Puppet MastersS


Whistle

Russia warns it may take extra nuclear deterrence steps if US deploys missiles in Europe/Asia


Reuters
Thu, 30 May 2024 15:32 UTC
Lavrov
© Ramil Sitdikov / SputnikFILE:
Russia may take extra steps in the area of nuclear deterrence if the United States deploys intermediate and short-range missiles in Europe and Asia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the state RIA news agency in an interview.
RIA referred to U.S. plans, announced in April, to deploy missiles in the Indo-Pacific region in response to what Washington sees as growing Chinese militarisation.

Such deployments would have previously been outlawed under the landmark 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia which the United States formally withdrew from in 2019 after saying that Moscow was violating the accord, an accusation the Kremlin denied.

Moscow has long warned it would scrap a moratorium it proposed after the treaty lapsed on the deployment of short and medium range missiles if Washington went ahead with plans to deploy such missiles in Asia and Europe.

Lavrov told RIA that Russia might have to take other steps too.

Comment: An understandable move considering the West-Ukraine's attack on Russian radar facilities, and their push to attack targets within Russia; in addition to the US stationing troops opposite China's coastline:
Ukraine's strike on Russia's strategic early warning radar site is a big deal



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Evil Rays

Negotiations for The Global Pandemic Treaty have broken down, but fear of what is coming next may revive them

Michael Snyder
The Most Important News
Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00 UTC
Corona world
The World Health Organization was hoping that there would be a vote on the global pandemic treaty at the World Health Assembly at the end of this month, but now that is not going to happen. Negotiations that were supposed to result in a final draft of the treaty have completely broken down, and that is great news because the treaty would have transferred a tremendous amount of authority to the World Health Organization. But if dengue fever continues to rip across the globe like it has been, or if H5N1 mutates into a form that can spread easily from person to person, fear of what is coming next could potentially revive the negotiations.


Comment: Not to mention the much hyped Disease X - likely being developed for dispersal as you read this.


On Friday, the WHO publicly admitted that negotiations had ended without producing a final draft of the treaty. The following comes from ABC News...
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Helicopter

Raisi helicopter probe raises more questions - Iran


RT
Wed, 29 May 2024 18:18 UTC
Rescue team members search an area near the crash site of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan, in northwestern Iran, on May 20, 2024.
© AZIN HAGHIGHI / MOJ News Agency / AFPRescue team members search an area near the crash site of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan, in northwestern Iran, on May 20, 2024.
Multiple causes of the fatal crash have been ruled out by investigators

Iranian investigators have yet to establish what caused the helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi, but have ruled out sabotage, the state broadcaster IRIB reported on Wednesday.

The US-made Bell 212 helicopter that carried Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian crashed on May 19 in the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, killing everyone on board. The General Staff of the Iranian military has been tasked with investigating the cause.

"An explosion that might have occurred as a result of sabotage during the flight, or a few seconds before the collision with the slope of the hill has been ruled out," said the statement issued by the General Staff, as reported by IRIB.

Comment: PressTV reported:
Investigation rules out sabotage in Iran's presidential helicopter crashWednesday, 29 May 2024 6:15 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 29 May 2024 6:36 PM ]
[...]
"Considering the sampling and tests conducted on the remains and parts of the helicopter and the pattern of their dispersion and the distance of the parts separated from the main body, the occurrence of an explosion due to sabotage during the flight and moments before the impact on the mountain slopes is ruled out," it said.

The report also said "no traces of electronic warfare were observed on the crashed helicopter."

It said the examination of documents related to the maintenance and repair of the crashed helicopter showed no issues that could have contributed to the accident.

The report also ruled out any communication system malfunction or frequency interference preventing the presidential helicopter from contacting the flight group.

The report said the examination of tests and analysis of data will continue until the main cause of the incident is discovered.

The General Staff of Armed Forces issued its preliminary report on the incident on May 24, saying the wreckage did not bear any bullet holes or signs of similar impact.

Late president Raeisi along with foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other dignitaries lost their lives after their helicopter crashed into the mountains and caught fire on May 19.

The crash site was located by Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles at 05:00 a.m. (local time) on May 20, and reached by search teams shortly afterwards.
[...]


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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: Fyodor Lukyanov: Putin is back for another six years, this is what his foreign policy will look like


RT
Wed, 29 May 2024 20:43 UTC
putin inauguration 2024
© Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via ReutersPutin arrives to applause at his inauguration for a fourth term as President of Russia, May 7, 2024
When he first took office, the Russian president was trying to integrate with the West, now the whole ball game has changed

The question of how Russia's foreign policy will be managed during President Vladimir Putin's new term seems redundant, if not irrelevant. The head of state is a man who has led the country in one form or another for almost a quarter of a century. He is known for his conservatism - not only in the ideological sense, but also in his aversion to sharp turns. Moreover, Russia is engaged in an intensive military campaign against an international coalition, and there is little point in making plans until it is over, and while its prospects are still unclear. The successful completion of this campaign remains a task of incomparable importance.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to reflect on this issue. Firstly, all of the terms of Vladimir Putin's presidency, while showing a continuity of approach, have been markedly different. Secondly, while the importance of achieving the goals of the military operation is undeniable, victory alone will not miraculously provide answers to all foreign policy challenges. Finally, the world system is changing rapidly for objective reasons, and Moscow will have to respond in any case.
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Laptop

Note to Fauci's staff: You can't just 'make emails disappear' to avoid FOIA requests

Matthew Petti
Reason
Wed, 29 May 2024 20:16 UTC
david morens anthony fauci hide emails foia requests
© Getty ImagesDr. David Morens, scientific adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during an appearance on C-SPAN | Anthony Fauci (inset)
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is based on an important principle: any document that the public pays for belongs to the public. Whenever a government official writes or records something as part of their taxpayer-funded duties, ordinary citizens have a right to request a copy, with some exemptions for privacy and security.

Politicians, of course, hate that kind of accountability. And every so often, they get caught hiding their official correspondence from FOIA requesters. Hillary Clinton's attempts to stash State Department emails on a private server were a major scandal during the 2016 election. Last week, FOIA became a part of the controversy surrounding coronavirus origins.

In emails uncovered by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic last week, government scientist David Morens apparently plotted with a FOIA officer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on how to hide his emails. Morens, an adviser to former NIH official and White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci, wrote in February 2021 that "i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia'd but before the search starts. Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail."

Comment: Dr. Fauci's lieutenant on the hot seat

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Star of David

Meta and Lavender

Paul Biggar
paulbiggar.com
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00 UTC
Zucky
© David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images/RawpixelMark Zuckerberg donated 500M to Harvard for AI
A little-discussed detail in the Lavender AI article is that Israel is killing people based on being in the same Whatsapp group [1] as a suspected militant [2]. Where are they getting this data? Is WhatsApp sharing it?

Lavender is Israel's system of "pre-crime" [3] - they use AI to guess who to kill in Gaza, and then bomb them when they're at home, along with their entire family. (Obscenely, they call this program "Where's Daddy").

One input to the AI is whether you're in a WhatsApp group with a suspected member of Hamas. There's a lot wrong with this - I'm in plenty of WhatsApp groups with strangers, neighbours, and in the carnage in Gaza you bet people are making groups to connect.

But the part I want to focus on is whether they get this information from Meta. Meta has been promoting WhatsApp as a "private" social network, including "end-to-end" encryption of messages.

Providing this data as input for Lavender undermines their claim that WhatsApp is a private messaging app. It is beyond obscene and makes Meta complicit in Israel's killings of "pre-crime" targets and their families, in violation of International Humanitarian Law and Meta's publicly stated commitment to human rights.

No social network should be providing this sort of information about its users to countries engaging in "pre-crime".
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Target

US may have secretly approved attack on Russian nuclear radar - Austrian military


RT
Wed, 29 May 2024 11:31 UTC
radar site
© Igor ZaremboA Russian Voronezh-DM radar station in Kaliningrad Region
Reported Ukrainian attack on a key radar site could trigger retaliation, an expert analysis shared by the Austrian armed forces says.

A reported Ukrainian attack on a Russian early-warning radar installation may have been approved by the US and poses the risk of a nuclear escalation, an analysis published by the Austrian armed forces has warned.

Ukrainian sources claimed last week that Kiev had delivered a strike at a Voronezh-DM site in Russia's southern Krasnodar Region, near the city of Armavir. The alleged operation is significant, considering that the facility is part of Russian nuclear deterrence, according to a text by Colonel Markus Reisner and posted by the Austrian military on Sunday.

It is unlikely that attacking the radar station had direct military value for Kiev, Reisner argues. Disabling it would reduce the amount of intelligence that Russia collects on Ukrainian launches of US-donated ATACMS ballistic missiles, he added. But the station is designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles that fly at altitudes much higher than the tactical weapons used by Ukraine.
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Fire

Dr. Fauci's lieutenant on the hot seat

Justin Hart
Brownstone Institute
Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00 UTC
chairdesk
© UnknownThe Hot Seat
In a moment of rare bipartisan denunciation, Democrat Representative Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) confronted Dr. David Morens, longtime advisor to Dr. Fauci: "Sir, I think you're going to be haunted by your testimony today."

Dr. Morens, a senior scientific advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has been embroiled in controversy following revelations of his attempts to seemingly conceal embarrassing information about his personal friend and NIH grant recipient, Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance. Morens's attempts to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests laid bare yesterday in front of the Select Committee on Covid-19 were eye-opening and disturbing.
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Attention

'No reason' to prevent Ukraine from attacking Russia - Latvian president


RT
Tue, 28 May 2024 12:35 UTC
Lat Prez
© Markku/Lehtikuva/AFPLatvian President Edgars Rinkevics
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics has urged Western countries to lift restrictions on the use of weapons donated to Ukraine, saying there's no reason to prevent Kiev from attacking Russia.

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Rinkevics claimed that Russian advances in Kharkov Region were "a consequence of our inability to provide Ukraine with weapons," and restrictions prohibiting the use of Western arms to launch strikes deep into Russian territory.
"There is no rational pragmatic reason not to allow Ukraine to use those weapons against Russia in a way that is the most efficient. Those countries that have put restrictions [on the use of] their weapons should reconsider their decision.

"The weapons were not provided directly by NATO or the EU but by member states, some of which supplied Kiev with arms on the condition that they would not be used to strike Russia. The Latvian government does not attach any restrictions to weapons it provides to Kiev."
His remarks come after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last week urged Western donors of longer-range weapons to allow attacks against targets located inside Russia. In an interview with The Economist, he said the "time has come" for the US-led military bloc's allies to reconsider such restrictions.
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Yoda

Lavrov: Western experts finally realizing NATO expansion was a mistake


RT
Wed, 29 May 2024 19:22 UTC
Lavrov
© dia images/Getty ImagesRussian FM Sergey Lavrov • Antalya Diplomacy Forum • March 1, 2024 • Antalya, Turkey
The Russian foreign minister said he agrees with Jeffrey Sachs' conclusion that Washington knowingly provoked the Ukraine conflict

Historians and political scientists in the West have finally grasped that NATO's post-Cold War expansion led to conflict in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, adding that this expansion was driven by Washington's "irresistible desire" to dominate the continent.

"Today, many historians and political scientists in the West express the point of view that their colleagues have been declaring for many, many years, maybe even decades. This is the fact that when the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist, when the Soviet Union extended its hand for unification with Europe, the US and the West as a whole on the basis of equality, mutual benefits and respect, no one dissolved NATO. And actually no one planned to," Lavrov told a meeting of ambassadors in Moscow on Wednesday.

Comment: Tucker Carlson's excellent interview with Jeffery Sachs. Worth every minute:



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