Puppet MastersS


Gold Coins

Major winner in Afghan election under investigation for benefit fraud in Sweden

Razaq Ahmadzai fraud sweden
© Reuters/FacebookRazaq Ahmadzai's (far left) party Green Trend (Basej-e Milli) is an important coalition partner for President Ashraf Ghani (center, left image), who will now be appointing his new government.
The drawn-out presidential election in Afghanistan is finally coming to an end. As the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the results of the recount on Sunday, it was clear that the country's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah had been defeated. His opponent, incumbent President Ashraf Ghani, is expected to announce his new government shortly.

The election is not only a success for President Ghani himself, but also for the coalition party Green Trend (Basej-e Milli), which is set to play a pivotal role in the post-election process and receive ministerial posts in the new government.

The Green Trend is led by the double act Amrullah Saleh and Razaq Ahmadzai. Saleh is the party leader and was until January this year Afghanistan's interior minister, but he is now expected to become Vice President. Razaq Ahmadzai is the campaign manager and more of a newcomer who, thanks to the election results, has become one of Afghanistan's most powerful men.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: 'Russian aggression': An excuse for US politicians to further bloat 2020 defense budget - Moscow won't care

trump address military
© Global Look Press / Shealah Craighead/White House
By including provisions to stop Russian pipelines and target Russia's actions in Syria, the new US defense budget demonstrates that country's overreach, but likely does nothing to rein in Vladimir Putin.

$718 billion for NDAA 2020 includes 'lethal aid' for Kiev

Last Friday, President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2020. The NDAA lays out the annual budget and expenditures of the Department of Defense and allows Congress to set the policies under which the money appropriated can be spent. The modern American military budget, which for 2020 is slated to be a whopping $718 billion, underwrites the world's largest military and defense enterprise. The NDAA for 2020 builds on the notion that the US is engaged in a major power confrontation with Russia and, as such, it mandates that the Pentagon devise and implement strategies designed to impose political, military, economic, budgetary, and technology costs on Russia.

Attention

China detaining millions of Uyghurs? US-backed NGO and far-right researcher 'led by God' make flimsy claims against Beijing

adrian zenz uyghurs
Christian fundamentalist Adrian Zenz testifying before Congress on December 10, 2019. Is China about to get its own Magnitsky Act?
Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.

The US House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act on December 3, legislation which calls for the Donald Trump administration to impose sanctions against China over allegations that Beijing has detained millions of Muslim-majority Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.

To drum up support for the sanctions bill, Western governments and media outlets have portrayed the People's Republic as a human rights violator on par with Nazi Germany. Republican Rep. Chris Smith, for instance, denounced the Chinese government for what he called the "mass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust," in "modern-day concentration camps."

The claim that China has detained millions of ethnic Uyghurs in its Xinjiang region is repeated with increasing frequency, but little scrutiny is ever applied. Yet a closer look at the figure and how it was obtained reveals a serious deficiency in data.

Comment: Kudos to the Grayzone for bringing the Uyghur propaganda war against China to the fore. And finally:

What the MSM isn't telling you about China's Uyghur problem
According to Syrian media cited in Voltaire.net, there are presently an estimated 18,000 ethnic Uyghurs in Syria, most concentrated in a village on the Turkish border to Syria. Since 2013 such Uyghur soldiers have gone from combat alongside Al Qaeda in Syria and returned to China's Xinjiang where they have carried out various terrorist acts. This is the tip of a nasty NATO-linked project to plant the seeds of terror and unrest in China. Xinjiang is a lynchpin of China's Belt Road Initiative, the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan, Russia and a prime target of CIA intrigue since decades.



Santa Hat

The Reindeer Games

WaPo team
© Rachael Bade/Twitter
The WashPo staffers had barely finished toasting "merry impeachmas" — and then quickly deleting the incriminating tweet + photo that signaled their self-owned chagrin — when the implications of the day's solemn work started sifting through those quarters of the alt-news media where the chronically self-owned don't dare to go, or even look: Nancy Pelosi and her too-clever-by-half Lawfare grunts had engineered a Hanging Chad Impeachment.

Apparently, Mrs. Pelosi wants to play Hide the Salami with the impeachment bill. She invoked some slippery procedure to stash it where the sun don't shine in the hope that the senate won't be able to follow through with its duty to try the very charges set out in the bill. How's that gonna go over when the details are actually sorted out?

So far, there are just opinions a'plenty. One was offered by Noah Feldman of Harvard, the very fellow who testified last week fervidly in favor of impeachment before Mr. Nadler's Judiciary Committee. He wrote, in a Bloomberg op-ed, that the action would signify that the president had not, in fact, been impeached, that it would only be so if the bill were conveyed to the senate. The issue of conveyance looms large in the present kerfuffle. However:

Comment: Daily Caller, 20/12/19: Dershowitz: Pelosi doesn't have the impeachment power she believes she has
Former Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz:

"The presiding officer of the Senate can set a trial date, convene the chief justice and begin the trial. So I don't think that Pelosi has the power that she thinks she has, or that my colleague Larry Tribe thinks she has.
Pelosi/sign
"I can imagine nothing more unconstitutional than a House impeachment without sending it to the Senate. It's just unheard of. The Constitution provides that it is a two-step process, not a one-step process. It doesn't say the president may be impeached, period, that's the end of the matter. It says the president may be impeached, and if he's impeached by the House, the Senate then gets to decide whether he should be removed.

"The idea that a stain would remain on the books, that the president would remain impeached, without an opportunity for the president to get acquitted by the Senate, is plainly unconstitutional. It would be as if a prosecutor decided he had insufficient evidence to get a conviction, so he went after an ordinary citizen and said, 'Look, I'm just going to indict him. Let the public know he's indicted. For the rest of his life, he will stand indicted. But I have no intention of bringing him to trial. I will deny him his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. I'm going to let the indictment just hang out there.' Obviously, no judge would tolerate that.

"Could the president now go to the courts and say, 'Look, while the constitution says the House is the sole judge of impeachment, they have now violated the Constitution'? The president's legal team could theoretically go before the chief justice and seek to dismiss.

"The option that will probably be decided on is to make legal arguments, probably no witnesses, probably no experts, and leave it to the Senate whether to acquit or convict. It's likely, based on the evidence that's been presented thus far to the House, that there would be a vote of acquittal. Remember, you need two-thirds to convict. The reason we need two-thirds to convict is the framers did not want a partisan impeachment. They wanted an overwhelming consensus in favor of removing a president."



Pistol

License to kill for Britain's secret service defines UK as a police state

MI5 headquarters
© Reuters/Peter NichollsHeadquarters of MI5 in London, England
Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), one of the four groups protesting the existing policy, said the narrow-majority ruling shows there is deep misgivings even within the state about the sinister potential of such unlimited power for Britain's security forces. CAJ and the other groups are to appeal the ruling in the courts.
"We are very concerned that this ruling for now permits MI5 to continue to authorize informant or agent involvement in serious crime. This could include crimes that constitute human rights violations. There were such experiences during the Northern Ireland conflict of informant-based paramilitary collusion, with agents of the state involved in acts as serious as murder and torture."
During that conflict (1969-98), British military intelligence are known to have been involved in systematic levels of collusion with paramilitary agents and informers as part of a counterinsurgency campaign. The outcome was hundreds of extra-judicial killings carried out with the covert consent of British state agencies. One of the most notorious was the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron admitted before parliament in 2012, following the publication of a government report into the Finucane killing, that the collusion in the case represented "shocking" abuse by Britain's military intelligence.

What the latest ruling by the five-judge tribunal demonstrates is that there is still a policy of impunity for British state agents and their informants if their criminal activities are deemed to be essential in the service of national security. That is an insidiously low bar of subjectivity which allows for a modus operandi of "any means necessary".

Comment: See also: UK tribunal rules that MI5 informants DO have a 'Licence to KILL'

And check out SOTT radio's:


Arrow Up

Lavrov reveals the nature of foreign policy talks with Trump: 'He says what he thinks directly'

TrumpLavrov
© Reuters/Sputnik/Kremlin/Mikhail KlimentyevU.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017.
The Russian foreign minister's visit to the White House created much ado in Washington, coming amid impeachment procedures. Sergey Lavrov has now opened up on Donald Trump's negotiating style and the atmosphere of the meetings.

"I like the way Trump discusses international agenda and issues in bilateral relations. He avoids any ambiguity and tries to say what he thinks directly," Lavrov said in an interview aired by Russia's Channel One.

This "productive approach" that not many top politicians use allows parties "to better understand the opportunities, difficulties and prospects of relations."

Boat

Russian ships will complete Nord Stream 2 pipeline without European help

Pipelay
© Global Look PressPipelay onboard the Pioneering Spirit
Russia says the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will be finished despite all the challenges, after Swiss-Dutch company Allseas decided to stop its works on the project in the Baltic Sea, under the threat of US sanctions.

Over the weekend, the engineering company reportedly withdrew its ships, which had been engaged in the laying of the last section of the pipeline. The pull-out occurred shortly after US President Donald Trump signed into law the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which provides for harsh sanctions on foreign contractors involved in the project.

However, two of Allseas' vessels - Solitaire and Pioneering Spirit - were still in the waters of the Baltic Sea as of Monday morning, according to ship tracking website Marine Traffic.

"Despite all of the factors that have been working against the project, we expect the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be completed soon," Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with Russia's RBK broadcaster. The minister doubts that the US restrictions can fully stop the project, as it is already in the final stages and any fines or punitive measures from the US would cause discontent among its allies.
2 ships
© Nord Stream AG/GazpromSolitaire • Akademik Cherskiy

Comment: RT, 23/12/2019: NS2 will become operational in 2nd half of 2020
The $11-billion pipeline, which extends from Russia to Germany across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, will be finished "in the second half of the next year," Peter Beyer, the government's Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation, told Deutschlandfunk radio station on Monday.

Some in US-Russian business circles agree with the standpoint. "It's obvious that the project will be finalized," Alexis Rodzianko, the president and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, told RIA Novosti.

"Therefore, the sanctions look more like an expression of discontent, I don't think that they [the US] can somehow stop it. If some fines or penalties are to follow, they will be very unpopular among us allies."
RT, 23/12/2019 US Sanctions on pipeline a declaration of 'economic war' that will backfire on American business interests
It may be "quite favorable for Russia" to finish the Nord Stream 2 construction by itself, says German business newsletter publisher Dr Eike Hamer, as European companies participating in the project are targeted by US sanctions. The costs of completing the pipeline will definitely be much higher after the Swiss-Dutch company Allseas announced it is quitting the project. The delay could be a few months but what's "more important is that the pipeline is going to be finished."

According to the economist, the Russian energy major Gazprom, which is leading the Nord Stream 2 project, could "surely" sue European companies for winding up operations "unless it was excluded in the contracts."

"The sanctions and promises for additional contracts by the Russians could be much more favorable and be a better deal for Allseas than the US sanctions, which are against international law."

"Afterwards, all costs can be saved from sending less oil and gas via the US-puppets Poland and Ukraine, or increase local taxes on US oil firms in Russia or Anglo-American shareholders of Russian companies. In the end, benefits will overwhelm the costs in the project by far."

"This is an economic war the US has started already." The Russian gas pipeline "will cause inconvenience but not a severe problem."

"The problem arises for the Anglo-American forces that made up the sanctions because they will be regarded as a difficult and dangerous business partner. Who trusts an Anglo-American firm in future when you never know if you are sanctioned, threatened of not completing your work? In that sense the US has much more to lose than the rest of the world."

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Cabinet on Monday to think over Russia's possible response to Washington's sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 project.
See also:


Oil Well

Whose oil is it? Saudi Arabia deploys troops to Syria's Omar oilfield

Troops
© Image Source
Saudi Arabia has reportedly deployed dozens of combat troops to a major oilfield in Syria's eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr as the United States and some of its regional allies are vying with one another to seize oil reserves and plunder natural resources in the war-battered country.

Informed local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Arabic service of Turkey's official Anadolu news agency that the Saudi soldiers arrived at Omar oil field aboard helicopters.

The sources added that the troops are expected to guard Saudi and Egyptian experts, who arrived at the energy facility a week ago and are believed to be working for Saudi Arabia's giant state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco.

The report noted that the deployment of Saudi soldiers to the oil field coincided with the arrival of about 30 trucks equipped with digging and drilling machinery.

The sources said the vehicles had entered Syrian territory from northern Iraq, and that Saudi soldiers have been stationed in a residential area close to Omar oil field that currently houses American troops.

Comment: Do we need more proof to the premise: 'It's always been about the oil?' The fuel of greed outweighs rightful ownership, national boundaries, commitments to partners such as the Kurds, the sovereignty of nations...wrong across the board. For the US and cohorts, this is one more selfish, despicable and unjustifiable action.


Stop

China: New US Space Force is a 'threat to space, peace and security'

SpaceForce
© Bradscribe/WordPress.com/KJN
Chinese officials said Monday that the creation of a U.S. Space Force would overly weaponize outer space and endanger peaceful missions.

The Associated Press reported that Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, told reporters that Beijing is "deeply concerned" and "resolutely opposed" to the Trump administration's establishment of the sixth branch of the U.S. military.
"The relevant U.S. actions are a serious violation of the international consensus on the peaceful use of outer space, undermine global strategic balance and stability, and pose a direct threat to outer space peace and security."
His remarks come just days after President Trump signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which contained provisions officially authorizing the Space Force first touted by the president in 2018.

The military branch is the first to be designed specifically to counter threats involving outer space, a possibility that U.S. officials have pointed to for years since China successfully destroyed a satellite with a missile in 2007.

Comment: See also:


Arrow Down

Japan considers dropping US-led sanctions against Iran

AbeRouhani
© unknownJapanesse PM Shinzo Abe • Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that Japan had thought of a way to topple economic sanctions against Tehran. Rouhani made the statement after returning from his two-day trip to Japan where he sought support from the Japanese, traditional US allies who chose to mediate the tension between the two countries.

"The Japanese have proposed a new way of overturning US sanctions, we have also done one. We have discussed and agreed to continue consultations on the issue," he said in a speech on Iranian television. The Iranian president also said that Japan supports Iran regarding the peace plan for the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, the US is trying to build an international coalition to protect the straits and other waters in the Persian Gulf region, an effort dubbed Operation Sentinel. The US sees Iran as a threat in the region.

"Japan supports Iran's peace plan in the Strait of Hormuz. Secondly, Japan openly stated that it would not participate in US plans to ensure security in the region," said Rouhani, praising Tokyo's position.