Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

Mueller report post mortem: Clinton needed scapegoats to explain 2016 loss - Wikileaks editor to RT

Kristinn Hrafnsson
© Reuters / Pierre AlbouyWikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson
Wikileaks became the target of baseless conjecture as part of Hillary Clinton's attempt to explain her "humiliating" loss in 2016, the organization's editor-in-chief told RT, following the anti-climactic end of the Mueller probe.

In an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi, Kristinn Hrafnsson stated it was clear that Russia and Wikileaks had been scapegoated in an attempt to deflect blame for the Democrats' shocking defeat in the 2016 presidential election.
Within twenty-four hours after the election in 2016 it was decided that all blame for the humiliating loss of Hillary Clinton should be placed on the Russians, and of course it was obviously necessary to put Wikileaks in the middle of it.
The full interview will air on RT on Wednesday.


Vader

US introduces new sanctions against 25 individuals and entities connected to Iran

us embassy tehran
© Sputnik/ Anton Bistrov
The United States has published a new list of vessels involved in illegal oil shipments, including more than 46 tied to Iran and Syria, the Treasury Department announced in an advisory on 25 March.

The US has decided to impose sanctions on nine more individuals and 16 organisations in Iran involved, according to Washington, in terrorist activities and the Iranian nuclear programme, the Treasury Department said in a press release.

"The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against 25 individuals and entities, including a network of Iran, UAE, and Turkey-based front companies, that have transferred over a billion dollars and euros to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), in addition to procuring millions of dollars' worth of vehicles for MODAFL", the release said.

The list of sanctions includes the companies Ansar Bank, Atlas Exchange, Iranian Atlas Company, Colden Commodities LLC, and others.

Che Guevara

Maduro: The Venezuelan people do not want violence or foreign intervention

Maduro
On March 17, Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, met with the US Peace Council delegation for over an hour, speaking on issues related to the recent power outage, how the Venezuelan people responded, and the US draconian policies against Venezuela.

I filmed around 10 minutes of our over hour long meeting. What President Maduro had to say about US policies against, and obsession with, Venezuela is accurate, and reminds me of their same grotesque policies and propaganda against Syria, Libya, Iraq, Cuba...

Western corporate media will never allow leaders of the nations the US is targeting to speak freely, because that might allow a Western audience to think for themselves, based on the leader's words and not on corporate media's propaganda.

NPC

Mueller meltdown: #Resistance licks wounds, MAGA camp enjoys salty popcorn & memes

trump protest
© Reuters / Kyle Grillot
As the Russiagate conspiracy theory disintegrates in the wake of the Mueller report's conclusions, Resistance Twitter is struggling to cope, while Trump supporters are basking in their foes' suffering.

The anti-Trump coalition largely seized on the line in Attorney General William Barr's report summary stating the document "does not exonerate" Trump of obstruction charges, demanding the release of the special counsel's report. The reality-based community could only look on in amazement. And laugh.

Comment: Some want the peddlers of the fake Russiagate narrative held accountable. Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute, told RT:
"Now that these people have pushed this false narrative, and have damaged lives, and have damaged careers - is this where it's going to end? Are they going to have to pay for their crimes?"
Political analyst Charles Ortel told RT:
The American establishment and mass media not only wasted millions of taxpayers' dollars "fomenting and stoking tensions" between world nuclear superpowers, but also undermining any remaining trust in them.

"Any of these outlets that have been subjecting the world to all this... this is going to mark a death row for a lot of traditional media complexes, and magazines, and newspapers, etc," he said. "Many Americans are sick and tired of this baloney. And we're going to tune it out, we're going to be rejecting them. We're going to be looking for our news in a different way."

Whoever decided to take us down this rat hole cannot be allowed to escape without intense scrutiny.
Patrick Henningsen, an American writer and global affairs analyst, told RT:
"What the president is going to do now is to take this result -or the lack of a result- and use it as a stick to perpetually beat the opposition with, right through the 2020 election cycle,"Henningsen predicted. "This will allow the president to fuel his attacks on the press [because it] vindicated his accusations of the fake news by CNN and others."
Famed lawyer and professor Alan Dershowitz has criticized Mueller's job as lead prosecutor, claiming he "didn't do his job":
"Mueller seems to have conducted a generally fair investigation. But he failed to come to a clear decision about obstruction of justice. That was his job and he should have done it.
A senior Russian lawmaker, Konstantin Kosachyov, who heads the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, has called for a "reset" in US-Russian relations in light of Mueller's findings.


Black Cat

Third attempt by neocons to sabotage Venezuela's electrical grid foiled

blackout Venezuela
© Associated Press/Natacha PisarenkoA man stands outside his home during a power outage in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, March 25, 2019.
Unbowed after over two months of failed efforts to topple Maduro, failure to win over its military or gain popular support, its paramilitary attack scheme and other tactics foiled so far - the Trump regime cyberattacked Venezuela's electrical power grid for the third time since March 7.

This time, preparations were in place to counter further cyberattacks. The latest one occurred on Monday, affecting much of the country, according to Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez, saying:

"We have experienced a new attack to the transmission and charging center of the National Electric System, aimed to take out the machines of the Simon Bolívar Hydroelectric Power Plant located in Guri."

With countermeasures in place, power was restored in most parts of the country within hours, Rodriguez explaining:

Comment: More from teleSUR:
Update: New power cuts in Venezuela tonight, after the government denounced another attack on the electrical system. Government informs that all teams are on site working fast to restore power.

***

A new attack on Venezuela's National Electric System, which left many sectors of the country without service, was denounced Monday by Vice President of Communication, Tourism and Culture Jorge Rodriguez.

This new aggression happens almost 20 days after a major cyber attack to the country's electrical system resulted in a six-day nation-wide blackout, which according to the national government was executed by the United States.

However, this time, as Venezuela's officials stated, all the countermeasure mechanisms implemented by President Nicolas Maduro performed flawlessly. These worked for the insurance, maintenance, and communication between the different stations, which allowed that in record time almost all the service throughout the country to be restored. Some parts of Caracas and the Metro system in the city are still without service.

The Metro system informed via Twitter that it activated a contingency plan for alternate routes through the Metro Bus from the Zona Rental station to Propatria; La Rinconada to Charallave Norte, as well as in Caricuao, La Rinconada and Petare.

"Although the attack had similar characteristics to the March 7 event, we had the capacity to respond quickly and the service has been restored in almost all the national territory and in the next few hours all the country will have electricity back on", assured Rodriguez. The high ranking official added that the Venezuelan far-right's intention does not pursue any political or ideological basis.

"The real intention is to attack, generate anxiety, plunge the population in a situation of deep distress to be able to seize power and achieve what they have already done, which it is steal all the resources that belong to the Venezuelans," concluded Rodriguez.
RT adds:
Shortly after electricity was restored, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez made a televised statement, claiming that the "fascist right" and their "imperial masters" in the US had attacked key transmission lines, thus plunging the country into darkness.

Rodriguez, who offered no evidence in support of his claims, pinned blame on "the trio of misfortune, perversity and criminality" - namely US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Republican Senator Marco Rubio

"What was the objective of this new attack? It was to deprive Venezuela's people of electricity as happened so terribly just two weeks ago," the top official stated, saying the outage was dealt with in "record time" in most parts of the country.

All three politicians had made a number of incendiary remarks in favor of regime change in Venezuela. Pompeo recently said the "constraint" on any action against President Nicolas Maduro was lifted when all US diplomats left the country. Rubio is one of the most vocal backers of lending all kinds of support to the opposition in Caracas.

For his part, Bolton, a messiah of American expansionism and a Bush-era hawk, has inadvertently vowed military action against Venezuela. Lately, he made it clear that his boss Donald Trump was "very serious" about "all options" to remove Maduro from power.

Another Vice President and Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said the country's lines transmitting power to the west of Venezuela were "attacked using EMP equipment."

Venezuela's beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro blamed that blackout on foreign-sponsored "saboteurs and terrorists." Meanwhile, Juan Guaido, the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, accused Maduro of letting the country's infrastructure crumble to breaking point.



Stock Up

Russia-US trade turnover hit $25 billion in 2018 - And it's still rising, despite sanctions

Red Square
© Reuters / Christian HartmannRed Square
Washington's sanctions against Moscow have not stopped bilateral trade from steadily growing over the past two years and it stood at $25 billion in 2018, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"This is less than the record-high level of $31 billion in 2011 but much better than the figures that we were at when the Obama administration decided to destroy the basis of our cooperation," Lavrov said on Tuesday during a meeting with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.

In his opening remarks, the minister said that Russia is always open for US business, but the cooperation between the two sides could be much better.

"Today Russian-US cooperation falls short of its potential," Lavrov said, adding that Moscow would like to give "an additional impetus for our economic and investment cooperation."

Comment: Leave it to the inimitable Sergei Lavrov to put things so succinctly in regards to the US's idiotic Russia policy, ie. "to sacrifice economy for politics."

The really remarkable thing, however, is that they can't even sacrifice the economy: the tidal forces exerted by Russia and China are just too strong, so Western trade with both countries is increasing in spite of the hegemonists' efforts to put brakes on it!


Heart - Black

US journalist held in locked embassy room while Ecuadorian ambassador tells Assange to 'shut up' and accept being spied on

Julian Assange
Julian Assang's health has declined rapidly as his illegal incarceration drags on.
It was meant to be a routine visit by a journalist to another journalist. Instead, I found myself locked in a cold, surveilled room for over an hour by Ecuadorian officials, as a furious argument raged between the country's ambassador and Julian Assange.

The room was inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Julian Assange currently lives under the ostensible protection of political asylum. Yet the WikiLeaks publisher was barred from entering the room, where he was supposed to join me for a pre-approved meeting, because he refused to submit to a full-body search and continuous surveillance.

In the fireworks that followed, Assange accused the ambassador of being an agent of the United States government.

The crackdown on visitors was felt before I even entered the embassy. It's the third time I've visited in the past year, and each time the atmosphere seems progressively worse.

Comment:


Eagle

CIA, MI6 have been helping Ukraine's SBU spy agency in planning its covert operations - ex-officer

CIA crest
© AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Vasily Prozorov said that there are representatives of foreign non-governmental organizations, for instance, the Rand Corporation, present within the Ukrainian security agencies

Operatives from American and British intelligence services are directly participating in hatching secret plots with Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) and training personnel to carry them out, SBU ex-employee Vasily Prozorov said at a news conference on Monday.

"I do not know for what motives. I believe this is for not only security but also conspiracy reasons, because CIA employees have been present in Kiev since 2014. They are residing in clandestine apartments and suburban houses," he said.

"However, they frequently come to the SBU's central office for holding, for example, specific meetings or plotting secret operations," he said.

Comment: It should come as no surprise after all we have learned about US involvement in the 2014 coup in Ukraine that the CIA has been further advising forces there on how to solidify its stranglehold and perpetuate its western proxy war against Russia.

See also:


Eye 2

"Morally reprehensible": 5 UK opposition parties call for an end to £4.6 billion in weapon sales for Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen

girl Yemen
© ReutersHanaa Ahmad Ali Bahr, a malnourished girl sits on her father's lap in a shanty town in Hodeidah, Yemen
Five opposition parties published a letter on Monday condemning the UK's continued arms trade with the "murderous regime" of Saudi Arabia and calling the government complicit in Yemen's devastation.

The letter, published in full by The Independent, is signed by leaders of the Labour Party, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party's lone MP.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is expected in London this week to discuss the redeployment of forces and the opening up of access to humanitarian supplies, especially in the rebel-held strategic port city of Hodeidah.

The city's fragile truce, negotiated in Stockholm in December, continues to hold, but any failure to implement the deal could lead to even greater devastation in a country that is experiencing what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Comment: The number of deaths is likely to be woefully underestimated.

Where there is war, injustice, death and destruction, but only when there is a profit to be made or strategic benefit to be reaped, you can be sure the UK establishment is involved in some way: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?


No Entry

How's that blockade working Trump? Not a single European country has banned Huawei

huawei
© Getty Images / Guillaume Payen
For the past year, as part of Trump's escalating trade war against China, the Trump administration has been waging a parallel campaign to convince America's European "allies" (at least until the White House unleashes auto tariffs against Brussles in retaliation for China annexing Italy to the Belt and Road initiative) to bar China's Huawei Technologies from their telecom networks, a process which so far has culminated with the arrest of the Chinese telecom giant's CFO in Canada. Bolstered by the success of similar efforts in Australia and New Zealand, the White House sent envoys to European capitals with warnings that Huawei's gear would open a backdoor for Chinese spies. Last week, the U.S. even threatened to cut off intelligence sharing if Germany ignored its advice.

So far, the gamble to pressure Europe has backfired: not a single European country has banned Huawei.

Confirming that Europe and the US are now allies only on paper, was the scathing commentary by Angela Merkel at a Berlin conference on Tuesday: "There are two things I don't believe in," Merkel said: "First, to discuss these very sensitive security questions publicly, and second, to exclude a company simply because it's from a certain country."

And just like that, Europe took its place in the grand superpower race: right next to China (and Russia) against the US.

Comment: It's good that Europe is taking a stand against US bullying but considering the health risks, and if Huawei is that integral to speeding up 5G roll-out then this might be one of those rare times (strange as that is) that ceding to US demands might not be such a bad thing if it delays the process by a few years. See also: