Puppet MastersS


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Krone collapse: Norway loses a fifth of its oil wealth


Sputnik
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 05:03 UTC
Statoil
© Reuters/Nerijus Adomaitis/File PhotoStatoil gas processing and CO2 removal platform, Norway
According to experts' calculations, Norway's Oil Fund has decreased in value by 23 percent since New Year, suffering the "biggest drop" in its decades-long history. Norway's Oil Fund has taken a serious dent amid plummeting oil prices and an ongoing fall of the krone, broadcaster NRK reported.

Despite the Oil Fund currently being listed as worth NOK 300 billion more than at the turn of the year, this is merely an illusion, as none of its assets are in kroner, experts estimated. "Rarely have developments been more misleading than now. In reality, we have lost more than one fifth of our oil wealth", Nordea investment director Robert Næss told NRK.

According to Næss's calculations, while the Fund's value in Norwegian kroner has risen by 3 percent since New Year, the reality measured in US dollars or euros is quite the opposite.

At the end of last year, the Oil Fund was worth about $1,149 billion. Now, it is worth around $882 billion, a decrease of 23 percent. The fall is so drastic that it equals the value of the entire 2020 state budget not once, but twice. "We have never seen such a large fall in global stock markets within a quarter. The equity ratio is also sky high, which makes it likely to be the weakest quarter for the Oil Fund ever", Næss commented.

Comment: See also: Is Norway's oil & gas selloff a mistake?

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Eye 1

For your 'protection': The US wants your smartphone location data to 'fight coronavirus'

Dylan Byers
NBC News
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:15 UTC
Oculus World Trade Center
© Mark Lennihan / Associated PRessThe Oculus at the World Trade Center's transportation hub in New York on March 16, 2020.
Privacy advocates are worried.

The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are asking Facebook, Google and other tech giants to give them greater access to Americans' smartphone location data in order to help them combat the spread of the coronavirus, according to four people at companies involved in the discussions who are not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Federal health officials say they could use anonymous, aggregated user data collected by the tech companies to map the spread of the virus — a practice known as "syndromic surveillance" — and prevent further infections. They could also use the data to see whether people were practicing "social distancing."

Comment: The article is likely just window-dressing for what has already been going on for a long time. Now one's movements can be used to punish those who literally 'step out of line'.

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Hammer

Russia set the example: US anti-Iranian sanctions 'made Tehran self-sufficient in all areas' - Khamenei


Sputnik
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 15:59 UTC
Ali Khamenei Iran
© Reuters / Official Khamanei websiteIran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Washington reinstated its strict economic sanctions against Tehran in May 2018, when President Trump announced America's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

In a speech to mark the Persian new year on Friday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, in particular, that the Islamic Republic had managed to capitalise on the US anti-Iranian sanctions.

"Iran benefited from America's sanctions. It made us self-sufficient in all areas", Khamenei emphasised.

He described 2019 as a "tumultuous year for the Iranian nation", which he said "began with floods and ended with the coronavirus [...]". Khamenei also expressed hope that Tehran "will overcome all hardships with unity".

Comment: Iran may have planted the seeds of self-sufficiency, but currently they are still struggling, particularly with medical supplies.

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Star of David

Israel largest political party, Netanyahu's Lukid, proposes bill to execute Palestinian prisoners


Palestine Post 24
Thu, 19 Mar 2020 17:04 UTC
israel palestinian child arrested IDF
The right-wing Israeli Likud party headed by current Crimes Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed on Wednesday bill calling for executing Palestinian political prisoners.

Reporting Miki Zohar, the head of the Likud faction in the Knesset, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom said that the party also proposed another bill to annex the Jordan Valley, the Northern Dead Sea and the desert of Al Khalil (Hebron) in the occupied West Bank to Israel.

Comment: The groundwork has already been laid:

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Bullseye

'Seasonal madness provoked by coronavirus' - Kremlin on reports US may sanction Russia over oil prices

Jonny Tickle
RT
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:09 UTC
oil drill
© Sputnik / Ilya Pitale
A Wall Street Journal report stating that the US government is considering additional sanctions on Russia over its role in the collapse of oil prices has been ridiculed by Vladimir Putin's spokesman.

Dmitry Peskov joked on Friday that perhaps the powers that be in the White House had fallen ill with a case of Covid-19.

"This nonsense about possible sanctions belongs in the category of seasonal madness provoked by coronavirus [making people] suffer from Russophobia," he said.
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Never let a crisis go to waste: US lawmakers bask in coronavirus panic while quietly building the police state of their dreams

Helen Buyniski
RT
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:01 UTC
Coronavirus checkpoint
© Reuters / Andrew KellyCoronavirus checkpoint
As the coronavirus epidemic monopolizes the attention of the American people, government is taking the opportunity to sneak through all manner of restrictive legislation, including a law that could end the internet as we know it.

Killing the internet... to save the children?

The ominously-named EARN IT Act (short for "Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act") that quietly debuted in the Senate earlier this month is a carefully crafted weapon for crushing encryption without explicitly banning, industry professionals have warned. While this particular bill purports to be all about ending child sexual exploitation, the industry is concerned it will make their business model unsustainable - while doing nothing to protect children. So are independent media producers, who fear their speech would be declared anathema. It would in practice strip section 230 legal immunity - protection from liability for third party content - from any website that failed to comply with a set of "best practices" imposed on a supposedly voluntary basis by a 19-member "commission" run by Attorney General William Barr.
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Arrow Down

Tulsi's Biden-2020 endorsement may have cost her political future & moral high ground


RT
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:22 UTC
Tulsi gabbard
© Global Look / Brian CahnTulsi Gabbard
Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has dropped out of the 2020 presidential race to endorse her ideological opposite, establishment darling Joe Biden. It's political suicide - for her, and for the idea of a progressive Democrat.

Gabbard's decision to bow out on Thursday may have made sense from an electoral perspective - with just two delegates from her native American Samoa, she wasn't exactly a serious challenger to the much-more-popular Biden or even Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whom she supported in the 2016 race.

Shut out of the primary debates by a Democratic Party establishment afraid she might do to the frontrunner what she had done to California Senator Kamala Harris, whose juggernaut campaign began taking on water after Gabbard exposed her heinous record live on stage, Gabbard had little hope of an eleventh-hour electoral rally.

Comment: Tulsi has always said she would 'support the Democratic nominee'. Unfortunately, it's Biden. Did she have to hold her nose to do it? Was it a strategic move to secure future possibilities in 2024? Only time will tell. In any case, it throws a wrench into Killary's 'Russian asset' smear.

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Hammer

Irritated by Russia-Turkey Idlib deal, Washington is ready to undermine Syrian settlement


Sputnik
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:34 UTC
Syrian tanks
© AP
On 5 March, Moscow and Ankara clinched a ceasefire deal to stop an ongoing escalation between Turkish and Syrian forces in Idlib Province, and to establish joint military patrols in the area.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Friday that the US, which is frustrated over the Moscow-Ankara accord on the Idlib settlement, uses any pretext to promote anti-Russian hysteria.

She said that the Ministry has paid attention to "the intensification of contacts between American politicians and the quasi-humanitarian organisation White Helmets operating in Syria".
"Such contacts usually end up with big problems in the region in the form of provocations and provocative actions. On 17 March, US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun met the White Helmets leader despite restrictions on contacts with foreigners introduced by the State Department in connection with the spread of the coronavirus", Zakharova said.

Comment: That Washington would continue to prop up the now widely discredited White Helmets demonstrates that not only do the war hawks still have Syria in their crosshairs - but are also absolutely desperate to come up with any pretense for staying involved and injecting continued chaos in the Levant.

See also:

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Eye 1

Schiffy's House lawyers assert privilege over subpoenas of impeachment phone records


Judicial Watch
Thu, 19 Mar 2020 16:21 UTC
adam schiff judicial watch subpoenas
© Judicial Watch
Schiff published private phone records of Rudy Giuliani, Devin Nunes, Journalist John Solomon

Judicial Watch announced today that Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss the lawsuit against them for the controversial impeachment-related subpoenas for phone records, including those of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's lawyer. Schiff and the Committee are being represented by the Office of General Counsel for the House of Representatives.

The phone records led to the publication of the private phone records of Giuliani, Congressman Devon Nunes, journalist John Solomon, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, attorney Victoria Toensing, and other American citizens.

Comment: Schiff has been a running disaster. He should have been turfed off the Intel Committee in the first year of "Russia-gate" and then impeached. How doe he manage to hang on?

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Bad Guys

James Corbett: Geopolitical hybrid war and slow-motion 9/11

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Corbett Covid 19

Comment: From sanctions to economic implosion to a massive free speech clampdown with all the usual suspects - Corbett and Pilato cover a range of fast-moving developments - and offer some crucial insights into what these events point to in the near to mid to far term.

As Corbett said in this recent video: 1929 + 1984 + 9/11 = 2020


Welcome to the 401st episode of New World Next Week — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:



Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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