Puppet Masters
"The coordinates of all of these targets were given to us by opposition representatives," senior military official Andrei Kartapolov said, without specifying which groups Moscow had cooperated with.
Kartapolov said Moscow's jets hit targets close to Palmyra, Der al-Zor, Ithriya and eastern Aleppo with assistance from the opposition, destroying "terrorist" command posts, munition stores and anti-aircraft artillery. Moscow has been bombing in Syria since Sept. 30, saying it is backing forces loyal to President Bashar Assad against ISIS and other "terrorist" groups.
But the U.S. and its allies involved in a separate air campaign against ISIS have accused Moscow of primarily hitting more moderate groups fighting against the Damascus government.
Moscow said it had set up "working coordination groups" aimed at bolstering the fight against ISIS, but said the identities of those involved were being kept secret. "Such close cooperation will allow us to unite the efforts of the government troops with other patriotic forces in Syria that used to be in the opposition and act as a united front against the common enemy - international terrorism," the defense ministry said in a statement.
Via Agence France-Presse
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is breaking its own rules and making a mockery of its global credibility by allowing Ukraine to default on its $3 billion debt to Russia, Trends Research Institute head Gerald Celente told Sputnik.
"Allowing Kiev to default on their $3 billion Eurobond deal with Russia is against IMF rules. But now they are ready to break their own rules," Celente said.
Goldman Sachs announced last month that its investment in a Utah preschool program had helped 109 "at-risk" kindergartners avoid special education. The investment also resulted in a $260,000 payout for the Wall Street firm, the first of many payments that is expected from the investment.Just when you think "Too Big to Fail and Jail" Wall Street can't stoop any lower, they go ahead and exceed expectations. The following story is so base, so disgusting, and so completely void of any semblance of ethics, it could only have been achieved by the Vampire Squid itself.
Yet since the Utah results were disclosed, questions have emerged about whether the program achieved the success that was claimed. Nine early-education experts who reviewed the program for The New York Times quickly identified a number of irregularities in how the program's success was measured, which seem to have led Goldman and the state to significantly overstate the effect that the investment had achieved in helping young children avoid special education.
Goldman said its investment had helped almost 99 percent of the Utah children it was tracking avoid special education in kindergarten. The bank received a payment for each of those children.
The big problem, researchers say, is that even well-funded preschool programs — and the Utah program was not well funded — have been found to reduce the number of students needing special education by, at most, 50 percent. Most programs yield a reduction of closer to 10 or 20 percent.
- From the New York Times article: Success Metrics Questioned in School Program Funded by Goldman
The scheme revolves around a crony practice that is increasingly being embraced within our Banana Republic economy: Public-Private Partnerships.
With the collapse of the Communist countries in the 1990's and their conversion to capitalism, followed by the advent of neo-liberal regimes throughout most of Latin America, Asia, Europe and North America, the imperial regimes in the US and EU have established a new political spectrum, in which the standards of acceptability narrowed and the definition of adversaries expanded.
Over the past quarter century, the US and EU turned their focus from systemic adversaries (anti-capitalist and anti-imperial states and movements) to attacking capitalist regimes, which (1) had adopted nationalist, re-distributive and Keynesian policies; (2) had opposed military interventions, coups and bases; (3) had aligned with non-Western capitalist powers; (4) had opposed Zionist colonization of Palestine and Gulf State-financed Islamist terrorists; (5) and had refuse to follow the financial agendas dictated by Wall Street and the City of London investment houses, speculators and vulture funds.
The Western imperial regimes (by which we mean the US, Canada and the EU) have exercised their political, military, economic and propaganda powers to (1) eliminate or limit the variety of capitalist options; (2) control the kinds of market-state relations; and (3) secure compliance through punitive military invasions, occupations and economic sanctions against targeted adversaries.
Comment: James Petras' excellent analysis captures an image not only of the 'Financial Troika', but of mainstream western media as a whole. A pathological reality where it's not democracy, the people or the truth that direct matters, but global corporations, the wealthy 'ruling elite' and the financial markets. It's a propaganda war that has been going on for decades, to the point where most are now blind to its influence and effects. SOTT.net has the antidote - The Truth!
- Truth or lies? Critical questions to ask yourself when consuming mainstream media
- US-sponsored human experimentation and mind control increasingly in mainstream media
- Mainstream media's schizophrenic attitude towards 'conspiracy theories
- 'Shocking! Mainstream Media Publishes the Truth: Vote all you want, the secret government won't change

Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) will hold landmark talks with his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore.
The meeting in Singapore coincides with rising anti-China sentiment in Taiwan ahead of the presidential and parliamentary polls in January which the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) is likely to lose to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which traditionally favors independence from China.
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who steps down next year due to term limits, has made improving economic links with China a key policy since he took office in 2008. He has signed landmark business and tourism deals, though there has been no progress in resolving their political differences.
Comment: Xi has a delicate balance to manage here and somehow normalize relations between China and Taiwan.
And the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron says the plane "may well have been brought down by an explosive device."
Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed Saturday in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula after breaking apart in midair, killing all 224 people on board. It was en route to St. Petersburg from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The latest U.S. intelligence suggests that the plane crash was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an ISIS affiliate, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
"There is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage or somewhere on the plane," the official said, stressing that no formal conclusion had been reached by the U.S. intelligence community.
Comment: There may well have been an explosion that contributed to the crash, but the question is whether the explosion was from a 'natural' or man-made event. In recent days, Western politicians have begun to spread the narrative that a bomb was responsible, which is understandable given that such power brokers are undoubtedly interested in preventing any speculation about a 'natural' cause of the crash. Why?
The relationship between the authorities of a country and the fate of the country and its people vis a vis celestial events - destructive events from the sky - is as old as human societies. The PTB today know this and that is why they want to keep a lid on any speculation about or evidence of the reality of "cosmic catastrophes".
Our 'leaders' would rather have the masses think that they are modifying weather with HAARP or chemtrails - which leaves them in control - than for people to know that what is happening is completely beyond the control of the established authorities. Because, of course, when people see that the cosmos is acting against them, they always blame the authorities!
In ancient times, under such circumstances, the priest king who was clearly not 'ritually pure' would have been sacrificed and a new king put in his place in an effort to appease the gods. Constantine's imposition of Christianity was an act of exactly this sort: there were comets, famines, plague and he was just pushing every button he could think of to try to get things to settle down.
In the case of the crash of the Russian plane over the Sinai, the available evidence is strongly suggestive of one of these 'cosmic events'.
The Influx is Engineered
However, evidence suggests that the latest influx of refugees is more than a mere predictable consequence of destroying entire regions of the planet with war and state-sponsored terrorism. In Turkey, where the US, EU, and Ankara itself have inexplicably invested billions of dollars in the construction of refugee camps of unprecedented scale, reports indicate that torrents of refugees have been intentionally organized and sent onward to Europe.
Comment: Imagine, also, that on top of this powder keg of mass migration, lack of humanitarian support, and an instigated racist and xenophobic response that is largely manufactured, that agents of ISIS/terrorism are also planted into the mix. What a perfect recipe for destabilizing the governments of Germany and others in order to shore up US-planned goals towards hegemonic control of Europe's power centers. US and Saudi-created ISIS mercenaries are just hired guns. They get deployed and relocated wherever they happen to be needed to do the Empire's dirty work:
"Ok Headchopper Unit 11, wanna get out of harm's way with Russia dropping bombs on your heads - how would you like to go to Europe for a little while? Go to the Camps in Turkey for a week where you'll receive more detailed instructions. Just lay low for a while, then find a way to join the next stream of refugees into Europe. Make sure you look pathetic and desperate and have a good story about losing your family. In a couple of months we'll locate you and give you instructions for the next operation."
And the reason to do this - straight from the horse's mouth:
The issue, to which we don't have the answers, what will Germany do? So, the real wild card in Europe is that as the United States builds its cordon sanitaire, not in Ukraine, but to the west, and the Russians try to figure out how to leverage the Ukrainians out; we don't know the German position. Germany is in a very peculiar position. Its former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is on the board of Gazprom. They have a very complex relationship to the Russians. The Germans themselves don't know what to do. They must export, the Russians can't take up the export. On the other hand, if they lose the free trade zone, they need to build something different.
For the United States the primordial fear is Russian capital, Russian technology ... I mean, German technology and German capital, Russian natural resources, Russian manpower, as the only combination that has for centuries scared the hell out of the United States. So how does this play out? Well, the US has already put its cards on the table. It is the line from the Baltics to the Black Sea.
For the Russians, their cards have always been on table. They must have at least a neutral Ukraine, not a pro-Western Ukraine. Belarus is another question. Now, whoever can tell me what the Germans are gonna do, is gonna tell me about the next 20 years of history, but unfortunately the Germans haven't made up their mind, and this is the problem of Germany always. Enormously economically powerful, geopolitically very fragile, and never quite knowing how to reconcile the two. Ever since 1871 this has been the German question, the question of Europe. Think about the German question, because now it's coming up again. That's the next question that we have to address and we don't know how to address it, we don't know what they are going to do.
Take a look and listen to their evidence when asked by Russia Today (RT) and then by journalist Matt Lee for details on the alleged bombing and on targeting civilian infrastructure.
Comment: Just another classic instance of the U.S. State Department or government representative getting caught up in another shameless lie about Russia's actions and intentions. You'd think by now they'd realize that any journalist worth their salt would catch them in their combustible bullshit, but they just keep churning it out to no end. Its a wonder that the State Department even allows a few real journalists into their press conferences these days; real journalists ask questions and try to verify stuff - they don't sit there recording and regurgitating the war party's line like mindless zombies.
Must read: U.S. scrambling to save face in Syria
And see also:
The delusional conspiracy theories of the State Department
The world according to Time magazine - mouthpiece of the U.S. State Department
"The total penalty issued by both agencies is $258 million," the Federal Reserve said in the statement.
The Federal Reserve's order, the statement noted, was issued in conjunction with an action by the New York State Department of Financial Services for violations of various New York state laws.
The order requires Deutsche Bank to implement an enhanced program to ensure global compliance with US sanctions administered by the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Federal Reserve added.
Comment: The US is using the banking system to 'punish' countries who don't follow the US' dictates. Could this policy backfire? Deutsche Bank is already having financial troubles:
- Is Deutsche Bank about to go down and take Europe with it?
- Global financial meltdown coming? Clear signs that the great derivatives crisis has now begun
Despite torrid weather and virtually no rain, the world's largest oil producer once grew so much of the grain that its exports could feed Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen. The circular wheat farms, half a mile across with a central sprinkler system, spread across the desert in the 1980s and 1990s, visible in spring to anyone overflying the Arabian peninsula as green spots amid a dun sea of sand.
The oilfields remain, but the last wheat farms have just disappeared to save the aquifers supplying them. For the first time, Saudi Arabia will rely almost completely on wheat imports in 2016, a reversal from its policy of self-sufficiency. It will become a full member of the club of Middle Eastern nations that, according to the commodity-trade adage, "sell hydrocarbons to buy carbohydrates."
Comment: Saudi Arabia is really having a tough time economically, not to mention internal political uncertainty.
- Bankrupting your allies: US manipulation of oil price bites Saudi Arabia
- IMF warns Saudi Arabia may be bankrupt by 2020
- Bye-bye petrodollar! Saudi Arabia on verge of bankruptcy due to war and rampant corruptionRussia overtakes
- Saudi Arabia as China's biggest oil supplier














Comment: Celente nails it again: the IMF bailout has failed and now it's completely rewriting the rules to suit its own purposes of financial domination. It's all just business as usual for the IMF.
For more from Gerald Celente: