Puppet MastersS


Chess

Russia discussing delivery of S-400 missile systems to Saudi Arabia

Paul Antonopoulos
Fort Russ
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 12:59 UTC
S-400 to India
© Reuters/Vasily FedosenkoRussia's S-400 missile system
Russia and Saudi Arabia are discussing the date of delivery of the Russian air defense systems S-400 to Riyadh, the Saudi ambassador said on Tuesday.

"The negotiations are ongoing, they are not over," Raed bin Khales Qrimli told reporters after being asked when deliveries will begin.

The sale of defense systems to Riyadh is part of an agreement signed last year between the Saudis and the Kremlin after King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's first visit to Moscow.

The S-400 Triumph are Russia's new generation of air defense systems. The system can carry three different types of missiles capable of destroying a variety of near and distant aerial targets ranging from reconnaissance aircraft to ballistic missiles.
Read More...
Bad Guys

State Dept. warns 'narco-terrorism' will worsen under Mexico's new President


Judicial Watch
Thu, 08 Nov 2018 12:46 UTC
Trump Obrador
The overwhelming majority of illegal drugs in the United States already come from Mexico and Mexican traffickers are the greatest criminal threat to the nation, but things are about to get worse when Mexico's new leftwing president takes over. His name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known popularly as AMLO), he opposes hardline anti-drug policies and believes in amnesty for drug war criminals. A State Department document obtained by Judicial Watch warns that Obrador, who takes over on December 1, will seek to decriminalize marijuana and poppy cultivation early in his term. He will also end Mexican military intervention in the drug war and pardon some drug offenders, according to the document which was issued recently by the agency's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and is titled "Mexico's Drug War & AMLO" and subtitled "Crime; Drug Trafficking; Narco-Terrorism."
Read More...
Bad Guys

Saudi Arabia bans Palestinian & Israeli Muslims from Mecca


Sputnik
Thu, 08 Nov 2018 12:46 UTC
Mecca
© Sputnik / Mikhail VoskresenskiyMuslim worshippers at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca in 2017.
Although the Jewish State and the Gulf Kingdom have no diplomatic ties, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship have been able to perform the hajj, considered compulsory in Islam, using temporary Jordanian passports. Riyadh has eliminated this loophole despite reports about a rapprochement and military cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has changed its passport rules, and will now block Muslim residents of Israel from making the pilgrimage to Mecca, according to Haaretz. The believers can be barred from undertaking the Hajj, as well as the Umrah, a less important pilgrimage, as Riyadh no longer recognizes temporary Jordanian passports.

Muslim Israeli passport holders had been able to use the Jordanian documents to enter the Kingdom, which is home to Islam's two most sacred cities, Mecca and Medina. While there are no diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Tel-Aviv, Muslim Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship could perform the pilgrimage, going first to Jordan to obtain temporary passports and then entering Saudi Arabia.

Comment: Haaretz reports more on Saudi Arabia's decision:
Members of the Israeli hajj and umrah committee recently learned that its leaders would be barred from entering Saudi Arabia even with the temporary Jordanian passports for a planned umrah pilgrimage in December.

The chairman of the committee, Hajj Salim Shalata, told Haaretz that in contacts with Jordan's Ministry of Awqaf Islamic Affairs and Holy Places, he learned that the Saudi authorities would no longer honor temporary Jordanian passports. Anyone seeking to enter Saudi Arabia must have a regular passport, a change that effectively blocks Israel's Muslim citizens - which comprise 17 percent of Israel's population.

Shalata said that for 40 years the arrangement worked without a hitch, and that at thousands of Muslim pilgrims from Israel made the journey every year. "We have no explanation for what happened, so we appealed to every possible avenue of help, but to our great regret the pilgrimage that was supposed to take place in December, for which thousands of people have registered, will not be held," Shalata said.


Read More...
USA

'You are a terrible person!' Trump slams NPC extraordinaire Jim Acosta


RT
Thu, 08 Nov 2018 11:24 UTC
Trump Jim Acosta
Donald Trump and CNN's Jim Acosta clashed at the president's post-midterm press conference. Trump lashed out at Acosta, saying CNN "should be ashamed" of him and he's been horrible to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

After congratulating Republican candidates on their victories and striking a bipartisan tone towards the now Democrat-controlled House, Trump took questions from the press on Wednesday.

CNN's Jim Acosta took Trump to task, grilling the president on a recent campaign ad depicting a thousands-strong 'caravan' of Central American migrants heading for the US border as an "invasion."
Read More...
USA

Trump brags that he 'retired' Jeff Flake


RT
Thu, 08 Nov 2018 11:24 UTC
Donald Trump and Jeff Flake
© Reuters / Jonathan ErnstUS President Donald Trump and Senator Jeff Flake in happier times
Putting a good face on an election that saw his party lose control of the House, President Trump bragged that he had "retired" Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, the Republican who opted to step down rather than support Trump.

"In Jeff Flake's case it's me, pure and simple. I retired him. I'm very proud of it, I did the country a great service," Trump said at a press conference on Wednesday. "He is retired. I'd like to call it another word, but we're going to treat him with great respect."
Read More...
Family

Russia's State Duma implements law neutralizing Navalny's exploitation of children in protests


Stalker Zone
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 15:33 UTC
Russia protest child
The State Duma is toughening criminal responsibility for the organisers of unauthorised protest actions and rallies that involve minors. The relevant draft law was adopted at the first reading by 338 votes from the 416 deputies who were present.

According to the parliamentarian Evgeny Revenko, in recent years the non-systemic opposition in Russia more and more often uses the scenario used at Maidan revolutions and attract children to participate in events.

This is also confirmed by the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - during all of last year the police detained 475 minors for participating in unsanctioned rallies, and only in May of this year - 223 teenagers.

Comment: The manipulation of children for political objectives is well known and so voting to protect them from predators who would use them is surely a worth cause, and its notable how many in Russia's lower parliament were in favor.

On Navalny:

Read More...
War Whore

Trump's Iranian sanctions don't really have much 'bite' anymore

Tom Luongo
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 05 Nov 2018 09:53 UTC
US Iran flag
Sanctions may indeed be coming but will they have the bite that Donald Trump is hoping for? It's a good question as we open November with a flurry of edicts from Trump's State and Treasury Departments.

Let's go over them all and see just how contradictory they are while at the same time acceding to the reality of just how much the world has changed in the six years since President Obama first went nuclear on Iran with sanctions.

It starts with Trump's tweet that "Sanctions are Coming." Okay, fine we knew this. But sanctions don't account for much if the State Department is handing out 180 day waivers to countries.

Next up was Pompeo saying on the same day that no less than eight countries would be exempt from sanctions for buying oil from Iran.

A little news for Mike Pompeo, Halloween was last week.

Comment: Kicking Iran out from SWIFT isn't really that much of a blow. Then again, why prolong the inevitable? With the rest of the world moving away from US hegemony, it won't take much for those that have been under the oppressive thumb of the US to jump at the first opportunity they get when given the proper motivation. See also:

Read More...
Cow Skull

US Dept of Defense: Fight to neutralize Daesh's 'covert' insurgency to take years


Sputnik
Tue, 06 Nov 2018 22:01 UTC
ISIS
© AP Photo / Militant website
The total defeat of the Daesh terrorist group may take several more years, the US Defense Department's inspector general said in a review published Monday.

While Daesh's land holdings have dwindled, a "reduced, covert version" of the group remains active in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen, the inspector general noted, as reported by the Washington Times.


Comment: How 'covert' can they be if the US military keeps shuttling Daesh to safety?


Daesh has lost "all territory held in Iraq" and retained control of just 1 percent of the territory it formerly held in Syria, the Pentagon's in-house watchdog said in an announcement November 5. However, the terror group has evolved its tactics from holding territory to operating clandestine cells spanning the globe, according to the report, which means that the effort to achieve the "enduring defeat" of the terrorists will take more time.


Comment: It will take as much time as the Pentagon wants it to take - to use as cover as it attempts to accomplish regime change and other objectives.


Comment: And that's just how the US wants it.

Read More...
Chess

Netanyahu's imperial project for the Middle East is unraveling

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 05 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
Netanyahu
Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli commentator, writing in Yedioth Ahronoth in May (in Hebrew), set out, unambiguously, the 'deal' behind Trump's Middle East policy: In the wake of the US exit from JCPOA [which occurred on 8 May], Trump, Barnea wrote, will threaten a rain of 'fire and fury' onto Tehran ... whilst Putin is expected to restrain Iran from attacking Israel using Syrian territory, thus leaving Netanyahu free to set new 'rules of the game' by which the Israel may attack and destroy Iranian forces anywhere in Syria (and not just in the border area, as earlier agreed) when it wishes, without fear of retaliation.

This represented one level to the Netanyahu strategy: Iranian restraint, plus Russian acquiescence to coordinated Israeli air operations over Syria. "There is only one thing that isn't clear [concerning this deal]", a senior Israeli Defence official closest to Netanyahu, told Ben Caspit, "that is, who works for whom? Does Netanyahu work for Trump, or is President Trump at the service of Netanyahu ... From the outside ... it looks like the two men are perfectly in sync. From the inside, this seems even more so: This kind of cooperation ... sometimes makes it seem as if they are actually just one single, large office".

Comment: But not to worry! By hook or by crook Netanyahu and/or his inner circle will likely have their war and their thirst for carnage satisfied - before it returns to them tenfold.

Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Republicans beat back Democratic challenge for the Senate


RT
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 17:08 UTC
MAGA republican
© Reuters / Eric Thayer
In this year's historically polarized US midterm elections, 35 Senate seats are up for grabs, and the Republicans are all but guaranteed to hold on to the majority - which doesn't mean some of the races weren't real nail-biters.

Before this year's elections, the Republicans held only a slight majority at 51 seats, but more of their incumbents are likely to remain in place, whereas Democrats must defend 10 seats in states which Trump won in 2016.

One of the closest and most watched races for the Senate was between incumbent Ted Cruz and his democratic opponent Beto O'Rourke. Cruz sealed a victory by a narrow margin of 51% to 48.3%, with results still coming in late on Tuesday.
Read More...