Puppet MastersS


Megaphone

Assad calls differences with Ankara 'illogical': Syrian people have not been hostile toward Turkish


Sputnik
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 21:54 UTC
turkish army
© AP Photo / Baderkhan Ahmad
Ankara and Damascus have been embroiled in clashes for several months amid a deteriorating situation in Idlib - the last stronghold of jihadists in Syria. Turkey attacked Syrian forces in February after a Turkish military outpost in Idlib was hit by the Syrian Army, resulting in an escalation of the conflict.

Syrian President Bashar Assad stated that the feud between his and Turkey is "illogical", stressing that Damascus had not attacked Turkey and that both states have common interests.
"What hostile action - big or small - did the Syrian people commit against the Turkish people? There is no such thing. There are Syrian-Turkish marriages, there are families, there are vital common interests. This mutual cultural interaction is historically determined, it is illogical that we have some serious disagreement between our countries", Assad told the Russia-24 TV channel in an interview.
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Light Sabers

Putin-Erdogan meeting: A storm is expected over the mother-of-all battles in Idlib

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 21:44 UTC
Hezbollah
Hezbollah in Saraqeb attacking at night to free the western part of the city with special equipment
Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan had decided to attack Russia, Iran and Syria when he sent his army to Idlib and bombed Russian and Iranian allies on the Idlib front. The Turkish president is feeling strong and believes he is holding many good cards to play against his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin. He trusts he is in a position to bomb Iran's allies, despite the fact that they hold armed drones, precision missiles and experienced Special Forces that can hit Turkey very hard in the case of war.

The conflict Erdogan envisions between Russia, Iran and Syria on one side and Turkey on the other would suit the US and Israel. They would be happy to see Presidents Putin and Erdogan sinking into the Syrian quagmire and Hezbollah losing more men in the Levant. Negotiations, intense battles and attempts to reshuffle the military situation are taking place behind the scenes. President Erdogan is trying to improve his military position on the ground before his meeting with President Putin in Moscow tomorrow Thursday- but to no avail. Stormy negotiations can be expected.
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Laptop

Chinese accuse CIA hackers of 11-year attack in new cyber report

Zak Doffman
Forbes
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 20:47 UTC
hackers china US american cyber espionage
© Getty
Chinese security company Qihoo 360 has taken the security world something by surprise, with published claims that it has exposed an eleven-year campaign by "CIA hacking group (APT-C-39)," which, it says, targeted a range of Chinese industries, including aviation, oil and gas and tech, as well as several government agencies.

"It is worth noting," the report says, "that the attacked information technology sectors of civil aviation by the CIA are not only in China, but also involves hundreds of commercial airlines [in other] nation states."

This is is a report heavy on speculation and inferences from already public data, and lacking in detailed attribution. What's more interesting is that the company has elected to do this now in the public domain. We can now likely expect further Chinese exposure of alleged U.S. exploits, the potential for individuals to be identified, and a further shift of this cyber tit-for-tat into the public domain.
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Question

Lost down the memory hole: Salisbury poisoning unleashed the Russian bogeyman ... but where are the Skripals 2 years on?

Simon Rite
RT
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:49 UTC
skripals yulia Sergei salisbury
© REUTERS/Dylan Martinez; Global Look Press; Getty Images / Finnbarr WebsterYulia Skripal and father Sergei Skripal (insets) Salisbury Cathedral
Forget Where's Wally, what we really want to know is where are the Skripals? It's exactly two years to the day since the Russian spy and his daughter were novichoked in Salisbury, and we've still not seen hide nor hair of them.

Former double agent Sergei has been completely off-grid, while Yulia Skripal was seen in a highly staged video in 2018, filmed in an anonymous but pleasant leafy glade shortly after recovering from her poisoning ordeal; but, apart from that, there has been no statements or updates about them at all.

The most recent piece of 'information', and I use that term loosely, to leak out about their whereabouts came this weekend from Britain's Mail on Sunday, courtesy of a source which became ubiquitous throughout the Skripal saga, the reliably unreliable "security insiders." It's always amazing how willing these apparent insiders are to release top-level secrets to the home of the "sidebar of shame."

Comment: A year ago, this was the speculation: Skripals likely still in the UK and working with MI5.

Then three months ago John Helmer posted this:

The Skripals under the US spell at a USAF nuclear bomber base in Fairford, Gloucestershire (before relocating to the USA?)

What has changed that new rumors are being floated through the Mail?

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Map

Standing up to Turkey: Austria's chancellor is the only EU leader prepared to call out President Erdogan over weaponizing refugees

Damian Wilson
RT
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 19:19 UTC
greece turkey migrants
© Global Look Press / Dimitris Tosidis / XinhuaMigrants and refugees behind a wired fence at the borderline between Greece and Turkey near the closed Kastanies border crossing in northeastern Greece, March 2, 2020
A poorly-considered fix to prevent Syrian refugees flooding Europe has come undone for the EU as Erdogan opens Turkey's border to the west, with only Austrian Chancellor Kurz exposing Brussels' migration policy failure.

If the EU had not been so distracted with the whole prolonged Brexit fiasco or its inability to staff up its Commission with acceptable new faces, then it might have noticed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had weaponised thousands of Syrian refugees.

While Brussels has taken its eye off the ball, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was paying attention and rightly accused Erdogan's opening of Turkey's border with western Europe as "an attack on the EU."

Last time there was a mass movement of people from Turkey, after Germany's Angela Merkel opened the floodgates, Austria found itself with an extra one percent added to its population as the refugees crossed its borders on their way to the 'open door' of Germany.

So Kurz needs to keep on top of this.

He further went on to point out that Turkey had focused its action on the border with Greece, not the one it shares with Bulgaria, saying, "this clearly shows that this is organized."

And he is right.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Russian MoD: Turkish outposts in Idlib have 'merged' have terrorist fortifications


RT
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 19:14 UTC
idlib syrian army
© Reuters TVA still image taken from a video shows Syrian army soldiers walking as they advance on the town of Kfar Nabl, Syria.
Turkey has allowed its observation posts, established under a 2018 deal with Moscow, to virtually merge with terrorist bases in Idlib, Russia's Defense Ministry said, amid a Turkish assault against advancing Syrian forces.

"The fortified areas of the terrorists have merged with the Turkish observation posts deployed under the 2018 Sochi agreement," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said early on Wednesday.
Attacks and mass artillery fire on neighboring civilian settlements and the Russian airbase at Khmeimim turned from sporadic to daily.
Europe and the United States have consistently ignored Turkey's failure to abide by the 2018 deal, the spokesman continued, stating that neither is "interested in the actual humanitarian situation inside and around Idlib."
All of Russia's official requests to the UN and Western countries - who delivered humanitarian aid across the Turkish border and all of it went not to refugees, but to terrorists - remained unanswered. All we heard were the lamentations about the need to 'preserve the Sochi agreements at all costs.'
Despite repeated attacks on civilians and clear links to known terrorist groups, Western media have transformed Idlib's armed factions into so-called 'moderates,' the spokesman said.

Comment: See also:

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Mr. Potato

Super Tuesday fallout: How the Democrat clown show went down


RT
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 17:44 UTC
Joe Biden Bernie Sanders
© AFP/ Mark Ralston, Mark FelixDemocratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden (L) and Bernie Sanders (R)
The stage looks set for a drawn-out Democratic contest between an establishment centrist and a socialist agitator, after Super Tuesday voting saw Joe Biden sweep the south while Bernie Sanders claimed the top prize in California.

The biggest voting day in the Democrats' primary calendar, Super Tuesday brings in vote tallies from 14 states, as well as from American Samoa, and has a major impact on shaping the race to nab the party nomination.

So, what happened and what does it all mean?

Comment: Indeed, it looks like the Washington Establishment had finally woken up to the danger that Bernie might have actually taken the convention, and threw all its covert assets against him.

Proven DNC liar Donna Brazile went on Fox News to 'protest too much' that the DNC would 'never' rig the convention results against Sanders:
Brazile said she was "sick and tired" of Republicans commenting on the Democratic Party's process of selecting a presidential nominee and accused McDaniel of using "Russian talking points to sow division" among Americans.


In a fit of complete lack of self-awareness Killary chimed in, chiding Sanders about 'following the rules'. The mind boggles. Still Twitter immediately called the Hill-bot out
"Let's follow the rules, we had rules last time, we have rules this time," the two-time Democratic candidate told ABC with a cackle on Tuesday, referring derisively to Sanders' complaints about superdelegates, the DNC-appointed convention VIPs who aren't bound by the will of their constituents.

The former first lady came out with a few more howlers, urging voters to "be more understanding and realistic about what it takes to get change in this big complicated pluralistic democracy of ours."


The candidates did themselves no favors, with both Biden and Bloomberg making very public gaffes. Biden led off managing to insult two Iraq war veterans at once:


Bloomberg, not to be outdone, set a bad example of behavior, right in the middle of the coronavirus scare:
US President Donald Trump cautioned his billionaire Democratic rival Mike Bloomberg about the gross-out unhygienic behavior on display in a TikTok video apparently posted by his campaign. Score one for the mega-troll. "Don't lick your dirty fingers," Trump tweeted at his adversary "Mini Mike" on Tuesday evening as voting results for Super Tuesday primaries began to surface. "Both unsanitary and dangerous to others and yourself!"
bloomberg lick fingers
© Twitter
In the meantime media pundits and peripheral players cluttered up the landscape.
Activist and Bernie Sanders supporter Shaun King has sparred with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, after claiming she reported that the DNC is angling to prevent the socialist senator from winning the Democratic nomination.

King tweeted out to his more than 1 million followers that Maddow had disclosed that "senior officials" within the Democratic Party were pressuring billionaire-turned-presidential-candidate Michael Bloomberg to drop out so that "Biden would have an easier time against Bernie." He made the provocative accusations that the Democrats were in fact "interfering with the primaries to stop" Sanders.


King countered by posting a short clip of the network news host discussing the latest DNC gossip.


Rabid anti-Russian bit player Michael McFaul, of Magnitsky Act infamy, compared Biden's "comeback" to Rocky Balboa. One wonders if he's angling to regain his spot in the Deep State machine?
McFaul, now a prolific twitterer and media pundit, asked his followers whether they remembered "a comeback in the history of American electoral politics as big as Biden in the last four days." While many comments were along the (expected?) lines of adoration for the gaffe-prone politician, some actually answered to the question.





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Briefcase

Trump campaign suing WaPo for 'millions of dollars' over 'false and defamatory' statements on 'Russia collusion'


RT
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 16:29 UTC
Trump washington post
© (L) Reuters / Carlos Barria; (R) AFP / Eric Baradat
Donald Trump's 2020 campaign has reportedly filed a libel suit against the Washington Post for "millions of dollars," accusing the newspaper of publishing "false and defamatory" statements about alleged collusion with Russia.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court in Washington DC on Tuesday, highlights two articles published by the Post in 2019 linking Trump's team to alleged foreign interference in the 2016 election, Fox News reported.

The complaint, which was seen by the news outlet, alleges that the Post was "well aware" that the statements were false but published them anyway for the "intentional purpose" of hurting Trump's campaign. The articles were part of the newspaper's "systematic pattern of bias" against Trump, it said.

Comment: Trump's campaign organization will have a wealth of Washington Post propaganda to draw from in making their case:

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Attention

DNC scrambles to change debate threshold after Gabbard qualifies

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:01 UTC
Tulsi Gabbard
On a CNN panel on Monday, host John King spoke with Politico reporter Alex Thompson about the possibility of Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard qualifying on Super Tuesday for the party's primary debate in Phoenix later this month.

"I will note this, she's from Hawaii," King said of Gabbard. "She's a congresswoman from Hawaii; American Samoa votes on Super Tuesday. The rules as they now stand, if you get a delegate, you're back in the debates. As of now. Correct?"

"Yeah, they haven't, I mean, that's been the rule for every single debate," Thompson replied. "And the DNC has not released their official guidance for the March 15 debate in Phoenix, but it would be very obvious that they are trying to cancel Tulsi, who they're scared of a third party run, if they then change the rules to prevent her to rejoin the debate stage."

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

Iran nearly triples stockpile of enriched uranium - UN

Kiyoko Metzler, David Rising
ABC
Tue, 03 Mar 2020 19:18 UTC
iran nuclear
© AP Photo / Hamid Foroutan
Iran has nearly tripled its stockpile of enriched uranium since November in violation of its deal with world powers, U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Tuesday, while raising new questions about possible nuclear-related activities and undeclared nuclear material at three locations.

The International Atomic Energy Agency made the statement in a confidential report distributed to member countries that was seen by The Associated Press. The agency said as of Feb. 19, Iran's total stockpile of low-enriched uranium amounted to 1,020.9 kilograms (1.1 tons), compared to 372.3 kilograms on Nov. 3, 2019, noted in its November report.

The current stockpile puts Iran within reach of the amount needed to produce a nuclear weapon, which it insists it doesn't want to do.

Comment: Sputnik reports that the IAEA is considering whether to issue a report berating Iran for refusing it access to certain facilities:
The sources referred to the IAEA's drive to visit one or more sites mentioned in a trove of data seized by Israeli intelligence agents, which were in turn singled out by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to the UN General Assembly in 2018.

Uranium Conversion Facility
© AP Photo / VAHID SALEMIAn Iranian security official, dressed in protective clothing, walks inside the Uranium Conversion Facility, just outside the city of Isfahan, 410 kilometers, (255 miles), south of the Iranian capital Tehran in this Wednesday, March 30, 2005
At the time, Netanyahu claimed that Iran had a secret warehouse in Tehran where it stored large amounts of materials and equipment that were used to pursue a clandestine nuclear programme. The Islamic Republic has vehemently denied the allegations.

"The second report will be on Safeguards issues linked to sites that the IAEA did not get access to. We know of two cases, but we don't know whether the IAEA will put both in (the report)," one of the sources said.

The UN nuclear watchdog typically releases quarterly reports on what they describe as Iran's nuclear weapons programme, but on Tuesday the IAEA is expected to issue a special survey in which it will slam Iran's reluctance to give the go-ahead for IAEA inspectors to visit the sites of interest. Iran has repeatedly underscored that it would never seek to obtain a nuclear weapon, adding that its nuclear programme is purely peaceful.

This time, the source went on, "the general message is: there's a new sheriff in town", an apparent nod to the UN nuclear watchdog's new chief Rafael Grossi, who was appointed in October 2019 after former IAEA Director Yukiya Amano died earlier that year.

It was under Amano that IAEA inspectors visited one site mentioned by Netanyahu, obtaining environmental samples that reportedly showed traces of uranium.

Iran Takes No Further Steps to Violate JCPOA Since January Pledge - IAEA Chief

As for the latest developments, these come after Grossi stated last month that Tehran had taken no further steps toward violating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), following its pledge in early January to do so.

"After the fifth step, there hasn't been any follow-up," he told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, adding, "of course, they continue to enrich".

Following the 3 January assassination of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qasem Soleimani by a US airstrike in Iraq, Tehran announced that it would take further measures to rescind its commitments under the JCPOA. The deal lowered economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for its acceptance of very strict limits on nuclear material production and stockpiling.
See also:

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