Puppet MastersS


Attention

Report claims 'strong evidence' the Saudi-led coalition aims to destroy food production in Houthi-controlled Yemen


RT
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 12:45 UTC
Saudi F-15 fighter
© AFP PHOTO / Fayez Nureldine
As the war in Yemen rages on, a new report says there is "strong evidence" that the Saudi-led coalition has aimed to destroy food production and distribution in areas of the country controlled by Houthi rebels.

The report, titled 'Strategies of the Coalition in the Yemen War: Aerial Bombardment and Food War', is a compilation of data from various sources on the impact of the coalition's bombing campaign on the production and distribution of food in rural Yemen, and on fishing along the Red Sea coast.

"If one places the damage to the resources of food producers (farmers, herders, and fishers) alongside the targeting of food processing, storage and transport in urban areas and the wider economic war, there is strong evidence that Coalition strategy has aimed to destroy food production and distribution in the areas under the control of Sanaa," the report, published earlier this week by the World Peace Foundation, says.
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Dollars

Warning shot? China sells $3 billion US Treasury bonds amid trade war


RT
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 12:40 UTC
Chinese and US money
© Reuters/Thomas White
China has sold $3 billion of sovereign dollar bonds. This is only the third such move by Beijing in the last 14 years, and the first involving bonds with a 30-year maturity.

China sold $1.5 billion of five-year bonds at 3.25 percent, $1 billion of 10-year bonds at 3.5 percent, and $500 million of 30-year bonds at four percent, the Finance Ministry said on Friday, as quoted by Reuters.

Beijing is the largest holder of US debt. As of July, China had $1.17 trillion invested in debt minted by the US Treasury.
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No Entry

Australia considers banning new migrants from big cities


The Week
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 12:05 UTC
Sydney Opera House
© Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
Australia is considering banning new migrants from living in its largest cities, under new plans to reduce congestion in urban areas.

Government data reveals that nearly 70% of the 186,000 migrants who moved to Australia last year arrived on skilled migrant visas and nearly all of them settled in Sydney or Melbourne.

Currently, about two-fifths of Australia's 25 million people live in those two cities. "The growth has been driven largely by migration," says the BBC, and has contributed to infrastructure and congestion problems, with Melbourne and Sydney each expected to exceed eight million residents by 2030.
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Eye 1

Saudi delegation arrives in Turkey to join probe into missing journalist


Sputnik
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 12:01 UTC
Mohammed bin Salman
© Hamad I Mohammed/ReutersSaudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman denies that Saudi Arabia abducted Jamal Khashoggi
Saudi Arabia has recently faced a host of accusations from Turkey, blaming Riyadh for the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Kingdom has called these claims "baseless," offering their assistance in the probe and pledging to find the footage of the alleged moment of disappearance.

The Saudi delegation has arrived in the Turkish capital to participate in the investigation into the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, who allegedly went missing after visiting Riyadh's Istanbul consulate, Anadolu reported.

The delegation is expected to meet with the Turkish law enforcement services participating in the probe.

Comment: Also see: Does murder of journalist Khashoggi spell the end for Mohammad bin Salman?

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Eye 1

Does murder of journalist Khashoggi spell the end for Mohammad bin Salman?

Federico Pieraccini
Strategic Culture
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 11:26 UTC
Jamal Khashoggi
On October 2nd, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly killed inside Saudi Arabia's embassy in Turkey. The sequence of events seems to show that the murder was premeditated. Two days before his death, Khashoggi went to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to obtain documents pertaining to his divorce in preparation to remarry in the United States.

The Saudi embassy instructed him to return on October 2nd to collect the documents, which he duly did. He entered the embassy around 1pm on October 2nd but never exited. Khashoggi's fiancée, after waiting several hours, raised the alarm as Khashoggi had instructed her to do should he not reemerge after two hours.

It is from here that we should start to reconstruct this story that resembles a science-fiction novel even by Saudi standards, a country that does not hesitate to kidnap heads of state, as was the case with the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, about a year ago.
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Light Sabers

SOTT Focus: Is US-China war inevitable?

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 08:34 UTC
united states china
© AFP 2018 / STR
When a US warship narrowly avoided slamming into a Chinese naval vessel earlier this month in the disputed South China Sea, the incident could serve as a metaphor. The two economic giants seem to be on a collision course for war.

That collision course was ramped up last week when US Vice President Mike Pence delivered a barnstorming speech declaring China as global enemy number one. Speaking at the rightwing Hudson Institute in DC, Pence castigated China for "increased economic and military aggression", and warned: "We will not back down."

Pence did at one point say the US hopes to have a cooperative relationship with China, but the overall thrust of his remarks was stridently belligerent.

The New York Times headlined: "Pence's China Speech Seen as Portent of New Cold War."

There were even comparisons from some commentators to the infamous speech made by British leader Winston Churchill in 1946 when he declared an "Iron Curtain" with the Soviet Union, a speech which is seen as instigating the old Cold War between the West and Moscow that lasted for nearly five decades.

Comment: When has conduct by the US not been condemnable? See also:

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Bomb

13 killed, 32 wounded by explosion at Afghanistan parliamentary rally for female candidate


AlJazeera
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 10:22 UTC
afghanistan soldiers
© AP / Musadeq Sadeq
An explosion has hit an election rally in Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar province killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens, according to Associated Press news agency.

Official casualty figures are still awaited.

A police spokesman told Reuters news agency on Saturday that explosives were placed in a motorcycle near the rally for Nazifa Yousufi Bek, the candidate for the upcoming parliamentary elections.


Comment: Note that the bomb was pre-placed, as are the vast majority of so-called 'suicide bombings' in Muslim countries.


She had not arrived at the rally when the explosion occurred.

Authorities said there was no claim of responsibility yet, but the Taliban said ahead of the elections it would target "people who are trying to help in holding this process successfully by providing security."

Comment: And so continues the legacy of US meddling:

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Sherlock

Western media, investors and governments suddenly develop conscience surrounding Saudi Arabia and Khashoggi case


RT
Fri, 12 Oct 2018 17:55 UTC
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
© Reuters / Hamad I MohammedSaudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the Future Investment Initiative on October 24, 2017.
A number of media outlets, including CNN, CNBC and the Financial Times, have announced they will not be participating in a high-profile investment conference in Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

CNN, CNBC, and the FT all stated on Friday that they would not be attending the upcoming Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh, which has been dubbed "Davos in the Desert" in reference to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Some reports have claimed that Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was abducted and murdered after entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

"CNBC will no longer participate in the FII in Riyadh due to the continuing questions surrounding the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi," the network said in a tweet.

Comment: The Saudi's have been waging a war on Yemen for years, slaughtering tens of thousands of Innocent civilians and putting millions at risk of starvation, but all of a sudden the mainstream media, investors and governments develop a conscience? It's likely there's more to the story: "King, we're protecting you": Saudi Arabia tells Trump no more oil

See also:

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Attention

Trump: "The Fed has gone crazy." Here are 101 reasons why It should be shut down

Michael Snyder
The American Dream
Thu, 11 Oct 2018 08:28 UTC
Trump
© Getty Images
Donald Trump just made one of the most brilliant moves of his entire presidency. By accusing the Federal Reserve of "going loco", he is placing the blame for the coming stock market crash and horrifying economic downturn squarely where it belongs, and he is firing up millions of true conservatives among his base at the same time. For many, many years, a lot of us have been trying to educate the American people about the deeply insidious Federal Reserve system. As Ron Paul once so astutely observed, it is actually about as "federal" as Federal Express is. The Federal Reserve is an unelected cabal of central bankers that is running our economy into the ground, and the only way we are going to fix our long-term economic and financial problems is if we abolish it. So for those of us that understand these things, it is extremely exciting to hear President Trump use language such as this...
President Donald Trump knocked the Federal Reserve for continuing to raise interest rates despite some recent market turbulence.

"I think the Fed is making a mistake. They are so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy," the president said after walking off Air Force One in Erie, Pennsylvania for a rally.
That may be one of the greatest things that Donald Trump has ever said.

Comment: See also:

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Pyramid

Americans are now stuck in an abusive relationship with the power elite

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 09 Oct 2018 11:24 UTC
washington dc evil
And we recently discovered, if it was not known before, that no amount of power can withstand the hatred of the many.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Americans are brought up to believe all sorts of myths about the country we call home. We're told our economy is a free market meritocracy governed by the rule of law. We're told our civil liberties, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, are inviolable and protected by the most powerful military in the world. A fighting force entrusted with the admirable and monumental task of defending freedoms at home, and democracy and human rights abroad. We're told we exist in a system of self-government, in which our votes matter and our voices heard. In practice, none of this is true.

The fact of the matter is American citizens in 2018 are just a nuisance for the real power players. Useful as consumers, but increasingly problematic as larger numbers start to ask questions about how things really work. For far too long, we've been ignorant and willing accomplices in our own bondage. This allowed the concentrated and unaccountable power that really calls the shots to go for broke in recent decades, with unsurprisingly tragic results.
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