Welcome to Sott.net
Wed, 03 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Bizarro Earth

Pay attention World: The Dark Ages may return soon

Phil Butler
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 13:10 UTC
Russian 9M728 cruise missiles, left, and 9M723 short-range ballistic missiles, right
© Russian MOD
Russian 9M728 cruise missiles, left, and 9M723 short-range ballistic missiles, right.
"There's gold in them thar missiles," cried US President Donald Trump. And, no, I am not reporting on the Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel comedic film from 1934, "Them Thar Hills." Today's nuclear comedy will end tragically. Finally, with no other options on his desktop, Russian President Vladimir Putin makes his counterplay - Russia will enter a new arms race. The decision by Washington and Moscow to withdraw from a nuclear weapons treaty is the start of an unspeakable travesty for billions of people. Here's why missile manufacturers should go broke.

The undeclared war on Russia the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations were too chicken to announce, it has cost humanity tens of trillions of dollars, and a hundred trillion more to come. In order to maintain a failed super-capitalism and a successful hegemony, Washington and her allies have blistered the world the last few decades inventing terror, launching wars, and pirating untold resources from countries President Donald Trump affectionately calls - "shit holes." Now, in the infinite financial wisdom of Trump's handlers (Israel or whoever), it's time for a weapons buildup like the world has never seen before. The Guardian frames the recent reversal of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty:
"Unless Moscow and Washington unexpectedly rediscover the spirit of detente, the INF treaty is finished. A global monument to the triumph of diplomatic rationality over militaristic paranoia is being pulled down."
Now for what this really means for you and me and the rest of the "normal" human beings on Earth.
      Read More...
Toys

Brexit: UK asks for another extension, Tusk's 12 month 'flextension', and possible MEP elections


BBC
Fri, 05 Apr 2019 09:57 UTC
brexit letter tusk
© Reuters/Francois Lenoir
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to European Council President, Donald Tusk on Friday.
Theresa May has written to the European Union to request a further delay to Brexit until 30 June.

The UK is currently due to leave the EU on 12 April and, as yet, no withdrawal deal has been approved by MPs.

The government has been in talks with the Labour Party to try and find a compromise to put to the Commons.

But shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said the Tory negotiating team had offered no changes to Mrs May's original deal.

The PM said from the outset she wanted to keep her withdrawal agreement as part of any plan, but was willing to discuss the UK's future relationship with the EU - addressed in the deal's political declaration.

Comment: RT reports:
European leaders unimpressed by May's Brexit extension request

Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, said the request "raises many questions" and the letter is not enough to grant a further extension. Rutte added that he hopes the UK will give more clarity before the next EU summit on April 10.

"We, as the European Union, have set very clear deadlines and there is no reason to further extend those deadlines," Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told the Straubinger Tagblatt newspaper.

"Unless the facts in Britain change. But we have not yet reached this point."

Those comments were echoed by Germany's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, who said that there are "many questions still to clarify in London".

"We will come together with our European colleagues at the next council meeting and come to an opinion over the question of an extension and how long such an extension should be," Maas said.

This prompted a pointed remark from a diplomatic source close to French President Emmanuel Macron, who decried the rumors of Brussels granting Britain another extension to the deadline for leaving the union as "clumsy" and "premature."

"[There is a] need for a credible alternative plan justifying this request. We're not there today," the source told Reuters. "In any case, we need a clear plan from London by Tuesday."


'Be careful what you wish for'

The European Parliament's Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, also cast doubt on Brussels' appetite for prolonging the Brexit crisis by referencing a tweet from prominent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg which argued that the UK should be "as difficult as possible" if an extension leaves it stuck in the EU. "Be careful what you wish for," Verhofstadt quipped.
See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

      Read More...
Cross

Polish Orthodox Church refuses to recognize Ukraine's "renegade" church


RT
Fri, 05 Apr 2019 15:45 UTC
Petro Poroshenko
© Reuters / Valentyn Ogirenko
Participants, including Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, attend a ceremony to enthrone Metropolitan Epifaniy
The Polish Orthodox Church has said that it does not recognize the newly-created Orthodox structure in Ukraine supported by Constantinople and Kiev. A religious body cannot be led by a group of "renegades," it said.

What the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has done by declaring the newly formed 'Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU)' autocephalous or independent from the Moscow Patriarchate, which the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church belongs to, goes against the church norms and violates the Orthodox Churches' unity, the Holy Council of Bishops of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church said in a statement, clarifying its stance on the issue.

Although, the council noted that it generally supports the idea of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, it still said that such a move should be based on the canonical norms and accepted by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and not just a group of schismatic priests.

Comment: Will Poland's government be as willing to sell out their church to the US as Ukraine was?

      Read More...
Bad Guys

BBC & friends conjure up baseless claim German MP against Russian sanctions is 'Kremlin agent'


RT
Fri, 05 Apr 2019 15:52 UTC
putin pirate
© FILE PHOTO Reuters / Fabian Bimmer
US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's search for a Russian hand may be fruitlessly over, but the greater hunt for the Kremlin bogeyman is not. Mainstream media are finding new targets, the latest being an opposition MP in Germany.

On Friday, the BBC dropped a fresh (-ish) bombshell: a German politician, it claims, could be "absolutely controlled" by Russia. Its sources are alleged emails, sent between Russian officials, provided in 2017 by an anti-Putin tycoon's "investigative" organization.

The MP in question is Markus Frohnmaier, from the right-wing opposition AfD party. He is not a surprising target, having spoken up against anti-Russian EU sanctions and taken trips to post-2014 Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Chess

Pentagon to deploy satellite capable of detecting Russian hypersonic missiles


Fort Russ
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 10:34 UTC
pentagon
© AP Photo /
U.S Undersecretary of Defense John Rood announced that the Pentagon is planning to start deploying "low cost" sensors into Earth's low-orbit, capable of detecting and launching hypersonic missile launches.

The announcement was made during a hearing on the US Senate Armed Services Committee, where Rood answered questions about how the US was fighting hypersonic weapons.

At the same time, the undersecretary gave no details on how the Pentagon plans to topple the missiles, noting that the military is working on developing ways to affect them during flight.

Comment: 200 missiles? More like a maximum of 200 warheads from 20 Bulava missiles, and all of them would not be nuclear warheads. Apparently, there are multiple types of warheads - including decoys - that would accompany actual nuclear warheads in each Bulava missile. As for US defenses, we'll see. Russia already has operational hypersonic missiles, new missile defense systems, and shiny new nukes. The USA is just starting to talk about it, and will no doubt spend $10 trillion per missile before anything actually lifts off the launchpad. This 'New Cold War' is great for business though, eh?

      Read More...
NPC

Ocasio-Cortez demands 'agenda of reparations' as 2020 Dems get on board

Adam Shaw
Fox News
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 10:42 UTC
ocasio cortez green deal
© Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and US Senator Ed Markey (R), Democrat of Massachusetts, speak during a press conference to announce Green New Deal legislation to promote clean energy programs outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, February 7, 2019.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called Friday for "examining and pursuing an agenda of reparations" as part of a lengthy list of proposals delivered before an Al Sharpton-sponsored conference in New York -- touting a controversial policy that's increasingly gained support from the 2020 field of Democratic presidential candidates.

Speaking about her cornerstone Green New Deal, which would entail a massive government-led overhaul of the economy and U.S. energy usage, the freshman Democrat also said the plan does not "shy away from bold conversations of health care, housing and education as human rights, of living wages and dignified work, of policy that isn't just drafted with the next election in mind but also with the next generation in mind."

She told the crowd at the National Action Network convention that such a generational attitude was the "underpinning" of a list of policies that include health care for all, free public college -- and reparations to black Americans for slavery.
      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Drug tests, stadium debate: Ukraine's presidential election turns into a reality TV show


RT
Fri, 05 Apr 2019 16:43 UTC
Valentyn Ogirenko; Poroshenko;
© Twitter /REUTERS/Wikipedia
Valentyn Ogirenko; Poroshenko;
The three weeks leading up to Ukraine's presidential run-off are set to become an all-out spectacle, as the two contenders - incumbent Petro Poroshenko and comedian Volodymyr Zelensky - stop at nothing in their absurd duel.

The comedian not only managed to win almost twice as many votes as the president in the first round, but has cranked up his trolling campaign to the max. A video of Zelensky accepting Poroshenko's challenge, and in turn setting his conditions for a duel, shows him fully tapping into his showman vibe. Walking in epic slow motion into the center of Ukraine's Olimpiyskiy stadium, with blues guitar music playing in the background, he speaks in his signature gravelly voice.

"You challenge me to a debate. Did you hope I would run, tune out, hide? No. I'm not you in 2014."

'2014' is a reference to Poroshenko's refusal to hold a similar debate that year with Yulia Tymoshenko, when he said war is no time for political shows. This time, however, he appears to be getting pulled into just that. Zelensky, who excels putting on a show, seems to be deliberately maneuvering his opponent into familiar ground. He is demanding that the debate takes place in that same Olimpiyskiy stadium, that every channel has the right to stream it, and no media is denied access.

Comment: Since the candidates can't promise Ukrainians an increase of bread, they'll have to put with the spectacle of circuses to keep them distracted from the dire state of the country instead:

      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Note to Team Mueller: Prosecution isn't a game of 'horseshoes or hand grenades'

John Solomon
The Hill
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 10:14 UTC
Mueller
© Christopher Morris/VII/Redux
SC Robert Mueller
I've covered the Justice Department for three decades, and seldom have I seen a story like the one published in The New York Times this week under the headline, "Some on Mueller's Team Say Report Was More Damaging Than Barr Revealed."

What concerned me most is that the story's anonymous allegations reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the role prosecutors play, including special counsels such as Robert Mueller.

The job of prosecutors is not, as the Times headline suggested, to pen "damaging" narratives about people they couldn't indict. And it's not their job to air those people's dirty laundry, or that of suspects outside of a grand jury room or a courtroom.
      Read More...
MIB

The curious man behind Nordic banking scandals: Bill Browder

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 05 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Swedbank
In recent days Sweden's largest mortgage bank, Swedbank, fired its CEO amid charges she was involved in a multi-billion dollar money laundering operation. Swedbank now joins Denmark's largest bank, Danske Bank, and several other European Union banks implicated in laundering what has been claimed amounts to more than $1 trillion in funds of Russian or Ukraine or other origin in recent years. As impressive as the scandal appears, equally interesting is the curious man triggering the scandals.

On March 28 Swedbank AB fired its CEO, Birgitte Bonnesen, amid allegations she was complicit in a conspiracy to launder billions of dollars in money from former Soviet Union states via Swedbank's Estonia branch. At present Swedish SVT television reports suggest the mortgage bank laundered as much as 20 billion euros ($23 billion) in questionable funds each year, between 2010 and 2016 in Estonia, which, if true, would total some $140 billion. Swedbank allegedly also misled US authorities on its suspicious customer activities. Reportedly the Swedbank Estonia violations are tied to the even more dramatic allegations that Denmark's largest bank, Danske Bank, laundered an eye-popping $230 billion via its Estonia operation. Bonnesen was in charge of Swedbank's Baltic banking operations from 2011-2014.
      Read More...
Newspaper

Israeli election ploy? Trump may declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a 'terrorist organization'


RT
Fri, 05 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Iran's Revolutionary Guards
© Reuters / Morteza Nikoubazl
Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, the first such designation of another country's military, as early as next Monday.

The designation might come as early as Monday, three US officials told Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, speaking on condition of anonymity. Such a move would be a major escalation of the Trump administration's policy of pressure on Iran, which began with the pullout from the nuclear deal last May and continued with reimposition of sanctions suspended under the 2015 agreement.

Comment: Trump's Golan decision is a megalomaniac's own goal

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts