Puppet MastersS

Attention

Serbian President Vucic accuses West of 'brutal meddling' in Bosnia-Herzegovina's elections

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic
© Novorossia todaySerbian President Aleksandar Vucic
Western interference in all things Bosnian is hardly news. Not today, not yesterday, not 26 years ago, when the then-US ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmerman, encouraged Bosnian Muslim fundamentalist leader Alija Izetbegovic to reject a peace plan - accepted, incidentally, by the very same Bosnian Serb leaders soon to be demonized by the unipolar West as "aggressors" on their own land - that had a good chance of preventing the outbreak of a bloody, three-and-a-half-year civil war that produced about 100,000 dead and many more wounded and homeless people in this former federal republic of ex-Yugoslavia.

But it is news when such a charge comes out of the mouth of Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vucic, who, although eager to keep and develop good relations with Russia and China, has over the years remade himself into an essentially pro-Western politician, whose main ambition is to integrate his country and the rest of the Balkans into the EU, torpedoes be damned. Thus, Vucic's announcement that, as soon as the October 7 general elections in Bosnia were over, he would present "astonishing evidence of the most brutal interference of certain Western powers in the elections in Republika Srpska" (one of two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a majority Orthodox Serb population, taking up 49% of the country, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dominated by Muslims and Catholic Croats), is a fairly reliable sign that the West has truly outdone itself, even by its own standards of "democracy export," going so far, in Vucic's words, that certain Western ambassadors were calling opposition candidates and threatening them not to switch allegiances, otherwise they would "answer both for real and imagined crimes."

Comment: Bosnia-Herzegovina: Another chapter in the encyclopedia of Western manipulation, corruption and domination through change agents and meddling.


Dollars

Russian investors spooked over the fate of their dollar holdings

Elvira Nabiullina
© Press TVElvira Nabiullina, Governor of Russia's central bank
Concerns are rising among investors in Russia over the fate of their dollar holdings as the US is preparing to impose fresh sanctions that could ban the country's banks from using the greenback.

Last week, Andrey Kostin, chief executive of VTB Group, spooked investors by suggesting that it may not be able to honor the claims of dollar depositors in extreme circumstances caused as a result of sanctions.

This drew a reaction from Russia's central bank with its Governor Elvira Nabiullina emphasizing that dollar holdings were safe whatever new sanctions the US would throw at Russian banks.

Nabiullina also emphasized that no plan was on agenda for forced conversion of dollar holdings in case investors claimed their dollars.

"We don't see any kind of threat to foreign-currency deposits and we haven't considered any kind of forced conversion," she was quoted by media as saying.

Comment: Russia and China are well into plans to dump the dollar and will do so with the least impact on their investors.


Snakes in Suits

"Antidote against populism": Former French PM Manuel Valls to run for Barcelona mayor

Manuel Valls
© Albert Gea/Reuters
The former French prime minister Manuel Valls has formally announced his candidacy for mayor of Barcelona, joining a rare club of politicians who have run for office in two countries.

Valls said he wanted to lead a coalition focused on "poverty, unemployment, racism and social injustice" rather than the vexed issue of Catalan independence.

Speaking in Catalan, Spanish and French to a packed meeting in Barcelona on Tuesday evening, the former socialist, who has since shifted to the right, said: "Barcelona deserves to be governed thinking about the city and not other projects that have nothing to do with the city itself."

He said Barcelona should be "an antidote against populism" and "a meeting point and a space of co-existence".


Comment: Good luck with that.


Comment: If Spaniards would be so foolish as to vote for Valls, they can't say they didn't know what they were getting themselves into: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Kurdistan and Catalonia: The Politics of Self-Determination


Bad Guys

Draining the swamp? Official hired to 'dig into Pentagon's budget' fired in under a year

Pentagon
On April 4, 2003, Col. Joseph Dowdy-whose 1st Marine Regiment was then fighting its way through a tangle of Iraqi villages south of Baghdad-was called to the tent of Gen. James Mattis and told he was being relieved of his command. A career Marine, Dowdy was stunned: Mattis's action in the midst of a battlefield fight was nearly unprecedented and, as Dowdy knew, would mark the end of his military career. Adding to the humiliation, Mattis told Dowdy to remove his sidearm and hand it to him. "We're going to give you a rest," he said.

Dowdy had known that his job was in danger, the result of complaints from Mattis and his staff that he wasn't moving his regiment quickly enough. But it's not as if Dowdy was taking his time: his troopers had been involved in bitter firefights against tenacious "Saddam Fedayeen" killers every day for the previous two weeks. But Dowdy had no choice in the matter, so while he objected to Mattis's action he packed up his gear, called his wife, returned to the U.S. and retired from the Marine Corps.

That Mattis acts quickly and decisively is part of his lore-it's what good Marines do. But while quick and decisive might work on the battlefield, they're not always a good fit for a secretary of defense. Mattis learned this earlier this month, after he fired John H. "Jay" Gibson II, the Pentagon's first-ever Chief Management Officer and its third highest ranking official. The reason for the firing, as The Wall Street Journal's Gordon Lubold reported on September 5, was for "lack of performance."

The firing was immediately controversial, spurring under-the-radar resentments among senior defense officials in the Pentagon's E-Ring where military and civilian managers huddle to run the world's largest bureaucracy. "This doesn't make any sense," a senior Pentagon official told TAC. "Jay was CMO for seven months; he hadn't even gotten his staff in place."

Comment: Also see:


Question

Sarcasm or revelation? Duterte seemingly admits to authorizing extrajudicial killings in war on drugs

protests against duterte
© Ammar Awad / Reuters
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has seemingly admitted to authorizing extrajudicial killings as part of his war on drugs. The indirect concession was made as Duterte fended off criticism of his leadership.

"I told the military, what is my fault? Did I steal even one peso? My only sin is the extrajudicial killings," he stated during a speech at the presidential palace on Thursday.

Previously, Duterte claimed that the thousands of extrajudicial killings carried out alongside the administration's war on illegal drugs were not state sanctioned, and blamed ninja cops involved in drug operations as potentially responsible.

Duterte did not elaborate on his statement but the unexpected revelation could bolster the ongoing preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the deaths. The preliminary examination will determine if a full-blown investigation should follow. Former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay called on the ICC to take note of Duterte's latest remarks.

Comment: Duterte defiantly withdraws Philippines from ICC as international tribunal probes his 'war on drugs'


Russian Flag

How dare they! Russia depriving US of excuses to keep occupying southern Syrian desert

US occupation Syria
Russia has successfully negotiated the withdrawal of one of only two last remaining US-sponsored rebel groups in al-Tanf and is now in talks to relocate the 60,000 refugees in the nearby Rukban refugee camp -- to their pre-war homes, now largely held by the Syrian government. This is bigger news than you would think. Aside from the refugee camp and the scores (or at most a hundred or two) remaining Syrian "rebels" (since they're salaried by a foreign power "mercenaries" might be more appropriate) the 55km area around the US base at al-Tanf is completely unpopulated. Should the US occupation zone in the south lose the last of its actual Syrians, the US will have no excuse left to keep occupying the place -- albeit which isn't a guarantee of a withdrawal either.

Comment: Unsurprisingly, the masters of chaos won't be leaving soon....Bolton moves the goalposts: US to remain in Syria 'as long as Iranians are there'


Bad Guys

Pompeo returns to fiery rhetoric against North Korea, says sanctions must 'continue vigorously'

Pompeo UN
© Brendan McDermid / ReutersUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the UN Security Council on September 27, 2018.
Stern US rhetoric has again been heard at the UN General Assembly, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning that North Korean sanctions must "continue vigorously," while threatening Pyongyang with "isolation" if it misbehaves.

Speaking at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, Pompeo said that if Pyongyang strays from the path of diplomacy and denuclearization, it will "inevitably lead to ever-increasing isolation and pressure."

He went on to stress that the enforcement of sanctions against North Korea "must continue vigorously and without fail until we realize the fully, final, verified denuclearization."

Display

GOP senators' personal data flashed on Wikipedia, House inside job suspected

Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley
© Win McNamee / ReutersSenate Judiciary Committee members (L-R) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA)
The home addresses of Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, all sitting on the Judiciary Committee, briefly appeared on Wikipedia. The edits were allegedly made from Capitol Hill.

The pages of the three Republican Senators were edited as they were attending a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to listen to testimony from SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s.

The edits, which were promptly removed by Wikipedia, contained the lawmakers' apparent home and DC addresses, home and cell phone numbers and personal email addresses. The changes have been tracked to two IPs, 143.231.249.130 and 143.231.249.136. Both are associated with the US House of Representatives according to the free IP address database.

Megaphone

Afghans protest 'achievements' of government after airstrikes kill 24 people in 5 days

Afghan child with gun
ยฉ Omar Sobhani / Reuters
FILE PHOTO
As the Taliban continues to gain ground in Afghanistan, the US and local forces have stepped up their bombing campaign, causing a spike in civilian casualties. Fed up with the carnage, Afghans hit the streets to protest.

Angry crowds took to the streets of the Afghan city of Kunduz on Wednesday, protesting airstrikes by the government and the US-led military coalition. People carried bodies of civilians killed in a recent aerial attack.

Propaganda

Bellingcat claims Boshirov was really Anatoly Chepiga - but Chepiga's commander says otherwise

Ruslan Boshirov
© REUTERS / Metroplitan Police
Alexander Borzhko, the former commander of Anatoly Chepiga, a cadet of the Far East Marshal K. Rokossovsky Military Command Academy, called Friday media reports alleging that the cadet was Ruslan Boshirov were "schizophrenia."

"In 2001, I graduated a cadet whose surname was Chepiga. Personally, I am a serviceman and can tell you that media reports of his alleged involvement in the Skripal case look like mild schizophrenia. The Far East Marshal K. Rokossovsky Military Command Academy trained military officers for combat duties, Chepiga did fight in Chechnya, but he was not trained for intelligence missions," Borzhko, who is also the regional head of the Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Navy, stated.

The comment referred to the Wednesday's publication by UK-based investigative blogger group Bellingcat, in cooperation with the Insider Russia website, claiming that Boshirov, a suspect in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, was "in fact" a military intelligence colonel called Anatoly Chepiga. The outlet also alleged that the division in which Chepiga served played an important role in the Second Chechen War. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, the news about the alleged identity of Ruslan Boshirov is nothing but fake news aimed at diverting public attention from what happened in Salisbury.

Comment: Craig Murray weighed in on Bellingcat's latest joke of a 'bombshell':
The evidence mounts that Russia is not telling the truth about "Boshirov" and "Petrov". If those were real identities, they would have been substantiated in depth by now. As we know of Yulia Skripal's boyfriend, cat, cousin and grandmother, real depth on the lives and milieu of "Boshirov" and "Petrov" would be got out. It is plainly in the interests of Russia's state and its oligarchy to establish that they truly exist, and concern for the privacy of individuals would be outweighed by that. The rights of the individual are not prioritised over the state interest in Russia.

But equally the identification of "Boshirov" with "Colonel Chepiga" is a nonsense.

The problem is with Bellingcat's methodology. They did not start with any prior intelligence that "Chepiga" is "Boshirov". They rather allegedly searched databases of GRU operatives of about the right age, then trawled photos in yearbooks of them until they found one that looked a bit like "Boshirov". And guess what? It looks a bit like "Boshirov". If you ignore the substantially different skull shape and nose. [...]

Betaface.com, which runs industry standard software, gives the faces an 83% similarity, putting the probability of them being the same person at 2.8%.

By comparison it gives me a 72% identity with Chepiga and a 2.1% chance of being him.
Their methodology amounted to looking through yearbooks until they found someone who looked like Boshirov - just more buffoonery from the NATO trolls at Bellingcat.

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