Puppet MastersS


Light Saber

Saudi Aramco delays listing after Yemeni attacks make it unable to fulfill orders

Abqaiq
© AFPSmoke billows from the Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia's Eastern province after the Sept 14 attacks.
Saudi authorities have effectively delayed plans for floating state-run Aramco oil company on the stock market after Yemeni drone raids on oil installations earlier this month, according to report. The Reuters news agency cited sources with direct knowledge of Aramco's future plans as saying on Tuesday that initial public offering (IPO) of the company would not take place this year despite pledges given by senior Saudi energy officials that the listing would take place by early November.

"They need to build confidence - in addition to restoring production," one of the sources stated, making a reference to last Saturday's attacks by Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement on Aramco's Khurais and Abqaiq plants, which process and clean crude. Aramco officials had announced last year that the company would offer one percent of its shares for sale on the domestic stock market as early as November 2019.

The IPO had been expected as a first step for the company to sell five percent of stakes and raise at least $100 billion to help the Saudi government fund an ambitious plan for modernizing its economy and diversifying it away from oil. However, attacks on oil installations have been seen as a major blow to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and his Vision 2030 plan.

Comment: Pepe Escobar notes in How Yemen's Houthis are bringing down a Goliath:
On the energy front, Persian Gulf energy traders that I have relied upon as trustworthy sources for two decades confirm that, contrary to Saudi Oil Minister Abdulazziz bin Salman's spin, the damage from the Houthi attack on Abqaiq could last not only "months" but even years.
And Phil Butler in The simple truth about the Yemen catastrophe writes:
With Saudi Arabia having already exhausted most of her oil reserves, only new finds in the region can prop up that ridiculous regime. [...]

"Yemen boasts twelve sedimentary basins, but oil production has come from only two of these, both lying in the center of the country, indicating that there is promising potential for further exploration both on and offshore Yemen."

Take note here, these new reserves would be sweet oil and not the sludge Saudi Arabia is thinning with seawater to get it to pump.
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Black Magic

Best of the Web: Joe Biden and Ukraine: A Quick Reminder

Joe/Hunter Biden
© Screenshot Fox NewsFormer VP Joe Biden • Hunter Biden.
A quick reminder of what Joe Biden did during the collective West's 2014 coup in Kiev...
Biden insisted on capturing governmental and administrative buildings in the most violent way, preferably with victims. In order to do this, there had to already be some "symbolic" deaths. He cooked up and coordinated a scenario with other foreign embassies. In addition, Maidan was dying and it needed extra fuel in order to remain alive. The scenario involved "protestors" being shot by snipers. Biden's guys (Parubiy, Pashinsky, Parasyuk) organised the massacre.

The Ukrainian Security Service forced the Ukrainian blogger Artur Senko to delete this very damning investigation. It's in Russian only, sadly. Part 1 is above, part 2 is below.

In his memoirs Biden says:

"I called the then President of Ukraine Yanukovych and ordered him to leave his post. I made the last of many urgent calls to Yanukovych in late February of 2014, when his snipers were assassinating Ukrainian citizens".

Spot the lie(s).

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: 'Revolution' in Ukraine: A history of manufactured chaos


Rocket

Russia offers NATO a moratorium on missile deployment, but won't sacrifice its own security to prove its goodwill

Russian 9M729 missile
© Sputnik / Vladimir AstapkovichRussian 9M729 missile prepared for a demonstration to foreign military attaches in january 2019.
Vladimir Putin has sent a letter to NATO, urging its members to join Russia's moratorium on deployment of short- and mid-range missiles in Europe. The US-led bloc has dismissed the offer, saying Moscow already fields such weapons.

It's been revealed that, last week, Russia's president relayed a secret message to a number of foreign capitals, including all NATO member states and major Asian players, aimed at maintaining the status quo after the US withdrawal in February from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

The message said that Russia was ready to discuss "additional verification measures" with NATO to make sure the moratorium is upheld by all sides.

NATO dismissively responded that Putin's offer "ignores reality on the ground." The block kept insisting that the 9М729 (SSC-8) cruise missiles, which were deployed in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, bordering Poland and Lithuania, violated the terms of the INF. Moscow has to "verifiably destroy" these missiles for any discussions on a moratorium to even begin, it stated.

Russia repeatedly said that the range of the 9М729 was less than 500 km and pointed out that its Western partners never explained how they came to the conclusion that this missile was in violation.

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Hong Kong protests: Fading foreign tantrum, not genuine revolution

hong kong protests
Hong Kong rioters
Just as unfolded in 2014 during the so-called "Umbrella protests" or "Occupy Central" movement, a growing backlash has begun across Hong Kong against US-funded protests that have attempted to disrupt governance and commerce as part of a floundering movement to maintain Western influence in the region.

The Sydney Morning Herald in its article, "Triads linked to violent pro-China gangs as Hong Kong protests enter dangerous new phase," ignored weeks of violence carried out by US-backed protests in Hong Kong, and portrayed locals retaliating as "violent pro-China gangs." It should be pointed out that Hong Kong is in China.

The article claims:

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:


Document

Kassam: Trump transcript shows him trying to stop corruption, nothing else

trump
© Getty Images
The White House has released the transcript of Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. What it reveals is damning, but only for former Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the establishment media.

Instead of being some threatening phone call where the U.S. president holds aid or other threats over the head of the Ukrainians, the call actually displays Trump's commitment to one of his key 2016 campaign pledges: draining the swamp.

Contextually, the remarks are in fact pretty tepid.

The pair exchange pleasantries about Zelensky's recent election results. They exchange unpleasantries about German leader Angela Merkel. Then Trump asks the Ukrainian president to look into what really went on with the Democratic Party's email hack of 2016.

This is no different from what six Democratic senators (and one independent) did in March 2016 when they visited Ukraine.

If anything, the president is guilty of trying to root out corruption. Why shouldn't he be, given the damning evidence confessed by Biden during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018?

Oscar

Adam Schiff performs fake conversation between Trump and Ukraine President

Adam Schiff
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) performed an entirely made-up conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his opening statement at a committee hearing Thursday morning.

The White House released a transcript of a phone call between Trump and Zelensky on Wednesday, but Schiff made up and fabricated his own transcript that he read at the hearing, which sought to create the quid pro quo that Democrats have accused the president of making.

Whistle

Report: 'Whistleblower' falsely claimed State Dept. official was on Trump-Ukraine call

Trump
© AP Photo/Alex Brandon
A CIA officer falsely claimed in his so-called "whistleblower" complaint that the Counselor to the U.S. State Department was present during President Donald Trump's telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to CBS News.
According to the complaint released Thursday, the officer claimed Ulrich Brechbuhl listened into the July 25th call between the president and Zelensky and that several State officials were later briefed on the details of their discussion.

The nine-page complaint addresses President Trump's call with Zelensky, in which the president discussed, separately, both U.S. military aid to Ukraine and allegations of potential wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President and 2020 White House hopeful Joe Biden.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this year, Biden forced out former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin as he was investigating an energy company called Burisma Holdings, which was paying Biden handsomely as a member of its board. The former vice president even boasted to the Council of Foreign Relations last year that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless the prosecutor was fired. (He did not tell the audience about his son's role.) Conservatives claim Biden obstructed justice to protect his son — who enriched himself using his father's prestige.
While President Trump suggested Zelensky look into the Bidens, the Ukrainian president has vehemently denied being pressured to do so.

"I think you read everything. I think you read text. I'm sorry, but I don't want to be involved to democratic open elections, elections of USA. No, sure, we had I think good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I — so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me," Zelensky, flanked by the president, told reporters at the United Nations.

Megaphone

US media continues to push misinformation about Venezuela and narcotics trafficking...as usual, without evidence

drug smuggling latin america
In recent years, Western corporate journalists have turned to systematically citing unnamed sources and secret documents from the US national security state. Indeed, one would be forgiven for thinking it was standard operating procedure.

The Wall Street Journal (9/15/19) takes this "deep state" fan fiction genre to new heights with its latest on Venezuela, titled "Venezuela's Hugo Chávez Worked to Flood US with Cocaine, US Prosecutors Say."

As advertised, the Journal's Juan Forero echoes allegations against the Venezuelan government by US officials, which are contained in undisclosed "documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal."

There is only one slight problem with this news: It's not new, and is based entirely on the word of US prosecutors and defector-turned-witness testimony.

Comment: It appears the media is attempting to deflect attention from revelations that US puppet Guaido is very chummy with cartel gangsters: New photos show Juan Guaido in car with 'drug cartel gangster'


Oil Well

The simple truth about the Yemen catastrophe

yemen
Yemen, Saudi Arabia's southern neighbor, is a human catastrophe that will go down in history as one of America's biggest policy mistakes. This poor Middle East country is the perfect reflection of failing U.S. strategies that will only balloon as the years draw on. Here is a candid look at another proxy war to perpetuate a misshapen dream.

The civil war in Yemen is about three things. Saudi/Israeli geostrategy, oil markets, and the geography of energy. Whatever else you hear about this most inhumane conflict, rest assured crude oil and natural gas are at the core of the conflict. With Saudi Arabia having already exhausted most of her oil reserves, only new finds in the region can prop up that ridiculous regime. I won't get into the term "peak oil" here, I've already covered this many times. The point is, the world's oil has to run out sooner or later, and places like Yemen are now becoming the battlegrounds for energy-dependent nations.

The Big Energy Grab

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Light Saber

Pepe Escobar: How Yemen's Houthis are bringing down a Goliath

Yemeni
© AFP/ Al-Houthi Group Media OfficeAn image taken from a video made available on July 7, 2019 by the press office of the Yemeni Shiite Houthi group shows ballistic missiles, labeled ‘Made in Yemen,’ at a recent exhibition of missiles and drones at an undisclosed location in Yemen. Footage showed models of at least 15 unmanned drones and missiles of different sizes and ranges.
"It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details."

The statement above was not written by Franz Kafka. In fact, it was written by a Kafka derivative: Brussels-based European bureaucracy. The Merkel-Macron-Johnson trio, representing Germany, France and the UK, seems to know what no "ongoing investigation" has unearthed: that Tehran was definitively responsible for the twin aerial strikes on Saudi oil installations.

"There is no other plausible explanation" translates as the occultation of Yemen. Yemen only features as the pounding ground of a vicious Saudi war, de facto supported by Washington and London and conducted with US and UK weapons, which has generated a horrendous humanitarian crisis.

Comment: See also: