Puppet Masters
A decision by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to attend a cultural festival in Saudi Arabia infuriated German lawmakers, the Die Welt newspaper reported. The festival is due to take place in Janadriyah, about 42 km northeast of the capital Riyadh, in February.
Among those who expressed their dissatisfaction with the move was Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee.
"In light of the mass executions in Saudi Arabia, I believe that [the German FM] taking part in the Janadriyah Festival is irrelevant," Rottgen said.
Government forces carried out several offensives on Daesh positions in the province, shelling and storming their strongholds.
They attacked the terrorists in the al-Dowah region west of Palmyra, and close to the towns of Tir Ma'ala, Quaryatayn (south of Homs), Talbiseh (north of Homs) and near the village of Maksar al-Hassaan in the east of the province. The army reported a heavy death toll among the terrorists.
Schools remain closed in areas under curfews, civilian death toll along with the number of displaced people rises as bloody clashes between government forces and local youth resistance continue across major Kurdish towns in Turkey's southeast, according to multiple reports.
Ozturk Turkdogan, a prominent Turkish human rights activist expressed grave concern about the current situation, in which civilians, including women and children, are being killed every day, he claimed, while the government is preventing human rights activists from visiting the areas under blockade.
Comment: Turkey's current leadership says that they have an 'obligation, responsibility and right to provide security and comfort' to their citizens even as they bomb, humiliate, and terrorize thousands of them. This is criminal madness, and, as a remedy, these criminals should see the inside of the justice system.
Also see: Turkey's terror state: 150 civilians dead in one week as Erdogan promises to 'annihilate' more
One of the major advantages of being a NATO member is that you are allowed to conduct military operations in any country of your choosing, with minimal (or no) news coverage and absolutely zero debate.
This delightful perk is more or less written into NATO's charter. And it's been an especially perky perk with regards to Libya —once the richest, most developed nation in North Africa; now a moon crater.
NATO's "no fly zone" was actually a highly coordinated air and ground campaign to topple (and ultimately murder) Gaddafi. The power vacuum created by the complete destruction of Libya has created a "democracy" plagued by warring tribes and general anarchy, in which the NATO-backed "legitimate" government is not even in control of Tripoli.
Comment: The US and NATO's war of aggression against Libya destroyed a thriving and peaceful country and turned it into a hell on earth. See more:
- Western media AWOL as 'Islamic State' regroups in Libya: Interview with James & Joanne Moriarty
- NATO Slaughter: James and Joanne Moriarty expose the truth about what happened in Libya
- NATO's "humanitarian intervention" in Libya has unleashed unprecedented suffering
- Killary's dirty war in Libya: New emails reveal 'rebel' war crimes, links with Al Qaeda, jockeying for Libyan oil and more
- Cynthia McKinney on War Crimes in Libya: NATO used depleted uranium and DIME-inert bombs on civilian population
- Gaddafi's Libya was Africa's most prosperous democracy
- 16 Things Libya Will Never See Again
"According to internal (government) plans German soldiers could, along with Italian colleagues, within months begin training the Libyan armed forces," the news magazine said, adding, "This would involve 150-200 Bundeswehr (German armed forces) troops."
Officials in Germany's Defense Ministry have yet to comment on the issue, although the report comes one day after the European Union, the body in which Germany has effectively the final say on security and defense cases, urged rival administrations in Libya to back a unity government, as demanded by the United Nations.
Comment: The EU has pledged 100M Euros to install a Libyan "unity" government.
Libya has been in chaos four years after dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled and later killed in October 2011. The internationally recognized government, based in Tobruk, eastern Libya, has been vying to recapture the capital, Tripoli, from the militants of the Libya Dawn movement. Takfiri groups, including Daesh terrorists, are also operating in Libya. There are fears of a spillover of violence into Europe.
Comment: A couple hundred armed German troops and "Italian colleagues" to train Libyan troops to fight Daesh...what does this signify? The EU is afraid. With Libya currently an ISIS-designated safe haven, complete with oil fields and facilities, the Islamic State and other hellacious factions are at EU's doorstep. For as long as it will take for the finagling Western cabal to infiltrate and dictate the new Libyan state, ISIS and cohorts will have a home base, protected and provided for by their creators. Europe is buying time. This black hole is on trajectory to get bigger.
Whistleblowers, Ecocide, top secret trade deals, and shady ties between the Islamic State and the West's closest allies...here are a few hot topics the mainstream media barely covered in 2015.
2016 hasn't had an auspicious start, from the New Year's Eve assaults in Cologne, Germany, to the DOW's worst first week in nearly a decade. In Cologne reports say a 1000-strong mob of 'migrants' caused mayhem, sexually assaulting at least 100 women in the streets. What does this event mean, and what does it portend for the future? Join us as we discuss this and other news from the new year.
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Russia has just taken significant steps that will break the present Wall Street oil price monopoly, at least for a huge part of the world oil market. The move is part of a longer-term strategy of decoupling Russia's economy and especially its very significant export of oil, from the US dollar, today the Achilles Heel of the Russian economy.
Later in November the Russian Energy Ministry has announced that it will begin test-trading of a new Russian oil benchmark. While this might sound like small beer to many, it's huge. If successful, and there is no reason why it won't be, the Russian crude oil benchmark futures contract traded on Russian exchanges, will price oil in rubles and no longer in US dollars. It is part of a de-dollarization move that Russia, China and a growing number of other countries have quietly begun.
The setting of an oil benchmark price is at the heart of the method used by major Wall Street banks to control world oil prices. Oil is the world's largest commodity in dollar terms. Today, the price of Russian crude oil is referenced to what is called the Brent price. The problem is that the Brent field, along with other major North Sea oil fields is in major decline, meaning that Wall Street can use a vanishing benchmark to leverage control over vastly larger oil volumes. The other problem is that the Brent contract is controlled essentially by Wall Street and the derivatives manipulations of banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP MorganChase and Citibank.
Comment: In 2015 Russia put Washington's imperial conquests in a major bind, and woke much of the globe up to the West's genocide in the Middle East and North Africa. And in 2016 the push to end Washington's stranglehold on the world continues. Buckle in!
Also see:

Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, Alaeddin Boroujerdi
The US is creating obstacles in the way of implementing the nuclear agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to express its dissatisfaction with its absence in Iran's markets, Chairman of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said on Friday. The US sought to advance its own economic interests in the JCPOA but we are witnessing in practice that the United States has been denied the chance for presence in Iran's markets, Boroujerdi added.
In a letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on October 21, 2015, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei enumerated certain points on the implementation of the JCPOA and issued directives to be heeded in that regard, among them the government's duty to check the imports of goods from the US.
Congress to vote on fresh new sanctions
The Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would limit President Barack Obama's ability to lift anti-Iran sanctions as stipulated in the JCPOA. The bill is designed to prevent the removal of certain Iranian individuals and financial institutions from the US Treasury Department's sanctions list, until Obama assures Congress that they were not involved in Iran's ballistic missiles program or alleged terrorist activities.
Comment: According to the US House of Reprehensibles: Iran is guilty until proven innocent.
See also: Russia: Iran's missile program no basis for new US sanctions
On January 7, Britain's Sky News headlined "Exclusive: UK Helping Saudi's Yemen Campaign" - allied with Washington, complicit in high crimes against peace.
Yemenis are being mass slaughtered, civilians harmed most, indiscriminately targeted.
Britain already supplies Riyadh with terror weapons. "Sky sources confirmed that six (UK) experts are working with Saudi targeteers who select locations for attack" - including residential areas, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, food storage areas, mosques and other nonmilitary sites.
Comment: For more examples of this blatant criminality, see:














Comment: If it was Saudi Arabia's plan to isolate Iran through these executions it looks like its plans are backfiring. Also see: