Puppet MastersS


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Lugansk leadership: We will pursue integration with Russia to the end

Tom Winter
Fort Russ
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 18:50 UTC
Leonid Pasechnik
© Leonid Pasechnik promised to follow the course that the LPR chose in 2014, to return to RussiaLeonid Pasechnik, acting head of LPR, promised to follow the course that the LPR chose in 2014, to return to Russia
In 2014, residents of the LPR chose integration with the Russian Federation, and this will be pursued to the end. This was announced today at the rally in support of the social movement Mir Luganshine held in Lugansk by the Acting Head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik.

"I am sure that the course taken by our Republic in 2014 to integrate with the Russian Federation is the right one. And we will follow it to the end," promised the acting head of the LPR.

"Thanks to our conscientious efforts, a nationwide program for the development of our Republic for the period up to 2023 has been prepared and written. Thanks to our joint efforts, we are increasing pensions, and workers' wages. And this is all our joint work," said Pasechnik.

Comment: The chances Russia would integrate with Luhansk are pretty slim. It would likely end up with a hot war with maniacs, and at this time it seems a war that would not be in their best interests to fight.

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Russian Flag

Washington fears Russia could outflank sanctions against Iran


RT
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 18:11 UTC
Russian supertanker
© Reuters / Morteza NikoubazlA Russian supertanker is anchored by Neka oil terminal, 300 km north-east of Tehran, 2004
The White House has warned Russia over potential help to Iran in bypassing US sanctions by buying up crude from the Islamic Republic and reselling the fuel as its own. The ban on Tehran's oil exports will be enacted on November 4.

"Iran might be pushing the idea of Russia selling their oil on the world market to evade sanctions," a senior US Administration official said as quoted by the Financial Times. "I would discourage Russia from even considering this. It would be in Russia's best interests not to facilitate Iranian evasion of US sanctions."

In May, the US administration scrapped a nuclear deal with Iran, clinched between the Islamic Republic and a broad alliance of world powers. Shortly after that US President Donald Trump announced Washington is re-imposing unilateral sanctions against Tehran, threatening secondary sanctions on nations and corporations that continue to do business with Iran.

Comment: Nobody cares about US sanctions. Washington has only itself to blame for creating the impotent position the US finds itself in.

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Chess

Don't hold your breath: Trump to pressure Netanyahu on Israel-Palestine peace plan


Sputnik
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 01:50 UTC
trump and Netanyahu shake hands
© AP Photo / Ariel Schalit
This is the first time Trump has talked about exerting pressure on the US's Middle Eastern ally.

US President Donald Trump has reportedly told French President Emmanuel Macron that he is ready to put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to facilitate the peace plan between Israel and Palestine, Israel's Channel 10 news correspondent Barak Ravid wrote on Axios.

Citing Western diplomatic sources briefed on the meeting between the two presidents during the UN General Assembly, Ravid reports that Macron asked Trump why he only pressures Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and not the Israeli leader as well.
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Attention

Erdogan: Strong evidence Khashoggi's 'vicious' murder was a planned op


RT
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 16:45 UTC
khashoggi
© Agence France-Presse/Ozan Kose; Demiroran News Agency(L) Turkish police stand guard as they cordoned off an underground car park, on October 22, 2018 in Istanbul (R) Screenshot from CCTV footage. Jamal Khashoggi arriving at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018
There is strong evidence that the killing of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul came as a result of a pre-planned operation rather than a spontaneous incident, the Turkish president said.

Speaking before the Turkish parliament on Tuesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saudi Arabia needs to provide maximum transparency of the investigation into the high-profile death, probably even holding the trial in the Turkish capital. During his address, the president also praised local and international media for pressuring Riyadh over the case, saying it forced Saudi Arabia to allow a thorough investigation inside the consulate.


What's more, the Turkish foreign ministry and Erdogan personally pressured the Saudi leadership to cut through the obfuscation effort at the consulate, the president boasted. That eventually led to a Saudi confirmation that Khashoggi was killed.

Comment: Sky News is reporting that Khashoggi's body parts have been found in the Saudi consul's garden:
Body parts belonging to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi have been found, according to Sky News sources, who added that he had been "cut up" and his face "disfigured."


With no photographic evidence to support the Sky News sources' claim, gruesome and unverified images of body parts - supposedly Khashoggi's - have been making the rounds in Arabic media.

The sources' claim echoes a statement by Doğu Perinçek, leader of the left-wing Vatan party on Monday night. Perinçek told Turkish television that Khashoggi's "body parts" had been recovered from a well in the Saudi consul's garden, and added that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would explain the findings later on Tuesday.
Yesterday it was seemingly business as usual as Treasury Secretary Mnuchin met with MBS:
During their meeting in Riyadh, the Crown Prince stressed "the importance of Saudi-US strategic partnership, where it holds an important role in the future in line with the Kingdom's #Vision2030," the ministry stated.

Saudi Vision 2030 is a long-term development plan, designed to reduce the Kingdom's dependence on oil revenues and diversify its fossil-fuel-driven economy.

The meeting, which had not been specifically announced as part of Mnuchin's six-country Middle East trip, comes as Trump refuses to halt $450 billion in arms sales to Riyadh despite facing pressure from both sides of the aisle at home. Mnuchin earlier joined a host of high-profile attendees who announced they were pulling out of an upcoming major investment conference hosted by the Saudis.
...
Mnuchin, who earlier confirmed his visit to Riyadh as part of the Middle East tour, has neither issued any comment on his talks with bin Salman, nor released a photo of the meeting.

The Washington Post's correspondent Damian Paletta reported, citing Mnuchin's spokesman, that the two also touched upon the Khashoggi murder, of which there is no mention in the Saudi statement.



Pakistan's new leader, Khan, says he will attend the investment conference in Saudi Arabia, but at least he's honest when he gives the reason: "we're desperate":
"The reason I feel I have to avail myself of this opportunity is because in a country of 210 million people, right now we have the worst debt crisis in our history," Khan told the Middle East Eye on October 22.

"Unless we get loans from friendly countries or the [International Monetary Fund], we actually won't have in another two or three months enough foreign exchange to service our debts or to pay for our imports. So we're desperate at the moment."
Meanwhile, CIA chief Gina Haspel is in Turkey, presumably to school the Turks in how to successfully hide torture tapes, i.e. to "collect facts" in official spook-speak. Maybe she can meet with some Saudis and tell them how to successfully assassinate someone without getting caught, too.

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Nuke

Trump thinks building US nuclear arsenal will help China and Russia 'come to their senses'


RT
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 16:18 UTC
trump
© Evan Vucci / AP
US President Donald Trump threatened Russia and China that Washington intends to build up its nuclear arsenal until "people come to their senses."

The president said his words were directed towards Moscow and Beijing, as he prepared to unilaterally leave the Intermediate Nuclear Forces in Europe (INF) treaty. The US president implied China should be part of any new nuclear arms control treaty.

"Russia has not adhered to the agreement," neither in form or in spirit, Trump told reporters outside the White House on Monday, before departing for a campaign rally in Texas.

Comment: This may just be bluster from Trump, but it also might not be given the substantial increases in military spending under Trump. This rhetoric really has little to do with Russia, China, and least of all a course of action toward greater sensibility. It feeds the US war machine and lines the pockets of military contractors, and that's about all.

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Attention

Macedonia parliament votes in favor of renaming country North Macedonia, just reaching necessary two-thirds majority


The Guardian
Fri, 19 Oct 2018 03:36 UTC
Two thirds majority just reached to rename Macedonia in key stage of ending dispute with Greece
PM Zoran Zaev North Macedonia name change
© Robert Atanasovski/AFP/Getty ImagesMacedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev gives a press conference after the parliament voted to start drafting constitutional amendments to rename the country.
Macedonia's parliament has voted to start the process of renaming the country North Macedonia, a major step towards ending a decades-long stalemate with Greece and opening a door to NATO and the EU.

A total of 80 deputies in the 120-seat parliament voted in favour of renaming the Balkan country Republic of North Macedonia - just reaching the two-thirds majority needed to enact constitutional changes.

The move could unblock its bids to join NATO and the European Union, long blocked by Greece, which argues that "Macedonia" implied territorial claims to a Greek province of the same name.

The two countries reached agreement on the name change in June. But hurdles remain before the change can be formalised.

A referendum on the agreement several weeks ago failed to pass the turnout threshold of 50 percent, leaving it up to the Skopje parliament to settle the issue.

Comment: Russia's FM has responded, claiming the US orchestrated an 'unfair vote' in the country's parliament as the measure passed by only a narrow margin after a failed popular referendum due to a 'boycott' by voters. See also:

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Blackbox

Has Khashoggi's murder set back the US-Israel effort to confront Iran?

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Mon, 22 Oct 2018 16:06 UTC
Middle East Eye: Klišeji, laži i dvostruki standardi - Iskrivljeni pogled Jareda Kushnera na Palestinu
The uproar over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul October 2 is obviously the biggest story in the world right now and though Israel is maintaining a strategic silence so as not to hurt its new ally, responses to the outrage in the U.S. are not all ideological, or ascribable to the Israel lobby.

The thrust of American mainstream commentary on the case appears to be: the murder is too much to swallow, but Saudi Arabia is too valuable an ally to lose, given the US-Israeli-Saudi alliance against Iran and the Saudi role of imposing a possible "deal" on the Palestinians. So Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman needs to get out of the way.

Israel is already a big loser in the fallout from the murder, as it is throwing shade on Israel's rightwing friends, including Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and Mideast negotiator and counterpart of bin Salman.

Comment: See also: One good thing to come out of this barbarism: it has forced political commentators to speak plainly about the way geopolitics really works. The U.S. and its media pundits love to criticize Russia for dealing with 'dictatorships', but now they're defending the U.S. doing exactly the same thing, by acknowledging that Saudi Arabia has been a repressive totalitarian theocracy for decades - but we need them so we ignore all that. There is no virtue in politics, just virtue signalling.

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Bullseye

Carter Page: Americans should be 'scared' about end of INF treaty


RT
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 07:56 UTC
Former Donald Trump adviser Carter Page
© RTFormer Donald Trump adviser Carter Page
The 'Russiagate' hysteria that originated with the Democrat-funded Steele Dossier has damaged relations between Washington and Moscow to the point of ending the INF Treaty, former Trump adviser Carter Page has told RT.

Ending the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces in Europe (INF) treaty is something Americans should be "scared about," Page told RT America's Scottie Nell Hughes in an exclusive interview on Monday. He said he'd worked on implementing that and other nuclear treaties when he was at the Pentagon in the early 1990s, and that there are "deep problems" between the US and Russia that "misunderstandings" over the Trump presidency are only making worse.

President Donald Trump announced on Monday he was preparing to pull the US out of the 1987 arms control treaty, citing the claim by the two previous administrations that Russia "has not adhered to the agreement."

Comment: The Deep State has been working overtime since Trump got elected, frequently through the Democrats, to damage relations between the US and Russia, and unfortunately it's working.

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Arrow Down

'Bring her own noose': Tory MP's attack Theresa May using violent language as she faces a vote of no confidence over Brexit negotiations


RT
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 07:34 UTC
Theresa May
© Reuters / Toby Melville
A number of Tory MPs have been quoted using violent language such as "bring her own noose," to attack British PM Theresa May, claiming she is on course to face a vote of no confidence this week from all wings of the party.

On Wednesday, May will be summoned before the Tory backbench 1922 committee, in what has been described as a last ditch attempt for the PM to save her job - a process dubbed "a show trial" by one Conservative MP, the Sunday Times reports.

Ahead of the critical meeting, a series of Conservative MPs launched an unprecedented attack on May, with language more befitting of a trailer for a blockbuster war or action movie. The paper quotes one unnamed Tory MP as saying: "The moment is coming when the knife gets heated, stuck in her front and twisted. She'll be dead soon."

An ally of former Brexit secretary David Davis, who is being tipped as an interim leader said May was now entering "the killing zone", and a third remarked: "Assassination is in the air." The Mail on Sunday quotes one senior Brexiteer: "She should bring her own noose to the '22. Short of an uncharacteristically powerful, persuasive and coherent performance, then I think her time will be up."

Comment:

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Snowflake Cold

Climate change poses 'existential threat' like Nazi Germany in WWII says loony Ocasio-Cortez


RT
Sun, 21 Oct 2018 15:21 UTC
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
© Reuters / Jonathan BachmanAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
House of Representatives candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has likened climate change to Nazi Germany, saying the two pose a similar kind of "existential threat."

"So we talk about existential threats, the last time we had a really major existential threat to this country was around World War II," the Democratic Socialist told a crowd at a campaign event on Friday. "And so we've been here before and we have a blueprint of doing this before."

"What we did was that we chose to mobilize our entire economy and industrialized our entire economy and we put hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to work in defending our shores and defending this country," the 29-year-old stated. "We have to do the same thing in order to get us to 100 percent renewable energy, and that's just the truth of it."

Comment: Wonder why the Dem leadership won't give Ocasio-Cortez their seal of approval? Maybe even they recognize she's gone off the deep end?

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