Puppet Masters
In Baghdad, the most severe of the attacks took place in Bayaa, the capital's southwestern neighborhood. There alone 23 people were killed - the majority of whom had been young and engaged in a game of billiards.
Clashes in the northern city of Mosul took lives of 21 police and 38 militants as the fighting spilled over into the second day, an officer and mortuary employee told AFP.
On Saturday, armed militants also took over a university in Ramadi, located in the western province of Anbar, capturing male and female staff and students. The gunmen fought their way through the Anbar University guards, wounding some, and blowing up a bridge.
Arch-idiot Kerry demands Poroshenko prove the impossible: Russia's involvement in Novorossiya events

The camera can barely sustain this amount of idiocy: Kerry AND Poroshenko.
During a meeting in Poland on Wednesday, Kerry asked the newly elected president to provide evidence of a connection between Moscow and Ukraine's independence supporters, according to the media outlet.
The politicians also discussed the democratic development of Ukraine. Kerry expressed admiration for the people of Ukraine and congratulated Poroshenko on his victory in the May 25 presidential election.
After talks with Kerry, the president-elect met US President Barack Obama to discuss US help in training Ukrainian military forces, and Ukraine's energy security.
The US secretary of state is due to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Paris on Thursday to discuss Syria and Ukraine.
Washington recently claimed that the US has proof Russia intervened in the conflict, by sending troops and supplying weapons to the independence movements in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed these claims in an interview Wednesday with French broadcasters Europe 1 and TF1. The West does not have reliable evidence of Moscow's involvement in the violent standoff between the Kiev authorities and independence supporters in eastern Ukraine, Putin said.

In this image released by Egypt's state news agency MENA, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, left, and outgoing interim President Adly Mansour attend El-Sissi's inaugural ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, June 8, 2014
El-Sissi's inauguration came less than a year after he ousted the country's first freely elected president, Islamist Mohammed Morsi, following days of mass protests demanding he step down. While praised by many in a wave of nationalist fervour following the July 3 overthrow, el-Sissi's rise to power coincided with the detention of thousands and the killing of hundreds of Morsi supporters.
Now, the retired field marshal faces the daunting tasks of reviving Egypt's stagnant economy, fighting Islamic extremists and cementing his rule after years of turmoil in the Arab world's most populous country.
"The presidency of Egypt is a great honour and a huge responsibility," el-Sissi told local and foreign dignitaries gathered at an opulent Cairo palace hours after his swearing-in ceremony.
Under his rule, he said, Egypt will work for regional security and stability. He also called on Egyptians to build a more stable future after three turbulent years, asking them to work hard so that their rights and freedoms could grow.
"Nuland will attend the inauguration of Ukraine's newly elected president. She will visit Odesa over the weekend, and on Monday will hold a series of meetings with representatives of the authorities in Kiev," he said.
The US official is expected to travel to Odessa on Sunday, when she will also visit a local children's summer camp.
US Vice President Joe Biden will head his country's delegation to Poroshenko's inauguration on June 7.
Comment: The inauguration ceremony has come and gone, and it looks like Poroshenko is firmly in the pocket of his U.S. masters. He made this clear when he essentially declared war on eastern Ukraine during his inauguration speech, no doubt after a litany of 'editorial suggestions' from Nuland and her minions...
But we now have the bill, and everyone can read it. And everyone should understand what is in this new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) before the full Senate makes a big mistake and paves the way for Guantánamo-style indefinite detention being brought to the United States itself.
The new Senate NDAA:
Brings Indefinite Detention to the U.S. Itself:
The bill now says that detainees may be brought to the United States for "detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force" (AUMF). In plain English, that means the policy of indefinite detention by the military, without charge or trial, could be carried out here at home. Right now, the number of people in the U.S. in military indefinite detention is zero. If the bill is enacted, that number could immediately jump to 100 or more.Bolsters Claims of NDAA and AUMF Indefinite Detention Authority:
The AUMF is the basis for the indefinite detention authority included in the NDAA that Congress passed nearly three years ago. Indefinite detention is wrong today and certainly cannot be sustained past the end of U.S. combat in the Afghan war. But passing a new Senate NDAA that relies on detention authority based on the AUMF, just as the U.S. combat role in the war is winding down, could be used by the government to bolster its claim that indefinite detention can just keep on going. Even when any actual U.S. combat is over.
Comment: Is this bill a "product of sloppy drafting", as the author states, or is it another example of politicians slithering behind closed doors systematically stripping more basic human rights such as habeas corpus?
In January, the town of Deming and Hidalgo County settled a lawsuit for $1.6 million over the case of David Eckert. Pulled over for a minor traffic violation, Eckert was flagged for holding drugs by a K-9 unit, which would later be found to be operating under expired certification. Police suspected Eckert was carrying drugs in his anal cavity and sought out a search warrant, but then transported the man to a hospital outside of the warrant's jurisdiction when the first establishment refused to conduct the search on ethical grounds.
At Gila Regional Medical Center, however, doctors performed eight separate medical procedures against Eckert's protests, including two rectal finger examinations, three enemas and a colonoscopy. He was also forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. None of these procedures uncovered any drugs.
According to Eckert's lawyer Shannon Kennedy, not only was the issued search warrant overly broad and lacking in probable cause, but it was also only valid in Luna County, where Deming is located and Eckert was arrested.
Earlier this year the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Sarasota Police Department in an attempt to compel them to turn over records on the police's use of its "Stingray" devices.
The powerful Stingray equipment has drawn the ire of civil liberties advocates nervous about its ability to essentially act as a fake cell tower and collects information from each of phone that connects to it.
The ACLU, which asserts that the Stingray enables the "electronic equivalent of dragnet 'general searches' prohibited by the Fourth Amendment," convinced the court to force the Sarasota police to make the documents available for review.
ACLU staff attorney Nathan Freed told Wired that the US Marshals sent an agent from the Tampa area to Sarasota to pick up the documents so the police would be unable to disclose them.
"The punitive operation led by Ukrainian forces reflects signs of an international human rights violation, in particular, of the Geneva convention of 1949," Kelin said.
"We drew attention to the tragic outcome of an operation in the Donbas [in eastern Ukraine], a barbaric shelling of a building of the Luhansk local administration," he added.
He referred to reports claiming the Ukrainian military had used exploding bullets, cluster bombs and artillery.
"There are reports on the use of inhumane weapons - exploding bullets, cluster bombs - and the shelling of civilian targets in Ukraine. If they are confirmed, such acts have to be treated as war crimes. If it is proven that Right Sector killed the wounded in a Krasnyi Lyman hospital, there are no words to justify such an action," Kelin said.
The envoy added that the latest report from the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine confirmed pro-Kiev forces had been using tanks, artillery and aircraft in its special operations.
"We asked a lot of questions, but Ukraine's permanent representative [to the OSCE] gave no answers, aside from the usual attempts to shift responsibility to Russia," Kelin added.
Much of Shinzo Abe's economic reforms in Japan will not bear fruit without a significant emerging market driving the growth of Japanese industry. Japanese exports to China declined by 18% in the 12 months leading to the Indian elections. The decline was triggered by the controversy over the Senkaku (or Diaoyu, in Chinese) Islands and is unlikely to reverse course in the near future.
Meanwhile, many Japanese companies are well entrenched in India but suffered at the hands of the previous outgoing United Progressive Alliance government. Two major Japanese corporations, Mitsubishi and Honda, were slapped with tax recovery notices to the tune of US$2.6 billion following a retrospective amendment to a tax law in India. All this makes Modi look like a white-bearded Samurai savior in the eyes of Abe's business-minded constituents.
Escobar's extensive travels and reporting bring witty insights to Western audiences starved of real information to what is going on in the world. Since before 9/11, Escobar has specialized in covering Brzezinski's "arc" from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars.
He's the author of three books - Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War, Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge, and Obama Does Globalistan. You can check out some of his recent articles on SOTT.net.
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Comment: If the U.S. had proof, why would they demand Poroshenko provide more? The Americans are blowing a lot of hot air and leaving their stooge in the lurch. It will be interesting to see if Poroshenko gets the message and provides the kind of 'proof' the U.S. desires. By U.S. standards (recall the lead-up to the Iraq war), he won't need much. Just enough 'created reality' (i.e., total fabrication) to prove he's part of the team.