Puppet MastersS


Chess

Don't Poke the Bear: Russia tightens squeeze on Ukraine with gas price rise

Gazprom and Medvedev
© Reuters/Dmitry Astakhov/Ria NovostiRussia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (L) meets with Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller in Moscow, April 3, 2014
* Price discount was agreed before political crisis
* Gazprom says Ukraine's gas debt is $1.7 billion
* Naftogaz chief to visit Moscow this week

Russian natural gas producer Gazprom announced a more than 40 percent increase in the price of gas for Ukraine on Tuesday, stepping up economic pressure on Kiev in its crisis in relations with Moscow.

Price rows have in the past led to cuts in Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and decreases in onward deliveries to Europe, but this time the financial blow to Kiev is set to be cushioned by a new International Monetary Fund loan package.

Comment: Since the elected president of Ukraine has been ousted by the NATO/U.S. coup and replaced by same with a fascist dictatorship, there's no reason for Moscow to keep promises made with the previous president. Plus the new regime has agreed to IMF's "financial rescue".


Dollar Gold

President Obama + one-day visit to Brussels = $1.5M hotel bill

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© The Hotel
In late March, President Obama took a week-long trip through Europe which included a stop of less than 24 hours in Brussels, Belgium for meetings with the European Union and NATO. The president stayed at The Hotel, a twenty-seven story hotel in the center of the city. The estimated cost for the president's stay, including about two weeks for an advance team, was $1,522,646.36.

Document

House Bill seeks data on U.S. drone strike victims' identities

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© Press TVFile photo shows the aftermath of a US assassination drone attack in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.
Reps. Walter Jones (R - NC) and Adam Schiff (D - CA) have co-sponsored a new bill, the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act, which aims to require the Obama Administration to issue annual reports on the use of drone strikes, including a figure of how many civilians they killed in those attacks.

Though President Obama has repeatedly promised "overhauls" and transparency measures on the drone programs, Congress remains more or less in the dark about who is being killed and why, with Rep. Jones saying this move would be the first step toward serious oversight of the drone program.

Ignorance may well be bliss, however, and the two face an uphill battle, with Council on Foreign Relations official Micah Zenko saying he doesn't say any way the bill passes, adding "these are CIA operations that are covert by definition."

Arrow Down

Peer reviewed paper says it's OK to manipulate data, exaggerate climate claims!

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© SOTT.net
Noble cause corruption gone wild. People tend to think of scientists as being unbiased, in climate science, apparently if you aren't biased, you aren't doing useful work.

From CFACT: A new peer-reviewed paper published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, titled "Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements", is openly advocating that global warming proponents engage in mendacious claims in order to further their cause.

The paper appears to openly advocates "information manipulation" to further the cause of man-made global warming and "enhance global welfare."

The authors, Assistant Professors of Economics Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao, note how the media and environmental groups "exaggerate" global warming and then the offer their paper to "provide a rationale for this tendency" to exaggerate for the good of the cause.

The paper was published on February 24, 2014.

The author's boldly note in the abstract of the study that the "news media and some pro-environmental have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency."

"We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA (International Environmental Agreement) which will eventually enhance global welfare."

The authors of the paper, Fuhai Hong is an assistant professor in the Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University. Xiaojian Zhao is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The complete Abstract of the paper is reproduced below:

Star of David

"Language itself has been colonized" - Criminalizing criticism of Israel in Canada


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The international campaign calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, as a peaceful means of persuading that state to abandon its systematic violations of international law and its policies of apartheid dispossession, colonization, and blockade in the occupied Palestinian territories, has recently enjoyed a burgeoning number of successes.1


In early February 2014, The Economist noted that BDS "is turning mainstream,"2 and former Israeli Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg wrote in Haaretz that the "BDS movement is gaining momentum and is approaching the turning point [.... at which] sanctions against Israel will become a fait accompli."3

Dollars

Iran, Russia working to seal $20 bln oil-for-goods deal - Creating a Dollar-free world

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© Unknown
Spot what is missing in the just blasted headline from Bloomberg:

Iran, Russia Said To Seal $20B Oil-For-Goods Deal: Reuters

If you said the complete absence of US Dollars anywhere in the funds flow you are correct. Which is precisely what we have been warning would happen the more the West and/or JPMorgan pushed Russia into a USD-free corner.

Once again, from our yesterday comment on the JPM Russian blockade: "what JPM may have just done is launch a preemptive strike which would have the equivalent culmination of a SWIFT blockade of Russia, the same way Iran was neutralized from the Petrodollar and was promptly forced to begin transacting in Rubles, Yuan and, of course, gold in exchange for goods and services either imported or exported. One wonders: is JPM truly that intent in preserving its "pristine" reputation of not transacting with "evil Russians", that it will gladly light the fuse that takes away Russia's choice whether or not to depart the petrodollar voluntarily, and makes it a compulsory outcome, which incidentally will merely accelerate the formalization of the Eurasian axis of China, Russia and India?"

Quenelle

Israel is an unprincipled entity! Pollard, Kerry, and peace

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I remember standing outside the White House lawn on March 26 1979, protesting the signing of Camp David accord between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the ex-wanted British terrorist turned Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. An Egyptian speaker addressed his president across the street "If You Feel No Shame Then Do As You Wish."

Today, the "feel no shame" Israeli leaders are able to do "as they wish" with unparalleled brazen impunity.

US Secretary of State John Kerry offered Israel an upfront Palestinian commitment to forgo their rights of joining UN organizations for nine months. In turn, Israel pledged to release 104 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Palestinians kept their word and delivered, Israel reneged. In a last minute maneuver it added a new condition. Not on the Palestinians this time but on the US demanding the release of Jewish American Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

Calculator

Bankrupt Ukraine does not pay for gas, waiting for Russian loan

Yuriy Prodan
© ITAR-TASS/Vladimir Sindeev Russia has not fulfilled its obligations under the gas contract says Ukrainian parliament-appointed energy and coal mining industry minister Yuriy Prodan
In Ukraine's view, Russia has not fulfilled its obligations under the gas contract, as it has not provided the promised $15 billion loan in full, Ukrainian parliament-appointed energy and coal mining industry minister Yuriy Prodan said in an interview on "Rain" television.

"There were obligations and agreements. Among the agreements of 2013 were obligations of the Russian side to provide a $15 billion loan for Ukraine. You know, the first part,$3 billion, was given in December 2013, and Ukraine received it. The second part was to come in February 2014. Russia also assumed an obligation to give a $2 billion loan. There were agreements and obligations of the Ukrainian side that the money would be paid by Ukraine for gas," Prodan said. "There were such agreements. Now we are looking for official confirmation of the agreements."

Comment: The new illegitimate rulers in Kiev want everything: power to rule, submission of the Ukrainian people and money from Russia, the EU, the US, the World Bank and the IMF. On top of it they also want to be members of the EU and NATO and to take Russias vacant seat at the G8.


War Whore

To avoid losing control of Europe, the U.S. has a war plan for Europe and Russia

Putin, Lavrov and Barrosso in Brussels
© AFPEuropean Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (right) welcomes Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Brussels. 28 January 2014


A close relationship between Moscow and Europe would remove the rationale for America's military role in NATO and thereby its political influence in Europe.


The US is prepared to plunge Europe into a war with Russia in order for Washington to preserve its hegemony over the transatlantic axis.

The key issues are the prevention of Russia and Europe developing closer trade and political ties - stemming primarily from a vast trade in energy fuels; and, secondly, the survival of the American dollar as the world's reserve currency.

EU export/import with Russia
© Unknown

Stop

Possible NATO disaster ahead as Moscow signals right to suspend NATO transit to Afghanistan across its territory

NATO soldier in Afghanistan
© Voice of Russia/Sarkhad Zukhal
NATO's decision to suspend cooperation with Russia gives Moscow the right to suspend NATO transit to Afghanistan across Russian territory, Federation Council Defense and Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ozerov said.

"NATO is transporting armaments, military hardware and servicemen to Afghanistan across our territory. If our cooperation comes to a halt, we will have the right to suspend this transit, and the alliance will have to find other routes," Ozerov told Interfax on Wednesday.

He recalled that the NATO transit to Afghanistan was based on bilateral agreements with France, Italy, the United States, Germany and some other countries.
"The NATO pullout from Afghanistan will begin soon and the alliance will have to find routes bypassing our territory. Cooperation always implies mutual interests," Ozerov said.
In his opinion, Russia won't lose from the halt of cooperation. "First of all, that cooperation was advantageous for the alliance.