Puppet Masters

Iraq: US-led coalition leaves northern Iraq headquarters, exits from several bases

Oleg Burunov
Sputnik
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:18 UTC

© AFP
Iraqi security forces watch US Troops leave after a handoff ceremony for K-1 airbase in Kirkuk governorate, Iraq, March 29, 2020.

On Sunday, the US-led coalition officially handed over the K1 Air Base in northern Iraq's Kirkuk province to the Iraqi Army in a pre-planned move that they said was unrelated to recent attacks by Shiite militias against Iraqi bases hosting foreign troops.

The US-led international coalition's headquarters in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh near the Syrian border has been transferred to Iraq's army, the country's Baghdad Al Youm news outlet reports.

According to Baghdad Al Youm, the coalition forces transferred the Nineveh headquarters on Monday as part of the process of withdrawing foreign troops from some Iraqi provinces. At the same time, the news outlet says, the US forces are rapidly completing the construction of a base near the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, which may become one of the largest military bases in the Middle East.

Comment: See also: US-led coalition leaves K1 Air Base, Kirkuk, Iraq

France sanctions hydroxychloroquine drug treatment after 78 of 80 patients recover from COVID-19 within five days

The Daily Wire
Sun, 29 Mar 2020 03:11 UTC

Didier Raoult MD covid-19 treatment chloroquine

The French government has officially sanctioned chloroquine, a drug often used to fight malaria, for certain patients infected with the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

"The French government has officially sanctioned prescriptions of chloroquine to treat certain coronavirus patients," France 24 English reported Saturday.

"This ensures continued treatment of patients who have been treated for several years for a chronic condition with this drug, but also allows a temporary authorization to allow certain patients with coronavirus to benefit from this therapeutic route," said France's director general of health Jérôme Salomon.

Comment: Big Pharma polishes its image with some charity PR. Call it cynical but it's probably meant to smooth the way for the next round of toxic vaccines they intend to push on the public:

Novartis Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan said Sunday that the Trump-touted drudged hydroxychloroquine, often used to treat malaria, is our biggest hope in combating the China-originated coronavirus, or COVID-19.

Narasimhan pledged to donate a stunning 130 million doses of hydroxychloroquine and will support studies of the drug as a treatment against COVID-19.

Reuters reported:

Novartis Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan said his Sandoz generics unit's malaria, lupus and arthritis drug hydroxychloroquine is the company's biggest hope against the coronavirus, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday.

Novartis has pledged to donate 130 million doses and is supporting clinical trials needed before the medicine, which U.S. President Donald Trump also has been promoting, can be approved for use against the coronavirus.

"Pre-clinical studies in animals as well as the first data from clinical studies show that hydroxychloroquine kills the coronavirus," Narasimhan told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung. "We're working with Swiss hospitals on possible treatment protocols for the clinical use of the drug, but it's too early to say anything definitively."

According to Reuters, pharmaceutical companies Bayer and Teva "have also agreed to donate hydroxychloroquine or similar drugs, while Gilead Sciences is testing its experimental drug remdesivir against coronavirus."

The "Three Little Pigs" prepare for the "wolf": How Russia, US and China are responding to COVID-19

SouthFront
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 17:44 UTC

COVID-19, or as it has colloquially come to be known as coronavirus began on December 31^st, 2019, when China notified the World Health Organization of a rise in pneumonia cases with an unknown cause.

On January 3^rd, China reported a total of 44 suspected patients, after, two days earlier, having closed the Huanan seafood market, suspected to be the source of the mystery disease, as some of the patients presenting with the pneumonia-like illness were dealers or vendors at the market. On January 7^th, China identified a new coronavirus as cause of the outbreak.

Since then, the media hysteria and chaotic actions of governments around the world have put the globe into state of a constant crisis. Governments are imposing lockdowns and limit freedoms of their citizens. The situation is further fueled by the economic crisis and the dramatic fall of oil prices. MSM media outlets release daily reports counting confirmed COVID-19 cases and associated deaths (that are in fact less than from the seasonal influenza illnesses).

Kremlinology 2.0: Is Vladimir Putin still in charge at the Kremlin?

Gilbert Doctorow
gilbertdoctorow.com
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 16:50 UTC

This is not a question that figures in our Western commentary and analysis, since it is universally assumed that one man, Vladimir Putin, dominates Russian political life for a good reason: his unique ability to tame the contending factions at the center of power in Russia. He is the indispensable lynchpin.

However, I insist that this assumption may have become threadbare, and that there may well be a power struggle going on in the Kremlin today which Vladimir Vladimirovich no longer controls. Indeed, it appears he is receiving his script now from the stronger of the contenders around him and is not comfortable with his lines.

I hinted at this three days ago in my analysis of his address to the nation on the coronavirus, saying that perhaps "Putin's command of the situation is faltering."

'We'll go our own way': North Korea says it 'dropped interest' in talks with US after Pompeo's call for more pressure

RT
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 16:49 UTC

North Korea said it has lost faith in dialogue with Washington after "reckless" US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for more pressure on Pyongyang.

In statement published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday, an unnamed North Korean diplomat in charge of the talks with the US warned that the country will continue working on "our important planned projects aimed to repay the US with actual horror and unrest for the sufferings it has inflicted upon our people."

"We will go our own way. We want the US not to bother us," the official said.

Pompeovirus? Iran creatively takes aim at US Secretary of State for sanctions pressure amid Covid-19 outbreak

Sputnik
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:09 UTC

The longstanding tensions between the United States and Iran have become especially palpable in the past several weeks as Washington refuses to lift sanctions against Tehran, which is currently the second worst-hit nation in Asia in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases.

Iran's Foreign Ministry has taken a rather creative approach to lament the US economic pressure on the country in general and to condemn US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in particular.

In a tweet, the ministry posted a picture calling to "stop aiding war crimes" and "obeying immoral and illegal US sanctions" with the word "sanction" written in the middle of the image. However, the letter "O" was stylised as the coronavirus with a translucent Mike Pompeo emerging from it.

Comment: Pompeo and the US war-making class like to speak out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand they "offer" medical aid and assistance to Iran, and on the other, make economic conditions on the ground so oppressive for Iranians that they have far greater difficulties just taking care of themselves.

See also: 'Not a time for political war': Rouhani slams US anti-Iranian sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic - as well as:

Delusional? Gantz will block West Bank annexation, Palestinians are at last a 'player' and J Street sees upside in Israeli politics

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 27 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC

Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street at the October 2019 conference.

The Israel lobby group J Street had a webinar today in which its leaders declared two silver linings from the stunning elevation of Netanyahu yesterday that ends a year of political stalemate:

1, Benny Gantz may have betrayed the Israeli center that wanted to dethrone Netanyahu, but as Netanyahu's partner he will prevent the Israeli government from annexing the West Bank over the next 10 months.

2, The mainstreaming of Palestinian lawmakers as players in the Israeli discourse has been "huge" and would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, said that the next ten months are "critical" for right wing Israeli advocates of annexation. "After corona [crisis ends], they will try and seize that victory and the land, before a Biden government comes in."

Comment: Interesting. Why are they so certain that there will be a "Biden government"? Does the J Street organization know something we don't? Or are they just making a rather dumb assumption - like the way most predicted Killary would win the 2016 election?

Yael Patir, the head of J Street's Israeli arm, said annexation has been set back: "Everything we thought about and were worried about in terms of the fast pace in which annexation can be... implemented... is on hold... It's not on the table right now." Trump can't OK Israeli annexation because he's too enmeshed in the coronavirus crisis and the reelection campaign.

Comment: Considering the pathological drive and immense power that the racist and imperialist class of politicians in Israeli society now have, it seems highly unlikely that the "centrist" and more "progressive" forces in the US and Israel will have any significant say, or influence, on the Zionist state's current trajectory. See also:

DOJ opens probe into Senate stock sell-off in wake of coronavirus briefings

Sophie Mann
Just the News
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 08:20 UTC

The FBI is investigating the stock market trades of several senators just before the market dipped due to the global spread of coronavirus

The Justice Department has reportedly opened a probe into U.S. senators selling stocks just before financial markets plunge as the coronavirus spread around the world.

The FBI has contacted at least one of the four senators identified in the selloff, Sen. Richard Burr, chairman the Senate Intelligence Committee, CNN reported Sunday.

Burr, a North Carolina Republican, on February 13, sold $628,000 to $1.7 million in stocks. Burr says the trade decisions were based on information accessible to the public. In early March, the senator requested that the Senate Ethics Committee review his trades.

The question becomes whether the lawmakers conducted trades based on information they received in non-public briefings about the novel coronavirus. Of now, there is no indication that Burr, or any of the other lawmakers, broke the law or any Senate rules. It is common for the FBI and SEC to open probes into trades that have caused a public question of their appropriateness.

Prominent Chinese bank CICC slashes China's 2020 growth forecast to 2%

Orange Wang
South China Morning Post
Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:32 UTC

Debate about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on China's economy took on a new complexion on Monday after the country's most prominent investment bank turned pessimistic, slashing its 2020 growth forecast.

President Xi Jinping has insisted China will meet its economic and social developments goals this year, including eradicating poverty and building up a "moderately well-off society", despite the virus outbreak sending the economy into free fall in the first two months of the year and increasing evidence of a global recession.The government has recently strengthened its rhetoric about the resilience of China's economy, and a number of Chinese economists still believe gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year could be close to the 6 per cent target range that was expected to be announced in March.

But on Monday, the China International Capital Corporation (CICC) - seen by many as the country's most highest-profile brokerage - stunned many in Chinese financial circles by sharply cutting its real GDP growth forecast for 2020 to a record low of 2.6 per cent, from 6.1 per cent in January.

Comment: Indeed, it isn't really important how well the casino markets believe the real economy is doing; what's important is keeping people employed and fed.

Wealthy will cover costs of coronavirus through tax for the benefit of the people - Putin

Mike Whitney
UNZ Review
Sat, 28 Mar 2020 12:00 UTC

Vladimir Putin has decided how Russia is going to pay for the corona-virus.

He's going to tax the rich.

It's a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren't asked. Instead, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package for which the American taxpayer will be held entirely responsible. Even worse, the new legislation contains a $500 billion allocation (another corporate giveaway) that the Federal Reserve will use as a capital base for borrowing $4.5 trillion. That massive sum of money will be used to buy toxic bonds in the corporate bond market. Just as Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) were used to fleece millions of investors out of their hard-earned savings in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, so too, "toxic" corporate bonds were the weapon of choice that was used to pilfer trillions of dollars from investors in the run-up to today's crisis. (Same scam, different instrument) The virus was merely the proximate cause that tipped the sector into meltdown. The problem had been festering for years and everyone in the financial community (Including the Fed, the BIS and the IMF) knew that it was only a matter of time before the market would blow sky-high. Which it did.

What every American needs to know is that our crooked bought-and-paid-for Congress just passed a bill that transfers the credit risk for $4.5 trillion of corporate sludge onto the National Debt. A bailout of this magnitude could impact the nation's credit rating (Fitch has already issued a warning), send interest rates to the moon, dampen economic activity for years to come, and pave the way for a long and painful slump. The much ballyhooed $1,200 checks for unemployed workers are merely a tactical diversion that's being used to conceal the giant ripoff that is taking place right under our noses.

Comment: See also:

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Puppet Masters

Iraq: US-led coalition leaves northern Iraq headquarters, exits from several bases

France sanctions hydroxychloroquine drug treatment after 78 of 80 patients recover from COVID-19 within five days

The "Three Little Pigs" prepare for the "wolf": How Russia, US and China are responding to COVID-19

Kremlinology 2.0: Is Vladimir Putin still in charge at the Kremlin?

'We'll go our own way': North Korea says it 'dropped interest' in talks with US after Pompeo's call for more pressure

Pompeovirus? Iran creatively takes aim at US Secretary of State for sanctions pressure amid Covid-19 outbreak

Delusional? Gantz will block West Bank annexation, Palestinians are at last a 'player' and J Street sees upside in Israeli politics

DOJ opens probe into Senate stock sell-off in wake of coronavirus briefings

Prominent Chinese bank CICC slashes China's 2020 growth forecast to 2%

Wealthy will cover costs of coronavirus through tax for the benefit of the people - Putin

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