Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

Syrian UN rep Dr. Bashar Al-Jaafari: Unilateral, coercive measures imposed on Syria represent economic terrorism

Mazen Eyon
Syrian Arab News Agency
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 16:19 UTC
Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari
Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari
Syria's permanent representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said on Wednesday that Syria, since the beginning of the terrorist war imposed on the country, has spared no effort to fulfill its duty in meeting the humanitarian requirements for the Syrians who have suffered from this war.

Al-Jaafari, in a speech at a UN security Council session on the situation in Syria, added that the Syrian government is ready to boost cooperation with the UN and member states of good intention to improve the humanitarian situation and provide suitable conditions for the return of the refugees.

"UNSC resolutions, meetings and reports will remain incapable of contributing to alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people if the reasons behind this suffering are not treated, mainly the presence of terrorism in the country," al-Jaafari said.

Al-Jaafari expressed Syria's satisfaction over the positive meetings and the continuous frank dialogues with United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock and many others, whether in Damascus or in New York that "we hope to form a good ground to achieve a tangible progress during the current year in the humanitarian and developmental work away from political pressures.
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Newspaper

INSTEX: Europe's new sanctions workaround for trade with Iran


Deutsche Welle
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 16:32 UTC
Iran grafitti
Germany, France and the UK have set up a payment channel with Iran called INSTEX, to help continue trade and circumvent US sanctions. The question is, how will Washington react?

Several European countries have registered a transaction channel with Iran in order to facilitate trade despite US sanctions, German diplomats confirmed to DW on Thursday.

The channel, set up by Germany, France and the UK (E3), is called INSTEX - short for "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges."

Speaking while on a trip to Bucharest, Rumania, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said, "This step makes it clear that we are also going our way in a determined and united way within the European Union - even if others take a different view."

Comment: See also:

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Gold Bar

Economist Richard Wolff: Refusal to hand over Venezuelan gold means end of Britain as a financial center


RT
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 16:04 UTC
Bank of England
© Reuters / Henry NichollsBank of England
The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff.

He told RT America that Britain and its central bank have shown themselves to be "under the thumb of the United States."

"That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it's not the safe place as it once was," he said.

The Bank of England is currently withholding $1.2 billion in gold from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government, but is being urged by Washington to release it to the chairman of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido. Last week, the US backed Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, after he declared himself interim president.
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Family

Maduro addresses Americans from the heart: You are bigger than Trump, don't let him start 'Vietnam' war against Venezuela


RT
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 15:35 UTC
trump maduro
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called on the people in the US to deter the Trump administration from putting boots on the ground in Venezuela, warning that any intervention would backfire leading to new Vietnam-like disaster.

In his first direct message to the American people, the Venezuelan leader urged them to stop the US government from entangling the nation in a pointless and inherently doomed military adventure.
"If the government of the United States intends to intervene us, they will have a much worse Vietnam than you could imagine."
The 4-minute video, in Spanish with English subtitles, was posted on Maduro's official Facebook page on Wednesday, shortly after he accused US President Donald Trump of ordering the Colombian government and mafia to assassinate him, and rejected a European ultimatum to call snap presidential elections within 8 days.
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Bad Guys

CNN claims floozy Kamala Harris had 'record-breaking' turnout at town hall... it was beaten by Trump 3 years ago


RT
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 15:33 UTC
kamala harris
© Reuters / Elijah Nouvelland
CNN's Kamala Harris town hall broadcast, supposedly the most-watched single-candidate town hall program in cable news "ever," actually came in a distant second to a 2016 program by then-candidate Donald Trump on Fox News.

The cable news network boasted of its "record-breaking" achievement - an average of 1.957 million viewers, according to Nielsen data - in a press release that called "Town Hall with Senator Kamala Harris" "the most watched cable news single candidate election town hall ever." In their hurry to assure viewers that Harris was the front-runner for the Democrats' presidential nomination in 2020, however, CNN failed to fact-check their numbers.

A Trump town hall hosted by Sean Hannity easily out-performed the Harris special in August 2016, drawing 2.7 million viewers - a ratings bonanza that boosted Hannity's overall numbers 32 percent.
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Chess

SOTT Focus: Anglo-American Deep State Operatives in Canada Caught Steering Venezuelan Coup

Matthew J.L. Ehret
Sott.net
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 13:47 UTC
venezuela freeland
Since Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president on January 23, it has become obvious to all intelligent onlookers that this "people-power color revolution" is not directed by Trump at all but rather by what has been exposed as the trans-national "Deep State". When we look behind the layers of false narratives obscuring the true motives behind this operation, we should not be surprised to find the ugly picture of an insecure empire trying desperately to break apart the new coalition of Russia-China-American partnership now in danger of overthrowing the script for global dictatorship that has been building up for decades.

While anti-Trump neocon Elliot Abrams has been assigned to manage the ongoing coup from the American side of things, an overlooked force driving this scheme is not to be found in America itself, but is rather transatlantic, or more specifically, British-inspired operations in Canada. Two of the most active players in this operation, who we will showcase below, are Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and her Oxford cohort Ben Rowswell. Rowswell is not only the former Ambassador to Venezuela but current President of the Canadian International Council (aka: the Round Table Movement of Canada1).
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USA

Howard Schultz running could almost guarantee a Trump victory in 2020, and it's on the verge of happening


The Economic Collapse
Wed, 30 Jan 2019 20:12 UTC
Trump winning
The left has been salivating over the prospect of voting Donald Trump out of office in 2020, but now something has happened that could change everything. On Sunday, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that he is "seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent". If Schultz officially decides to run, and it looks like that is almost certainly going to happen, then a Trump victory in 2020 will become almost inevitable. Unless something dramatic takes place, Trump is going to have the support of at least 40 to 45 percent of American voters in 2020. But the key was going to be finding that last 5 to 10 percent that he needed to push him over the top. Unfortunately for Trump, he does not do well with moderate independent voters, and Democratic strategists were counting on those voters to help them beat Trump. But if a "centrist independent" like Schultz enters the race, he will inevitably steal a lot of those voters from the Democrats, and that is why the left is freaking out so much right now.

Comment: Looks like Trump should be funding Shultz's campaign! It seems unlikely, however, that Shultz will actually maintain a campaign all the way through to the election, unless his raging ego gets in the way of logic and reason. The democrats will no doubt be ruthless in their campaign to take him down and no one can take that kind of heat for long.

See also: Democrats threaten boycott of Starbucks after frmr CEO Schultz considers running as independent in 2020 presidential race

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Cross

Orthodox canon 'not a weapon for conquest': American Synod rejects new church in Ukraine


RT
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC
Poroshenko orthodox
© Mikhail Palinchak/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via ReutersPresident Petro Poroshenko was the only layman to sit among schismatic priest during the declaration of the 'Orthodox Church of Ukraine'.
The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) has released a letter to its clergy and congregation announcing that they will not recognize the new Orthodox Church in Ukraine and denouncing those who treat the faith as a political tool.

Citing widespread 'confusion' and 'scandal,' the Holy Synod of Bishops clarified the OCA's position to their nearly 85,000 adherents in Monday's letter. The autocephalous American jurisdiction is joining Poland, Serbia and Antioch in refusing to recognize the newly formed 'Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).'

The Synod declared their "deep sorrow and distress" over how the creation of the Ukrainian government-backed OCU led to a schism in the universal Orthodox faith. The OCU was recognized and declared autocephalous by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople earlier this month. The body itself was formed last year, from two schismatic churches.

Comment: It's likely Poroshenko and the other puppets in Ukraine thought that their US backers could lean on the Orthodox Church of America to provide them with legitimacy, but it seems that, if they tried, they failed:

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Bad Guys

More 'moderate rebels': Venezuelan army 'defectors' appeal to Trump for weapons

Nick Paton Walsh, Barbara Arvanitidis & Alex Platt
CNN
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 11:26 UTC
Venezuelan army defectors
Venezuelan army defectors are calling on the Trump administration to arm them, in what they call their quest for "freedom."

Former soldiers Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they want US military assistance to equip others inside the beleaguered nation. They claim to be in contact with hundreds of willing defectors and have called on enlisted Venezuelan soldiers to revolt against the Maduro regime, through television broadcasts.

"As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication, with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom," Guillen Martinez told CNN.

Hidalgo Azuaje added: "We're not saying that we need only US support, but also Brazil, Colombia, Peru, all brother countries, that are against this dictatorship."

Comment: South Front reports on problems with CNN's narrative - the main one being that these 'defectors' have the wrong badges:
All defectors have 'FAN' badges on their uniform. FAN - Fuerza Armada Nacionales. This is an old-pattern, which has been abandoned in the Venezuelan military.

Now, Venezuela's service members have another badge - FANB, which means Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana. This fact be easily confirmed if somebody looks at photos and videos appearing online.

It seems that "Venezuelan army defectors" lost some parts of their uniform while they were defecting. In fact the answer is clear they are "former soldiers", who live "outside the country".

This was admitted even by CNN in a text comment below the video. Despite this, the entire interview represents the situation like these guys just defected from Venezuela's army and are now calling on the US to support.


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Bad Guys

Google plans to package & sell location data from millions of users

Ava Kofman
The Intercept
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 11:26 UTC
google
© Reuters / Chris Helgren
Most of the data collected by urban planners is messy, complex, and difficult to represent. It looks nothing like the smooth graphs and clean charts of city life in urban simulator games like "SimCity." A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, has set out to change that.

The program, known as Replica, offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city's patterns of movement. Like "SimCity," Replica's "user-friendly" tool deploys statistical simulations to give a comprehensive view of how, when, and where people travel in urban areas. It's an appealing prospect for planners making critical decisions about transportation and land use. In recent months, transportation authorities in Kansas City, Portland, and the Chicago area have signed up to glean its insights. The only catch: They're not completely sure where the data is coming from.

Typical urban planners rely on processes like surveys and trip counters that are often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and outdated. Replica, instead, uses real-time mobile location data. As Nick Bowden of Sidewalk Labs has explained, "Replica provides a full set of baseline travel measures that are very difficult to gather and maintain today, including the total number of people on a highway or local street network, what mode they're using (car, transit, bike, or foot), and their trip purpose (commuting to work, going shopping, heading to school)."
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