Puppet MastersS


Gold Coins

De-dollarizing: Russia excels at eliminating reliance on dollar ahead of pending US sanctions


RT
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 15:06 UTC
dollar hammer break ditch
© Ralf Hiemisch / Getty Images
The list of the countries currently taking active steps towards eliminating their economic reliance on the US dollar is growing. Russia has joined a league of nations is making a lot of headway with the task, the WSJ reports.

The share of foreign currency in corporate and personal deposits in Russia has declined to 26 percent in September from a 2016 peak of 37 percent, the newspaper reports, citing data from the Central Bank of Russia. Meanwhile, the share of dollar-priced export revenues reportedly dropped to 68 percent in the second quarter of the current year from more than 80 percent five years ago.

Rapidly growing trade turnover with Russia's partners in Asia, particularly China, is seen as one of the success criteria of the work on de-dollarizing the economy. The share of Russia-China trade priced in national currencies has quadrupled in four years to some 19 percent of the entire turnover, and is set to grow further, Moscow-based economist at ING Bank Dmitry Dolgin told the media.

Comment: Hubris, wishful thinking and a delusion that doubling down on self-defeating policies will eventually work as intended will prove to be the undoing of the US:

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Attention

Best of the Web: American 'liberation': New report breaks silence on US slaughter in Raqqa, civilian deaths at least 25x higher than admitted


RT
Sun, 11 Nov 2018 15:08 UTC
raqqa
© AFPSyrians walk along a destroyed street in Raqqa, February 18, 2018.
Entire families perished in US-led strikes on Raqqa that may have claimed more civilian lives than those of ISIS, NPR said in a shocking report tilting the Western media narrative on what has become of the "liberated" city.

The retaking of Raqqa from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) extremists, was hailed by the mainstream media as a major victory for the Western coalition one year ago - even despite harrowing reports of civilian casualties and unhinged destruction caused by the offensive. One year later, the Syrian city, where people are living side-by-side with rubble and human remains, barely makes a blip in Western media.
raqqa
© Reuters / Erik De CastroA baby stroller is pictured near a burnt vehicle in Raqqa, Syria October 18, 2017.
But now a new report, supplied with a warning it "contains descriptions of dead bodies," is bringing harrowing testimonies of people, working tirelessly to recover corpses from under the ruins, to the Western readers. Those may be surprised to discover that US-led airstrikes apparently left more civilian casualties than publicly acknowledged.

Comment: The 'liberation' of Raqqa by the US military and their Kurdish allies was an indiscriminate slaughter. Russia has been pointing this out for the last year, but no one has listened. While US politicians and media virtue signalled by decrying the (actual) liberation of cities like Aleppo and Damascus by the Syrians and Russians, they were totally silent about their own slaughter in Raqqa. Even worse, the Russians at least put in the effort of surveilling potential targets for civilians. The Americans bombed anything and everything without a second thought. And after the liberation of Syrian towns and cities, the Russians help clean up and rebuild. The Americans simply left Raqqa to rot. Who are the barbarians here?

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Network

Thaw looming? North and South Korea begin tearing down guard posts at the border


RT
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 14:34 UTC
korean soldiers
© South Korean Defence Ministry / AFPSouth Korean soldiers are locking a military gate as they withdraw from a border guard post in the DMZ
Soldiers from North and South Korea are beginning to actually demilitarize the demilitarized zone, tearing down guard towers that symbolize the peninsula's division.

On Sunday, soldiers from both sides of the DMZ began to disassemble 20 frontline guard posts along the highly fortified and historically tense border. The de-escalation gesture of removing the guards, weaponry and now the structures themselves was jointly agreed upon by generals from the two Koreas' armies in late October in an effort to meet goals set during September's meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

While the militaries initially agreed to the removal of 22 guard posts, it was later decided that each side would leave one of these up, without weaponry. The North Koreans are believed to be preserving the guard tower where Kim Jong-un had once been, according to Yonhap.

While some progress is being made, there remains a lot of work to do if the two sides hope to disarm along the 38th parallel. South Korea's side is said to have a total of 60 such guard posts, whereas North Korea has 160. The border between the two is one of the most heavily armed areas in the world.
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Vader

Testing the waters? 'Hillary will run again' is a headline that even Trump haters hate


RT
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 14:20 UTC
hillary
© Global Look Press / Ann Parry
Twitter has exploded with pleas for Hillary Clinton to reconsider whatever thoughts she might be having about another shot at the presidency after her former adviser suggested she would run as a liberal firebrand in 2020.

A Wall Street Journal opinion piece co-authored by Mark Penn, Clinton's adviser in 1995-2008, came out under a somewhat clickbaity headline: "Hillary Will Run Again." The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate herself never said she would or would not do that, but the authors - Penn and former Manhattan Borough president Andrew Stein - believe that a "Hillary 4.0" is on the way.

"Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0. More than 30 years in the making, this new version of Mrs Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle - back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994," they wrote in the op-ed published on Sunday. Penn and Stein believe that Clinton should lean further left, capitalizing on the #MeToo movement, advocating universal healthcare and stricter gun laws.
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Hardhat

Turkey announces successful test of 'Sapan' railgun hypervelocity weapon


RT
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 02:46 UTC
weapon
CC0
Ankara announced that it successfully tested an electromagnetic kinetic weapon, joining a club of developers alongside Russia, the US, China, and India.

Turkey announced a successful test of its new electromagnetic weapon - referred to as 'railgun' - which shoots metallic projectiles at hypersonic speeds.

Turkey is the fifth country in the world to develop the weapon, after Russia, the US, China and India.

The weapon has been named "Tübitak Sapan," or "Tübitak Slingshot," after Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tübitak). Weapons similar to Sapan are capable of firing a projectile as far as 100 km, at speeds of up to 3,500 meters per second (12,600 km/h).

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Putin The World To Rights: Russia's New Nuclear Weapons And The End of 'Unipolarity'

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Bad Guys

Masks off? Syrian opposition undergoes rebranding, changes flag


Sputnik
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 10:38 UTC
syrian opposition
© AFP 2018 / Fabrice Coffrini
Besieged in the Idlib province, the Syrian opposition, interlaced deeply with the former Nusra Front, has undergone another rebranding, changing its flag to bear a Shahada religious inscription.

As the operation against terrorists in Syria comes close to its end, terrorists besieged in the Idlib province have undergone another rebranding, this time changing their flag.

The so-called "Syrian Revolution Flag" - a green, white and black tricolor with three red stars, adopted back in 2012 - became a unifying symbol for a large variety of smaller terrorist and opposition movements (Daesh excluded) that fought against the elected government of President Bashar Assad throughout the entire Syrian war.

In 2015, the flag saw a new wave of popularity as the Syrian opposition sought to distance itself from Daesh and other radical jihadists.

"The opposition flag remained a point of contention between the opposition's so-called "revolutionary" and more hardline Islamist wings for years," War on the Rocks author Sam Heller wrote in October.
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Eye 2

Former Mossad Chief joins private murky international spy firm Black Cube


RT
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:49 UTC
Mossad
The company made headlines after initiating an investigation into officials working in the administration of US President Barack Obama.

Efraim Halevy, a former head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, has joined the private intelligence company Black Cube as a member of its board of directors. Halevy will serve as the head of the client screening committee and act as a senior advisor on operational and intelligence matters, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

According to the report, Halevy, 83, could be elected as company president.

Halevy previously was the head of the National Security Council of Israel, an Israeli ambassador to the EU, as well as being the ninth Mossad director. The London-born spy chief also served as an envoy and agent for five Israeli prime ministers.

Comment: Is there anyone more qualified for nefarious operations than a 'former' Israeli intelligence officer? It's also quite telling what Israeli's can get away with on American soil and yet rarely rouse suspicion:

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Snakes in Suits

Who's the real American psycho? Promising new film coming soon about Dick Cheney

Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Sat, 10 Nov 2018 00:01 UTC
Christian Bale as Dick Cheney
© CreditCreditGreig Fraser/Annapurna PicturesThe Dark Knight reborn: Christian Bale as Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s new film, “Vice.”
Donald Trump is running wild - and running scared.

He's such a menace that it's tempting to cheer any vituperative critic and grab any handy truncheon. But villainizing Trump should not entail sanitizing other malefactors.

And we should acknowledge that the president is right on one point: For neocons, journalists, authors, political hacks and pundits, there is a financial incentive to demonize the president, not to mention an instant halo effect. Only Trump could get the pussy-hat crowd to fill Times Square to protest Jeff Sessions's firing.

Comment: This sounds like a great movie! If it manages to persuade even a small number of the left who have moved to lionize war criminals simply because they oppose Trump, it will be a monumental success.

See also:

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Eye 1

Hypocrite UK FM travels to Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi murder probe, 'end bloodshed in Yemen'


Sputnik
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 03:24 UTC
Khashoggi
© REUTERS / Osman Orsal
UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt's Monday visit to Riyadh will be the first jaunt to Saudi Arabia by any top British official since the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Reuters reported.

Hunt will visit Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to press for an end to the war in Yemen and to call on Saudi leaders to cooperate with an investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Reuters reported.

The international community remain united in horror and outrage at the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi one month ago. It is clearly unacceptable that the full circumstances behind his murder still remain unclear [...] We encourage the Saudi authorities to cooperate fully with the Turkish investigation into his death, so that we deliver justice for his family and the watching world [...] The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace [...] So today I am traveling to the Gulf to demand that all sides commit to this process," Hunt was quoted as saying in a statement by Reuters.

Comment: It's quite telling that, before the Khashoggi murder, the UK had made no demands that the Saudi's cease their attempted genocide in Yemen. In fact, arms sales to the Saudi's was increasing. So do they really expect us to believe, after billions in arms deals, training, and even target assistance, that the UK (and the rest of the West) suddenly care about the people of Yemen? Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: West Discovers Saudi Arabia Has Human Rights Issues & The Real Reason People Hate Trump

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Briefcase

CNN to file lawsuit over White House Acosta ban


RT
Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:20 UTC
Acosta
© Reuters / Carlos Barria
CNN seems to be setting the wheels in motion for a lawsuit against the White House regarding the revocation of reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials.

Appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources" this Sunday, ABC's former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson made the claim that Jim Acosta and CNN had already filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the White House's decision to revoke the reporter's press pass.

"I hope I'm not mistaken, but it's my understanding that CNN and Acosta have sued, that there will be a court hearing on Tuesday on this very matter that we've been discussing," Donaldson said.

Donaldson claims that he has already been asked to prepare an affidavit to be submitted to court, likely due to Donaldson's own reputation for confrontation with the White House, including trading personal insults with President George Bush in 2006.

Comment: See also:

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