Puppet MastersS


Big Bomb

Houthis threaten attacks on US warships


RT
Mon, 17 Mar 2025 00:34 UTC
airstrike
© X/CENTCOM
The de facto Yemeni authorities have vowed retaliation for the ongoing deadly bombing campaign.

The US has reportedly launched new airstrikes targeting the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah after the leader of the Houthi movement, Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi, delivered a fiery speech condemning the attacks and threatening direct military action against American naval forces.

US President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to carry out a "decisive and powerful military action" on Saturday, aiming to dismantle the Houthi ability to disrupt vital shipping lanes in the region. The first round of US strikes overnight killed at least 53 people and left nearly 100 injured, according to Yemen's Houthi-run health ministry.

In his speech on Sunday, al-Houthi urged the Yemeni people to mobilize in their millions to confront the American "escalation with escalation," insisting that Yemen would not be pressured into submission. He declared:
"The American aircraft carrier and warships will be our target, and the decision to ban navigation will include the US as long as it continues its aggression."

Comment: Retaliating escalates. Resources dwindle. The only winners are those who refuse 'the trap'.
Weighing in is Iran:
Tehran has condemned the deadly US strikes on Yemen, describing the latest attack as a major threat to both regional and global peace. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described them as a blatant violation of the UN Charter and urging the UN Security Council to take action. The attack constituted a major threat to both regional and international peace and security, he said in a statement on Sunday.

The extent of the damage inflicted on the group itself, however, was not immediately clear. Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz claimed the strikes "hit multiple Houthi leaders and took them out."

Waltz threatened more strikes on Yemen and said that various targets "will be on the table." These include Iranian ships operating off the country's coast and believed to be providing intelligence to the Houthis, alleged Iranian military advisers, and "other things they have put in to help the Houthis attack the global economy."

Tehran, however, has consistently denied its involvement in the Houthis' activities. The head of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reiterated this stance on Sunday, stating the country "plays no role in setting the national or operational policies" of the Yemeni-based group.

The US, UK, and Israel have repeatedly bombed alleged Houthi-linked military sites and infrastructure in Yemen, yet the attacks have continued. The Houthis' campaign was put on hold in January after Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas reached a fragile ceasefire.

The latest US airstrikes come days after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on what they believe to be Israeli-linked vessels sailing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. The group announced the resumption of attacks on ships on Tuesday after the deadline it had set for Israel to allow aid flow into Gaza passed.


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Brick Wall

Ukraine will have to make territorial concessions - Waltz


RT
Sun, 16 Mar 2025 19:20 UTC
Mike Waltz
© Kayla Bartkowski/Getty ImagesUS National Security Adviser Mike Waltz
Ukraine should be prepared to give up certain territories as part of any future peace negotiations with Russia, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has said.

Kiev claims sovereignty over Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions. The territories officially became part of Russia after referendums in 2014 and 2022. Moscow has maintained that their status is non-negotiable.

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Waltz said that a potential settlement to the Ukraine conflict "is going to be some type of territory for future security guarantees" for Kiev.

According to the official, an alternative in the form of NATO membership for Ukraine "is incredibly unlikely." Ukraine has demanded accession to the US-led military bloc whereas Moscow views Kiev's NATO aspirations as a root cause of the ongoing conflict.

According to Waltz, attempts to "drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea" would be unrealistic at this point. The ongoing diplomatic efforts spearheaded by the US should focus on the "reality of the situation on the ground," the national security adviser argued.

Comment: Ukraine's projected 'options' are non-starters. If Zelensky cared about the lives of his soldiers and the Ukrainian people, the war would already be over.

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Attention

Trump worse than Covid - Deputy ECB chief


RT
Sun, 16 Mar 2025 16:18 UTC
Trump
© Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesUS President Donald Trump
Washington under President Donald Trump has created more "uncertainty" than the Covid-19 pandemic, Luis de Guindos, the vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has claimed.

The official made the remarks in an interview with The Sunday Times during which he bemoaned Trump's use of tariffs, as well as plans to reform corporate taxes and deregulate the financial system. The actions of the new US administration have been causing short-term volatility in markets while making inflation expectations and interest rates hard to predict. deGuindos said:
"We need to consider the uncertainty of the current environment, which is even higher than it was during the pandemic. What we're seeing is that the new US administration isn't very open to continuing with multilateralism, which is about cooperation across jurisdictions and finding common solutions for common problems. This is a very important change, and a big source of uncertainty."
Concerns over what Trump might do next have also damaged consumer confidence, de Guindos believes, noting that the long-awaited increase in business investment and household consumption has not arrived. He blamed the decline in Eurozone growth projections on the actions of the new US administration.

Comment: Reality: Trump has been in office 2 months. Eurozone's long-term problems are its own.

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Footprints

Lavrov and Rubio discuss 'next steps' in restoring Russia-US ties


RT
Sun, 16 Mar 2025 07:28 UTC
roomful
© Russian Foreign Ministry/Anadolu/Getty ImagesRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov • US Secretary of State Marco Rubio • Riyadh, Saudi Arabia • February 18, 2025
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday, as Washington and Moscow work to restore bilateral relations and advance negotiations for a Ukraine ceasefire.

According to a statement from the US State Department, Rubio and Lavrov discussed steps to reestablish direct communication between the two countries:
"Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke today with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. [They] discussed next steps to follow up on recent meetings in Saudi Arabia and agreed to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia."
The call follows high-level talks in Saudi Arabia on February 18, in which Washington and Moscow agreed to assign teams to work on resolving the Ukraine conflict, restore embassy operations, and address other points of contention in bilateral relations. Since then, additional discussions were held in Istanbul, focusing on diplomatic funding and a proposal from Moscow to reinstate direct flights between Russia and the US.
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Attention

Does France know what brutality is?

Phil Butler
New Eastern Outlook
Mon, 17 Mar 2025 16:13 UTC
French Prime Minister François Bayrou called Donald Trump's treatment of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy "brutal," but the real brutality lies elsewhere.
Francois & Marcon
© fr.hespress.comFrancois & Marcon.
Somehow, a reporter asking if the Ukrainian comedy actor owned a suit does not seem like brutality. You would think several hundred billion dollars would help Zelensky mimic his wife's wardrobe changes.

I wonder if the French leadership missed the part in the Oval Office detente massacre where Vice President J.D. Vance calling for diplomacy and a ceasefire instead of a demand for more missiles and targeting intel was considered a form of brutal by the French. Also, the President of the United States asking another head of state to work to save his country is just good advice. Then, on the other hand, we have France, another country without "cards", as Trump would put it. President Trump told Zelensky, "You just don't have the cards," discussing whether or not Ukraine even has a choice in these matters. This was not brutal; it was fact.

In addition, France's Macron was not dealt with brutally by Russian officials because of his recent stark warnings about Moscow's threat to Europe. The Russians did, however, call the French president's hand on his misrepresentation of the facts and his fearmongering. One Russian Senator, Konstantin Kosachev warned that "Such an erroneous analysis leads to fatal errors."
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Trump Bombs Yemen, Russia Holds Best Cards in Ukraine, West Becomes More Authoritarian


Sott.net
Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:51 UTC
trump yemen ukraine putin newsreal
© Sott.net
A rare cosmic alignment between Washington and Moscow means a peace settlement in Ukraine is within reach, but there's a catch: Russia is winning on the battlefield so it wants a real peace deal, not another tricky 'ceasefire'.

While saying he wants to "stop all the killing in Ukraine," Trump apparently has no problem using military force to bring Yemen's Houthis to heel. Multiple other Western (and Arabian) leaders have tried bombing them into submission before. What makes Trump think it will work this time? And is this 'MAGA'?

Meanwhile, crackdowns on free elections and free speech continue unabated across the West: from targeted deportations and corporate boycotts against individuals or entities criticizing Israel, to banning certain politicians from running in elections, to draconian 'hate speech laws to combat anti-Semitism', Western civilization continues its downward trajectory.


Running Time: 02:02:46

Download: MP3 — 112 MB

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Recycle

Kari Lake announces Voice Of America to dump legacy outlets: 'A lot of nonsense'

Hailey Gomez
The Daily Caller
Fri, 14 Mar 2025 21:22 UTC
kari lake reporters voice of america
© Christian Petersen/Getty ImageArizona Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake speaks with the media outside the Mesa Convention Center polling place on November 05, 2024 in Mesa, Arizona.
Special Adviser for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Kari Lake announced Friday that Voice of America (VOA) will terminate its contracts with The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.

VOA, an international broadcasting state media network, is funded by USAGM, with former President Joe Biden requesting in March 2024 a budget increase for the 2025 fiscal year to further support the radio network. In an X post on Friday, Lake announced USAGM will end its "expensive and unnecessary newswire contracts," adding that some of the major agreements included "tens-of-millions of dollars in contracts" with AP News, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

"USAGM is an American taxpayer funded News Organization with an 83-year history. We should not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is — with nearly a billion-dollar budget, we should be producing news ourselves," Lake wrote. "And if that's not possible, the American taxpayer should demand to know why."

Comment: Money is being wasted not just on services, but on unnecessary infrastructure:



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Quenelle

France and Algeria rocked by 'most serious' diplomatic crisis since end of colonial rule

Samia Lokmane
Middle East Eye
Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:44 UTC
Algerian and French flags
Tensions are rising between Paris and Algiers. The current diplomatic crisis, described by analysts as the most serious since Algeria's independence in 1962, raises the risk of a rupture in bilateral relations between France and its former North African colony.

The current quarrel was triggered in July 2024 by French President Emmanuel Macron's support for Morocco's claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara. The resource-rich territory, considered by the UN as "non-autonomous", is controlled for the most part by Morocco but claimed by the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi independence movement supported by Algeria. The move infuriated Algiers, which announced the "withdrawal with immediate effect" of its ambassador to France.

Relations have deteriorated ever since, first with the incarceration of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal in Algiers in mid-November, who was accused of having undermined the integrity of Algerian territory in statements made to a far-right media outlet in France.

This was followed by the January arrests of Algerian influencers in France accused of calling for violence, and compounded by Algiers blocking the deportation of its nationals from France.

Comment: The unability of the French elite to let go and heal its colonial past is only making things worse for France with one after the other of its previous colonial colonies kicking the French out.

See also:

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Target

"Kristallnacht" against the Alawites in Syria


Voltarenet.org
Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00 UTC
Ahmad al-Shareh
© voltairenet.comAhmad al-Shareh
Former number 2 of Daesh and current self-proclaimed president of Syria Ahmad al-Shareh said on March 9:
"We must preserve national unity, civil peace as much as possible, and, God willing, we will be able to live together in this country as much as possible."
The new regime increased the humiliations of the Alawites (Nuçairïs). They are fired from their jobs without being paid. In the street, the jihadists arrest them, and force them to bray like donkeys, or bark like dogs, before beating them in public. In three days, one to three thousand of them were murdered in pogroms, first on the Mediterranean coast, then throughout the country. Thousands of Alawites took refuge in the Russian military bases in Tartus and Hmeimim where they were welcomed.

With all the jihadists currently grouped on the coast and in Damascus, the rest of Syria is free of fighters. The Turkish army took advantage of this to attack the cities of the north.

☞ Takfiri groups (i.e. those who seek to designate and kill heretics), which had been expelled in Idlib during the war against the Syrian Arab Republic, have returned to "useful Syria". They were able to pass the roadblocks of the forces of the new government without any problem until they reached the coast and massacred the "heretics". The Syrian population gave up its arms when President Bashar al-Assad fell. It is therefore defenseless in front of the army and the current security forces that are made up of former jihadists, generally Turkish-speaking, often Chechens, Uzbeks or Tajiks, supervised by Turkish officers.

Historically, massacres of Alawites have always been followed by massacres of Christians.

Comment: See also:

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Footprints

'Expel Soros agents' — Hungary issues list of demands to EU


RT
Sat, 15 Mar 2025 14:06 UTC
Orban
© Zuzana Gogova/Getty ImagesHungarian PM Viktor Orban
Viktor Orban has urged Brussels to strongly protect the national interests of member states.

Brussels should take decisive steps towards denying EU membership to Ukraine and ending the influence of foreign agents linked to billionaire George Soros on the bloc's policies, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stated. He has called for the absolute national sovereignty of member states over domestic issues.

In a post on X on Saturday, Orban urged Brussels to "expel Soros agents" from the European Commission and "remove corrupt lobbyists" from the European Parliament.

The Hungarian prime minister has a long history of opposing foreign-funded organizations in his country, particularly those sponsored by Soros. Orban has repeatedly accused the Hungarian-American magnate of meddling in Hungary's domestic affairs, undermining traditional family values, and promoting a globalist agenda.

Orban also called for "a Union, but without Ukraine," having demanded "peace, freedom, and unity."

Comment: EU has a problem calculating long-range effects of its herd-mentality decisions. Orban doesn't. He is not willing to sacrifice his country on whims.

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