Puppet MastersS


Gold Bar

Russia could double gold extraction becoming world's second biggest producer


RT
Sun, 03 Jun 2018 16:08 UTC
Gold mine
© Serguei Fomine / Global Look Press
Major Russian gold mining companies are planning to almost double production. The increase could make Russia the world's second largest producer of the precious metal.

The country is currently third in the global rating of gold miners after Australia and China. However, that could change in less than a decade, according to Mikhail Leskov, deputy CEO at the Moscow-based Institute of Geotechnology, as quoted by Vedomosti.

In 2017, Russia extracted 8.8 million ounces, accounting for 8.3 percent of total global production, according to data by the UK consultancy Metals Focus, as quoted by the media. The newly discovered gold deposits will reportedly allow miners to increase extraction by half in seven years. By 2030, extraction is expected to grow by nearly eight million ounces.
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Dollars

The oil giant that outsmarted Justin Trudeau

Nick Cunningham
Oilprice.com
Wed, 30 May 2018 15:57 UTC
Canadian Prime Minister's Justin Trudeau's socks
© Denis Balibouse / ReutersCanadian Prime Minister's Justin Trudeau's socks.
In a desperate bid to keep its last remaining proposed oil pipeline alive, Canada has decided to buy Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline system for an estimated C$4.5 billion.

Canada will pay Kinder Morgan for the money that the company has already spent on the expansion project as well as for the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, which has a capacity of about 300,000 bpd.

Trans Mountain runs from Alberta to British Columbia and the proposed expansion would be a twin line that would triple the system's carrying capacity to 890,000 bpd. British Columbia has vowed to block the pipeline even though the federal government supports the project. BC's opposition had nearly killed the project...and still might finish it off despite the gamble by the federal government to nationalize the pipeline system.
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: 'Quitaly' Highlights EU's Democratic Crisis


Sott.net
Mon, 04 Jun 2018 16:00 UTC
italy eu flag
Quitaly?
The EU's 'democratic deficit' between its institutions and the half a billion people it claims to represent has long been noted, but it was again brought into sharp focus recently by the EU's pseudo-covert rejection of Italy's proposed new coalition government. As political crises at member-state level pile further internal pressure on the EU, can this project survive the rise of 'populist' national leaders AND successfully navigate a break-up with the US?

Also discussed on this show: Trump's on/off meeting with North Korean leader, Israel's problem with Palestinians, the cancellation of popular US TV show Roseanne, Tommy Robinson's imprisonment, and MBS' whereabouts...

That's Behind the Headlines with Joe and Niall, which aired Sunday 3rd June on Sott Radio Network.


Running Time: 01:48:45

Download: MP3

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Question

Can Putin's policy of concession succeed?

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Tue, 29 May 2018 15:35 UTC
Vladimir Putin
Russian president Vladimir Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Conference last weekend shows the Russian government's ensnarement by neoliberal economic policy. Putin defended globalism and free trade, and he warned that crisis will result from the breakup of the global system.

In fact, crisis is the result of globalism and neoliberal economics. For Russia neoliberal economics means both economic and political crisis.

Neoliberal economics produces domestic economic crisis, because it diverts employment in high-productivity, high-value added activities, such as manufacturing and tradeable professional skills such as software engineering, from developed economies, such as the US, UK, and Europe, to economies where wages are much lower. Neoliberal economics is also the basis for financialization, which diverts the economic surplus from real investment into debt service. Together these devastating impacts of neoliberal economics kill economic growth. Just look at the no-growth experience of the Western world in the 21st century, where growth has been limited to the prices of financial assets while well-paid employment disappears.
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Info

'WMD free zone': Russia and UAE agree to join forces on Middle East non-proliferation


RT
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:27 UTC
Vladimir Putin and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed
© Sergey Guneev / Sputnik
Moscow and Abu Dhabi have said they would take "active" efforts to turn Middle East into a zone free from any weapons of mass destruction. The ambitious goal was stated in a newly signed strategic partnership declaration.

"Turning Middle East into a zone free from weapons of mass destruction" was listed as one of the major aims in a declaration on strategic partnership between Russia and the United Arab Emirates signed on June 1. The goal is seen as part of a wider effort aimed at enhancing international security.

"The [two] sides will actively contribute to the process of disarmament at an international and regional levels," the document says, according to Russian media. It further states that the efforts of the two nations would be particularly aimed at "strengthening the WMD non-proliferation regimes" as well as at control over the development of related technologies.
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Eye 2

Peace is a cliché for when the West cannot control the world unopposed it means war

Andre Vltchek
RT
Sat, 02 Jun 2018 15:05 UTC
Drug users in Kabul, Afghanistan, living in the holes. 16 years after US occupation
© Andre VltchekDrug users in Kabul, Afghanistan, living in the holes. 16 years after US occupation.
The West likes to think of itself as a truly "peace-loving part of the world". But is it? You hear it everywhere, from Europe to North America, then to Australia, and back to Europe: "Peace, peace, peace!"

It has become a cliché, a catchphrase, a recipe to get funding and sympathy and support. You say peace and you really cannot go wrong. It means that you are a compassionate and reasonable human being.

Every year, there are "peace conferences" taking place everywhere where peace is worshiped, and even demanded. I recently attended one, as a keynote speaker, on the west coast of Denmark.

If a heavy-duty war correspondent like myself attends them, he or she gets shocked. What is usually discussed are superficial, feel-good topics.
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Newspaper

Austrian vice chancellor: "It is high time to put an end to these annoying sanctions and normalize political and economic relations with Russia"


RT
Sun, 03 Jun 2018 14:49 UTC
Heinz-Christian Strache and Putin
© Grigory Dukor / Reuters
It's time to respond to US President Donald Trump's trade tariffs and lift EU sanctions against Russia, Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said ahead of President Vladimir Putin's visit to Vienna.

Rethinking EU sanctions policy towards Russia is "desirable" because the measures are damaging the national economy, Strache told the Austrian newspaper Osterreich in an interview published on Saturday.
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Radar

'Approaching the UK's area of interest': Royal Navy deploys destroyer, attack helicopter to tail Russian research vessel


RT
Sun, 03 Jun 2018 09:53 UTC
The Russian Navy research ship Yantar
© Russian Defence Ministry / Global Look PressThe Russian Navy research ship Yantar
The UK scrambled a Royal Navy warship and an RAF helicopter to follow a Russian Navy research ship as it passed through the English Channel. The move seems a bit overkill, as the Russian ship was not a 'killing machine.'

The Royal Navy's HMS Diamond was sent to tail Russian Northern Fleet research ship Yantar on its way through the English Channel, the British Navy said in a statement on June 1, calling the Russian vessel a "spy ship." It further added that the HMS Diamond, which is a Portsmouth-based Type 45 destroyer, "will continue to monitor the vessel's movements and activities as it continues north."

The Yantar, however, is far from being a warship. While indeed part of the Russian Northern Fleet, the vessel, commissioned in 2015, is designed to conduct deep-sea research. It can carry various manned and unmanned underwater vehicles, but has no armament.

Comment: See also:

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Jet1

'If we are strategic partners the US should not legally wrong us here': Erdogan tells US over plans to block F-35 sales


RT
Sun, 03 Jun 2018 09:29 UTC
Israeli F-35 Lightning II fighter jets
© Reuters
President Erdogan warned NATO ally the US that it should behave more like a strategic partner rather than place legal hurdles for Turkish arms deals. The remark was in response to US plans to block F-35 sales to Ankara.

"We say that the US is our strategic partner. As our strategic partner, the US should not say we should knock on another door," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. Speaking to Turkish Star TV, Erdogan was referring to a bill recently introduced in the US Senate with the aim of halting the shipment of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Ankara. "If we are strategic partners, if we are model partners, the US should not legally wrong us here," he said.

Turkey has ordered 100 American jets, and the first two units are to be deployed by 2019. The military spending bill, which is yet to be put up for a vote, is being pushed by senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties. It says that Ankara will not receive the promised aircraft and their maintenance depot if it "degrades NATO interoperability" and "exposes NATO assets to hostile actors." The senators also do not want Turkey to get the planes if it tries to buy weapons from nations under US sanctions. Lawmakers also cited the detention of US citizens by Ankara and potential threats to Greece, another NATO ally, as reasons to stop selling fighter jets to Turkey.

Comment: See also: Turkey threatens to deny US access to Incirlik Air Base, ongoing F-35 deal tensions

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Russian Flag

In the Middle East, Putin walks through the door Trump opened for him

Robert Fisk
The Independent
Tue, 29 May 2018 21:08 UTC
Putin Lieutenant General Valery Asapov
© Associated PressLieutenant General Valery Asapov (right, with President Putin) was killed in Deir Ezzor in September 2017, as he assisted Syrian commanders in their recapture of the city
Once it was the State Department which called for 'restraint on all sides' - usually when the Israelis were invading or bombing Lebanon or Gaza - but now it's the Kremlin which calls for 'restraint' between Israel and Iran. Putin is fast becoming a friend to all

Vladimir Putin will have paid very close attention to the location of the Syrian artillery battery where four Russian soldiers lost their lives at the weekend. The desert around Deir ez-Zour remains a dangerous place - politically as well as physically - in which the Americans and Russians play an extremely risky game of war.

Putin still suspects the Americans helped the artillery guidance of a mortar battery which killed the commander of the Russian Far East 5th Army in Deir ez-Zour, lieutenant general Valery Asapov, less than a year ago. Was the mortar fired by pro-American Kurdish fighters? Or by Isis? The Russians say that Isis mobile attackers stormed the Syrian artillery position this weekend at night - the Islamists' normal routine, streaming out of the desert wadis in suicide trucks and motorcycles - even though the little Syrian forts, hillocks of sand and cement strewn across the vast sand plateaus, are supposed to be invulnerable.

Comment: Mr. Fisk has unfortunately fallen for some of the West's propaganda. The Russians were extremely careful about civilian lives and especially medical facilities, unlike the carnage unleashed by the West in Raqqa.

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