Puppet MastersS


Bizarro Earth

Which Korea?! Seoul shows 'preemptive strike' with F-35s & boasts of 'glorious victory' over Pyongyang in holiday propaganda


RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:00 UTC
North Korea
© Republic of Korea Air Force ScreenshotA simulated North Korean military installation is destroyed in a promotional video released by the South Korean air force.
The South Korean Air Force has put out an incendiary video simulating a preemptive attack on its northern neighbor using a high-tech arsenal of US-supplied weapons. Pyongyang is unlikely to receive the clip in holiday spirits.

The promotional video depicts computer generated F-35 fighters and other jets launching strikes on North Korean positions, clearly marked with bright red stars - in case there was any mystery about who the message was intended for.

Published earlier this week, the four-minute video begins with a US-made Global Hawk spy drone detecting enemy activity, at one point showing what appears to be a North Korean Hwasong-14 ICBM platform just before it's blown apart in a dramatic explosion. A narrator speaking in Korean then pledges the "glory of victory is promised under any circumstances," according to JTBC, a South Korean TV network.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

'Years of upset'? What PM Johnson's 'getting Brexit done' will really look like


RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 21:21 UTC
bojo
© Reuters / Ben Stansall
Boris Johnson's Conservatives rode to a landslide victory on the promise to 'Get Brexit done.' But the jubilant PM may face an uphill battle to secure the trade deals he promised British voters.

PM Johnson will struggle to complete a trade deal with the EU by the end of the transition period - December 2020, Professor John Ryan, a senior partner at the organization Brexit Partners told RT.

"That [UK-EU trade deal] is not possible because it is too short of time."

Furthermore, Ryan claims that any aspirations of striking a number of big trade deals with the likes of Japan, China and the US is "fanciful." He argues that those countries will wait and see what is happening between the UK and the EU before laying their cards on the table, suggesting that any quick deals may not be secured so easily.

Comment: Johnson's "earthquake" will likely suffer disastrous aftershocks: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Light Saber

Best of the Web: German MPs in uproar over US' Nord Stream 2 sanction threats, call for retaliation


RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 16:21 UTC
Nord Stream
© Nord Stream AG
As the US braces to slap sanctions on European firms building the last leg of the Russia-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a senior MP in Berlin argues that formal protests don't work anymore - but a strong response could.

Germany may follow America's lead in foreign policy and defense expenditures, but it is less submissive when it comes to energy security, which is sacrosanct for Europe's economic powerhouse. This week, US lawmakers introduced a bill tightening the chokehold on Germany's flagship energy project it jointly runs with Russia, targeting European companies laying underwater tubes for the much talked-about Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

The proposed sanctions package, yet to be approved by the Senate and the president, stipulates asset freezes and revocation of US visas for Nord Stream contractors. And Berlin doesn't much like it.

Comment: Germany can sorely afford to suffer the threats and the meddling of the US for much longer:

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Briefcase

Paternity deposition: Hunter Biden must answer questions under oath including his financial record

Zachary Stieber
The Epoch TImes
Fri, 13 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Hunter Biden
© Getty ImagesHunter Biden
Former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden will have to answer questions under oath on Dec. 23 as part of a paternity case, according to a new court filing.

Biden, 49, will be deposed two days before Christmas in Little Rock, Arkansas, reported the New York Post and the Daily Mail, citing a court filing. The deposition will be part of a paternity case that 28-year-old Lunden Roberts brought in May.

The case is progressing forward after Biden took a DNA test, which showed "scientific certainty" that he is the father of Roberts' child, according to the woman. Roberts also said in a motion (pdf) in September that Biden verbally admitted that he is the father of the child, who is 1. Biden has not contested the claim.

Biden will have to answer questions about his financial situation, including how much he was paid per month to work for the Ukranian energy company Burisma; a lawyer for Roberts instructed Biden to bring "all exhibits" he plans to use in his defense.

Roberts also asked in a recent court filing that Biden admit "that you or an entity owned, controlled, or under your direction or supervision received money from a Chinese person, entity, or corporation for foreign (meaning international) or domestic (meaning the United States) investment purposes."
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Chess

Analysis: What's good-bad-ugly about US-China trade breakthrough


RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 14:32 UTC
handshake almost
© Reuters/Damir SagoljUS President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands.
The limited deal between the world's two largest economies was welcomed by the stock markets and international organizations, but there are concerns that the deal is far from flawless and lacks necessary details.

Washington and Beijing announced on Friday that they finally reached a "historic and enforceable agreement" on a phase-one deal that cancels looming tariff hikes, which were set to kick in on Sunday, as well as lowering some of the existing ones.

What's in the deal?

The US will lower from 15 to 7.5 percent levies on approximately $120 billion of Chinese imports. However, 25-percent tariffs on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will remain in force. While China did not announce the elimination or reduction of existing tariffs targeting US imports, it agreed to boost purchases of American goods to $200 billion over the next two years, including agricultural imports critical for the US.

The deal also requires structural reforms from the Chinese side regarding intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, currency and foreign exchange, among other things.

Comment: The negotiations so far are phase one. Today's concerns over gains and losses may be equalized in a later agreement.

See also:

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Dollars

NATO may be all about values, but pay up! Pentagon's Esper reprimands US allies (vassals?)

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 02:03 UTC
Military photo
© Reuters/OgnenNATO photo op at the end of Decisive Strike exercise in North Macedonia, June 17, 2019.
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper argues that NATO members should pay up because there can't be "free riders," but then goes on to say US alliances are all about "mutual respect and common values." It can't be both, so which is it?

"There can't be any free riders. There can't be any discount plans. We're all in this together," Esper said on Friday at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to nineteen NATO members who are still failing to spend two percent of their gross domestic product on "defense."

In reality, however, free-riding on the massive US military apparatus is precisely what NATO is about. Its first secretary-general articulated the alliance's purpose as keeping "the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down," and by golly that's precisely what NATO has done throughout the Cold War.

Comment: See also:

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X

Defense Secretary Esper point blank tells Syrian Kurds the US never promised them a state

Helen Buyniski
RT
Fri, 13 Dec 2019 22:58 UTC
Kurdish forces
© AFPKurdish forces
The US never promised Syria's Kurds that it would help them build an autonomous state, Defense Secretary Mark Esper has insisted, despite years of hints to the contrary. So much for the birth pangs of that New Middle East...

Esper told reporters on Friday:
"Nowhere, at no point in time did we tell the Kurds, we will assist you in establishing an autonomous Kurdish state in Syria, nor would we fight against the longstanding ally Turkey on your behalf.

"We live up to our obligations, and our obligation, our agreement, our understanding with the Kurds was this: that we would work together to fight in Syria to defeat ISIS."
But now that ISIS has been declared dead almost as many times as its late leader Baghdadi, is it game over for the US-Kurdish partnership?

Esper's words no doubt came as a shock to anyone expecting a continuation of the Assad-Must-Go policies of the Obama administration, in which it was understood that the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces would be rewarded for doing their part to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad with their own semi-sovereign state à la Iraqi Kurdistan. US media have long sung the praises of 'Rojava' as some sort of feminist utopia, but this "brave social experiment" is now imperiled by the Trump administration's stubborn refusal to continue waging a war it has all but lost in Syria.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Hungarian FM Szijjarto: Pity that human rights are used as excuse to interfere in another state's domestic issues


RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:58 UTC
Szijjarto
© Reuters/Adriano MachadoHungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
The EU's policy regarding sanctions and restrictive measures is sometimes marked with double standards, Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto told RT, stressing that even an issue of human rights can be seen differently inside the bloc.

Budapest is committed to upholding human rights, the Hungarian foreign minister said, adding that unfortunately, sometimes a reference to this matter serves as a basis to persecute some political interest. Sometimes the reference to human rights serves as a basis to interfere into domestic issues of other countries on an ideological basis, on a political basis, without any good reason.

Szijjarto noted that even an understanding of what human rights means, raises a debate. Migration is a huge challenge, he states. Szijjarto doesn't agree with other European players that migration is a fundamental human right. He says that the fundamental human right is to have a "safe and secure" life at home, and if this right is violated, everybody is allowed to go to a safe country. Migration cannot be the reason to violate borders between safe countries.

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Bizarro Earth

The Shakespearean tragedy of Jeremy Corbyn: Destroyed by appeasing his enemies

Neil Clark
RT
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 19:05 UTC
Corbyn
© Reuters/Tom NicholsonJeremy Corbyn
The Jeremy Corbyn project has ended in tears with an utterly demoralising general election defeat for Labour, but it could - and should - have been very different if only Corbyn had trusted his own instincts.

There is a distinctly Shakespearean air to the political demise of UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, which took place, appropriately enough, on Friday the 13th of December 2019 (or you could say 15 March would have been even more appropriate).

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries," the great bard wrote in Julius Caesar.
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No Entry

DOJ won't release records on Imran Awan: Court docs cite 'technical difficulties' and a secret case

Luke Rosiak
The Daily Caller
Fri, 13 Dec 2019 17:46 UTC
Imran Awan Wasserman Schultz
© ReutersImran Awan, the former IT aide to congressional Democrats including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
The Department of Justice is withholding documents about the Imran Awan cybersecurity scandal by saying there is an ongoing, secret case related to matter, according to court papers.

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Nov. 7, 2018, for 7,000 pages of Capitol Police records related to the cybersecurity investigation, and Aug. 2, the DOJ agreed to begin producing records by Nov. 5.

That deadline came and went with no records being produced; on a Nov. 13 phone call, the DOJ said "technical difficulties" had resulted in a delay, Judicial Watch stated in a court filing.

The DOJ later changed its story and said it was actually withholding documents "pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan who is presiding over a related sealed criminal matter," prosecutors said in a Dec. 5 filing.

Comment: Indeed, Imran Awan's activities is one of the real scandals that was lost in the fog of Russiagate. Kudos to Judicial Watch for staying on top of it.

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