Puppet MastersS


Eye 2

VP Pence affirms Washington's support for usurper Guaido: US issues fresh Venezuela-related sanctions


RT
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 18:46 UTC
maduro hat supporter
© Global Look Press / Humberto Matheus
The US has announced a fresh round of Venezuela-related penalties, adding four new individuals to a list of people already subject to Washington's hit-list of restrictions.

Former Venezuelan vice president Ramon Carrizales and former minister of defense Jorge Garcia Carneiro have both been added to the list, along with Socialist Party politicians Rafael Lacava and Omar Prieto.

The new sanctions come as relations between Washington and Caracas continue to deteriorate over the US' decision to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela, and repeated calls by top American officials for current President Nicolas Maduro to step down.

Comment: Where are the 'empty shelves'? US journalist Max Blumenthal discovers well-stocked supermarkets in Caracas

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Bad Guys

Bavarian minister complains US only pushing own interests in EU when blasting Nord Stream 2


Tasnim News Agency
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 18:19 UTC
oil pipeline construction
Germany needs as many ways to purchase gas as possible, and thus the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline meets the country's interests, Bavaria's Minister President Markus Soder told the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview.

The politician noted that "US interest in their own gas sales in Europe" underlies the threat voiced by US Vice President Mike Pence during the Munich security conference over the purchases of energy resources.

"To pursue your own goals in economics is normal. However, it is unconvincing to link such interests to security issues," Soder pointed out. "It is difficult to understand the US government when they call German cars a risk to national security, and then sits down at the same table as we do at NATO," he added, Sputnik reported.

Soder noted that Germany is interested in all possible options for gas purchases especially after the country ditched peaceful nuclear development and coal. "Can't understand, why the pipeline that comes from Russia via Ukraine, should be safer than a direct pipeline between Russian and Germany", Bavaria's minister president stated.

Comment: Europe is starting to wake up and act in its own interest. High time.

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Rocket

Best of the Web: Prove a negative: Politics trump intel in US-Russia nuke treaty pullout

Scott Ritter
The American Conservative
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:51 UTC
Russia Missile
Russian missile development facilities, undisclosed location
The United States has a track record of asking nations to prove a negative when it comes to compliance with arms control agreements, and then holding them to account when they fail to do so. The deficit of integrity over U.S. claims against Iraq regarding weapons of mass destruction and Iran and its nuclear program speaks volumes about how corrupt America's policymaking apparatus has become. Now the United States is making the same mistake again by pulling out of the INF Treaty, which it claims Russia violated.

"A high degree of confidence is required before the United States will publicly charge another party with violation of an international agreement." Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) Thomas Graham, Jr. delivered those remarks during testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 1994. At that time, the ACDA served as the lead agency regarding arms control compliance. The intelligence community supported the ACDA's mission of making firm compliance judgments by providing the necessary intelligence information and analysis.

ACDA was supported in this effort by the CIA's Arms Control Intelligence Staff, or ACIS. ACIS provided intelligence support tailored for the specific compliance monitoring and verification requirements stemming from arms control agreements such as the INF Treaty and the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START). It brought a different skill set and mindset than the work being done by the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, or NPC, whose targets were less structured and far more nebulous and nuanced. It was one thing to assess that nation A was exporting technology capable of supporting nuclear enrichment to nation B; it was far different to determine that Russia had destroyed its silos to the depths mandated by a treaty.

For the former, there was far more latitude in interpreting data used to make assessments. The latter required a level of specificity that was unforgiving and often difficult to achieve.
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TV

Lavrov lambastes France for its treatment of Russian-funded media: 'Paris filters the information'


RT
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 18:12 UTC
man tv camera
© Global Look Press / Panoramic
French officials are disregarding the OSCE rules on media freedom by labeling Moscow-funded outlets as propaganda vehicles and banning them from official events, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Paris has crafted a law that "filters" the information "in the media sphere in the way France itself wants," Lavrov said.

Speaking to reporters during his trip to Vietnam on Monday, the minister recalled how RT and RT France, as well as Sputnik news agency, routinely get labeled by French officials as "fake news" as part of the alleged Russian 'influence campaign'.
They're being barred from everywhere: from the [president's] Elysee Palace, from various events.
"When we bring this up to the French, they say: it's all fine because they're not the media, they're instruments of propaganda," he said.

Comment: Convenient since Macron has had zero success in quelling the anger of the Yellow Vests.

C'est pas moi: Macron blames social media and the Russians for the Yellow Vest protests

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Bulb

Ex-UN chief: UK hid SAS deployments to avoid being allied to US and rampant illegality in Syria


RT
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:27 UTC
British elite SAS soldiers
© Shamil Zhumatov / ReutersBritish elite SAS soldiers
The UK doesn't want to be seen deploying special forces with the likes of the US, an ex-UN chief told RT, suggesting Syria is awash with "illegality," after the British MoD admitted its personnel are active in the war-torn nation.

Despite British MPs voting in December 2015 for 'approved airstrikes only' in Syria, the Ministry of Defence's admission came after a freedom of information request relating to the death of SAS soldier, Sergeant Matt Tonroe, who was killed in March last year.

Former UN chief & humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Hans-Christof von Sponeck, suggested that the UK does not want to give the impression it is "allied to the US" in Syria because of past ventures into Iraq and Afghanistan, which do not play well with the British public.

Asked whether the US is essentially driving these decisions to deploy special forces on the ground, and not the UK, von Sponeck replied: "Of course," but added that the Turks were also highly influential when it came to ground-force deployment.


Comment: In other words, they want to break the law without giving the impression of breaking the law. Aren't people like this traditionally thrown in prisons? See also: UK's SAS fought in Syria violating Parliament's decision, military admits

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Black Cat

A gift for Netanyahoo: George Galloway slams 'foolish' UK decision to label Hezbollah political party 'terrorists'


RT
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:59 UTC
Netanyahu; A supporter of Lebanon's Hezbollah
© REUTERS/Amir Cohen, REUTERS/Aziz TahIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; A supporter of Lebanon's Hezbollah gestures as he holds a Hezbollah flag in Marjayoun
The UK politician says government is putting Israel's interests ahead of its own with move to blacklist political wing of Lebanon-based Hezbollah, adding that the designation will make diplomatic dealings with Beirut "impossible."

"Hezbollah is a major parliamentary and governmental force in Lebanon, a friendly country, and this decision will make British relations with Lebanon impossible," George Galloway told RT.

The Shia-supported group is the second biggest party in the country's ruling coalition, and holds two seats in the cabinet.

On Monday, the UK government announced that from now on all parts of Hezbollah would be treated as terrorist organizations, as it has lost the ability to "distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party," both of which it accused of "attempts to destabilize the fragile situation in the Middle East."


Comment: Hezbollah fights ISIS in Syria, resists Israeli aggression in Lebanon and is allied with Iran. So that, according to the political animals in the UK and the Israeli government - makes Hezbollah terrorists.


Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

Propaganda golden age: Venezuela coverage harkens back to the glory days of lying about Latin America

Mark Cook
FAIR
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 14:46 UTC
Crowd rally Maduro
© @jaarreazaCrowd in support of the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
I was sitting in my apartment in Caracas, Venezuela, reading the online edition of Time magazine (5/19/16), which carried a report that there was not even something as basic as aspirin to be found anywhere in Venezuela: "Basic medicines like aspirin are nowhere to be found."

I walked out of the apartment to the nearest pharmacy, four blocks away, where I found plenty of aspirin, as well as acetaminophen (generic Tylenol) and ibuprofen (generic Advil), in a well-stocked pharmacy with a knowledgeable professional staff that would be the envy of any US drugstore.

A few days after the Time story, CNBC (6/22/16) carried a claim that there was no acetaminophen to be found anywhere, either: "Basic things like Tylenol aren't even available." That must have taken the Pfizer Corporation by surprise, since it was their Venezuelan subsidiary, Pfizer Venezuela SA, which produced the acetaminophen I purchased. (Neither Time writer Ian Bremer nor CNBC commentator Richard Washington was in Venezuela, and there was no evidence offered that either of them had ever been there.)

Comment:

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Cowboy Hat

US sees Orthodox Church as an obstacle to its expansion - which is why the Church is in process of being destroyed


Oriental Review
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Ukrainian president and tomos
Ukrainian president and tomos
The events surrounding the Orthodox Church in Ukraine that escalated at the end of last year and the beginning of this one have clearly shown the true intentions not just of those involved in the split, but of their supporters as well. President Poroshenko has demonstrated that the decision to create an autocephalous church is necessary for his election campaign. The actions of Patriarch Bartholomew I have shown that he is using the situation to advance his own interests, first and foremost to seize new canonical territories. And, by siding with the schismatics, Washington has shown that it is pursuing its long-held goal of destroying the Orthodox Church throughout the world.

The church issue has been essential for improving Poroshenko's ratings on the eve of the presidential election. The Ukrainian president's extremely low popularity among the people was proving a serious threat to his plans to be re-elected for a second term. The loss of his authority and immunity would not only put him at risk but his whole business empire, which has seen incredible growth during his time in office. So, for him, winning the presidential election is a matter of life and death. Every effort is being made to achieve this, including the spectacular move of promoting his image as the founder of the national church.
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Eagle

Déjà vu: Trump repeats policy of Contra-style CIA-connected coups in Latin America

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 22 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
covert coups
A largely ignored story reported by the Lebanese magazine "Ash Shiraa" on November 3, 1986, soon blossomed into a major scandal involving the covert sale of US weapons to the government of Iran and the illegal supply of weapons to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels. The Lebanese magazine was the first to reveal that the Ronald Reagan administration was covertly selling arms to Iran in exchange for the release of seven American hostages by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.

On November 25, 1986, three weeks after the exposé by "Ash Shiraa," US Attorney General Edwin Meese announced to a stunned nation that profits from the sale of American weapons to Iran were used to buy and ship weapons to the Contra rebels battling against the socialist government of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. The covert Reagan administration operation violated at least two laws. The first was breaking a US arms embargo on Iran. The second was a violation of the 1982 congressional Boland Amendment, which prohibited US taxpayers' funds being used to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. The scandal almost resulted in Congress's impeachment of Reagan and his vice-president, George H. W. Bush, from office.

Comment: Has Trump shaken hands with the with deep state devil? In this context at least, it would appear so:

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TV

"Fantasies": Russia and Italy refute Fake news report on 'secret talks' between Salvini and Russian FM


RT
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 19:39 UTC
putin salvini
A screenshot taken from the website of L'Espresso weekly.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak has never met Italy's Matteo Salvini in person, his spokesman said, denying a report on an alleged shady deal the two struck to fund Salvini's Lega Party with Russian money.

Kozak has never held any talks with Salvini, a spokesman of the Russian deputy government head, Ilya Dzhus, told journalists on Sunday.

He referred to an "investigative piece" published by Italy's L'Espresso weekly earlier this week, in which it claimed the Italian deputy prime minister secretly met his Russian colleague in Moscow to discuss the terms of a deal that would supposedly allow his right-wing Lega Party to get a hefty sum of money from Russia ahead of the European elections.

"The so-called 'investigation' by the Italian L'Espresso is based on some flimsy fantasies that do no credit to the media outlet," Dzhus told journalists. "Kozak never had any personal contacts to Salvini, never held any official or 'secret' meetings with him," he said.

Comment: Russia is quite open about the potentially world-changing deals it makes with other countries - such as NS2, oil, its burgeoning agricultural exports and transport - and so it has no need to make 'secret deals', because anyone who shares the same hopes for the future is welcome to partake. This is just another lame story from the West's relentless smear campaign aimed at thwarting progress being made by two world players it rightfully considers a threat to it's ailing hegemony: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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