Puppet MastersS


Attention

Best of the Web: All out oil war as Saudi Arabia floods market

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 19:45 UTC
crude markets
With the commodity world still smarting from the Nov 2014 Saudi decision to (temporarily) break apart OPEC, and flood the market with oil in (failed) hopes of crushing US shale producers (who survived thanks to generous banks extending loan terms and even more generous buyers of junk bonds), which nonetheless resulted in a painful manufacturing recession as the price of Brent cratered as low as the mid-$20's in late 2015/early 2016, on Saturday, Saudi Arabia launched its second scorched earth, or rather scorched oil campaign in 6 years. And this time there will be blood.

Following Friday's shocking collapse of OPEC+, when Russia and Riyadh were unable to reach an agreement during the OPEC+ summit in Vienna which was seeking up to 1.5 million b/d in further oil production cuts, on Saturday Saudi Arabia kick started what Bloomberg called an all-out oil war, slashing official pricing for its crude and making the deepest cuts in at least 20 years on its main grades, in an effort to push as many barrels into the market as possible.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

Eva Bartlett: UN report on alleged Russian 'war crimes' in Syria provides no proof and just asks us to "believe" them

Eva Bartlett
RT
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 14:19 UTC
Jabhat Fateh
© Reuters / Ammar AbdullahFILE PHOTO: Militants the Syrian Islamist rebel group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham are seen on a pickup truck in the Idlib province, Syria, on August 1, 2016.
A UN-mandated report, which accuses Russia of war crimes in Syria, heavily relies on anonymous sources and lacks evidence, but also smacks of deliberate disinformation that is halting the eradication of terrorism in Idlib.

Earlier this week, the The Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Syrian Arab Republic released a report largely lambasting Syria and Russia in their fight against terrorism in Syria. Corporate media were quick to echo allegations of Russian "war crimes" in Syria, all while diminishing the crimes of terrorist groups against Syrian civilians and soldiers.

The report does passingly acknowledge that Syria, Russia and allies are fighting "armed opposition groups, including Hay'at Tahrir" (al-Qaeda); the rest of the document reads mainly as a litany of accusations against Syria and Russia.

Comment: See also:

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Info

Warren condemns Sanders supporters' attacks after 2020 exit, says 'We're responsible for people who claim to be our supporters'

Jeffery Martin
Newsweek
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 10:31 UTC
Senator Elizabeth Warren
© Amanda Sabga/AFP/GettySenator Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that candidates are "responsible" for their supporters who engage in online bullying.
In her first interview since dropping out of the Democratic presidential race, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday that candidates "are responsible for people who claim to be our supporters" online that participate in online bullying.

Warren's comments came during a discussion about Senator Bernie Sanders' difficulties with a culinary union in Nevada. When the labor group Unite Here printed up flyers against Sanders' Medicare for All plan in February, alleged supporters of the Vermont senator posted threats and personal information of the group's leadership online.

Union officials reported a number of threats via email, telephone and social media after the literature, which claimed Sanders' health plan would "end Culinary healthcare," was made public.

Comment: Other than condemning supporter's misbehavior, what can anyone reasonably do? Bernie called out the 'Bernie Bros.' for their abusive actions. Does Warren think he should go to Culinary Union and start busting heads?

See also:

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Microscope 1

Trump called it: HHS estimates coronavirus mortality rate at 0.1%-1%

JD Rucker
NOQ Report
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:01 UTC
Trump Pence HHS
When the President told Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he had a "hunch" the coronavirus did not really have a a mortality rate over 3% as mainstream media had been widely reporting, indignant progressive journalists took turns either criticizing him or ridiculing him. This is standard operating procedure for mainstream media, but they were especially vicious in their attacks on this particular "hunch."

As it turns out, the President was absolutely correct.

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Light Sabers

Two-man 'bloodbath': Bernie calls out 'billionaires buying elections' as Biden attacks his 'increasingly negative' bros


RT
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 04:05 UTC
sanders and biden
© REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 30
Joe Biden warned supporters about "Bernie brothers" running an "increasingly negative campaign" and that a "bloodbath" between the two candidates, as Tulsi gets lost in the shuffle, will only help re-elect Donald Trump.

The fight between Biden and Sanders for the Democrat Party's presidential nomination is intensifying as the two candidates campaign in the midwest this weekend ahead of primary votes in states like Michigan and Missouri in the coming days.

Speaking to donors in Bethesda, Maryland, Biden seemed to call for a positive battle between him and Sanders, but he also managed to get in some digs on the Vermont senator and his supporters.
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Light Sabers

'Medical terrorism': Zarif blames US sanctions for widening coronavirus outbreak that killed 145 in Iran, including top officials


RT
Sun, 08 Mar 2020 01:58 UTC
medical team
© WANA via ReutersMembers of the medical team spray disinfectant in Mashhad, Iran
As authorities struggle to contain the outbreak that infected nearly 6,000 in Iran so far, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has acused US President Donald Trump of deliberately exacerbating the crisis with mounting economic pressure.

At least 145 people died across Iran by Saturday, while the number of officially confirmed infections jumping by over a thousand in just one day to 5,823 people, including several top officials. In yet another high-profile case, Fatemeh Rahbar, a newly-elected member of the Iranian Parliament, died of coronavirus on Friday - just a day after Hossein Sheikholeslam, adviser to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had perished.

"[President Donald Trump] is maliciously tightening US' illegal sanctions with aim of draining Iran's resources needed in the fight against #COVID19 — while our citizens are dying from it," Zarif tweeted on Saturday.
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Arrow Down

Lebanon defaults on its $1.2bn Eurobond debt, PM says corruption 'has eaten the state'


RT
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 23:43 UTC
Lebanese PM Hassan Diab
© REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File PhotoLebanese PM Hassan Diab
Lebanon's PM Hassan Diab has announced his country is unable to pay the $1.2 billion Eurobond due on March 9 and will default for the first time. This comes amid a government crisis and currency plummeting by 40 percent.

The move to not pay the outstanding debt and to launch upcoming negotiations with creditors was made unanimously at a cabinet meeting before Diab made the announcement on Saturday.

This decision marks the country's first ever default on its sovereign debt.

Diab says it is impossible to pay creditors at a time when his own country faces so many struggles.
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Eye 2

Al Nusra terrorists deploy to front line In Donbass

Joaquin Flores
Fort Russ News
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 21:37 UTC
al nusra
al nusra hastag on Twitter
Reinforcements from the ranks of terrorist groups in the Middle East arrived at the Kiev militants on the front line with the Lugansk People's Republic, according to the Office of the People's Police of the LPR.

"Due to the low staffing of units of the armed forces of Ukraine and the unsatisfactory level of combat training of personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian leadership continues to attract Islamic mercenaries from the countries of the Middle East to the punitive operation zone in the Donbass," said Ivan Filiponenko, press officer of the UNM.

The defense department of the Republic announced the information received by the intelligence: in the area of ​​n. Muratovo arrived two trucks with ammunition.
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Snakes in Suits

Joe Biden in 2020 duplicates Hillary Clinton in 2016

Eric Zuesse
The Saker
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 21:12 UTC
biden and hillary
Hillary Clinton, of course, received the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 and was widely expected to beat Trump but she lost to him (though she won California by 4,269,978 in the popular vote, and so beat Trump by 2,864,974 in the nationwide popular vote, while she lost all other states by 1,405,002 votes, and so she would have been California's President if she had won, but the rest of the nation wouldn't have been happy).

Among the top reasons why Democrats in primaries and caucuses voted for Clinton was that they thought she would have a higher likelihood of beating the Republican nominee than Sanders did. This was the impression that the Democratic National Committee spread, and the Party's voters believed in it. However, by the time when Election Day rolled around, the passion that Republicans felt for their nominee, Trump, was much stronger than was the passion that Democrats felt for their nominee, Clinton. During the Democratic primaries, polls were showing that the Democrats who were voting for Sanders to become their Party's nominee were far more passionate in their support of him than was the case regarding the Democrats who were voting for Clinton to become the Democratic nominee. And nobody questions that Trump was the passion-candidate in the Republican Party's primaries and caucuses.
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Putin

Putin-Erdogan deal sugar-coats the Turks' surrender

Scott Ritter
RT
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 10:23 UTC
Putin Erdogan Lavrov Cavusoglu
© Getty Images/Turkish Presidency/Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Anadolu AgencyR to L: President of Russia Vladimir Putin • President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan • Russian FM Sergey Lavrov • Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu
This week's meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan in Moscow was cast as preventing a war between Russia and Turkey in Syria. War, however, was never on the horizon. Putin called Erdogan's bluff, and the Turk folded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, accompanied by their respective senior national security advisers, met in Moscow on March 5. The purpose of this emergency summit was to negotiate the terms of a ceasefire that would bring an end to heavy fighting in Syria's Idlib province that threatened to draw their two nations into direct military conflict. After more than six hours of meeting, a new agreement, packaged as an "additional protocol" to the "Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the De-escalation Area as of September 17, 2018" (better known as the "Sochi Agreement"), was agreed to by both parties.
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