Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: 'Serious criminality' by UK's MI6 abroad, as tribunal reveals agency is also free to break UK law


RT
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 07:46 UTC
MI6 building
© REUTERS/Toby MelvilleFILE PHOTO: The MI6 building in London August 25, 2010
While debate rages over controversial spying legislation in the UK, other disclosures indicate British spooks have long been secretly free to commit crimes with impunity anyway.

There has rightly been intense controversy over the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) bill in recent months.

The legislation would enshrine in law the ability of undercover operatives - both employees of British state agencies and their informants - to not only commit extremely serious crimes, up to and including rape, torture and murder, but also insulate them from criminal prosecution and civil actions for doing so.

However, for all their at times fiery condemnation, few if any mainstream critics acknowledged that the UK intelligence services have been allowed to commit crimes with impunity for some time.

Comment: When every agency is soon to be granted legal powers to commit heinous crimes you can be sure that the establishment is now well and truly ponerized and, if history is anything to go by, the future looks very bleak indeed for the UK: Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

See also: UK gives legal powers to various agencies to plan and commit CRIME, court rules

And check out SOTT radio's:

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Bizarro Earth

UK's Manchester police fail to record one-fifth of crimes, Home Sec Patel blames Mayor

Josh Halliday
The Guardian
Fri, 18 Dec 2020 20:01 UTC
Hopkins
© Martin Rickett/PAGreater Manchester's chief constable, Ian Hopkins, was due to retire next autumn.
The home secretary has attacked the mayor of Greater Manchester as the area's chief constable stepped down after the force was placed in special measures.

Ian Hopkins said he was bringing forward his retirement in the wake of a damning report by inspectors that found the force had failed to record 80,000 crimes, a fifth of all offences, in the year to 30 June.

The announcement was welcomed by Priti Patel. However, the home secretary's spokesman then attacked the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, saying that he had "thrown a senior police officer under the bus to save his own skin".

Comment: See also: 'And that no man might buy or sell': Welsh government to roll out 'coronavirus vaccine ID cards'

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Vader

Best of the Web: Ruthless UK government places a third of its population under EVEN STRICTER lockdown for Christmas

James Tapsfield
Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 20:30 UTC

Comment: For months now the British press has been gaslighting the population with the promise of 'Christmas'. Now, one week before, the psychopaths have decided to get their seasonal jollies by placing the country under even stricter lockdown than anything seen so far...


boris johnson lockdown
Boris Johnson faced fury tonight as he dramatically cancelled Christmas for 18million people after hitting the panic button on a rampant new mutant strain of coronavirus.

The PM was accused of 'inconsistency and confusion' after the extraordinary last-minute U-turn to put a third of England, including London and swathes of the home counties, into a brutal new 'Tier 4' from midnight.

The draconian bracket means non-essential shops being forced to shut, and travel restrictions including a 'stay at home' order for Christmas Day itself - even though Mr Johnson insisted just days ago that it would be 'inhuman' to axe five-day festive 'bubbles'.


Comment: It takes an inhuman one to know one.


The rest of England will not escape unscathed, with up to three households now only allowed to mix on Christmas Day rather than between December 23 and 27.

Wales has also announced it is going into a full lockdown from midnight and will follow suit by slashing bubbles to a single day. Nicola Sturgeon said at her own press conference tonight that a ban on cross-border travel is being upgraded, and the law will be changed to cut bubbles to one day.


Comment: 'Bubbles' apparently means 'the freedom to meet people from your wider social network'. What horrific mangling of the English language these psychopaths have managed in just one year.


She also said that mainland Scotland will be in its top 'Level 4' squeeze from Boxing Day - at which point around 28million people across all four UK nations will be under the toughest restrictions.

Comment: Clever, aren't they? To introduce an even more totalitarian level in their lockdown scale ('Tier 4'), they introduced a "rampant new mutant strain of coronavirus" to justify it with.

And all this time, people have been policing each other in the belief that 'if we all just behave now, the nice govt man will let us celebrate Christmas in peace'...

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Folder

Web records show SolarWinds hacker broke into US cable firm and Arizona county

Jack Stubbs, Ryan McNeill
Reuters
Fri, 18 Dec 2020 11:27 UTC
Solarwinds building
© The Economic Times
Suspected Russian hackers accessed the systems of a U.S. internet provider and a county government in Arizona as part of a sprawling cyber-espionage campaign disclosed this week, according to an analysis of publicly-available web records.

The hack, which hijacked ubiquitous network management software made by SolarWinds Corp to compromise a raft of U.S. government agencies and was first reported by Reuters, is one of the biggest ever uncovered and has sent security teams around the world scrambling to contain the damage.

The intrusions into networks at Cox Communications and the local government in Pima County, Arizona, show that alongside victims including the U.S. departments of Defence, State, and Homeland Security, the hackers also spied on less high-profile organisations.

A spokesman for Cox Communications said the company was working "around the clock" with the help of outside security experts to investigate any consequences of the SolarWinds compromise. "The security of the services we provide is a top priority," he said.

Comment: See also:

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Boat

Who is provoking whom? US Navy says Russia 'threat to peace' as Moscow switches on system designed to spot naval invasions


RT
Fri, 18 Dec 2020 12:33 UTC
NATO war ships
© AFP/Daniel MihailescuNATO's Standing Maritime Group-2 war ships take part in a military drill on the Black Sea.
Relations between Russia and NATO are in choppy waters with two Western capitals accusing Moscow of threatening 'global peace.' But will the bloc's plans to send more warships to the Black Sea help pull things back from the brink?

On Thursday, the US Navy's new strategy document pointed the finger at "increasingly aggressive" Russia along with China as "the two most significant threats to this era of global peace and prosperity." It gave a stark warning about Russia's growing technological capabilities, including "nuclear and advanced missile systems" and "state-of-the-art air defenses."

If Russia's investment in its defensive capability has America's sailors rattled, its new monitoring system in the Black Sea will have them tossing and turning in their bunks. At the same time that Washington was releasing its verdict, Russia was switching on its new satellite net to catch warships straying into its waters in the Black Sea, off the coast of the disputed Crimean Peninsula. As well as space-based capabilities, the system, nicknamed 'Strategy', uses long-range radar to spot would-be invaders.

Earlier this week, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow sounded the alarm over NATO's growing interest in cruising off Russia's sunny southern coastline. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated:
"The Alliance is expanding its range of activities in the Black Sea area, drawing in countries from outside the region. The number of NATO ships being called in to their Black Sea ports, flights of reconnaissance aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles along the Russian borders is increasing."

"The appearance of a new player here, who clearly did not come with the best intentions, shakes regional stability and drives a wedge between neighboring countries,"

Comment: How to justify any military maneuver? Blame your 'enemies' for what you do yourself.

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Propaganda

The Grey Lady backtracks: NY Times retracts key parts of 2018 'Caliphate' podcast, reassigns terrorism reporter

Celine Castronuovo
The Hill
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 18:01 UTC
Rukmini Callimachi
Rukmini Callimachi, terrorism reporter for the New York Times
The New York Times on Friday retracted key parts of its 2018 award-winning podcast Caliphate and reassigned the paper's terrorism reporter after an internal review found that the paper failed to corroborate claims presented in the podcast.

The paper instituted a more than two-month review of the 12-part audio documentary hosted by terrorism reporter Rukmini Callimachi that sought to give an inside look at the ISIS terrorist group.

The investigation came after Canadian authorities arrested and charged Shehroze Chaudhry, a main subject of the podcast who claimed to have taken part in ISIS executions. Canadian authorities allege that Chaudhry lied about these activities, and currently faces criminal charges in a federal court in Ontario of advancing a terrorism hoax.

Comment: The New York Times was so eager to serve the CIA's Syria narrative, it overlooked basic journalism principles. It's not the first time.

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Info

Ice Age Farmer Report: 250k hens perish in fire - Royal Navy to defend fishing waters - "Explosive" soybean situation


Ice Age Farmer
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 14:39 UTC
in the Navy

250,000 chickens have been lost in yet another fire. The UK is set to deploy the Royal Navy to defend their protein supply in fishing waters. More analysts are calling the soybean situation "explosive," even as meat plants are once again shutting down due to COVID-19. It seems PROTEIN is set to be the mechanism of control as the battle for control over our food supply is waged by the technocrats. Christian shares a healthy serving of data in this episode of the Ice Age Farmer broadcast.


(Video also here)

Sources
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Magnify

SOTT Focus: Least Authoritarian Country in Europe: The Belarussian Approach to Covid-19 Exposes The Lockdown Lie

Rachel Allen
Off-Guardian
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 10:02 UTC
Belarus
Crowds celebrating Victory Day in Minsk, May 9th 2020.
Most European governments instituted the shutdown of economies, restrictions on freedom of movement and other policies known as lockdown. This was allegedly in response to the spread of Sars-Cov-2, a dangerous respiratory virus that originated in Wuhan, China.

Few countries rejected this approach; Sweden is the most well known of these. However, a more interesting case of dissent from the official narrative is Belarus and its leader Aleksandr Lukashenka.

This article will outline Lukashenka's approach to the alleged pandemic, followed by an analysis of death figures and how the Belarussian case exposes the lies of lockdown advocates.

The Belarussian approach to Covid-19

The alleged pandemic broke out in Europe in March 2020, and most European governments followed the severe strategy of imposing lockdowns. Lukashenka's response was much more limited. A Belarussian press release from the 25th March talks about the quarantines set up for people who enter Belarus:
Quarantine stations were set up at all the points of entry. Screening measures include temperature checks. This system of control really works, [healthcare minister] Vladimir Karanik noted. This helped identify symptoms of a viral infection in more than 250 people, however the absolute majority of them had influenza, parainfluenza, and adenovirus. If a person tests positive for coronavirus, healthcare workers put their contacts under medical observation. "Such a targeted approach helps curb the spread of the virus," the minister said."

Comment: The scamdemic has also exposed the 'freedom and democracy' lie. In the official worldview, Belarus in the most authoritarian country in Europe. In reality, it's the least.

Belarus of course paid for its disobedience to the Branch Covidian Cult by having a 'democracy revolution' foisted on it as soon as the 'first Western lockdown' ended in June. But this backfired, in large part because most Belarussians said 'no thanks' to the 'freer version of democracy Westerners enjoy' - which is, of course, actually more authoritarian.

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MIB

Leaked files show UK govt spent millions exploiting Syrian women in grotesque PR offensive

Kit Klarenberg
RT
Fri, 18 Dec 2020 15:17 UTC
Douma
© REUTERS/Omar SanadikiFILE PHOTO: Women stand as they wait their turn to cast the votes inside a polling station during the parliamentary elections in Douma, in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, Syria July 19, 2020
A swath of leaked documents reveals the extent to which the British government went in an effort to paint the Syrian opposition in a flattering light. They also confirm women unknowingly formed part of this effort.

The leaked UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) documents reveal a variety of covert ways in which London sought to not only propagandize women in Syria, but to exploit them as weapons in a vast information warfare campaign waged at home and abroad.

The papers are among bombshell files released by hacktivist collective Anonymous, which expose a number of cloak-and-dagger actions undertaken by Whitehall against Damascus. Women figured prominently in a number of the plans, which cost the FCO millions of pounds over many years.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

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Light Sabers

Sweden caves in to coronavirus fearmongering and begins to enforce baseless lockdown restrictions


TheLocal.se
Thu, 17 Dec 2020 12:00 UTC
Gustaf
© Pontus Lundahl/TTKing Carl XVI Gustaf taking part in a video meeting earlier this year.
Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf on Thursday said the country had "failed" to save lives during the pandemic, seen as a rare comment from the monarch who normally refrains from commenting on political issues.

The Scandinavian nation is currently struggling to contain a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, with new cases rising since mid-October.


Comment: Faulty tests deployed en masse will, predictably, lead to claims of 'new cases'.


"I believe we have failed," Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf told broadcaster SVT in an interview for a programme summing up the year.

"We have a large number that have died and that is terrible," the King added.

Comment: RT reports that now, however, Sweden is enforcing the 'new normal' with hysterical enthusiasm:
Speaking on Friday, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said that "this year, Christmas will be different," as he announced the new measures to tackle Covid-19, some of which are to kick in on Christmas Eve.

"The situation is still serious, and the situation in the healthcare system is very strained," Löfven asserted.

The PM spoke of his concern that the Christmas period could see Covid infections spike in the new year, and would cause the healthcare system to be overwhelmed:


So healthcare isn't overwhelmed. And, as we've seen over the last 9 months, it won't be - no more than usual, anyway.


"The maximum number of people in gatherings will be reduced to four people, starting on 24 December. Just celebrate Christmas with those closest to you."

Sweden Christmas
© TT News Agency/Fredrik Sandberg via REUTERSA woman walks past a Christmas decorated shopping window, in Stockholm, Sweden (FILE PHOTO)
Lofven, who has come under fire in recent days following an official report that blamed his government for excess care home deaths during the pandemic, also announced that all non-essential workers would be made to work from home until January 24.


Care home deaths happened in every country, including those that locked down: First, Do No Harm: If Primary Healthcare Remains Shut Down, Toll on Elderly Will be Worse Than COVID-19


In addition, the PM said the serving of alcohol would be prohibited beyond 8pm throughout the country.

Earlier in the year, Sweden took a different approach to most countries in tackling Covid, aiming to achieve herd immunity by allowing the virus to spread but protecting the vulnerable, and without the economy-shaking move of full national lockdowns.

However, Sweden has suffered a disproportionately large number of Covid deaths compared to neighboring countries.


As always, there's more to the story: Sweden records highest death tally in 150 years in first six months of 2020 - put in perspective


On Friday, Swedish health officials registered a new country high of 9,654 Covid cases and 100 deaths. There have been 77.51 deaths per 100,000 people due to the virus in Sweden, almost 10 times the figure in each of neighboring countries Norway and Finland, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
If you thought nonsensical lockdowns were bad, there's worse to come: 'And that no man might buy or sell': Welsh government to roll out 'coronavirus vaccine ID cards'

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