Puppet MastersS

Bizarro Earth

Turkish foreign minister: 'We expect Russia to stop Damascus military operations in Idlib'


RT
Thu, 06 Feb 2020 10:01 UTC

Comment: Wait, whose country is it again?


Assad
© SANA / Handout via REUTERSFILE PHOTO. Syrian President Bashar al Assad visits Syrian army troops in Idlib province.
Ankara expects Moscow to apply pressure on Damascus to cease military operations in the contested province of Idlib, Turkey's foreign minister said after a deadly incident in which Turkish troops were killed.

A Russian delegation will soon visit Turkey to discuss the development in the northwestern Syrian governorate, the last bastion of anti-government forces, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday. If necessary, a personal meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin will follow, he added.

Erdogan on Wednesday demanded that Damascus pull back its forces from Turkish outposts in Idlib by the end of the month, threatening to use force otherwise. The ultimatum comes after an incident in which several Turkish troops were killed in the area after a convoy came under Syrian artillery fire. Moscow said the clash occurred due to the failure of the Turkish side to warn about the movement of their troops.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 2

Netanyahu schedules possible war on Gaza to coincide with March elections


Times of Israel
Thu, 06 Feb 2020 10:35 UTC
Netanyahu
© Kobi Gideon/GPOFILE PHOTO: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, speaks with an IDF officer near the border with the Gaza Strip on March 28, 2019.
In sit-down with municipal leaders in south, PM says he won't hesitate to act if rockets and airborne bombs persist; local officials said livid he only met with Likud members

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told municipal leaders in the Gaza area on Wednesday that Israel could launch extensive military operations in the Palestinian enclave before the upcoming Knesset elections if Palestinian terrorists continued launching rockets and airborne explosive devices at southern Israel.

Netanyahu told the council chairmen that while Israel is making significant efforts to ensure calm in the area, the military is ready for an operation in Gaza if needed, according to Hebrew media reports.

Comment: See also:

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Stock Up

China to reduce tariffs on some imported US goods by 50 percent on 14 February

Oleg Burunov
Sputnik
Thu, 06 Feb 2020 04:20 UTC
china usa flag
© AP Photo / Andy Wong
On 15 January, the US and China signed a Phase One Deal on a broader trade agreement in Washington, in what indicated a breakthrough in a trade war that had been simmering between the two major economies for nearly 18 months.

The Chinese Finance Ministry announced on Thursday that Beijing will slash tariffs on $75 billion in goods imported from the US in half.

The ministry said that the reduction is due to come into force on 14 February, and expressed hope for further cooperation with the US to finally lift all the tariffs in bilateral trade.
"Starting from 13:01 [05:01 GMT], on February 14, the tariffs on the [US] goods, which were increased by 10 percent on 1 September 2019, will be decreased to 5 percent, while the tariffs on the [US] goods, which were risen by 5 percent, will be lowered to 2.5 percent," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also expressed hope that Beijing and Washington would be able to fulfil their commitments under the recently-reached trade deal, boost market confidence, develop bilateral trade and economic relations as well as contribute to global economic growth.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

Donald Trump acquitted in Senate impeachment trial

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:50 UTC
Trump
President Trump has been acquitted by the Senate on both articles of impeachment, ensuring that he will not be removed from office after he was impeached by House Democrats.

Trump was acquitted on the charge of abuse of power by a vote of 52-48. On the second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress, Trump was acquitted by a margin of 53-47.

impeachment chart

Comment: The political turmoil in Washington is far from over and may take other forms: The 'resistance' will do anything and everything in their power to get Trump out

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Document

Grassley, Johnson seek Hunter Biden's travel records from Secret Service

Sara Carter
SaraACarter.com
Thu, 06 Feb 2020 00:50 UTC
grassley_johnson
Two top Republican Senators are expanding their probe into potential conflicts of interest "posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden" as the Senate investigative committees continue to probe former Vice President Joe Biden's son's business activities overseas during his father's tenure in the Obama Administration.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Finance Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, who already have an ongoing investigation into numerous White House meetings during the Obama Administration with senior Ukrainian officials, sent a letter Wednesday to Secret Service Director James M. Murray requesting information "about whether Hunter Biden used government-sponsored travel to help conduct private business, to include his work for Rosemont Seneca and related entities in China and Ukraine."
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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Hybrid War and its impacts on Latin America

Santiago Mayor, Andrew Korybko
One World
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
latin america
This is the full English-language original version of the interview that Andrew Korybko gave to Argentinian journalist Santiago Mayor, who then published a shortened form of it in the Buenos Aires newspaper "Tiempo Argentino":
1. In your book about the theory of the Hybrid War, you review the different American geopolitical theories throughout history to arrive at the current project of the "Eurasian Balkans" and "peripheral chaos". What does Washington's geopolitical project consist of and how is it linked to the current multipolar world?

The US aims to retain its hegemony over Eurasia so as to indefinitely perpetuate its preeminent role over International Relations, to which end it's employing a divide-and-rule strategy over the supercontinent via the external exploitation of identity conflicts for geopolitical ends. Many Eurasian states are very diverse, so it's comparatively easier to meddle in their affairs through information warfare, NGOs, and other more "traditional" activities of its intelligence agencies. This takes the form of provoking Color Revolutions and civil wars, sometimes through the use of terrorist-driven means. The resultant chaos destabilizes the targeted state and thus enables the US to compel it into undertaking envisaged political concessions that work out to America's supreme benefit. On a larger level, employing this policy in several states at once creates a chain reaction of chaos all along the Eurasian periphery that the US tries to channel for "containment" purposes against Russia, China, Iran, and others, but sometimes it loses control of the chaotic processes like in Syria where this scheme ultimately backfired to a large extent by creating the conditions for Russia's game-changing anti-terrorist intervention which led to Moscow challenging Washington's influence in the Mideast.

Comment: See also:

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USA

The wisdom of the Constitution is evidenced in the US impeachment trial

Seraphim Hanisch
The Duran
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
gavel/flag/wethepeeps
© Moussa81/Getty Images
While American foreign policy has been broken for decades, Trump's efforts to fix it are protected by this 18th-century document.

If one judges the age of nations by how old their constitutions and governmental structures are, Paul Ryan tells the truth when he says the US has the oldest democracy in the world. This is verified as True, even on PolitiFact. The US Constitution was ratified in 1788, and although it has been successfully amended 27 times, it has never been fundamentally changed since ratification. While many nations, almost all of them now, have constitutions, none of these have lasted as long as the American document, perhaps because while other nations (including the Soviet Union!) created constitutions modeled after the pattern of the US Constitution, they did not preserve the system of checks and balances that the US document has. These protect the document from change, making it exceedingly difficult for radical changes to the Constitution, and they also protect the nation from the whims of its own elected leadership, as it is the Constitution, and no one person or group of persons, that the holders of elected office in the US swear allegiance to, "so help me God."

It may therefore come as a surprise to many people to learn that the United States of America is actually the oldest (constitutionally based) nation in the world.

Comment: The onus is on every citizen to understand and utilize the safe-guard mechanisms afforded by the founders against those who would seek to subjugate and control. Knowledge protects.

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Stormtrooper

NATO's 'Defender Europe 2020' is 'war against Russia' role-play no matter how they justify it

Mikhail Khodarenok
RT
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 15:04 UTC
NATOConvoy
© Global Look Press/Sgt. Megan Zander/Keystone Press AgencyElements of 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, convoy to the Hohenfels Training Area for Combined Resolve XIII on Jan. 18, 2020.
Despite NATO officials' claims about Defender Europe 2020 not being aimed against any particular country, the exercises are clearly just another anti-Russian provocation.

The main objective of the exercise โ€” NATO's largest in over 25 years โ€” is to practice deploying US troops to Poland and the Baltic states. As part of the drill, up to 20,000 US troops will be deployed to Europe by air and sea, as well as 13,000 vehicles and equipment. 37,000 soldiers from 18 countries will take part in Defender-Europe 2020 altogether. These exercises will last about five months, and will take place mostly in Germany, Poland, and the Baltic states, with the bulk of the activities scheduled for April and May.

On Monday, the first units from Britain arrived in Belgium's Antwerp.

Comment: Without the Russian sticker face, NATO has little to validate its reason to be. Given that most military aggression is set in motion by Western nations, NATO looks in the mirror but sees the enemy.

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Syringe

Rep. Adam Schiff sued for censoring info on vaccines by Physicians' Association

Conan Milner
The Epoch Times
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
Schiff
© YouTube.com
A national medical association is suing Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). The case accuses the California Congressman of abuse of power, claiming that he bullied tech companies into censoring information about vaccines.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) filed the suit in a U.S. District Court in D.C. on Jan. 20, 2020. The complaint points to letters Schiff sent to Google, Facebook, and Amazon in February and March of 2019 urging those companies to discredit or deplatform any content that suggests vaccines may be harmful.

The letters express Schiff's concerns about the nation's declining vaccination rates, and requests that companies take steps to stop what he calls a "growing problem." Schiff wrote:
"If a concerned parent consistently sees information in their YouTube recommendations that casts doubt on the safety or efficacy of vaccines, it could cause them to disregard the advice of their children's physicians and public health experts and decline to follow the recommended vaccination schedule. Repetition of information, even if false, can often be mistaken for accuracy, and exposure to anti-vaccine content via social media may negatively shape user attitudes towards vaccination."

Comment: Unless Rep. Schiff has a medical degree and a stellar track record of researching accurate medical information, his opinion is worse than worthless - it is dangerous.

See also:

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Attention

Interview with UN torture expert: Assange's treatment is a threat to the 'future of our democracies'

Mohamed Elmaazi
Sputnik
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 13:13 UTC
Nils Melzer
© Mohamed ElmaaziNils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
Professor Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, says that the governments of the US, Sweden and the UK have shown "bad faith" in failing to address evidence that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been subjected to torture.

Julian Assange's main extradition hearings will be split into two parts, with the first set of hearings due to start on 24 February. The publisher faces up to 175 years in prison in the US on charges relating to his role in publishing classified US documents, which exposed alleged war crimes committed by US and UK occupation forces in Iraq. After examining Assange in Belmarsh prison Professor Nils Melzer, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and two other renowned experts in examining torture victims, concluded that the journalist and publisher showed symptoms of "psychological torture".

It was recently revealed that the US government is now claiming that protections for a free press and free speech under the US constitution don't apply to foreign journalists.

Professor Melzer, talks about how his mandate as an independent UN expert has compelled him to speak out, when Britain, the US, and Sweden failed to properly address his concerns in Assange's case.
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