Puppet MastersS


Helm

China reveals plan to end Ukraine conflict


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 19:10 UTC
scholz jinping
© Michael Kappeler/Getty ImagesGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) sits opposite Xi Jinping, President of China
World powers should focus on restoring peace and stability in Ukraine rather than seeking "selfish gains," Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday.

The chancellor arrived in China on Sunday, accompanied by a large delegation of ministers and business executives.

Meeting with Scholz at Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Xi told the German leader that all parties should work together to restore peace in Ukraine as soon as possible. The Chinese leader also outlined four principles that he believes will prevent the conflict from escalating.

"First, we should prioritize the upholding of peace and stability and refrain from seeking selfish gains," Xi said, as quoted by the Xinhua news agency.
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Chess

'Only good for WW3': Slovakia to oppose Ukraine's NATO membership bid

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 18:50 UTC
Robert Fico
© EPASlovakian PM Robert Fico
Last October saw a significant shift in Slovakia's trajectory related to its stance on the Ukraine war, after the populist left-wing party Smer took the most votes in the country's national election. Its head, who ascended to his fourth term as prime minister, Robert Fico, advanced a platform of pursuing peace in Ukraine rather than continuing to pour weapons into an increasingly hopeless campaign to evict Russian forces from the country's eastern provinces.

In the wake of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month controversially declaring "Ukraine will become a member of NATO" - Slovakia under PM Fico is pushing back. He said in fresh comments at a press conference that Slovakia will stand firmly against any efforts to pursue Ukraine's accession into NATO.

"Ukraine may say: 'We want to join NATO.' This will be their own decision. We are saying that we will not ratify [the documents on Ukraine's accession to NATO] in parliament because Slovakia needs a neutral Ukraine. Slovakia's interests will be threatened if Ukraine becomes a NATO member," Fico said.

Comment: Looks like the Slovaks elected a leader with a decent head on his shoulders.

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Attention

How Iran's 'strategic patience' switched to serious deterrence

Pepe Escobar
The Cradle
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 17:01 UTC
Iran's retaliatory strikes against Israel were not conducted alone. Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran's back, and their role in West Asia's conflict will only grow if the US doesn't keep Israel in check.

The Drone Wars
© The Cradle
A little over 48 hours before Iran's aerial message to Israel across the skies of West Asia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed, on the record, what so far had been, at best, hush-hush diplomatic talk:
The Russian side keeps in contact with Iranian partners on the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Ryabkov added, "We stay in constant touch [with Iran]. New in-depth discussions on the whole range of issues related to the Middle East are also expected in the near future in BRICS."

He then sketched The Big Picture:
Connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which are at the core of Washington's policy, is in many ways becoming the root cause of new tragedies.
Here, concisely, we had Russia's top diplomatic coordinator with BRICS - in the year of the multipolar organization's Russian presidency - indirectly messaging that Russia has Iran's back. Iran, it should be noted, just became a full-fledged BRICS+ member in January.

Iran's aerial message this weekend confirmed this in practice: their missile guidance systems used the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system as well as the Russian GLONASS system.

This is Russia-China intel leading from behind and a graphic example of BRICS+ on the move.

Ryabkov's "we stay in constant touch" plus the satellite navigation intel confirms the deeply interlocked cooperation between the Russia-China strategic partnership and their mutual strategic partner Iran. Based on vast experience in Ukraine, Moscow knew that the biblical psychopathic genocidal entity would keep escalating if Iran only continued to exercise "strategic patience."

The morphing of "strategic patience" into a new strategic balance had to take some time - including high-level exchanges with the Russian side. After all, the risk remained that the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate/ambassador's residence in Damascus could well prove to be the 2024 remix of the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
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Quenelle - Golden

Iran REJECTS US request to allow 'symbolic strike' by Israel


The Cradle
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 16:16 UTC
iran soldier
© Tasnim News AgencyWashington used diplomatic backchannels to ask Tehran not to retaliate to an Israeli strike, which would allow Tel Aviv to 'save face' following the massive retaliatory attack launched by Iran
An Iranian military security official has revealed exclusively to The Cradle that the US contacted the Islamic Republic, asking the nation to allow Israel "a symbolic strike to save face" following Iran's retaliatory drone and missile barrage this weekend.

"Iran has received messages from mediators to let the regime do a symbolic strike to save face and asked Iran not to retaliate," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed to The Cradle.

He added that Tehran "outright rejected" the proposal, delivered by mediators, and reiterated warnings that any Israeli attack on Iranian soil would be met with a decisive and immediate response.

Comment: Whilst Israel may have had some success with its Western-backed genocide in Gaza, it made little headway in its efforts against Hamas there. And now, following Iran's exploratory, and rather humiliating, retaliation, Tel Aviv has allegedly chosen to pause its Rafah offensive.

Taken together, Israel seems to be losing any semblance of dominance over its chaos creation, and which is possibly the point when the situation becomes even more dangerous:


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Penis Pump

Loose cannon: Macron's stance on Russia causing 'unease' among officials


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 15:48 UTC
Macron
To be or not to be.
The French president has been "oscillating" between war warnings and calls for peace, the news outlet said

Some French security officials are "apprehensive" of President Emmanuel Macron's public rhetoric, in which he seems to be "oscillating unpredictably between peacemaker and provocateur," Bloomberg has claimed, citing insider sources.

In his public remarks, the French leader has urged Western nations to go on a war footing and brace for a future conflict with Russia. But such statements have been undermined by the actual policies of his government, the news outlet argued on Tuesday.

Among the issues causing "unease" among foreign allies and French officials, according to Bloomberg, was a phone call between French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu earlier this month.

Moscow said that during the call the Russian side warned France against deploying troops in Ukraine - a scenario that Macron first floated in March. The officials also discussed possible talks "based on the Istanbul peace initiative," the statement added, referring to a failed attempt by Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict in its early stages, which was reportedly derailed by the West.

Comment: There are reasons for the French allies to be a little nervous what France with its bombastic rhetoric can get NATO involved in.
It appears as if some French mercenaries already went close to the front and then quickly changed plans and deployed to the rear.
French mercenaries deployed
See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Biden 8% approval means panic & war

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00 UTC
Biden
Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong has new data on President Biden's approval numbers. Nearly two years ago, President Biden's real job approval rating in America was just 12%. More than one year ago, the real Biden approval number slipped to 9.5% (and stayed there) according to Armstrong's world renowned "Socrates" predictive computer program.

Now, Biden's rating tumbled again. Armstrong says,
"It is basically hovering around 7.5% to 8% at this stage. I know this goes against the mainstream media, but if you look at Google, it is really politically motivated. . . . The other number you need to look at is the confidence in government, and it is at 28%. . . . This number is unheard of since World War II.
(I have another confidential data miner source who backs up Armstrong's numbers, including the latest 8% job approval number, with nearly identical Biden job approval numbers going back two years. So, yes, there are two solid sources for Biden's true approval rating.)

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Arrow Up

What you need to know about the Iranian attack on Israel but will not find in your mainstream news provider

Gilbert Doctorow
gilbertdoctorow.com
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 01:57 UTC
Missile Attack
© arise.tv
Iran's weekend massive drone, cruise missile and ballistic missile attack on Israel has now been covered in the global media, with the headlines announcing that 99% of the barrage was shot down by Israeli, U.S. and other friendly air defense systems. The question these media pose is what will be the Israeli response, as if that were a matter strictly to be decided by Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet.

In fairness, I note that The Financial Times has also published a front page article setting out what it considers to be the Iranian perspective on the attack, namely that it was successful insofar as it demonstrated their country is not shying away from direct military confrontation with Israel and is confidently prepared to prosecute a full scale war if it comes to that. See "We're crazier than you realize": Iran delivers its message with attack on Israel. Tehran believes calibrated missile and drone barrage is enough to restore deterrent and bolster image."

However, the Iranian position is much more nuanced and contains far greater threat not only to Israel but also to the entire United States presence in the region than the FT suggests. I say this on the basis of an analysis provided on last night's edition of the Vladimir Solovyov talk show on Russian state television by a regular panelist, Semyon Arkadievich Bagdasarov, who is a leading Russian specialist on the region.

For those who wish to see and hear Bagdasarov's 14 minutes on air in the original Russian, click on the link here (minutes: 27 - 41).

In what follows I offer a brief biographical sketch of Bagdasarov so that the seriousness of his remarks can be better appreciated. Then I will summarize what he said on air.
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Vader

Best of the Web: The Gaza genocide as explicit policy: Michael Hudson names all names

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 23:17 UTC
gaza
The ruins of Gaza
In what can be considered the most crucial podcast of 2024 so far, Professor Michael Hudson - the author of seminal works such as Super-Imperialism and the recent The Collapse of Antiquity , among others - clinically lays down the essential background to understand the unthinkable: a 21st century genocide broadcast live 24/7 to the whole planet.

In an email exchange, Prof. Hudson detailed he's now essentially "spilling the beans" about how, "50 years ago when I worked at the Hudson Institute with Herman Kahn [the model for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove], Israeli Mossad members were being trained, including Uzi Arad. I made two international trips with him, and he outlined to me pretty much what has happened today. He became head of Mossad and is now Netanhayu's advisor."

Prof. Hudson shows how "the basic Gaza plan is how Kahn designed the Vietnam War's division into sectors, with canals cutting off each village, as the Israelis are doing to Palestinians. Also already at time, Kahn pinpointed Balochistan as the area to foment disruption in Iran and the rest of the region."
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Bandaid

FISA exchanges real liberty for phantom security

Ron Paul
Ron Paul Institute
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00 UTC
johnson
© Win McNamee/Getty ImagesHouse Speaker Mike Johnson
House Speaker Mike Johnson betrayed liberty and the Constitution by making a full-court press to get a "clean" reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Act through the House.

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens. However, intelligence agencies have used a loophole in 702, allowing them to subject to warrantless surveillance any American who communicated with a non-US citizen who was a 702 target. Intelligence agencies could then also conduct warrantless surveillance on any Americans who communicated with the new American target. This Section 702 loophole has been used so often to subject Americans to warrantless wiretapping that it has been referred to as the surveillance state's crown jewel.
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Cruise Missle

Israel says Iran's missile and drone attack largely thwarted, with "very little damage" caused

Faris Tanyos, Cara Tabachnick, Tucker Reals
CBS News
Sun, 14 Apr 2024 07:43 UTC
3 shots
© Amir Cohen/ReutersAnti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel • Ashkelon, Israel
Air raid sirens and loud booms sounded across Israel Saturday evening after Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at the country in a retaliatory attack, but Israeli officials said the assault was almost entirely thwarted by air defense systems and with the help of the U.S. and Israel's other allies.

More than 300 missiles and drones were fired from Iran toward Israel, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. He said virtually all of the weapons were intercepted before entering Israeli territory and he reported only minor damage to one military base from the few ballistic missiles that did land in the country. Hagari confirmed that a 10-year-old girl had been "severely injured by shrapnel," but said "as far as we know, there are no additional casualties."
"The Iranian threat met the aerial and technological superiority of the IDF, along with a strong fighting coalition — which together intercepted the overwhelming majority of the threats. 99% of the threats launched towards Israeli territory were intercepted — a very significant strategic achievement."
The IDF said in a separate, earlier statement posted on social media there were some injuries from the Iranian-launched missiles, including at a military base in southern Israel, but the full statement released later by Hagari made no mention of casualties.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said very little damage was caused, in a statement early Sunday, lauding his own forces and Israel's American and other international partners for having "thwarted this attack in an impressive manner."

Comment: Iran: A test run to assess who, what and how. Israel: Display of force for self-confirmation

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