Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

Propaganda trance: 2014 NDAA approved while media 'ducks out'

Susanne Posel
Susanne Posel Daily Headline News
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 12:27 UTC
obama - ndaa
As if history were repeating itself, the approval of the 2014 Fiscal National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Capitol Hill was over-shadowed by a trivial controversy that was hyped by media.

Two years ago, President Obama signed the first NDAA during New Year's Eve after publically protesting the legislation and threatening to veto.

Just this week, while the public has been distracted with drama and sensational news headlines, the lawmakers presented Obama with the current approved version of police state legislation that hand over $607 billion to the Pentagon, $527 to build bases across the globe and $80 billion to finance global military operations.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the 2014 NDAA "is legislation that ... puts muscle behind America's most important strategic objectives around the globe."

Senator Jay Rockefeller ensured that attached as a rider to the 2014 NDAA, proposal S 1353, there would be CISPA-like measures to maintain cybersecurity efforts with the backing and support of the federal government.

Rockefeller said his bill "creates an environment that will cultivate the public-private partnerships essential to strengthening our nation's cybersecurity. I've always thought this was a great way to emphasize the critical need for a public-private approach when it comes to solving our most pressing cybersecurity issues."
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Control Panel

North Korea threatens to 'strike South Korea mercilessly'

K. J. Kwon
CNN
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 23:51 UTC

North Korea sent a fax to South Korea on Thursday, threatening to "strike mercilessly without notice" after protests against the secretive regime this week in Seoul.

The message warned that North Korea would strike if "the provocation against our highest dignity is to be repeated in the downtown of Seoul."

Earlier this week, on the second anniversary of the death of former North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, conservative protesters rallied in Seoul, burning effigies of the country's leaders as well as its flag. Such protests are common during North Korean festivals and anniversaries.

The South Korea's Ministry of National Defense said it sent a response.
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War Whore

Flashback Saakashvilli admits Georgia started war

Sheilanagig
Less is more
Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:40 UTC
Saakashvili
© Unknown
For the first time ever, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has admitted that his country started the military conflict in South Ossetia in August. But the Georgian leader is adamant the action was justified. He was testifying before a parliamentary commission investigating the five-day war.

According to Saakashvili, the attack on the South Ossetian capital, which involved night shelling of residential areas with multiple rocket launcher systems, was aimed at protecting Georgian citizens. He said it was a response to Russia's "intervention" in the region.

"We did start military action to take control of Tskhinvali and other unruly areas. But we took this difficult decision to fend off our territory from intervention and save the people who were dying. It was inevitable," Saakavili said.

The Georgian President claims Russia moved tanks into South Ossetian territory before Georgia launched its attack.

He said: "The issue is not about why Georgia started military action - we admit we started it. The issue is about whether there was another chance when our citizens were being killed? We tried to prevent the intervention and fought on our own territory."

Comment: Interestingly the plans for a war had been several years in the planning, despite Saakashvili denying it. A blog posted dated Oct. 19, 2006 states that precisely such a war is in the planning. The following was posted by a user called Lolly:
"Moreover it's well-known that according to secret Saakashvili's order all Georgian businessmen in Russia have been forced to send substuncial part of their income to homeland for military operation against Abkhazia and South Ossetia preparing."


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Bad Guys

Flashback The departure of Georgia's Saakashvili

Stephen Lendman
Steve Lendman Blog
Sat, 02 Nov 2013 06:22 UTC
Saakashvili
© Unknown
Wall Street Journal editors call him "Georgia's Washington." Turning truth on its head is official editorial policy. More on how they reinvented a first class thug below.
On October 27, Georgians elected Giorgi Margvelashvili president. He won decisively. He'll replace Mikheil Saakashvili.
He'll have less power. Constitutional amendments shifted it more to the prime minister and parliament.

Sunday's vote marked the end of an era. It didn't come a moment too soon. Georgians deplored Saakashvili's ruthlessness. Despotism defined his rule.
He backed David Bakradze. He finished second with less than 22% of the vote. Former parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze got slightly over 10%. Margvelashvili got over 62%.

In a televised speech, Saakashvili called his election a "serious deviation" from how he governed. Ordinary Georgians surely hope so.
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Eye 1

Video: Why MP George Galloway is Killing Tony Blair


youtube.com
Sun, 22 Dec 2013 06:23 UTC

Abby Martin speaks with British Parliamentarian George Galloway, discussing his upcoming film 'The Killing of Tony Blair', and his brand new show on RT, 'Sputnik: Orbiting the world with George Galloway.'

Source: RT
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Heart - Black

US helps Colombia kill FARC leaders: Report


RT
Sun, 22 Dec 2013 04:38 UTC
Colombian soldiers
© UnknownColombian soldiers patrol across a field in a mountainous area in the town of Miranda in the country’s Cauca department.

US intelligence agencies have secretly helped the Colombian government kill at least two dozen leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a report says.

On Saturday, the Washington Post published the report revealing that both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) provided the Colombian government with technology to terminate the rebel leaders.

The report was based on interviews with more than 30 former and current American and Colombian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity since the program is classified and ongoing, the newspaper said.

According to the report, Washington provided Colombia with Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment that can be used to transform regular munitions into so-called smart bombs.

These explosives can accurately pinpoint specific targets, even if the objects are located in dense jungles.

Comment: Colombia is a brutal regime, where opposition figures and union leades are regularly killed, yet no international outcry or call for democracy and freedom. The reason is that Colombia is a client state of the US and western corporations.

From Justice for Colombia:
Colombia is infamous for being the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. According to the database of the CUT trade union federationi, nearly 2,800 union activists have been assassinated since the CUT was established in 1986. Contrary to claims sometimes made by Colombian officials, all of these men and women were killed as a direct result of their trade union activities.ii

As of the end of June 2010 at least 32 trade unionists - more than one per week - had been murdered.iii This is the highest rate of killings for some years, again contradicting official accounts which allege that the numbers of murders are falling.

In addition to the assassinations, nearly 200 trade union activists have been forcibly disappearedvi whilst others have been subjected to arbitrary imprisonment or physical attacks. Torture of trade unionists has also been well documented and trade unions and their members receive regular death threats, leading to many thousands of members fleeing their homes and jobs, sometimes into exile abroad.


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Bad Guys

Ruthless and corrupt totalitarian Georgia's Saakashvili to lecture at US school for diplomats


RIA Novosti
Sun, 22 Dec 2013 02:40 UTC
Saakashvili
© UnknownIronic that this pathological war monger is going to teach diplomats!
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will give lectures as a senior statesman at the famous US school for diplomats in Boston starting from January.

A US-educated lawyer and leader of 'The Rose Revolution' in 2003, Saakashvili, 46, who has become increasingly unpopular at home, stepped down in November after serving two terms as president. His rule was defined by closer ties with the US and deteriorated relations with Russia which hit a low after a brief military conflict in August 2008 over South Ossetia.

The former Georgian leader, who has not been seen in Georgia since last month, will conduct major addresses and lectures on European governance and other contemporary international and regional issues at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, the school said in a statement.

Comment: Saakashvili's time as head of Georgia, was marked by ruthless crackdown on opposition figures, torture of prisoners and of course the illegal aggressive war on South Ossetia. It is somehow befitting that he will teach diplomacy in the US, not because he has any sense of what real diplomacy is but because the US only knows of gun diplomacy, which is something Saakashvili has personal experience with.

For more on Saakashvili:
Connecting the Dots: The Axis of Evil Steps on the Bear's Tail Under a Nuclear Fallout
Georgia's Interior Minister resigns over prisoners torture scandal
The departure of Georgia's Saakashvili
Saakashvilli admits Georgia started war

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Bomb

NATO starts negotiating its forces' status in Afghanistan after 2014


RT
Sun, 22 Dec 2013 03:41 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Omar SobhaniU.S. troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) keep watch at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, February 27, 2013.
NATO has begun negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan without waiting until the Karzai government signs the security deal with the US, the Pentagon and NATO have announced.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed that negotiations have begun between NATO senior civilian representative Maurits Jochems and Afghan national security adviser Rangin Spanta.

"I welcome the start of these talks today... while stressing that the NATO Status of Forces Agreement will not be concluded or signed until the signature of the Bilateral Security Agreement between the governments of Afghanistan and the United States," Rasmussen said in a statement.

NATO's chief added that SOFA is vital for NATO's "mission to train, advise and assist" the Afghan army and police after 2014.

The alliance's decision demonstrates "the international community's willingness to support Afghanistan after 2014," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.

"But, as both the NATO Secretary General and Secretary Hagel have made clear, the Alliance won't finalize their agreement with the Bilateral Security Agreement still hanging in the balance."

Comment: "...the rights and privileges of foreign personnel in a host country " Oh, is that what they're calling it now?
A host country? Will they be 'hosting' 84,000 armed-to-the-teeth NATO troops? So NATO forces bomb Afghanistan to kingdom come, and now wants 84,000 troops deployed there for 'extra' security - for foreign personnel.

Notice how all the 'rights and privileges' being discussed seem to conveniently omit the citizens of Afghanistan? What rights and privileges do Afghanis possess in their destroyed country? Nobody ever seems to mention it. Do you really wonder why the U.S. Defense budget keeps climbing into the ionosphere?

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Laptop

Spain fines Google €900,000 for breaching privacy laws

Rick McCormick
The Verge
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 20:43 UTC
Image
© Editoreales.com
Earlier this year, the French independent administrative authority CNIL advised six European countries to take action over Google's privacy policies. Now Spain has become the first of the six to fine the search giant, demanding €900,000 ($1.24 million) for breaching the nation's privacy laws. The Wall Street Journal reports that the fine, administered by the Spanish Agency for Data Protection, is for three legal breaches: "gathering data on users, combining the data through several services and keeping the data indefinitely without the knowledge or consent of users."
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Bandaid

MacBook webcams can spy on their users without warning

Ashkan Soltani and Timothy B. Lee
The Washington Post
Wed, 18 Dec 2013 14:25 UTC
Image
© Picsbox.bizMacBook webcam above display screen

The woman was shocked when she received two nude photos of herself by e-mail. The photos had been taken over a period of several months - without her knowledge - by the built-in camera on her laptop.

Fortunately, the FBI was able to identify a suspect: her high school classmate, a man named Jared Abrahams. The FBI says it found software on Abrahams's computer that allowed him to spy remotely on her and numerous other women.

Abrahams pleaded guilty to extortion in October. The woman, identified in court papers only as C.W., later identified herself on Twitter as Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf. While her case was instant fodder for celebrity gossip sites, it left a serious issue unresolved.

Most laptops with built-in cameras have an important privacy feature - a light that is supposed to turn on any time the camera is in use. But Wolf says she never saw the light on her laptop go on. As a result, she had no idea she was under surveillance.

That wasn't supposed to be possible. While controlling a camera remotely has long been a source of concern to privacy advocates, conventional wisdom said there was at least no way to deactivate the warning light. New evidence indicates otherwise.
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