Puppet MastersS

Bomb

A rising number of children are dying from U.S. explosives littering Afghan land

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© Lorenzo Tugnoli/The Washington PostMarch 27, 2014: Abdul Wakhil, 12, is carried by his older brother Abdul Hakim outside his house. Abdul Wakhil lost his legs after he stepped on unexploded ordnance at the firing range near Bagram air base.
As the U.S. military withdraws from Afghanistan, it is leaving behind a deadly legacy: about 800 square miles of land littered with undetonated grenades, rockets and mortar shells.

The military has vacated scores of firing ranges pocked with the explosives. Dozens of children have been killed or wounded as they have stumbled upon the ordnance at the sites, which are often poorly marked. Casualties are likely to increase sharply; the U.S. military has removed the munitions from only 3 percent of the territory covered by its sprawling ranges, officials said.

Comment: Innocent people, 88% of whom are children, have been harmed or killed by these unexploded ordnance left by the U.S. Yet U.S. officials dare to claim they are not legally obligated to clear any of it. This should have been dealt with from the get-go! Interestingly, there always seems to be enough time and money available for invading countries, supporting terrorists, staging coups, expensive vacations and so forth, but when it comes to helping people and taking responsibility, the 'Muricans just ain't got no time 'nd money fer that - at least not yet, if at all.

We can only hope that the Afghan government or people will find measures to solve the problem if funding doesn't come through, which seems likely as the Western psychopaths so far have done nothing but damage to this land and its citizens and are too busy screwing up other countries, including their own. Heroic American leaders, yeah right.


Bomb

Russia: Boston bombing report is effort to 'whitewash' US intelligence failures

boston bombing russia
© Reuters/Dan LamparielloRunners continue to run towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon as an explosion erupts near the finish line of the race in this photo exclusively licensed to Reuters by photographer Dan Lampariello after he took the photo in Boston, Massachusetts, April 15, 2013.
The US is trying to blame Russia for missed opportunities to prevent the Boston marathon bombing last year, Russian Foreign Ministry said in response to recently released report that accused Moscow of withholding information about the bomber.

The report by the inspector general for the intelligence community examined how the US's 17 intelligence agencies handled information it had prior to the attack that killed three people and left more than 200 others injured on April 15, 2013.

Issued on Thursday, the report states that the US federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies "generally shared information and followed procedures appropriately" in their investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar, in the years before the Boston Marathon bombing.

However, they should have more closely scrutinized Tamerlan when he returned to the United States from Dagestan in 2012, it said.

In 2011, Russian officials already warned the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev "was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer" and "had changed drastically since 2010."

According to the report, a reason for not thorough enough assessment in FBI's pre-bombing investigation is that the Russian government, despite requests from the FBI, withheld key information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with the police after the bombing last April.

Comment: Given the strong evidence that the Boston Bombings were yet another instance of manufactured terror, the inspectors general's findings strike us as just more anti-Russian grandstanding and muckraking. How convenient. Ironically, and tellingly, Russia did provide the US with relevant information about Tamerlan -- information that had to be ignored in order for the 'secret team' to get the 'terror attack' they wanted. And then they have the gall to blame Russia. Talk abut chutzpah!

For more information on what really happened in Boston, see SOTT editors Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley's new book, Manufactured Terror: The Boston Marathon Bombings, Sandy Hook, Aurora Shooting and Other False Flag Terror Attacks.


Chess

Russia sets conditions in return for aid to Ukraine

Maidan
© AFP Photo / Sergei SupinskyActivists and communal workers dismantle the barricade set on Maidan square during the mass protests of pro-EU opposition against President Viktor Yanukovych regime in Kiev on April 10, 2014.
Ukraine should recognize Crimea's independence, reform the country's constitution, regulate the crisis in its eastern regions and guarantee the rights of Russian speakers if it wants to get financial help from Moscow, Russia's finance minister has said.

"If Ukraine fulfils these four conditions, then Russia will be able to propose further steps on additional help both on financial and gas issues," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said after meeting with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schauble, in Washington.

Muffin

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Interview with David DiSalvo: What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite

Sott Talk Radio logo
David DiSalvo is a science writer and public education specialist who writes about the intersection of science, technology and culture.

His work has appeared in Scientific American Mind, Psychology Today, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Mental Floss, Slate, Salon, Esquire and other publications, and he is the writer behind the widely read blogs, Neuropsyched, Neuronarrative and The Daily Brain.

David has also served as a consulting research analyst and communications specialist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several public and private organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

His first non-fiction book, What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, has been published in 10 languages. His second book, The Brain in Your Kitchen, is available in e-book format at Amazon. His latest book, Brain Changer: How Harnessing your Brain's Power to Adapt can Change your Life, is available at all major booksellers.

Running Time: 01:05:00

Download: MP3


War Whore

Against all the evidence, lying psychopath John Kerry sez Russian agents behind east Ukraine unrest

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© AP/J. Scott Applewhite
The United States accused Russia of sending its agents to stoke a flaring secession crisis in eastern Ukraine that Moscow itself conceded could spill over into civil war.

The blunt US charge came as Ukraine's embattled leaders waged an uphill battle to keep their culturally splintered nation of 46 million together after the February ouster of a pro-Kremlin president and subsequent loss of Crimea to Russia.

An eery echo of the Black Sea peninsula's separation sounded on Sunday when militants -- many of them masked -- stormed a series of strategic buildings across a swathe of heavily Russified eastern regions and demanded that Moscow send its troops for support.

War Whore

NATO chief telling lies, spewing propaganda, seeking to please Washington, trying to incite war in Europe with Russia

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NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen
It's been a busy week for NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The week began with him telling lies, spewing propaganda, seeking to please Washington, trying to incite war in Europe with Russia, and ended with a warning to Russia to back down from military aggression.

Such is the busy life of a puppet on a string, bouncing in step with the tune called by his master. From here on, Rasmussen should be re-branded as the "Fogh of War."

Earlier in the week, Fogh Rasmussen addressed a meeting in Paris on the "transformation of NATO." He licked the boots of French leaders by saying:
From Central Africa to Eastern Europe, French forces are helping make our world safer - whether under the banner of NATO, the European Union, or of France

Comment: This hypocrisy of the warmongers is pure farce, blaming their adversary exactly for what they themselves are doing, without a shred of shame, or awareness of how ludicrous they sound.


Bomb

Kiev: pro-US regime threatens massacre of east Ukraine protesters

Andriy Senchenko
Andriy Senchenko
Ukraine stands on the brink of civil war, as the unelected pro-Western regime that seized power this February in Kiev threatens a bloody crackdown on protesters occupying local government offices in cities across traditionally pro-Russian sections of eastern Ukraine.

Protesters are demanding a referendum to federalize Ukraine and limit the authority of the new, far-right regime in Kiev. Some protesters have also called on their areas to vote to join Russia, as the former Ukrainian region of Crimea did last month, or declared independent "people's republics" in Donetsk and Kharkiv.

Andrei Senchenko, the deputy head of the presidential administration in Kiev, said his regime's security forces would "shoot to kill" if protesters did not abandon buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv by today.

Senchenko's threats echoed those of Irina Farion, a legislator from the Fatherland Party of US-backed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk. She demanded death for the protesters saying, "Today's reaction is unacceptable. The measures should be much tougher. Our people laid down their lives. That's why those creatures that arrive here deserve only death."

Chess

U.S. fracking companies are licking their lips over Ukraine

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© Ted Wood/Aurora Photos/CorbisA large field of fracking sites in a Colorado valley. 'The industryโ€™s singular solution to the climate crisis is to dramatically expand an extraction process that releases massive amounts of climate-destabilising methane
The way to beat Vladimir Putin is to flood the European market with fracked-in-the-USA natural gas, or so the industry would have us believe. As part of escalating anti-Russian hysteria, two bills have been introduced into the US Congress - one in the House of Representatives (H.R. 6), one in the Senate (S. 2083) - that attempt to fast-track liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, all in the name of helping Europe to wean itself from Putin's fossil fuels, and enhancing US national security.

According to Cory Gardner, the Republican congressman who introduced the House bill, "opposing this legislation is like hanging up on a 911 call from our friends and allies". And that might be true - as long as your friends and allies work at Chevron and Shell, and the emergency is the need to keep profits up amid dwindling supplies of conventional oil and gas.

For this ploy to work, it's important not to look too closely at details. Like the fact that much of the gas probably won't make it to Europe - because what the bills allow is for gas to be sold on the world market to any country belonging to the World Trade Organisation.

Star of David

Former Australian FM Bob Carr denounces Jewish lobby's 'extraordinary influence' in new book

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Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr
In new book, Bob Carr claims office of former Australian PM Julia Gillard was effectively held hostage by Jewish lobby.

Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has suggested Prime Minister Julia Gillard's dogged support of Israel was due to the "subcontracting" of Australian foreign policy to Jewish donors, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

In his upcoming book "Diary of a Foreign Minister," Carr claims the "extreme right-wing" pro-Israel lobby in Melbourne wielded "extraordinary influence" on Gillard. The book includes private text messages between the two - published without Gillard's consent - which detail the pair's disagreement on Australia's support (or lack thereof) for the November 2012 United Nations vote concerning Palestinian observer status.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to promote his new book, Carr claimed the pro-Israel lobby in Melbourne wielded "extraordinary influence" on Gillard and her office, negatively interfering with Australian foreign policy.

Snakes in Suits

'Business as usual' for British Petroleum in Russia

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© AFP Photo / Ben StansallBob Dudley
Speaking at BP's annual shareholder meeting, CEO Bob Dudley said BP can "act as a bridge" between Russia and Europe, adding that it was "business as usual" between the oil giant and Russia.

BP remains positive on doing business with Russia, even though tension over Ukraine has caused significant losses for the company, which holds a 19.25 percent interest in Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil major.

"We have a unique position," Dudley told shareholders in London on Thursday.

This unique position stems from Rosneft and TNK-BP's mega $55 billion merger in March 2013 that made the Russian oil company the world's largest publicly traded oil producer. BP acquired a 19.75 percent of Rosneft last year as part of the exchange.