Puppet Masters

Just in case: Russia's heavy caliber artillery is back in service

Andrei Akulov
The Strategic Culture Foundation
Sat, 29 Sep 2018 17:26 UTC

Last year, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Matveyevsky, Commander of Russia's Army Missile Troops and Artillery, stated that Russia's ground forces will have 50-100% more firepower by 2021. The upgrade of these "old warriors" that have been taken out of storage is underway, along with the addition of new systems. Brand-new equipment is being installed. Barrels, recoil mechanisms, and other components are being replaced or refitted.

The modernization of Russia's "big guns" - the 2S4 Tyulpan (Tulip) 240-millimeter mortar and the 2S7 Pion 203-millimeter howitzer - has attracted the attention of US military analysts. The Cold War weapons are being refurbished to adapt them for modern warfare. The program of modernization started about a year ago. Nothing like it is being done anywhere else in the world. All in all, more than 400 Tyulpans and the same number of Pions have been produced. The exact number of artillery guns that will be added to the arsenal after the modernization has not been released, but the upgrade is in full swing. Analysis of the Russian military press provides some clues as to why the old big guns are back in the ranks.

Comment: Russia has viewed the 20-year-long NATO encroachment towards its borders with justified alarm. Re-arming and developing new defense systems is the only logical response.

Serbian military on high alert as 'Kosovo special forces' cross demarcation line

RT
Sat, 29 Sep 2018 12:15 UTC

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic has ordered the country's armed forces to be on the highest combat readiness, local media reported. All police units have also been placed on high alert. Vucic's order was handed over to the chief of the Serbian army general staff, Serbian agency Tanjug reported citing the president's office on Saturday.

The decision follows an incident in the southwestern part of the country, Kosovo special forces reportedly entered. Some 60 troops took positions near the dam on Gazivoda Lake, which hosts hydroelectric power station, according to local media.

Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said the police were also put on high alert following the Albanian "attack" in the north of Kosovo and Metohija and the "arrests of Serbs," who did not commit any crime.

Kosovo dismissed the claims of occupying the area and said there were no arrests, according to the local deputy police commander, Besim Hoti, as cited by RTS. He added that the forces were at Gazivoda for a "single visit."

Comment: 'Kosovo special forces' is euphemism for Kosovo Liberation Army, itself a made-up term for heroin-smuggling ethnic Albanian jihadi terrorists.

See also: Serbian President Vucic accuses West of 'brutal meddling' in Bosnia-Herzegovina's elections

Lavrov's UN speech: Drop the diktats and try diplomacy

RT
Sat, 29 Sep 2018 09:58 UTC

At the UN, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lashed out at the West's "political blackmail and brute force," saying diplomacy should not give way to diktats and unilateral sanctions.

Trying to preserve their "self-proclaimed status as world leaders," some Western powers have no qualms about putting pressure on others, Foreign Minister Lavrov told the UN General Assembly on Friday. He didn't name the countries, but said they use "political blackmail, economic pressure and brute force."

"The world has to pay a high price for these selfish ambitions by a tiny group of countries."

Lavrov, who was once Russia's envoy to the UN for a decade, told the gathering that the culture of diplomacy and negotiating is being replaced by diktats and one-sided sanctions put in place without UN approval. Such restrictions that extend to dozens of countries "are either unlawful or inefficient," the minister noted, citing the US' decades-long blockade of Cuba.

Pompeo will hold Iran responsible for harm to Americans or US facilities - Iraq or elsewhere

RT
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:56 UTC

Iran will be held responsible for any harm to Americans in Iraq caused by 'associated militias,' US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, announcing the US consulate in Basra will temporarily close for safety reasons.

On Friday, Pompeo ordered a "temporary relocation" of US diplomats and the closure of the consulate in the southern Iraqi city, citing "increasing and specific threats" to their safety.

Pompeo blamed the government of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, and "militias facilitated by and under the control and direction of" Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani for "repeated incidents of indirect fire" and threats to the US consulate in Basra and the embassy in Baghdad over the past 24 hours.

The US will hold Iran "directly responsible" for any harm to Americans or US facilities in Iraq and elsewhere, "whether perpetrated by Iranian forces directly or by associated proxy militias," Pompeo said in a statement. "I have made clear that Iran should understand that the US will respond promptly and appropriately to any such attacks."

Comment: By this standard, the US has complete culpability for its proxies as well.

Comment: Pompeo is announcing the parameters and 'red line' for war with Iran. He knows a US 'retaliation strike' will escalate. Has he thrown down the gauntlet?

MSM uses the Kavanaugh sex scandal to distract from the real reason he shouldn't be appointed

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC

In July, President Donald Trump nominated D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Since then, there have been numerous allegations of sexual misconduct levied toward the Justice to be. Whether or not he is guilty of these allegations is left to be determined. However it does serve as a great distraction from his actual constitution-hating and tyrannical tendencies.

While Kavanaugh may be an ostensible supporter of the Second Amendment, his record indicates that he all but cannot stand the Fourth and he's not that big a fan of the First either.

While the allegations against Kavanaugh should certainly be investigated - no matter how they are being spun by the left and the right - he shouldn't even be in this position based solely on his previous record. But no one is talking about this. Instead, the left and right are involved in a mudslinging orgy of victim shaming and kangaroo courts.

According to this Supreme Court nominee, he thinks it is just fine and dandy for police and government to track you, spy on you, and dig through your personal life - without a warrant. On multiple occasions, Kavanaugh has been the lone voice when it comes supporting the state's rights to warrantlessly spy on its citizens.

Comment: The police state is all but clinched. The fought-for constitutional rights of Americans have become just words on a piece of paper. The power to reverse the atrophy has silently slipped away.

UNGA: Lavrov accuses West of political blackmail, economic pressure, force to stop multipolar world

RT
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 18:03 UTC

28 September 2018

18:05 GMT
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has started his speech before the UN General Assembly.

18:05 GMT
International relations are undergoing a difficult period of change, during which two opposing trends are locked in a conflict, Lavrov said. One is the rise of new centers of political and economic power, who seek national development according to their own preferences, he added.

Comment: A master statesman, Lavrov is succinct and fair in his comments and criticisms. Note: The time numerics above do not correspond to this video.

See also: Lavrov's UN speech: Drop the diktats and try diplomacy

Venezuela: Pence, Haley call for regime change, Trump calls it 'a mess to be cleaned up'

RT
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:56 UTC

US President Donald Trump further fueled speculation his administration was pushing for regime change in Venezuela, echoing calls from his UN envoy Nikki Haley and Vice President Mike Pence to that effect.

"Venezuela is a mess," Trump said on Friday. "The place needs to be cleaned up, and people need to be taken care of." The comment came during a photo-op at the White House with the President of Chile Sebastian Piñera, who is visiting Washington.

Shortly before that, Pence retweeted a photo of Haley addressing a gathering of Venezuelan dissidents in New York on Thursday through a megaphone. "We'll continue to hold the regime accountable until democracy is restored," the vice-president wrote.

Comment: US sets the stage, cues negative circumstances into motion, stands back and watches it play out, admonishes and threatens the leaders on the results. Just another failed country according to plan.

UNHR council renews probe into Yemen over Saudi objections

RT
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 15:12 UTC

The UN inquiry into the human rights situation in Yemen has been extended for a year despite the Yemen's government refusal to cooperate further and Riyadh's allegations that the probe is biased against the Kingdom.

The resolution to extend the probe into alleged human rights violations in Yemen was adopted on Friday by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), with 21 countries voting for it, 8 against and 18 abstaining.

The decision comes amid strong criticism from Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, who accused the UN body of bias. Ahead of the UNHRC vote, Riyadh yet again condemned the UN report on Yemen, published late in August, accusing the international body of turning a blind eye to "the countless violations perpetrated by the Houthis, both against the Yemeni people and against the kingdom."

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government, in turn, refused to cooperate further with the UN experts.

Comment: Investigations should lead to more than just reports. Reports have never stopped a war nor have they changed the way battles are fought. They are determinations after the fact.

Under the fog of Kavanaugh, house passes $3.8 trillion more in tax cuts

Glenn Fleishman
Fortune
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 00:01 UTC

With attention fixed on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new $3.1 trillion tax cut on Friday. The vote was 220 to 191, including three Democrats.

The down-to-the-wire 2017 tax act passed in late December contained a mix of permanent and temporary changes that had to result in a net increased cost that fell within a structural limit of $1.5 trillion that allowed the Senate to approve the bill with a simple majority.

The House's new bill takes effect starting in 2025, and would add $600 billion to the national debt within the next decade, and then $3.2 trillion in the 10 years after that, according to Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center.

Comment: The Kavanaugh circus was bound to be a distraction for something. Wonder if anyone will notice...

Palestine suing US in International Court of Justice - wants Jerusalem embassy closed

RT
Sat, 29 Sep 2018 15:11 UTC

The Palestinian authority has asked the International Court of Justice to compel the US to shut down its embassy in Jerusalem, because it violates the Vienna convention, which says an embassy must be located in a host country.

The Palestinian government submitted its application to launch proceedings against the US on Friday. The 14-page complaint, released by the UN's principal judicial body, alleges that the US, as a party of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, has flouted its obligation by setting up an embassy outside the territory of the host state, Israel.

Comment: There may be some publicity value in the Palestinian nation's suit, but the ICC will remain a corrupt, toothless body, so long as it is simply a club to be used on any nation the West targets.

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Puppet Masters

Just in case: Russia's heavy caliber artillery is back in service

Serbian military on high alert as 'Kosovo special forces' cross demarcation line

Lavrov's UN speech: Drop the diktats and try diplomacy

Pompeo will hold Iran responsible for harm to Americans or US facilities - Iraq or elsewhere

MSM uses the Kavanaugh sex scandal to distract from the real reason he shouldn't be appointed

UNGA: Lavrov accuses West of political blackmail, economic pressure, force to stop multipolar world

Venezuela: Pence, Haley call for regime change, Trump calls it 'a mess to be cleaned up'

UNHR council renews probe into Yemen over Saudi objections

Under the fog of Kavanaugh, house passes $3.8 trillion more in tax cuts

Palestine suing US in International Court of Justice - wants Jerusalem embassy closed

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