Puppet MastersS


Bandaid

Putin regarding sanctions: No 'insurmountable' rift between Russia and Europe


RT
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 23:02 UTC
PutinConte
© ReutersRussian President Vladimir Putin • Italian Prime Minister Giuseppi Conte
The anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU go both ways and hurt not only Moscow, but the bloc itself, Russian president has said, adding that he sees no "insurmountable obstacles" to fix the bilateral relations.

The restrictions, imposed on Moscow by the EU over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, have been quite damaging to trade - turnover dropped from $450 billion in 2013 to some $279 billion now, Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Where did those billions go? I'll tell you - it's profits not received by us, as well as by European countries, including Italy.

Russia is ready to "do its part" in fixing the relations with the EU, but it's up to the bloc's new leadership to show it wants it as well, Putin said, when asked for his opinion on the new head of the European Commission German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyden.
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Star of David

Why hasn't the 'NY Times' done a profile of Israel's most notorious general, Ofer Winter?

James North
Mondoweiss
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 17:17 UTC
ofer winter israel
© Ariel Hermoni/Israeli Ministry of DefenseMoshe Ya'alon, left, meets with Col. Ofer Winter in December 2013.
Reporters at the New York Times love to have their stories featured on the front page. In fact, among themselves they dismiss articles that run inside as merely "vitamin page" reports — because the Times labels the pages in its print edition as A6, B3, and so on.

The paper's Jerusalem bureau has missed another sure-fire chance to get on page A1. Brigadier General Ofer Winter, the Israeli army's most controversial officer, just got promoted again — but the Times continues to ignore him. Winter's notoriety is summarized in Haaretz's characterization: "a Pattonesque holy warrior on the battlefield." Winter has been well-known since the early 2000s, but one Times reporter after another has somehow failed to write a profile.

Here's why: one of the ways the Times rigs its coverage of Israel/Palestine is by covering up Israeli extremists, to make Israel seem a much more moderate place than it really is. You will rarely if ever read about the far-right leaders of the West Bank settler/colonists, for example, nor will you learn about the vicious anti-Palestinian racism that is becoming steadily more normalized in Israeli life.

Comment: You get the leaders you deserve. Israel has made its choice clear. Tikun Olam's Richard Silverstein wrote in 2014:
After Operation Cast Lead, peace activists prepared a list of 200 IDF officers who played major roles in the sowing the killing fields of Gaza with blood. I'm hoping someone is right now preparing a similar list for Operation Protective Edge. The level of mass mayhem in it far exceeds that of the prior campaign. More dead, more injured, more orphans, more devastation.

Remember this name in particular: Ofer Winter. He's the poster boy of IDF war criminals. He was also high on the list of those accused of similar acts during Cast Lead. It was he who wrote the genocidal battle plan announced to his troops in the accompanying image:
History has chosen for us to be the bayonet point of battle against the Gazan terrorist enemy which curses, defames and abuses the God of Israel's military campaigns...

God, the Lord of Israel, make our path successful, as we are about to fight for Your People, Israel, against an enemy who defames your name. In the name of the IDF fighters...make the phrase "For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you." come true, and we shall answer: Amen.
Lest you think I overstated the term "genocidal" above, anyone who knows their Bible will recognize this language. It is the language used to describe those tribes which the Israelites wiped out in their campaign to capture the land of Israel and populate it with their offspring. Tribes like the Amalekites, Moabites, Jebusites and others were all exterminated in battles in which the ancient Jews followed what they perceived as God's will in taking over the land.

Winter's Givati brigade played a key role in the slaughter in Rafah (English edition) in the last week of the war in which 160 Palestinians were killed by vengeful IDF forces seeking vengeance after a Hamas attack that killed an IDF major, sergeant and captured Lt. Hadar Goldin.


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Dollars

Former Rio de Janeiro governor Sergio Cabral admits he paid $2 million bribe to host 2016 Olympics


The New York Post
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:54 UTC
lulu da silva Sergio cabral argentina
© ReutersPresident Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil (left) and Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergio Cabral Reuters
The former governor of Rio de Janeiro state said in court testimony on Thursday that he paid $2 million to buy votes to ensure the sprawling Brazilian seaside city would be chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Sergio Cabral told a judge the money went to Lamine Diack, the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and was used to buy as many as nine votes. It was not immediately possible to reach Diack or his legal team on Thursday night.

The head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and the main organizer of the bid, Arthur Nuzman, introduced a representative of Rio 2016 to Diack and asked him to make the payments ahead of the 2009 vote that saw Rio win out over Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo, Cabral told a federal judge.
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Briefcase

Has Trump turned an important corner in his term?

Tom Luongo
The Straegic Culture Foundation
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:38 UTC
Trump Kim korea summit
© Vietnam News Agency—Getty ImagesA handout photo of U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their second summit meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel on February 27, 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Donald Trump's surprise visit to North Korea last week was impressive. It was a bold first step in repairing a foreign policy in tatters after more than a year of assaults by his neoconservative boobsie-twins Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Trump took Kim at his word who said after talks broke down thanks to Bolton and Pompeo in Hanoi that no dialogue would be possible if Bolton was involved.

So, Trump sent Bolton to Mongolia. Then he went to Korea and did the one thing he had to do to begin unraveling the mess he'd gotten himself into.
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Eye 1

Houthis fear Saudis can exploit UN-gathered biometrics 'in military fashion' in Yemen


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:44 UTC
malnourished child
© AFPA malnourished child in Yemen
A UN food agency is suspending work in Yemen after failing to seal a deal on biometrics from locals. The Houthi rebels fear that the data could be used by the Saudi-led coalition for war purposes, a campaigner told RT.

Nearly 10 million people are suffering from "extreme levels of hunger" in war-torn Yemen, according to the UN. But last month, the UN World Food Programme announced that it will suspend its activities in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, which is controlled by Houthi rebels.

The move comes after the agency failed to secure a deal with the Houthis to introduce a biometrics system it said would "prevent diversion" of food from starving people in the devastated country. The Houthis accused the agency of politicizing aid while doing the bidding of the Saudi-led coalition, whose members are among the chief funders of the food program.
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Vader

The Empire sanctions Cuban oil company in bid to weaken Maduro's hold in Venezuela

Scott Smith
Federal News Network
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 16:21 UTC
maduro and raul castro
© Picture alliance/dpa/E. De La OsaVenezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Cuba's Raul Castro in 2016
The United States hit Cuba's state-run oil shipping firm Cubametales with financial sanctions on Wednesday, saying it's a key player propping up Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro.

"Maduro is clinging to Cuba to stay in power, buying military and intelligence operatives in exchange for oil," U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Treasury officials also lifted sanctions on PB Tankers' fleet of ships, praising the Italian firm for halting deliveries of Venezuelan oil to the island nation.

Comment: Cuba is now in a position to find out who its real friends are. Who will be willing to defy the US and continue to work with Cubametales and other Cuban companies?

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Cowboy Hat

US gov't asks federal court to throw out Huawei lawsuit

Chuck Mikolajczak
Reuters
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:17 UTC
huawei
The U.S. government filed a motion on Wednesday asking for the dismissal of a lawsuit by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd that claimed the United States had acted illegally when it blacklisted Huawei's products.

Huawei sued the U.S. government in early March, in a complaint filed in federal court in Texas, saying that a law limiting its American business was unconstitutional.

The company has been a component of the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China that has hung over financial markets, with President Donald Trump recently agreeing to loosen restrictions on Huawei after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit.
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Chess

Iran's 'duty' to seize British tanker if UK fails to release captured ship - senior official at IRGC


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 16:09 UTC
oil tanker
© REUTERS/Jon Nazca
Tehran should seize a British tanker if the UK does not release the oil supertanker captured by Royal Marines near Gibraltar, a senior official in Tehran has said.

On Thursday, British marines and Gibraltar police seized the Panama-flagged tanker off the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The vessel is owned by a Singaporean company.

Gibraltar's Chief Minister Fabian Picardo claimed that the ship was transporting crude oil to Syria "in violation" of the EU sanctions placed on Damascus. According to Madrid, which considers the waters off Gibraltar to be its own, the British captured the ship at the request of the US. Officials in Washington, meanwhile, welcomed the seizure of the vessel, saying that it was carrying Iranian oil.

Later in the day, Iran summoned the British ambassador and slammed the seizure of the vessel as "a destructive step" and "a form of piracy." Foreign Ministry's spokesperson, Abbas Mousavi argued that the sanctions against Syria are illegal under international law and Iran does not recognize them.
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Bullseye

Real threat of 'Russian disinformation' is US disinformation about it


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 21:43 UTC
pinocchio
© REUTERS / Panarat Thepgumpanat
The narrative that Russia somehow subverted the US political system through hacking and trolling is ridiculous, journalist Aaron Mate told RT's Lee Camp. Its adoption by the US left is what poses an actual threat to America.

Mate is one of a handful of US journalists who were highly skeptical about the entire Russiagate affair. He talked to Lee Camp on Redacted Tonight about why the conspiracy theory received so much media attention in the US and what came out of it.

"One outgrowth of this theory is that Russian troll farm workers managed to sow chaos in American society with juvenile Facebook ads that nobody saw," he said. "Most of those ads were paid for after the election... And most of the ads had nothing to do with the election."
The fact that we even talk about them is just a joke. And it shows that the real threat of the Russian disinformation here is not the Russian social media disinformation itself. It's the American disinformation about Russian disinformation.
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USA

SOTT Focus: American Aggression? Never!

Tom Engelhardt
Tomdispatch.com
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 15:04 UTC
US military interventions
Headlined "U.S. Seeks Other Ways to Stop Iran Shy of War," the article was tucked away on page A9 of a recent New York Times. Still, it caught my attention. Here's the first paragraph:
"American intelligence and military officers are working on additional clandestine plans to counter Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, pushed by the White House to develop new options that could help deter Tehran without escalating tensions into a full-out conventional war, according to current and former officials."
Note that "Iranian aggression." The rest of the piece, fairly typical of the tone of American media coverage of the ongoing Iran crisis, included sentences like this: "The C.I.A. has longstanding secret plans for responding to Iranian provocations." I'm sure I've read such things hundreds of times without ever really stopping to think much about them, but this time I did. And what struck me was this: rare is the moment in such mainstream news reports when Americans are the "provocative" ones (though the Iranians immediately accused the U.S. military of just that, a provocation, when it came to the U.S. drone its Revolutionary Guard recently shot down either over Iranian air space or the Strait of Hormuz). When it comes to Washington's never-ending war on terror, I think I can say with reasonable confidence that, in the past, the present, and the future, the one phrase you're not likely to find in such media coverage will be "American aggression."
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