Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Compromised? Nigel Farage admits he was offered a peerage 48 hours before Brexit U-turn

Ben Glaze
Mirror
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 14:27 UTC
farage
© REUTERSHe had been under mounting pressure in recent days
The Brexit Party leader has stood down hundreds of candidates in the run-up to the ballot

Nigel Farage claimed he was offered a peerage 48 hours before blinking first in his Brexit stand off with Boris Johnson .

The Brexit Party chief was forced to scrap plans to stand candidates in hundreds of seats amid mounting warnings he risked scuppering EU withdrawal.

He claimed he was offered a peerage on Friday night - just two days before his screeching U-turn boosted the Prime Minister.

But he denied the Christmas bauble was behind his decision - and vowed to snub the offer.

Comment: As it stands, the likely conclusion is that Theresa May's initial proposal of Brexit (in name only) will proceed unchallenged, much to the delight of Parliament which is dominated by remainers, and much to the dismay of a significant proportion of the general public that voted for Brexit. Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Alarm Clock

SOTT Focus: Resignation of Bolivia's Evo Morales Was No Victory for Democracy, but a US-Sponsored Coup

Eva Bartlett
RT
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 12:26 UTC
Bolivia coup
Evo Morales, an indigenous leader who bucked the IMF and condemned US imperialism, has been pressured by the military to resign after winning an election. Yet Washington calls this blatant coup in Bolivia a victory for democracy?

Morales was re-elected as Bolivia's president on October 20. The coup-backing Organization of American States (OAS) wasn't pleased and went ahead and interfered in the electoral process of a sovereign nation - as the US itself does so well - issuing a report that the vote result wasn't satisfactory.The heavy funding from the US surely has no influence on OAS policies...

In any case, on November 10, President Morales first announced a new election. Later that day, he announced his resignation, naming as reason the recent brutality of Bolivia's right-wing opposition, including "kidnapping and mistreating" families of indigenous leaders and burning down the homes of public officials.
"I resign from my position as president so that (Carlos) Mesa and (Luis Fernando) Camacho do not continue to persecute socialist leaders."
Morales was clear that his move was solely due to the violence incited opposition leaders. However, it soon became clear that this was a coup, not a resignation.
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Eye 2

Google sucks up & analyzes healthcare data on millions of Americans in secret AI project


RT
Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Creepy google
Google has teamed up with one of the largest health providers in the US to gather detailed medical records on millions of patients across the country without their knowledge, in a secret project the firm tried to keep under wraps.

Dubbed "Project Nightingale," the secretive program brought together Google and healthcare giant Ascension in an effort to collect medical records on patients across 21 states, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The data sharing began last year, and has only accelerated in recent months.

At least 150 employees at Google's Cloud division now have access to the bulk of the data, which amounts to information on tens of millions of patients, according to a source familiar with the records. The details shared include patient names and dates of birth, hospitalization records, lab results and doctor diagnoses, which together provide a complete medical history for many of the patients - all without their consent.

Comment: See also:

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Che Guevara

Back with a Bang: Released Lula in for greatest fight of his life

Pepe Escobar
The Saker
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left
Lula da Silva with his followers
© Roberto StuckertFormer Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva greets his followers after his release from prison.
He's back. With a bang.

Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled political capital, called all Brazilians to stage nothing short of a social revolution.

When my colleagues Mauro Lopes, Paulo Leite and myself interviewed Lula at the federal prison, it was his Day 502 in a cell. By August, it was impossible to predict that release would happen on Day 580, in early November.
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Arrow Up

Jordan reclaims "every inch" of sovereignty over two plots of land leased to Israel

Ali Younes
Al Jazeera
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 11:05 UTC
jordan israel border
© Ariel SchalitAmid mounting domestic public pressure last year, Jordan's king said he would not renew land deal with Israel.
Jordan on Sunday received two stretches of land it had allowed Israel to use for decades, amid tense relations between the neighbours 25 years after they signed a landmark peace deal.

Under the terms of two annexes in the 1994 treaty, the enclaves of al-Baqoura and al-Ghumar would remain under Jordanian sovereignty while Israeli farmers maintained access to the land.

But in 2018, amid mounting public pressure not to renew the arrangement relating to the two territories, Jordan's King Abdullah II submitted a one-year notice of termination to Israel.

Tense ties

Comment: Press TV reports:
The Jordanian king made the announcement during a speech he delivered to Jordan's new cabinet on Sunday.

Baqoura, also known Naharayim, is an area of six square kilometers in Jordan's northern Irbid Province, situated south of the Lake Kinneret and to the north of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Ghumar, also known as Zofar, is another area that covers four square kilometers in the southern Aqaba Province and is located south of the Dead Sea.

According to the treaty inked by Jordan and the Israeli regime on October 26, 1994, the two pockets of land were leased to Israel for a 25-year renewable period, and the lease was automatically renewable except if one side gave a year's notice to terminate the deal.

"We have informed Israel [that we are putting] an end to the application of the peace treaty annexes regarding Baqoura and Ghumar," he said at the time, adding that Tel Aviv was "informed" regarding Amman's decision. The two areas "are Jordanian land and will remain" part of the Arab country, the king said.

Israel had controlled the two regions for over 70 years.

Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman al-Safady is expected to hold a press conference on the end of the lease on Monday.

Israel and Jordan have maintained diplomatic relations since they signed the 1994 treaty. However, many Jordanians strongly oppose ties with Tel Aviv.
From Sputnik:
Israeli Army Contradicts Jordan's King on Enclave Lands, Says Lease Extended

The Israeli military contradicted on Sunday Amman's announcement that a Jordanian enclave allowed to be used by Israeli farmers will be returned to Jordanian jurisdiction, saying the lease agreement has been extended until next April, although with new restrictions.

"In continuation of the deliberation on the diplomatic arrangements in the Tzofar enclave, security forces are protecting the area and working together with the community," the Israel Defence Forces said in a press statement cited by the Times of Israel, using the Hebrew name for the territory of Ghamr.

"The farmers' work in the enclave is continuing subject to agreements and coordination," the IDF statement added.

The military did not elaborate on the terms and conditions of the lease agreement extension.

"The Israeli foreign ministry later tweeted Tel Aviv's "regret" over Jordan's "decision to terminate the annexes" to the peace treaty, but added that "the Government of Jordan will continue to respect private ownership rights in Naharayim [Baqoura]," and that Jordan will "allow Israeli farmers to harvest the crops that were planted before the annex expired" in Tzofar (Ghamr). "

Jordan has yet to make a statement on any possible agreement.

Earlier, media reported that Israel was preparing to return the two parcels of agricultural land south of the Dead Sea, after negotiations between Tel Aviv and Amman failed to achieve a breakthrough. Amman had first announced its intention to take the land back in October 2018.

AFP reported earlier Sunday that Israeli farmers were barred from entering the Jordanian border enclaves as King Abdullah II announced "full sovereignty" over the territories.

In September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to annex the Jordan Valley, which comprises almost one-third of the territory of the West Bank, if re-elected.


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Battery

Flashback Best of the Web: Evo Morales plans to transform Bolivia into major global hub of lithium-based technologies


DW.com
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 17:22 UTC
lithium mine bolivia
The Bolivian government aims to pump massive investments to expand the country's production of lithium, a metal needed for the batteries that power everything from smartphones and laptops to hybrid and electric cars.

In a future battery-powered world, lithium may replace oil and emerge as one of the most important commodities on earth. That prospect is driving Bolivia, which is considered to have the largest reserves of the metal, to keep lithium under strict state control.

Bolivian President Evo Morales sees a prosperous future for his currently impoverished South American nation, pinning his hopes on the rapid rise in the global price of this valuable resource. "We will develop a huge lithium industry, over $800 million have already been made available," Morales told the German DPA news agency.

Lithium, the lightest of all metals, is the key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, which are currently the best available technology for powering a range of products, including mobile phones and e-cars.

Lithium-ion battery production is forecast to double to eight billion cells by 2025. And the world price for lithium carbonate has almost doubled in a short span of time to about $13,000 per ton. This has pushed a number of firms across the world to try to get hold of lithium supplies.

Comment: That's the end of that plan then.

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2 + 2 = 4

Tim Hayward: Should universities care about the truth?

Tim Hayward
Mronline.org
Tue, 09 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Douma balcony canister in Forensic Architecture’s “augmented reality.”
Isn't the answer obvious? Universities are about attaining, preserving and disseminating knowledge — which only is knowledge insofar as it is true. Caring about the truth is what universities — through their members — do.

The question as intended, however, concerns claims of fact that are appealed to as grounds for governments to go to war or to engage in other kinds of hostilities such as sanctions, blockades, coups and military interventions.

Such claims are not typically the fruits of academic research. They are made by politicians or pundits, and amplified by the media, on the basis of such intelligence reports as are made available. But sometimes they are wrong: babies were not thrown out of incubators in Kuwait; Saddam Hussein did not have WMD; Gaddafi did not give Viagra to his soldiers; it is far from certain that Assad used chemical weapons as alleged by the West.

So the question is whether universities have any particular business truth-checking such claims. The answer is not obvious.
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USA

The Military Coup Against Morales Won't End The Hybrid War On Bolivia

Andrew Korybko
One World Global Think Tank
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:06 UTC
Evo Morales resigned
President Morales resigned under duress following the military's "request" that he do so after the US-backed OAS alleged that it uncovered evidence supposedly proving that his recent re-election was rigged, but the military coup won't end the Hybrid War on Bolivia even in the unlikely "best-case" scenario that it ends the cycle of violence in the country because the structural-institutional consequences of this ongoing campaign will inevitably lead to a reversal of the socio-economic rights that were bestowed upon the majority-indigenous population and therefore risks returning millions of people to their prior position as slaves to the neoliberal-globalist system.
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Attention

UK election shocker: Farage makes u-turn, now he DOES support BoJo's 'Brexit Deal', dump hundreds of Brexit Party candidates

Sam Bright
Scram:
Mon, 11 Nov 2019 19:45 UTC

Comment: Farage appears to have bottled it. We can't blame him though. The British establishment is ruthless, and they've apparently tried to 'take him out' at least once before. Today he reversed last week's grand announcement that 600 Brexit Party candidates would challenge all seats in the UK - thus including incumbent Conservative seats - on the basis that all the traditional parties are colluding to keep the UK in the EU.

Farage now says that the Brexit Party won't contest half of those seats - those won by the Conservative Party in the last election in 2017. This means that, with those two parties now effectively in an alliance, they'll win enough seats in December to prevent Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party from becoming PM.

Farage isn't himself running for a seat, so - barring a miracle to the effect that most English voters now want to remain in the EU and would therefore vote Labour - Johnson will be PM for the next 5 years. And the UK will remain in the EU because 'Brexit negotiations' will be dragged out indefinitely and/or mere cosmetic changes will be applied to the UK's status within the EU.

That's the last nail in Brexit (actually happening), and it 'defends the realm from national security threat Corbyn'. But it leaves anyone who wants actual Brexit with no real choice in the upcoming election...


farage brexit party
'Sorry old chaps'
Several of the Brexit Party's (now former) general election candidates are in a state of open revolt against Nigel Farage, after he stood down candidates in 317 constituencies.

Brexit pied piper Farage led his troops to the top of the hill, before unceremoniously dumping them earlier today. The Brexit Party leader announced that he would be standing down his candidates in every constituency won by the Conservatives in 2017, in an effort to prevent splitting the Leave vote.

However, perhaps unsurprisingly, Farage's scorned candidates have been reacting with a decent level of fury to his decision.

A couple of candidates have suggested that Farage has abandoned Brexit voters, and that even they will not vote at the upcoming general election.

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Quenelle - Golden

Libyan Tribal Union declares ICC charges against Saif Ghadafi illegitimate

JoannaM
Libyan War The Truth
Sun, 10 Nov 2019 19:03 UTC
Dr. Saif al Islam Muammar Gaddafi Libyan tribes
Dr. Saif al Islam Muammar Gaddafi
The Libyan Tribal Union has issued a statement of rebuke to the ICC for its phony charges against Dr. Saif al Islam Ghadafi. The charges have no foundation in truth and were basically taken from unsubstantiated and highly biased media articles. The Libyan tribes point out the great HYPOCRISY of the ICC that turns and continues to turn a blind eye to the crimes against humanity that were committed in Libya by NATO, Obama, Clinton, Bernard Levy (and their terrorist mercenaries) and other western nations in their illegal invasion and attacks in 2011. The crimes against the Libyan people continue to this day by the terrorists militas supported by the Serraj illegitimate - UN installed regime in Tripoli.

Not one charge has been made against the aforementioned criminals, and against the illegal invasion by NATO, illegal bombing of homes, rape of women, assassination of families, destruction of homes, water supplies, power supplies, hospitals, roads, food supplies, medicine supplies etc. etc.

Comment:

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