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Putin Delivers Landmark 'State of The Union' Speech: Puts The Smack Down on US, Shows Off Latest Russian Nuclear Weapons

Niall Bradley
Sott.net
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 17:06 UTC
putin speech
© Grigoriy Sisoev / Sputn
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall
Russian president Vladimir Putin today delivered a landmark address to the Russian Federal Assembly - a joint session of the two chambers of the Russian Parliament - in what is the Russian equivalent of an annual 'State of the Union' speech.

Despite its name, the audience of the address is not limited to Russian legislators. Members of the cabinet, senior civil servants and important public figures are also invited. There were so many people invited this year that the event was moved from its traditional venue at the Georgievsky reception hall in the Grand Palace of the Kremlin to the larger venue at Moscow's Manege.

Taking advantage of the new venue's better multimedia capabilities, Putin announced that Russia has developed a number of advanced weapons systems, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile which render all US capabilities aimed at undermining the Russian nuclear deterrent - including its anti-missile systems - obsolete.
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Binoculars

Thierry Meyssan claims Russian infantry are now in Syria - Damascus and Assad fully protected

Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire Network
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 22:33 UTC
shoigu bortnikov putin

Vladimir Putin (President of the Russian Federation) and General Alexander Bortnikov (Director of Russian Counter-Intelligence - FSB)
Over the last four years, all commentators have underlined the impossibility for Russia to deploy ground troops against the jihadists in Syria at the risk of reliving their defeat in Afghanistan. But what is true if Moscow confronts Washington by proxy is false if the two great powers agree not only on the future of Syria, but the whole region. Thierry Meyssan was the first journalist in the world to announce the arrival of the Russian army in Syria in 2015. He is today the first to announce the deployment of its infantry.
Washington has decided to relegate its project for the destruction of states and societies in the Greater Middle East to second place in its preoccupations, and to concentrate its forces on opposing the Chinese project for the Silk Road. This has apparently been implemented by President Donald Trump and the Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull (representing the British), on 24 February at the White House.

This is not just the traditional conflict between the Anglo-Saxon maritime Empire on one side and the land-based Chinese project on the other. It also concerns the potential threat that Chinese industry represents for the whole of the developed world. To put it simply, while in Antiquity, Europeans were eager to obtain Chinese silks, today, all the Western powers fear having to the compete with Chinese cars.

Since Beijing has abandoned the project of re-opening the Silk Road along its historic route through Mosul and Palmyra, the United States have nothing to gain by sponsoring jihadists to create a Caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.

Comment: What's the difference between Aleppo and Ghouta? It seems the Russians may have simply upped their game.

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Stormtrooper

Child-torturing Israel says Mohammed Tamimi 'Confessed' to Falling Off Bike Rather Than Being Shot in Head

Andrés Perezalonso
Sott.net
Wed, 28 Feb 2018 22:47 UTC
Tamimi family
© Abbas Momani / Agence France-Presse
Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas (C-back) receives at his headquarters in Ramallah on September 2, 2015, the Tamimi family.
Days after Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi was imprisoned for slapping an Israeli soldier in her hometown of Nabi Saleh, members of her extended family living in Deir Nitham were threatened by an Israeli captain during a raid: "The day will come when you wish you are not a Tamimi." In early January, the Tamimis from Deir Nitham buried 16 year old Musaab al-Tamimi after he was shot on the neck during clashes with Israeli soldiers. Musaab was the first Palestinian killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in 2018.

The long-term resistance of Tamimi family to the Israeli occupation is becoming something of an obsession for Israeli authorities. In some cases, they are losing their grip on reality. Two years ago, Knesset member and former ambassador to the US Michael Oren initiated a parliamentary committee investigation to find out if the Tamimis were "not a real family... not genuine, and was specially put together for propaganda" purposes by the Palestinians, in which case this would represent "exploitation of children". Unsurprisingly, this conspiracy theory "didn't reach unequivocal conclusions."

Contrary to Oren's show of concern for the Tamimi children, the IDF has targeted members of the family irrespective of their age or innocence. On the 26th of February at 3 a.m., the Israeli military raided Nabi Saleh and arrested ten members of the Tamimi family for no apparent reason. Half of them are minors, including Ahed's cousin Mohammed. The arrests were carried out after collectively punishing the neighbourhood by spraying it with 'skunk water', a putrid substance normally used to disperse crowds:

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Hourglass

Racist? Unhinged? You'd be Perfect For The UK Labour Party

Tom Chambers
Sott.net
Wed, 28 Feb 2018 22:15 UTC
Jeremy Corbyn Monroe Bergdorf
© Chris Jepson
Jeremy Corbyn (left) with Labour's newest outspoken racist adviser, Monroe Bergdorf (radical left)
"When one sees him, a ruler must be a paragon of mercy, loyalty, humanness, integrity and scrupulousness. Indeed, there's nothing more important than appearing to have this last quality, for the common people are impressed by appearances and results."

Niccolò Machiavelli
Remember when rival political parties would dig up dirt on each other? Anything would do: this guy once took a train journey and never paid for it; this one threw a candy bar wrapper on the street; this one once said women love it when he grabs them by the pussy; you know, silly stuff.

For the longest time, the public have always needed those involved with running their countries to be squeaky clean. People need that ideal to project onto, because they know they themselves are not perfect. Yet regardless of how great the leader in question might have seemed, 'ordinary' people really knew deep down that the leader wasn't perfect, but so long as their sins were kept under the rug, it didn't matter.
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Fire

Top four countries where US was both 'arsonist and firefighter'


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Feb 2018 21:56 UTC
Doors,UncleSam
© Republic Broadcasting Network/KJN
On February 27, US Army General Joseph Votel blamed Russia for "playing both arsonist and firefighter, fueling tensions among all parties in Syria... then serving as an arbitrator, to resolve disputes, attempting to undermine and weaken each party's bargaining positions."

The United States has always introduced itself as a Messiah with the responsibility to protect. But has anyone invited Washington to demonstrate its destructive... oops, defensive strategy? So, here's a blast from the past with Sputnik's special selection of four countries where Washington had taken on the roles of "arsonist and firefighter," fanning the flames and then trying to extinguish them (not so much).

Afghanistan

In 2001, in response to the horrifying 9/11 attacks in the United States, then-president George Bush announced the Global War on terrorism and the beginning of the operation, codenamed Enduring Freedom, to target al-Qaeda and the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Washington has been mired in the never-ending war for over sixteen years, and despite its initial advances during the campaign, today the Taliban controls about one-third of Afghanistan, "more territory than at any point since the US-led invasion." But has the plight changed a bit since the launch of Enduring Freedom?

Comment: The 'American benefactor and military protector' illusion is pretty much over and done with. There is no hiding the creature it has become.

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Pistol

'Take the guns first', Trump parts with Republicans over gun-control plan

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 05:16 UTC
Trump meeting
© Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Update: US Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE). a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement regarding President Trump's comments today on due process and the Second Amendment:
"Strong leaders don't automatically agree with the last thing that was said to them. We have the Second and due process of low for a reason. We're not ditching any Constitutional protections simply because the last person the President talked to today doesn't like them."
President Trump told a group of lawmakers that they must do something to keep guns away from mentally ill individuals - even if that means raising the minimum age for rifle ownership to 21, Bloomberg reports.

His remarks appeared to contradict a CNN report from earlier in the week, which quoted anonymous White House aides saying Trump would soon walk back his support for raising the age limit.

But on Wednesday, in what the New York Times characterized as a "shocking" break with his Republican Congressional allies,Trump told lawmakers during a televised meeting in the Cabinet Room that easing gun owners' ability to carry concealed weapons across state lines, a provision of the House-passed gun bill and the NRA's top legislative priority, should be part of a separate bill, a strategy favored by Democrats.

Comment: "Guns and 'Proses'"
See also: New gun policies won't stop mass shootings but maybe personal responsibility will

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Star of David

Israeli Major General Barak: Killing Hezbollah's leader would be a 'decisive victory'


Sputnik
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 15:12 UTC
Nasrallah
© Naharnet
Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Hezbollah, which is Lebanon's de facto military force, is regarded as a terrorist organization by a number of countries, including Israel, the US, Canada and the Arab League.

Killing Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, would be a "decisive victory" in a future Israeli war against Lebanon, Major General Yaakov Barak said Wednesday as quoted by the Haaretz news outlet. "If we manage to kill Nasrallah in the next war, I would see that as reaching a decisive victory," Barak said.

According to the Israeli military official, a potential future war with Lebanon will be different, as Israeli forces are "ready and prepared" to penetrate deeper and quicker into Lebanon's territory. "The next war will not be a war of several days, but it won't last several months either," Barak noted.

The general's comments come several months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief spokesperson acknowledged that his country was already engaged in "psychological and media warfare" against Lebanon's Hezbollah and that Hassan Nasrallah, "would be a target for assassination" in any war between them.

Comment: Should Hezbollah be worried?

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Vader

Israel is now arming at least seven rebel groups in Syria

Asa Winstanley
Middle East Monitor
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 20:07 UTC
Israeli forces at the Golan Heights border
© Escla/Wikipedia
Israeli forces at the Golan Heights border
The illegal Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights has now been in place for more than 50 years. This substantial territory, part of southern Syria, was conquered by Israeli occupation forces in the 1967war.

The majority of the Syrian population in the territory was then either expelled, or fled towards safety. Israel demolished their homes, buildings and entire villages in the Golan in order to build Jewish settlements where they once stood.

In 1981, in defiance of the United Nations and international law, Israel annexed the Golan Heights. This move - unrecognised even by Israel's allies - was intended to solidify Israel's de facto control of the occupied Syrian territory, giving it a gloss of legalistic self-recognition. What's more, over the past few years Israel has used the cover of the long-running and bloody war in Syria to expand its control of the Golan, far into the rest of the south of its neighbour's sovereign territory; it wants as much control as possible.

As I wrote here last summer, Israel is now establishing a buffer zone in the south of Syria, extending from the Golan. Working with local proxies in the south, Israel is establishing what its front organisations claim is a "safe zone".

Read: Israel suffers major setback in Syria
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No Entry

'No UK Prime Minister could ever agree to it' - May rejects EU's N. Ireland plan


RT
Thu, 01 Mar 2018 19:49 UTC
No Border
© Clodagh Kilcoyne / Reuters
Theresa May has rejected the EU's plan to include Northern Ireland in a future customs union. "No UK Prime Minister could ever agree to it," she told Parliament, as it would jeopardize "the constitutional integrity of the UK."

The European Commission's plan contravenes the Prime Minister's stance on Northern Ireland. In essence, May's position is that Northern Ireland will be under the same regulations as the rest of the UK post-Brexit, and will consequently have to leave the EU customs union.

In a private letter, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson urged the PM not to pursue a "no border" policy for Ireland post-Brexit. Rather the government should "stop this border becoming significantly harder," according to the letter, which leaked to Sky News.

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Bad Guys

Remember that time the US used a secret social media operation to stir unrest and undermine the Cuban government?


The Guardian
Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:58 UTC
cuban students
© Ramon Espinosa/AP
Students gather behind a business looking for a internet signal for their smartphones in Havana
In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a US government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government.

McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government, they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit unsuspecting executives who would not be told of the company's ties to the US government.

McSpedon didn't work for the CIA. This was a program paid for and run by the US Agency for International Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in US humanitarian aid.

Comment: Next time you see unrest in some foreign country on social media, remember this article. The US government has long used its deep reach within the tech industry as a tool for manufacturing chaos. This is nothing new for most of our readers, but it stands to highlight the utter hypocrisy and projections of the US campaign against Russia.

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