Puppet MastersS


Footprints

It's a 'migrant tsunami': Tijuana mayor threatens deportation of US-bound migrants amid tensions, clashes


RT
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 05:42 UTC
Tijuana migrants
© Reuters / Claudia DautMigrants heading to the US in Tijuana, Baja, Mexico
The arrival of growing crowds of migrants to Tijuana has led to increased tensions and clashes with locals, with the mayor warning that those who disturb the "tranquility and security" of his city will be deported.

The arrival of the first members of the caravan to Tijuana triggered an anti-migrant backlash in the Mexican border city. Tijuana's mayor, Juan Manuel Gastelum, is leading the charge to have the troublemakers expelled and is asking the federal government for help to deal with the influx.
"No city in the world is prepared to receive this - if I'm allowed - this avalanche," he said during a news conference at City Hall. "It is a tsunami. There is concern among all citizens of Tijuana. There will be zero tolerance to any conduct that violates the law and social order. Protecting the safety of the Tijuanans is the top priority."
Any members of the migrant community that are violent will be handed over to immigration authorities so that they be deported to their country of origin, Gastelum said on Friday. In an earlier interview with local TV, Gastelum called the migrants "bums" (vagos) and "pot smokers"(mariguanos) who do nothing but disturb the "tranquility and security of Tijuana."


Comment: Mexican border towns will bear the brunt of the influx as the US applies its legal recourse, picking and choosing in a timely manner...or not.

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Star of David

Israel: PM Netanyahu takes over the defense minister job portfolio


Sputnik
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 02:07 UTC
Netanyahu
© Russian Press OfficeIsraeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will take up the daily responsibilities of the defence minister after Avigdor Lieberman's resignation on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for his Likud party said on Friday that Netanyahu will handle the defence portfolio himself after he and his key coalition partner Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home Party couldn't reach an agreement, Reuters reported.

Netanyahu also spoke by phone with his coalition partners, urging them to "make every effort not to bring down the right-wing government" and to prevent the left from getting into power, the spokesperson said.

A source close to Bennett told Reuters that failure to reach an agreement could lead to early elections, as "there was a need to go to elections as soon as possible with no possibility of continuing the current government."

Israeli media reported that other coalition partners would oppose Bennett's ambitions of becoming the defence minister.

Comment: The political force behind Netanyahu may be waning, but it doesn't matter because psychopathy runs strong in Israel, no matter who is in charge.

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Snakes in Suits

'Spygate' figure Joseph Mifsud - once rumored to be dead - resurfaces, willing to testify before Senate

Team Bongino
Bongino.com
Tue, 13 Nov 2018 19:32 UTC
mueller
© Getty Images
A lawyer for the Maltese professor who told former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton says his client will testify in front of the Senate.

BuzzFeed reports that Stephan Roh, attorney for Professor Joseph Mifsud, wrote in an email that Mifsud "is to testify in front of the US Senate - we are working towards his appearance."

Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee wrote in a September court filing for their Russia lawsuit that they believed Mifsud was "missing and may be deceased."
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Dollar

US pressures Iraq to resume oil exports from Kirkuk


RFE/RL
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 17:02 UTC
Pipelines at the Bai Hassan oil field, west of Kirkuk in Iraq
© Ahmad al-Rubaye / AFPPipelines at the Bai Hassan oil field, west of Kirkuk in Iraq.
Under pressure from Washington, Iraq has restarted exports of oil from Kirkuk that were halted a year ago due to a standoff between the central government and Iraq's Kurdish semiautonomous region.

The U.S. government has been urging both sides to settle a dispute over the oil and resume flows to help address a shortage of Iranian crude after Washington imposed sanctions on Tehran's oil sector last week.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Twitter on November 16 that the resumption of exports of Kirkuk oil was "another important step in our efforts to reduce Iran's oil exports."

Washington granted Baghdad a 45-day waiver from the sanctions as long as it came up with a plan to wean itself off of Iranian-imported gas and electricity.

Flows resumed at a modest level of around 50,000-60,000 barrels per day compared with a peak of 300,000 barrels seen last year, industry sources said.

The Kirkuk crude is being exported to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan through a pipeline crossing the Kurdish province.

Comment: Funny thing about Iraq's oil exports: many assume the Iraq war was a "war for oil", specifically, oil for the U.S. It wasn't. The U.S. didn't get any more oil from Iraq after the invasion than they'd gotten before. But one country did: Israel. And they got it from Kurdistan. (See here too.) So we wonder if in addition to sticking it to Iran, this latest bit of 'persuasion' is not to benefit Israel in a more concrete way, too.

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Syringe

Saudis still lying: Turkish daily says audio proves latest Saudi explanation is another cover-up


RT
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 16:29 UTC
khashoggi protest sign
© Global Look Press / Depo Photos
A Saudi team had planned all along to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi and never tried to talk him into anything, a Turkish daily reports, citing recordings held by police that call Riyadh's statement on the matter into question.

An audio tape, allegedly in the possession of Turkish investigators, features a 15-minute conversation, in which "the Saudi team discusses how to execute Khashoggi," the Turkish Hurriyet Daily wrote on Friday, citing its columnist Abdulkadir Selvi. In a recording that was allegedly made even before the journalist entered the Saudi consulate, "they are reviewing their plan, which was previously prepared, and reminding themselves of the duties of each member," he said.

The Hurriyet report contradicts the statement made by the Saudi deputy public prosecutor, Shaalan al-Shaalan, who said that the team was actually sent to Istanbul to retrieve the journalist and bring him back to Saudi Arabia. A decision to murder the reporter - and outspoken critic of Riyadh - was allegedly taken by the head of the team after its 'persuasion' failed.

Some other audio evidence obtained by the Turkish investigators also allegedly shows that the version of Khashoggi's killing presented by Riyadh just does not add up, Selvi reports. "Khashoggi's desperate attempts to survive could be heard in a seven-minute audio recording. There is no hint of anyone trying to persuade him," he says, referring to another tape, which allegedly proved that "Khashoggi was strangulated in 7-8 minutes."

Comment: Moon of Alabama summarizes the latest Saudi account as follows:
  • The former Deputy President of the General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Major General Ahmed al-Asiri, issued an order to the mission leader Maher Mutreb to bring Kashoggi back to Saudi Arabia by means of persuasion or by force.
  • ‏The leader of the mission formed a 15-member team that consisted of three groups (negotiations/ intelligence/ logistics) to persuade and return the victim. Mutreb consulted with the now fired advisor to MbS, Saud al-Qahtani, because Qahtani knew Khashoggi.
  • A forensic expert was included in the team "for the purpose of removing evidence from the scene in the case force had to be used to return the victim."
  • The mission leader contacted a collaborator in Turkey "to secure a safe location in case force had to be used return the victim."
  • "After surveying the Consulate, the head of the negotiation team concluded that it would not be possible to transfer the victim by force to the safe location in case the negotiations with him to return failed. The head of the negotiation team decided to murder the victim if the negotiations failed."
  • The investigation concluded that the crime was carried out after a physical altercation with the victim where he was forcibly restrained and injected with a large amount of a drug resulting in an overdose that led to his death.
  • The body was dismembered. Five people carried the parts out of the consulate and one of them later handed them over to a collaborator.
  • One member of the mission put on Khashoggi's clothes, walked outside for a while and disposed them in a trash can.
  • The leader of the mission agreed with the leader of the negotiation team to write a false report which claimed that Khashoggi had left the consulate.
So the Saudis are trying to exonerate MBS and his advisor, al-Qahtani. But the US Treasury Department, which sanctioned al-Qahtani, seems to think he played a more substantial role, in both the "planning and execution" of the operation, and that Mutreb was his subordinate.
This is of interest as one of the tapes the Turks have is of a phone call by mission leader Maher Mutreb with an unnamed person in Riyadh. In the call Mutrab says: "Tell your boss the deed is done":
While the prince was not mentioned by name, American intelligence officials believe "your boss" was a reference to Prince Mohammed. Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, one of 15 Saudis dispatched to Istanbul to confront Mr. Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate there, made the phone call and spoke in Arabic, the people said.
The killer team was set up by Ahmed al-Asiri, but al-Asiri is not mentioned in the Treasury designation, while al-Qahtani is. The U.S. seems to believe that it was al-Qahtani who actually directed the operation and who sent his subordinate Maher Mutreb to lead the mission. Qahtani's one and only boss is clown prince MbS.

MbS probably wants Qahtani back in his role as a personal and political advisor. The Saudi investigation puts him in a positive light while the Treasury gives him a leading role. The U.S. seem willing to let MbS stay in his job but it wants to remove Qahtani from his inner circle.
And then there's this: Reports claim CIA 'concludes with high confidence' Saudi Crown Prince ordered Khashoggi murder

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Bad Guys

Poroshenko on his way out? Putin says no peaceful resolution until Ukraine has new president


RFE/RL
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:15 UTC
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he doesn't expect any progress toward establishing peace in eastern Ukraine until after Ukrainian elections, which he said he hopes will produce a new president next year.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's office blasted Putin's statement on November 15, saying the Russian president is "meddling" in the Ukrainian presidential contest even before it has started.

Speaking at a news conference in Singapore, Putin said efforts by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine -- the so-called Normandy Four -- to press for progress carrying out a peace plan forged in the Belarusian capital in 2015 would be "pointless" for the time being.


Comment: That's true. Poroshenko has not fulfilled his requirements under the Minsk agreements, and never showed any signs that he would.


Putin said he hopes a new presidential administration in Kyiv next year will dedicate itself to peacefully resolving the conflict between the government and Moscow-backed separatists that has killed more than 10,300 people since 2014.

"The current Ukrainian authorities have not shown any desire to implement the Minsk agreements -- they are not doing anything to implement them, nothing is happening," Putin said, claiming that as long as Poroshenko's administration remains in power "a peaceful resolution of issues in these territories can hardly be counted on."

Comment: There are rumors in the Russian media that Poroshenko doesn't expect to win another term:
According to the generally reliable Russian website, iarex.ru, Poroshenko seems quite aware that he is unlikely to win the upcoming election in Ukraine. Polls presently project that a transfer of power will take place, favoring elements of the 'old guard' of Ukrainian oligarchs, led by Yulia Tymoshenko who presently leads in various polls.

According to iarex.ru, Poroshenko has already started an urgent sale of his assets, so that after the elections he will immediately leave the penniless and decaying country.

Petro Poroshenko is ostensibly negotiating the sale of its own assets in Ukraine. The goal is to close the deal before March 1, 2019.

Two independent auditors from among the Big Five handed over reports to two potential buyers. The first candidate is a consortium of ostracized oligarchs from the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Lithuania. The second candidate is a group led by Dmitry Firtash and two high-ranking members of the US Democratic Party, with the support of Joe Biden and Michael Pence.

According to the TG-channel "Nelyagar", the negotiations are in the final stage - the best deal is being negotiated, the form of payment and the end points of the withdrawal of capital. According to the current information, 85% of non-cash payments will go to special accounts in the US Federal Treasury and Chase -Manhattan Bank.


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Quenelle

Gaza ceasefire back in place, but Hamas warns Tel Aviv: 'Don't test us'


Sputnik
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 15:47 UTC
Israel bombs gaza tv station
© Agence France-Presse/ Bashar TalebA ball of fire is seen above the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV station in Gaza City.
Tel Aviv reached a fragile ceasefire with Hamas on Tuesday following ф botched Gaza raid. The ceasefire prompted defence minister Avigdor Lieberman to resign in protest, and to accuse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "surrendering to Hamas terror".

Hamas, the Palestinian political and militia group administering Gaza, has warned Israel against "testing" its military capabilities, warning that another Israeli raid into the Gaza Strip would lead to rocket attacks against Tel Aviv. Speaking at an Friday event dedicated to Palestinians who were killed in recent clashes with Israeli forces, Hamas in Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar said further Israeli military operations would only lead to Israel having to agree to prisoner swap deals involving "thousands of prisoners" in their aftermath.
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Map

NATO's military buildup and exercises along Russia's borders is no joke, or is it?

Martin Berger
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 15:33 UTC
HNoMS Helge Ingstad
© Royal Norwegian Navy
The massive military games codenamed Trident Juncture have just come to a close in Norway, marking a new milestone in the rapid military escalation between the West and Russia. A total of 29 NATO member states took part in those games, fielding some 65 thousand men, 10 thousand armored vehicles and 65 military ships that were led by USS Harry S. Truman.

In a bid to explain this build up in the immediate vicinity of Russia's borders the Natoaktual media site would try to explain the reasoning behind those exercises by stating that NATO is getting increasingly frustrated with Moscow's persistent presence in the Arctic, as this region is extremely rich in hydrocarbons and Washington is reluctant to surrender it to Moscow. Therefore, this recent demonstration of the Western military might was nothing more but a blatant attempt to scare Russia into submission.

It is stated that Operation Trident Juncture was aimed at developing common tactics of repulsing military aggression of a potential enemy. However, no NATO member state, aside from the US, Poland and a number of Baltic states believes that Russia remains the largest country on the planet would ever attempt a land grab in Europe, as this would be illogical. As it's been pointed by Der Welt, a hybrid war between Russian and the US has been raging for quite a while, with cyberweapons, propaganda and proxy forces all playing a major part in it, but it's highly unlikely that it can reach a point where it will transform into a direct military confrontation between two major nuclear powers. Against this backdrop, German journalists find themselves unable to pinpoint the reasoning behind Washington's military buildup on the Russian borders.

Most journalists seem to agree that this senseless and comic saber-rattling was reminiscent of a blockbuster movie shooting rather than a military operation.
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Star of David

Israeli media forced to admit the truth: 'Russia has made clear' that status quo of Syria strikes 'gone'


Sputnik
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 15:30 UTC
S-300 anti-aircraft missile system
© Sputnik / Kirill KallinikovS-300 anti-aircraft missile system
This week, multiple media reports alleged that the Israeli military was training to destroy Russian-made air defence systems, including the S-300s recently delivered to Syria. The reports followed an expression of hope by the US that Russia would allow Tel Aviv to resume its airstrikes against so-called "Iranian targets" in the Arab Republic.

Moscow's warnings against renewed Israeli attacks in Syria, as well as an increased Russian interest in events in Lebanon, are worrying developments and there' a "real danger" of closing the Israel Defence Forces' "operational window of opportunity" in these countries, Haaretz defence contributor Amos Harel wrote.

In recent years, the observer noted, Tel Aviv "exploited the upheaval in the Arab world to expand its offensive activity," engaging in "hundreds of airstrikes and special operations" in Syria and Lebanon said to be focused on "preventing Iran from smuggling advanced weaponry to Hezbollah," and "preventing Iran's military entrenchment in Syria."
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Star of David

Avigdor Lieberman wants to give war a chance

Jonathan Ofir
Mondoweiss
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 14:32 UTC
Avigdor Lieberman resigns as Defense Minister
© Carlos Latuff
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned. He was upset about what he perceived as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being too soft on Hamas. First because the PM agreed to provide some cash and fuel to Gaza, and then, after a couple of days of bombing in Gaza, the PM accepted a ceasefire.

Israeli Defense Ministers normally get a turn at conducting large-scale massacres in Gaza - "killing lots of Arabs" as Education Minister Bennett would say, killing those "little snakes", as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked would say. Even 'left' hero Ehud Barak had a go at Gaza twice when he was Defense minister between 2007 and 2013. And of course the 'moderate' Likudnik Moshe Yaalon got his massacre as Defense Minister in 2014, which was 1-1/2 times the size of Barak's.

So Avigdor Lieberman, who is more rhetorically bellicose than Barak or Yaalon, was denied his. And just when time seemed ripe for another 'mowing of the lawn' in Gaza, as they say in Israel.
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