Puppet MastersS


Target

Pompeovirus? Iran creatively takes aim at US Secretary of State for sanctions pressure amid Covid-19 outbreak


Sputnik
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:09 UTC
Pompeo
© REUTERS / POOL
The longstanding tensions between the United States and Iran have become especially palpable in the past several weeks as Washington refuses to lift sanctions against Tehran, which is currently the second worst-hit nation in Asia in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases.

Iran's Foreign Ministry has taken a rather creative approach to lament the US economic pressure on the country in general and to condemn US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in particular.

In a tweet, the ministry posted a picture calling to "stop aiding war crimes" and "obeying immoral and illegal US sanctions" with the word "sanction" written in the middle of the image. However, the letter "O" was stylised as the coronavirus with a translucent Mike Pompeo emerging from it.


Comment: Pompeo and the US war-making class like to speak out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand they "offer" medical aid and assistance to Iran, and on the other, make economic conditions on the ground so oppressive for Iranians that they have far greater difficulties just taking care of themselves.

See also: 'Not a time for political war': Rouhani slams US anti-Iranian sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic - as well as:

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Chess

Delusional? Gantz will block West Bank annexation, Palestinians are at last a 'player' and J Street sees upside in Israeli politics

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 27 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street
Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street at the October 2019 conference.
The Israel lobby group J Street had a webinar today in which its leaders declared two silver linings from the stunning elevation of Netanyahu yesterday that ends a year of political stalemate:

1, Benny Gantz may have betrayed the Israeli center that wanted to dethrone Netanyahu, but as Netanyahu's partner he will prevent the Israeli government from annexing the West Bank over the next 10 months.

2, The mainstreaming of Palestinian lawmakers as players in the Israeli discourse has been "huge" and would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, said that the next ten months are "critical" for right wing Israeli advocates of annexation. "After corona [crisis ends], they will try and seize that victory and the land, before a Biden government comes in."


Comment: Interesting. Why are they so certain that there will be a "Biden government"? Does the J Street organization know something we don't? Or are they just making a rather dumb assumption - like the way most predicted Killary would win the 2016 election?


Yael Patir, the head of J Street's Israeli arm, said annexation has been set back: "Everything we thought about and were worried about in terms of the fast pace in which annexation can be... implemented... is on hold... It's not on the table right now." Trump can't OK Israeli annexation because he's too enmeshed in the coronavirus crisis and the reelection campaign.

Comment: Considering the pathological drive and immense power that the racist and imperialist class of politicians in Israeli society now have, it seems highly unlikely that the "centrist" and more "progressive" forces in the US and Israel will have any significant say, or influence, on the Zionist state's current trajectory. See also:

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USA

DOJ opens probe into Senate stock sell-off in wake of coronavirus briefings

Sophie Mann
Just the News
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 08:20 UTC
Department of Justice seal
© Brendan Smialowksi / Getty ImagesThe Department of Justice seal
The FBI is investigating the stock market trades of several senators just before the market dipped due to the global spread of coronavirus

The Justice Department has reportedly opened a probe into U.S. senators selling stocks just before financial markets plunge as the coronavirus spread around the world.

The FBI has contacted at least one of the four senators identified in the selloff, Sen. Richard Burr, chairman the Senate Intelligence Committee, CNN reported Sunday.

Burr, a North Carolina Republican, on February 13, sold $628,000 to $1.7 million in stocks. Burr says the trade decisions were based on information accessible to the public. In early March, the senator requested that the Senate Ethics Committee review his trades.

The question becomes whether the lawmakers conducted trades based on information they received in non-public briefings about the novel coronavirus. Of now, there is no indication that Burr, or any of the other lawmakers, broke the law or any Senate rules. It is common for the FBI and SEC to open probes into trades that have caused a public question of their appropriateness.
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Stock Down

Prominent Chinese bank CICC slashes China's 2020 growth forecast to 2%

Orange Wang
South China Morning Post
Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:32 UTC
CICC bank china
Debate about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on China's economy took on a new complexion on Monday after the country's most prominent investment bank turned pessimistic, slashing its 2020 growth forecast.

President Xi Jinping has insisted China will meet its economic and social developments goals this year, including eradicating poverty and building up a "moderately well-off society", despite the virus outbreak sending the economy into free fall in the first two months of the year and increasing evidence of a global recession.The government has recently strengthened its rhetoric about the resilience of China's economy, and a number of Chinese economists still believe gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year could be close to the 6 per cent target range that was expected to be announced in March.

But on Monday, the China International Capital Corporation (CICC) - seen by many as the country's most highest-profile brokerage - stunned many in Chinese financial circles by sharply cutting its real GDP growth forecast for 2020 to a record low of 2.6 per cent, from 6.1 per cent in January.

Comment: Indeed, it isn't really important how well the casino markets believe the real economy is doing; what's important is keeping people employed and fed.

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Better Earth

Wealthy will cover costs of coronavirus through tax for the benefit of the people - Putin

Mike Whitney
UNZ Review
Sat, 28 Mar 2020 12:00 UTC
Putin Kirill
© BBCPatriarch Kirill and Putin
Vladimir Putin has decided how Russia is going to pay for the corona-virus.

He's going to tax the rich.

It's a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren't asked. Instead, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package for which the American taxpayer will be held entirely responsible. Even worse, the new legislation contains a $500 billion allocation (another corporate giveaway) that the Federal Reserve will use as a capital base for borrowing $4.5 trillion. That massive sum of money will be used to buy toxic bonds in the corporate bond market. Just as Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) were used to fleece millions of investors out of their hard-earned savings in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, so too, "toxic" corporate bonds were the weapon of choice that was used to pilfer trillions of dollars from investors in the run-up to today's crisis. (Same scam, different instrument) The virus was merely the proximate cause that tipped the sector into meltdown. The problem had been festering for years and everyone in the financial community (Including the Fed, the BIS and the IMF) knew that it was only a matter of time before the market would blow sky-high. Which it did.

What every American needs to know is that our crooked bought-and-paid-for Congress just passed a bill that transfers the credit risk for $4.5 trillion of corporate sludge onto the National Debt. A bailout of this magnitude could impact the nation's credit rating (Fitch has already issued a warning), send interest rates to the moon, dampen economic activity for years to come, and pave the way for a long and painful slump. The much ballyhooed $1,200 checks for unemployed workers are merely a tactical diversion that's being used to conceal the giant ripoff that is taking place right under our noses.

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

Houthi militants claim retaliatory strikes on Saudi Arabian cities


Sputnik
Sun, 29 Mar 2020 16:36 UTC
Houthi
© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
A military spokesman for Yemen's Houthi militants said Sunday that the group targeted Riyadh and several southern Saudi cities with drones and rockets overnight, Houthi media reported.

The spokesman was quoted as saying by the Almasirah news channel that Saturday night attacks aimed at "sensitive sites" in the capital as well as at military and economic targets in Jazan, Najran and Asir.

The attacks were launched in retaliation for air strikes by the Saudi-led military coalition on Houthi positions in Yemen's capital Sana and areas close to the southern Saudi border.

Comment: See also:

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Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: Mass suicide of the West: UK plans to keep entire population in isolation for at least 6 MONTHS - US extends lockdown to May - Italy to July

Holly Ellyatt
cnbc.com
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 10:24 UTC

Comment: It's as if we're all in Jonestown, and the cult leaders are trying to drive us all so mad we start killing ourselves.

'Social isolation' is willful economic destruction.


prison planet

The lockdown in the U.K. to stop the coronavirus outbreak could last for up to six months, government officials warned Sunday, as the U.S. and other European nations also announced prolonged restrictions on public life.

Speaking at the U.K.'s daily press conference on the latest coronavirus news, the U.K.'s deputy chief medical officer said a lockdown could last, in some form, for months.

"Over time, probably over the next six months, we will have a three week review," Jenny Harries said, "We will see where we're going."

"We need to keep that lid on and then gradually we will be able to hopefully adjust some of the social-distancing measures and gradually get us all back to normal. So I think three weeks for review, two or three months to see whether we've really squashed it. But about three to six months ideally, and lots of uncertainty in that, but then to see at which point we can actually get back to normal."

Comment: We're ruled by megalomaniacal terrorists.

The bad news is they can't be stopped. Notice that Trump, Putin and other 'sovereign leaders' all bow before their diktats.

The good news is they'll cause so much suffering, the cosmos/planet will likely intervene.

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Attention

Best of the Web: Bolsonaro questions need for COVID-19 lockdown, says deaths exaggerated for political purposes - UPDATE: Twitter CENSORS Brazilian president


RT
Sat, 28 Mar 2020 08:32 UTC

Comment: Update 30 March 2020

Twitter, like the good hive mind app that it is, has begun deleting Bolsonaro's efforts to break the Corony spell his country has been put under.
In an unprecedented move, Twitter has yanked two posts by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in which he took aim at coronavirus lockdowns as part of his controversial campaign to avoid a shutdown of the economy.

Bolsonaro has become the first ever head of state to have his tweets censored by the platform under recently-updated guidelines, requiring users to remove content that defies "global or local health authorities recommendations" aimed at halting the spread of the deadly disease that has already taken hold in the Latin American country.

The Brazilian leader, who has been adamant that economic damage from lockdowns is a price too high to pay for lowering health risks, made a trip to a street market on Sunday, mingling with crowds and chatting with street vendors.

The videos, posted by Bolsonaro in the wake of the visit, apparently ran afoul of the Twitter guidelines. In one of them, Bolsonaro assures a street seller that he was "not going to die" due to the measures to combat the pandemic.

"What I have been hearing from people is that they want to work," the president, dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics," reportedly said.

bolsonaro covid-19
Bolsonaro: 'This is BS'
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has waved off the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, insisting that life goes on. He suggested the death toll in his own country has been overstated for political purposes.

The Brazilian leader has been locking horns with many of the country's governors, who have imposed bans on non-essential commerce and continue to accuse Bolsonaro of prioritizing the economy over the lives of his citizens.

"I'm sorry, some people will die, they will die, that's life," Bolsonaro said in an televised interview on Friday. "You can't stop a car factory because of traffic deaths."

He remarked that in the state of Sao Paulo the reported fallout from Covid-19 - 1,223 cases and 68 deaths - seemed "too large."

"We need to look at what is happening there, this cannot be a numbers game to favor political interests," Bolsonaro said.

Comment: Multiply that figure by 10, at least. Which means this is basically a nothing-burger.

Politically, this is unsustainable. World leaders are going to break ranks as people begin to really suffer from shortages, depression, and death from neglect of normal medical treatment.

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Bullseye

'Not a time for political war': Rouhani slams US anti-Iranian sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic


Sputnik
Sun, 29 Mar 2020 03:29 UTC
rouhani
© REUTERS / Handout
On Thursday, the Trump administration added five organizations, as well as fifteen people, to its sanction lists over their alleged ties with Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force at a time when Tehran is calling for the sanctions on its economy to be lifted amid the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic hitting the nation and the world.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday during a cabinet meeting denounced new US sanctions on Tehran, even as the country, along with the rest of the world, is fighting the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to Iranian news outlet Press TV.

The leader said that the deadly pandemic has united the Iranian people and created mutual trust between them and the government, despite the suffering caused by the disease. Rouhani hailed the country's "acceptable" handling of the outbreak, saying that the situation in Iran "is good" in comparison to "Europe and the West", even though the country is under heavy US economic and trade sanctions.
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Dominoes

The post-coronavirus world will be far worse than the pre-coronavirus world

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 29 Mar 2020 02:54 UTC
coronavirus
© REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Signs, especially in the United States, are that the post-coronavirus-plagued world will have even more inequality of wealth, within each nation, than existed prior to the plague. Billionaires are demanding to be included in the bailouts by their governments; and, because billionaires financed the careers of the successful politicians who won seats in their country's legislature, those demands are almost certain to be complied with. Only the least-corrupt nations will be able to recover fully from the current plague.
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