from the Levant and nomads from the Eurasian steppes. And it gets even messier when one adds the fog of war.

To try to shed some light into the current Armenia-Azerbaijan face off, let's crisscross the basic facts with some essential deep background.

Late last month Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan's proverbial "strongman", in power since 2003, launched a de facto war on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh held by Armenia.

At the collapse of the USSR, Nagorno-Karabakh had a mixed population of Azeri Shi'ites and Armenian Christians. Yet even before the collapse the Azerbaijani Army and Armenian independentists were already at war (1988-1994), which yielded a grim balance of 30,000 dead and roughly a million wounded.

The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991: but that was not recognized by the "international community". Finally there was a ceasefire in 1994 - with Nagorno-Karabakh entering the gray area/no man's land of "frozen conflict".

Comment: See: Armenia says ready to engage with OSCE to re-establish Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire, and other updates


Che Guevara

Psychiatrist says Julian Assange is hearing voices and at high risk of suicide

Julian Assange
© ReutersWikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange leaves Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Britain January 13, 2020
At a recent extradition hearing for Julian Assange, a psychiatrist testified that the embattled Wikileaks founder is experiencing strong hallucinations and is at a high risk of suicide. Professor Michael Kopelman, an emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at King's College London, said that Assange has been hearing voices and has confessed to a priest that he was making preparations to kill himself. These preparations included drafting his will and writing a goodbye letter to his family and friends.

On Tuesday, at the Old Bailey courthouse in London, Professor Kopelman testified that he visited Assange over 20 times and has become concerned about his mental and physical health.

"He reported auditory hallucinations, which were voices either inside or outside his head, somatic hallucinations, funny bodily experiences, these have now disappeared. He also has a long history of musical hallucinations, which is maybe a separate phenomenon, that got worse when he was in prison," Kopelman said.

Comment: Really makes you wonder why so many whistleblowers seem to experience some sort of debilitating mental breakdown while in prison. Could it be a warning to anyone else not to step out of line? See also: