Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

US sanctions Iranian tanker released by Gibraltar & blacklists captain, threatens "anyone providing support"


RT
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 12:06 UTC
oil tanker
© REUTERS/Jon NazcaFILE PHOTO: Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019.
The US Treasury Department has blacklisted the Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya - recently freed from a month-long detention in Gibraltar - and sanctioned its captain after an attempt to legally confiscate the ship failed.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control added the ship, formerly called Grace 1, and its captain Akhilesh Kumar to its Specially Designated Nationals list on Friday as the tanker's destination changed from Turkey to Lebanon. Washington has accused the vessel of crimes including money laundering and financing terrorism, filing a last-minute civil asset forfeiture suit earlier this month in an attempt to seize it as Gibraltar authorities allowed it to set sail after a lengthy detention.

In a statement released Friday, Treasury Under Secretary Sigal Mandelker said that the vessel was complicit in enabling the elite Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard "ship and transfer large volumes of oil, which they attempt to mask and sell illicitly to fund the regime's malign activities and propagate terrorism."

Comment: "Risks being sanctioned" because the US knows there are entities it can't afford to blacklist and it hopes that these threats will deter them, however, judging by Iran's attendance at the G7 and the many countries continuing to do business with Iran, these threats appear to be losing their bite:

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USA

SOTT Focus: Tulsi Gabbard on DNC Dirty Tricks to Keep Her Out of Future Debates


Sott.net
Sat, 31 Aug 2019 09:26 UTC
Tulsi Gabbard democratic debates censorship
Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Wednesday and took on the Democratic National Committee for a "lack of transparency" on qualifying for the next round of debates.

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Mr. Potato

Joe Biden unapologetic for fabricating Afghan war story: 'essence' was true

Haris Alic
Breitbart
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 13:59 UTC
joe biden
Former Vice President Joe Biden is unapologetic for fabricating an emotional story about the war in Afghanistan, claiming its "essence" is true.

Biden, who is under fire after The Washington Post exposed a story he told about pinning a medal on a reluctant Navy officer as inaccurate, defended his conduct while campaigning in South Carolina on Thursday.

"I don't understand what they're talking about, but the central point is it was absolutely accurate what I said," Biden told The Post and Courier when asked about the controversy. "He refused the medal. I put it on him, he said, 'Don't do that to me, sir. He died. He died.'"
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Light Saber

Best of the Web: 'BRICS was created as a tool of attack': Pepe Escobar interviews former Brazilian president Lula

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 20:13 UTC
Hu Jintao
© Dida Sampaio /Agencia EstadoFormer Brazilian leader Lula holds hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao, left, at the BRICS summit in Brasilia on April 15, 2010. Lula wishes his country had a strategic partnership with Beijing.
Curitiba, Brazil In a wide-ranging, two-hour-plus, exclusive interview from a prison room in Curitiba in southern Brazil, former Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva re-emerged for the first time, after more than 500 days in jail, and sent a clear message to the world.

Amid the 24/7 media frenzy of scripted sound bites and "fake news", it's virtually impossible to find a present or former head of state anywhere, in a conversation with journalists, willing to speak deep from his soul, to comment on all current political developments and relish telling stories about the corridors of power. And all that while still in prison.

The first part of this mini-series focused on the Amazon. Here, we will focus on Brazil's relationship with BRICS and Beijing. BRICS is the grouping of major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China - that formed in 2006 and then included South Africa in their annual meetings from 2010.


Comment: Pepe Escobar interviews jailed former president of Brazil Lula


Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's show from 2016 for some background: Behind the Headlines: The Empire Strikes Back: BRICS under attack with coup in Brazil

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Megaphone

Ireland blasts Britain as being 'totally unreasonable' over Brexit

Gabriela Baczynska
Reuters
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 19:14 UTC
Simon Coveney
© REUTERSIreland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said he "will not allow a really important element of the withdrawal agreement to be removed"
Ireland accused Britain of being "totally unreasonable" over Brexit on Friday, saying London had not made credible proposals to replace the Irish border backstop. But the British government insisted it had offered ways of solving the key sticking point.

More than three years after the country voted in a referendum to leave the bloc, Britain is heading toward a showdown with the European Union over its plans to leave the bloc, which is due to take place in just over two months time.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Prime Minister Boris Johnson's team had not offered any concrete alternatives to the existing planned 'backstop', which the EU wants to ensure an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
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Star of David

Saber-rattling: Israeli Air Force simulates strikes on Southern Lebanon with illegal low-altitude flights


Sputnik
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 18:21 UTC
israel jet fighter f-15 eagle
© Edi Israel/Flash90/FileIsraeli F-15 Eagle fighter jet
Tensions between Israel and Lebanon escalated this week following an alleged Israeli attack on Hezbollah's media HQ in Beirut early Sunday morning. At a press event Thursday, the Israeli military accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of being directly involved in Hezbollah's alleged efforts to build precision-guided missile factories.

Israeli Air Force fighters illegally crossed into Lebanese airspace on Friday and conducted low altitude reconnaissance flights in the country's south, Lebanon's National News Agency has reported, citing a correspondent.

According to the outlet, flights were carried out in areas on the Israeli-Lebanese border in the Dyre district, and 'mock raids' were carried out in the airspace over Naqoura, a small city containing the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Comment: Cowardly Israel may command the skies, but wars (should Israel be stupid or psychopathic enough to start one) are won on the ground. The IDF is a paper tiger and both Israel and Hezbollah know it. The IDF spends its time terrorizing Palestinian children. Hezbollah has been fighting with Syria against jihadis for nearly a decade. Who would you bet on?

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Heart - Black

Lyin' Biden's emotional war story used repeatedly on campaign trail discovered to be false

Matt Viser, Greg Jaffe
Washington Post
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 18:47 UTC
Joe Biden
© COA/The Federalist2020 presidential candidate, former VP Joe Biden
Joe Biden painted a vivid scene for the 400 people packed into a college meeting hall. A four-star general had asked the then-vice president to travel to Konar province in Afghanistan, a dangerous foray into "godforsaken country" to recognize the remarkable heroism of a Navy captain.

Some told him it was too risky, but Biden said he brushed off their concerns.

"We can lose a vice president," he said. "We can't lose many more of these kids. Not a joke."

The Navy captain, Biden recalled Friday night, had rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire and retrieved the body of an American comrade, carrying him on his back. Now the general wanted Biden to pin a Silver Star on the American hero who, despite his bravery, felt like a failure.

"He said, 'Sir, I don't want the damn thing!' " Biden said, his jaw clenched and his voice rising to a shout. " 'Do not pin it on me, Sir! Please, Sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!' "
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Bad Guys

Maduro hops on propaganda bandwagon, blames Bolsonaro's 'fascist' government for Amazon fires

Paul Antonopoulos
Fort Russ
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 18:36 UTC
maduro atentat
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of destroying and delivering the Amazon to the country's oligarchy.

"Venezuela condemns and repudiates Jair Bolsonaro's attitude in Brazil of handing over the Amazon to his friends, to the Brazilian landlord oligarchy that is destroying it, Venezuela repudiates and we raise our voice of protest and solidarity with the Brazilian people," said the Venezuelan leader.

The Venezuelan president expressed his discontent with the Bolsonaro government during a national broadcast on the country's radios and televisions.
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Airplane

The Saker interviews Max van der Werff about the MH-17 conspiracy

The Saker
thesaker.is
Wed, 28 Aug 2019 18:20 UTC
MH17
Introduction: MH17 is to Novorussia, what the Markale (also see here) has been to Bosnia and Racak (also see here) has been to Kosovo: a typical false flag operation which pursued two goals: first, of course, to justify a military aggression and, second, to force everybody to chose one of two options: first, either pretend to believe the official narrative or, second, be vilified and discredited. From this perspective, the MH17 false flag has been a tremendous success, mostly due to the extremely successful lobotomy inflicted by the legacy Ziomedia on the western public opinion (I would argue that the Skripal fairy tale is even more self-evidently ridiculous than the MH17 fairy tale, and yet that was also swallowed hook line and sinker by most western "experts"). But then, we live in a post-9/11 world, in which neither facts nor logic matter much anymore, except for a rather small amount of people, including Max van der Werff who has proven to be one of the most tenacious and courageous investigative journalists. I am most grateful for his time and answers!

The Saker: First, a question about yourself: why and how did you get involved in this topic of MH17? What were you doing before you got involved in this topic?

Max van der Werff : The very moment the news of the shoot down of the Malaysian Boeing broke on July 17th 2014, I immediately realized this tragedy would have long term geopolitical implications. What further struck me was the fact most passengers were citizens of my country, The Netherlands.

Since childhood I have an interest in geopolitics and history. The fact my father was an immigrant from Indonesia surely contributed and as a teenager I read a lot about Dutch colonial history.
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Laptop

Anomalies in Clinton's mystery Gmail account probe reveal more questions than answers

Ivan Pentchoukov
The Epoch Times
Wed, 28 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
HRClinton
© Reuters/Carlos BarriaFormer Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
FBI Section Chief Peter Strzok looked dismissive and aloof as he listened to Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General investigator Frank Rucker relay an alarming lead for the Clinton email investigation on Feb. 18, 2016, at the bureau's headquarters in Washington, according to Rucker and Jeanette McMillian, an attorney who accompanied him to the meeting.

Days earlier, Rucker had discovered an anomaly in all but four of the 30,490 emails Clinton's lawyers provided to Congress. Each message contained "carterheavyindustries@gmail.com" in the metadata, suggesting that a copy of each message that passed through Hillary Clinton's private, unauthorized server during her tenure as secretary of state was forwarded to the Gmail address in real-time. Rucker's concern was amplified when he searched for "Carter Heavy Industries" on Google and came up with information for a Chinese company with a similar name.

On the same day, more than 1,600 miles away in Denver, Colorado, FBI agents interviewed Paul Combetta, the information technology aide who allegedly created the mystery Gmail account. Combetta told the agents that he used the account in February 2014 to transfer an archive of Clinton's emails from her tenure as the secretary of state to the Clinton email server he was administering for Platte River Networks in Secaucus, New Jersey. As a result, "carterheavyindustries@gmail.com" ended up in the metadata of each message.
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