Puppet MastersS


Network

Venezuela and Cuba sign new health cooperation agreement


teleSUR
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 19:27 UTC
Cuba Venezuela
Cuba And Venezuela Strengthen Agreements On Health And Education
Venezuela and Cuba have signed a new health cooperation agreement.

The governments of Venezuela and Cuba have signed a new agreement of cooperation on health in order to deepen and strengthen the health coverage of the Venezuelan National Public Health System. The agreement comprehends the training of technicians as well as the presentation and advice for electromedicine services, from Cuba to Venezuela.

The Venezuelan Minister of the Popular Power for Health, Carlos Alvarado, stated that "within this project a company is being created that will be named VenSalud and its goal will be to perform the repair and maintenance of the equipment of the Autonomous Service of Pharmaceutical Processing (SEFAR), entity attached to the Ministry of Health."
Read More...
NPC

The Beltway is in hysteric melt down over Trump's Syria withdrawal

Matt Purple
The American Conservative
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 18:39 UTC
Trump Syria
Their obsession with Vladimir Putin misses the point and obscures the hard costs of our military misadventures.

He's a wily one, that Vladimir Putin. Consider all that he's managed to accomplish over the last 24 hours, according to the geopolitical wizards on Twitter. At Putin's behest, President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a withdrawal of American troops from Syria. That's now cleared the path for Russia to exert control over Damascus, the Middle East, indeed the world itself, because Moscow has at last secured the jewel in its neo-Soviet empire...a strip of chaotic desert in northeastern Syria.

If that's actually Putin's thinking, then he's not playing checkers or chess so much as 13 Dead End Drive right before the chandelier falls on his head. Yet that was the gist of the analysis from America's smart set yesterday. Think tank functionaries and journalists and right-wing radio hosts were all united in furious opposition to Trump's Russia-influenced absconding from Syria. Somehow they've yet to muster similar unanimous outrage over our massive national debt or our loneliness-cum-opioid crisis, but I'm sure that's just a matter of time. Until then, the Syria page of Washington's mad-lib book yields all the usual buzzwords: "adversaries," "strength," "surrender."

Comment:

Read More...
Chess

Trump pushes out Mattis months ahead of schedule

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 18:40 UTC
Trump - Mattis
President Trump announced Sunday that Secretary of Defense James Mattis will leave office on Jan. 1, two months earlier than expected.

Trump is appointing Mattis' deputy, Patrick M. Shanahan, as acting defense secretary until a permanent replacement is found, he announced on Twitter.


Mattis tendered his resignation on Thursday after Trump decided to pull troops out of Syria. In a letter to Trump, Mattis subtly criticized Trump over the decision, as well as his treatment of U.S. allies.
Read More...
Star of David

'Anti-Semitic Dictator': Netanyahu, Erdogan step up mutual sniping campaign on social media


Sputnik
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 18:13 UTC
netanyahu erdogan
© Reuters
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier engaged in a new war of words, trading mutual accusations.

Meeting with Christian IDF soldiers on Sunday as acting Defence Minister, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the row with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who earlier questioned the morality of "Jews in Israel".

Comment: Netanyahu may be feeling a little shaky after the US announced its intention to withdraw from Syria. Turkey has everything to gain and Israel much to lose from this move.

Read More...
Stormtrooper

Yellow vest protesters in southern France facing criminal probe after beheading effigy of Macron


RT
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 10:38 UTC
yellow vests mock execution macron angouleme france
Authorities in a south-western French town are furious after Yellow Vest protesters beheaded an effigy of Emmanuel Macron with an ax, put its "head" on a stake and danced. Now the mock executioners face a very real criminal case.

Around 90 protesters dressed in yellow vests - the symbol of the recent wave of anti-government protests in France - gathered in a park in the town of Angouleme to stage the mock beheading on Friday evening. It's not clear if the day was chosen deliberately, but on December 21 French President Macron celebrated his 41st birthday.

The macabre "performance" quickly spread on social networks and in French media, with photos showing the Yellow Vests literally cutting off Macron effigy's head with a large ax. If that wasn't enough, the mock head - with a mask of the president's face - was then placed on a stake. The protesters then proceeded to dance around a burning barricade after apparently setting the rest of the "beheaded" effigy on fire.


Comment: The sentiments of these protesters are shared by their Parisian compatriots, which is why the government's mask of democracy has been torn asunder:

Read More...
Blackbox

Secret election influencing experiment in Alabama senate race imitated supposed "Russian tactics" - UPDATE

Scott Shane and Alan Blinder
New York Times
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:29 UTC
Doug jones election sign
© Maura Friedman for The New York TimesAn Alabama resident waved to passing cars while holding a Doug Jones sign outside the candidates' headquarters last year.
As Russia's online election machinations came to light last year, a group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results.

The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race, in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore. But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States.


Comment: Clinton's chief strategist: 'Russian Facebook ads' didn't win Trump the election


One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia's social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Comment: RT weighs in. After all they have a unique POV on the matter:
A $100,000 Democrat psyop to fake Russian interference in an Alabama election was brushed aside by the US media as nonconsequential. But the alleged Russian operation of similar cost is treated as a Pearl Harbor-like attack.

RT's Murad Gazdiev wonders why a false flag operation involving Russia is not a bigger scandal for the US media. After all, they eagerly reported Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, which is claimed to have a similar budget, as a major crime or even an act of war on par with Pearl Harbor.

Watch the video and take a guess.

Update: Facebook suspends "researcher" Jonathon Morgan:
Facebook has suspended the account of Jonathon Morgan, the researcher behind a disinformation campaign against an Alabama Republican candidate who ended up losing the race for a Senate seat. Morgan claimed it was "research."

In a statement, Facebook said it had yanked "five accounts run by multiple individuals for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior" and was investigating them.

"We've removed thousands of Pages, Groups and accounts for this kind of behavior, as well as accounts that were violating our policies on spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior during the Alabama special election last year," Facebook said.

The Times reported on Wednesday that Morgan and his team attempted to paint Moore as a Kremlin candidate, linking thousands of alleged Russian Twitter bots to his account and alerting the media to the fact.

A wide-ranging campaign was also launched by New Knowledge-handled accounts on Facebook. According to the report, a specially created generic page boosted Watson's campaign, getting him TV gigs and more recognition. Morgan admitted that he was in contact with Watson, but argued that his false flag campaign did not aim to endorse him or manage to influence the outcome of the vote.


The researcher argued the goal of the campaign was innocuous - to get firsthand knowledge of how the disinformation campaign works in a real-life situation.

In the end, Democrat Doug Jones celebrated a nail-biting win, becoming the first Democrat to represent Alabama in the Senate in over 25 years. Moore lost by 1.5 percentage points in what was described as a shocking defeat.

In the wake of the revelation, Jones said that he "was outraged as anyone else" calling for the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice to investigate New Knowledge's interference.

In an uncharacteristic pitch for a US lawmaker, Jones said that the Americans seemed to be a bit too obsessed with hunting for Russian meddling.

"I think we've all focused too much on just the Russians and not picked up on the fact that some nefarious groups, whether they're right or left, could take those same playbooks and start interfering with the elections for their own benefit," he said.


Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Ukrainian official invites British warship to cross Kerch Strait to see how Russia reacts


RT
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 16:03 UTC
HMS Echo docked in Odessa, Ukraine. December 21, 2018
© Yevgeny Volokin / ReutersHMS Echo docked in Odessa, Ukraine. December 21, 2018.
A deputy minister in Kiev suggested that the British Navy should send its warship to the Sea of Azov to test Russia's response. Moscow described the idea as 'bonkers.'

"When it is being said that Russia won't allow the passage of a British ship, I have one remark - has anyone tried it?" Yuri Hrymchak wondered during a talk show aired live on a Ukrainian TV channel on Friday.

Hrymchak serves as deputy minister of temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons - a department tasked with facilitating the 'future return' of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. He was discussing last month's naval standoff near the Kerch Strait.
Read More...
Info

Trump complains anyone else but himself would be media's 'hero' for Syria withdrawal


RT
Sun, 23 Dec 2018 15:56 UTC
Donald Trump
© REUTERS / Joshua Roberts
US President Donald Trump has complained that he receives the wrong kind of special treatment from the mainstream media. Anybody else, he says, would be hailed a hero for pulling 2,000 US troops out of the war in Syria.

"If anybody but your favorite President, Donald J. Trump, announced that, after decimating ISIS in Syria, we were going to bring our troops back home (happy & healthy), that person would be the most popular hero in America. With me, hit hard instead by the Fake News Media. Crazy!" Trump tweeted.

Mainstream Western media came down with righteous anger on Trump's move to withdraw American soldiers from Syria. It has been called "a giant Christmas gift to our enemies" by the Washington Post, a "victory for Iran and Russia" by NBC News, and "a clear win for Putin," by the Independent.
Read More...
Arrow Up

Getting out of Syria is the right thing to do

Eric S. Margolis
ericmargolis.com
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 11:53 UTC
US soldiers
President Trump has done the right thing with regard to America's troop deployment in Syria. Trump ordered the 2,000 US troops based in Syria to get out and come home.

Neocons and the US war party are having apoplexy even though there are some 50,000 US troops spread across the rest of the Mideast.

The US troops parked in the Syrian Desert were doing next to nothing. Their avowed role was to fight the remnants of the ISIS movement and block any advances by Iranian forces. As a unified fighting force, ISIS barely exists, if it ever did. Cobbled together, armed and financed by the US, the Saudis and Gulf Emirates to overthrow Syria's regime, ISIS ran out of control and became a menace to everyone.

In fact, what the US was really doing was putting down a marker for a possible US future occupation of war-torn Syria that risked constant clashes with Russian forces there.

We will breathe a big sigh of relief if the US deployment actually goes ahead: it will remove a major risk of war with nuclear-armed Russia, whose forces are in Syria at the invitation of the recognized government in Damascus. The US has no strategic interest in Syria and no business at all being militarily involved there. Except perhaps that the war party wants never-ending wars abroad for arms production and promotions.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Mr. Potato

Hasn't got a clue Trudeau blames Trump's 'racist' policies for Canada's immigration crisis

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sat, 22 Dec 2018 10:33 UTC
Justin Trudeau
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
The words "self-awareness" and "irony" are apparently not a part of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's vocabulary.

To wit, during an end-of-year interview with Global News, the Canadian leader accused President Trump's 'racist' immigration policies of provoking a worsening immigration crisis in Canada, as more immigrants seek to flee north, fearing a 'hostile, anti-refugee' climate in the US. When asked what he believes is to blame for the worsening crisis, which this year led to the Canadian government putting asylum applicants up in 3 star hotels after shelters - including one in a stadium in Montreal - filled to capacity, Trudeau said it was Trump's policies, not Trudeau's infamous 2017 tweet advising migrants that Canada would offer safe harbor to anybody fleeing persecution, that inspired thousands of migrants to flee north from the US into Canada.


Comment: Not surprising since leftist identity politics has completely taken over the government. It does not bode well for Canada. See also:

Read More...