Puppet MastersS


Stock Down

Russian gas transits through Ukraine to plunge by more than 80%


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 09:55 UTC
Russian gas transit
© Gleb Garanich / Reuters
After Russia builds natural gas pipelines to Europe and Turkey, transit through Ukraine is expected to fall by more than 80 percent, according to Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller.

"There are neighboring states, there are regions that are on the border with Ukraine, and, without doubt, supplies to these European regions will be carried out using Ukrainian transit. The other thing is that the volumes will undoubtedly be less significant," Miller told Channel One Russia.

The volumes will fall from last year's 93.5 billion cubic meters to about 10 to 15 billion cubic meters, said the head of Gazprom. The gas-transit contract between Russia and Ukraine expires in 2019 and Moscow has repeatedly said Ukraine will lose its status as a key transit hub to Europe. Russia wants to bypass Ukraine by doubling the capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea.

Comment: Europe struggles to heat its own citizens over winter, so when the Western-backed nutjobs running Ukraine are finally cut off, it'll be clear who their friends really are.

Read More...
Bad Guys

Skripal deception is replay of Iraq's phantom 'weapons of mass destruction' says ex-Pentagon official


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 12:28 UTC
colin powel skripal
© Reuters
The inability of UK scientists to prove Russia made the nerve agent highlights the glaring lack of facts in the Skripal case, which looks similar to the 2003 build-up to the Iraq War, ex-Pentagon official Michael Maloof says.

The revelations, made by the secretive Porton Down laboratory, are a "significant development" in the Skripal scandal, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof believes, as they've again raised the question of bringing in Russian experts on chemical weapons to investigate the incident. Russia has repeatedly urged the UK to allow its experts to participate, but London has so far refused.

"So far the West has turned that request down, which indicates to me that they have something to hide. I think if we are going to have transparency on that, if we want to get to the bottom of it, I think experts both from Russia and the West need to get together and come to a resolution," Maloof told RT.

Comment: The psychopaths in power continue to use the same tired tactics as they were using more than a decade ago, but the world is a very different place now, people are much wiser to the total corruption of Western governments. They have proven to be outright liars again and again, who will spout the most baseless of claims to justify their reign of terror, in order to retain their position on the world stage: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica - Trump Dumped - Skripal Saga



Read More...
Telephone

Best of the Web: Brits preventing Yulia Skripal from calling relatives, flout international law by preventing Russian embassy from seeing her

John Helmer
Dance with Bears
Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Public Telephones
The British public telephone is two years short of a century old. The Salisbury Hospital has dismantled the outdoor models because it is now possible for patients to receive and make telephone calls from their bedside. The hospital has contracted with a company called Hospedia to provide patients with personal access to telephones (television, internet, games too). The patients must pay.

The business of overcharging them for incoming and outgoing calls was such a corrupt scandal, Hospedia's predecessor company went bankrupt. The Royal Bank of Scotland took over the assets, and then went even more corruptly bankrupt itself. So the bank sold the hospital telephone business to Marlin Equity Partners. That company presently controls most British hospital patient telephones; it is an American group specializing in investment in signal and cyber operations of every sort. It is based in Los Angeles and London.

Comment: For the British authorities, it seems to be a full-time job knitting together 'official' narratives in the Skripals' case. Simple phone calls would only complicate matters.

Read More...
Bullseye

Moscow blasts Facebook's totalitarian tendencies for banning Russian accounts


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 22:59 UTC
Facebook ban Russia profiles
© Facebook / Supplied for media useSample of the pages banned by Facebook, which it says did not violate any of its content guidelines
Moscow has chided Facebook and demanded an explanation from the US State Department, after the social media giant banned media and personal accounts that violated no rules but are purportedly linked to a Russian "troll factory."

"It is clear that this is part of the anti-Russian campaign in which the media landscape is being cleansed of alternative sources of information, under the pretext of Russian interference in the 2016 election," Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said during a press conference in Moscow. "It is odd that a company that celebrates openness is resorting to totalitarian methods of control and censorship on the basis of dubious criteria."
Read More...
Better Earth

Russia calls for UN Security Council meeting on Skripal scandal


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 19:19 UTC
UNSC
© RuptlyThe United Nations Security Council
Russia has requested an open session of the US Security Council on Thursday to discuss the accusations from the UK that Moscow used a nerve agent against former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England last month.

The use of chemical weapons by anyone anywhere is "inadmissible and must be investigated and punished," Russia's ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya wrote to the UNSC president, according to TASS. The council is currently chaired by Peru.

Nebenzya sent the request after the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office deleted the March 22 tweet in which it claimed experts at the chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down confirmed the substance that allegedly poisoned Skripal and his daughter Yulia was "military-grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia."

Comment: The UK refuses to release any evidence. Hmm, we wonder why? Because they don't have any:
"I do not believe that," he said. "Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. Did we not give him 'Animal Hero, first Class,' immediately afterwards?"

"That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now−it is all written down in the secret documents that we have found−that in reality he was trying to lure us to our doom."

"But he was wounded," said Boxer. "We all saw him running with blood." (George Orwell, Animal Farm)


Read More...
Biohazard

Chemical weapons expert: 'State actor' claim re: Novichok is bogus - ordinary chemists could make them


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 19:13 UTC
skripal salisbury
© FERNVALL LOTTE / Global Look PressMarch 13, 2018 - Salisbury - Police cordon tape surrounds the grave of Liudmila Skripal wife of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the cemetary in Salisbury, UK.
A chemical weapon expert slammed claims from the UK that a 'state actor' must be behind the Salisbury poisoning.

Porton Down - the UK's secretive defense laboratory - said an assessment of the nerve agent used on former double agent Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia showed it must have been state-backed due to its complexity.

However, the mystery of what happened on March 4 grows deeper as Downing Street's rush to blame Russia unravels. Sanctions - the toughest in 30 years - were slapped on Moscow in the incident's aftermath. Now, as the investigation widens, it appears there is now credible doubt, despite Theresa May's and Boris Johnson's insistence of Russian 'culpability.'

Scientists from Porton Down were unable to confirm that the nerve agent, identified by the UK as A-234 - also known as Novichok - was Russian-made. In an interview with Sky News, Porton Down's chief executive, Gary Aitkenhead, said the testing team thought a state actor was "probably" behind the poisoning.

Experts from around the world, including James Tour, a synthetic organic chemist at Rice University in Houston, Texas, have slammed the claim.


Comment: The entire accusation against Russia is built on a house of cards. Every claim falls apart on the most basic level of analysis. Seriously, the UK intelligence agencies are getting lazy. Remember the days when they actually put some effort into their false flags? We guess those days are gone. See: Johnson and May hide behind complicit media as their lies dissolve

Read More...
Attention

Britain's mainstream desperation for Russian guilt will ignore anything to get it


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 13:43 UTC
Street cop UK
© Fernavall Lotte / Global Look Press
The UK Foreign Office denies its own on-the-record claims after being undermined by government scientists. The media is ignoring reports which could help avoid a major confrontation with Russia. Welcome to post-Skripal Britain.

When Jeremy Corbyn called for more evidence to be provided about Russia's alleged role in the poisoning of the Skripals, the howls from Parliament and much of the media were deafening. When the laboratory in charge of investigating where the nerve agent used in Salisbury came from said it couldn't actually back up claims it was from Russia, it was the silence that was deafening.

For some reason that's unlikely to be reflected on, the mainstream in Britain is desperate for Russia to be found guilty. There may have been a time when avoiding confrontation with another major nation would have been the desired outcome, but that time isn't now.



Comment: This is a case of 'it's a lie and I'm stickin' to it!" Lies seem to hold more weight than truths - possibly because there are an unlimited number of them and the longer they go on, the heavier they become.

Read More...
Attention

Calls for resignations abound after Porton Down admission; what now for the UK government's case?


RT
Tue, 03 Apr 2018 16:17 UTC
May/Johnson
© politicshome.com/The NationalThe party's over.
An admission from the UK's main defense lab has thrown Theresa May's accusations of Russian 'culpability' for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal into doubt.

British scientists at Porton Down announced that they are unable to establish the origin of nerve agent A-234 (also known as "Novichok"). Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in England, told Sky News:
"We were able to identify it as Novichok, to identify that it was military-grade nerve agent. We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to."
Russia has consistently denied being behind the attack on the Skripals in Salisbury on March 4. However, in the eyes of the UK government, their 'culpability' has never been in doubt.

Following the poisoning, May was unequivocal about the source of the nerve agent - giving Russia an ultimatum and demanding an explanation for the incident, stating:
"Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others."
When May considered that the ultimatum had not been met, the UK PM accused the Kremlin of being "culpable" for the incident.

Comment: Destroying Russia is rebounding in the devastation of May's government (and Russia didn't have to lift a finger).

See also:

Read More...
Magnify

More evidence the UK's Russia narrative is a verdict in search of a crime

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
BorisJohnson
© Getty Images
Two weeks ago, the Right Honourable Boris Johnson was asked by a German journalist how the UK government could be so very certain so very early on that the Kremlin was behind the poisoning of a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Salisbury.
"When I look at the evidence, the people from Porton Down, the laboratory, they were absolutely categorical," Johnson replied. "I asked the guy myself, I said: 'Are you sure?' And he said: 'There's no doubt.' So we have very little alternative but to take the action that we have taken."
The "action that we have taken" include the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats from the United Kingdom, a cold war escalation in which they were joined by many allied governments around the world in the largest collective ejection of Russian diplomats in world history. It would also include Johnson's personal campaign to unite the EU behind a more aggressive stance against Russia.


Comment: Interesting little tie-in to Killary Clinton; are we surprised?
See also:

Read More...
Footprints

Syria: US may be setting up new military bases despite Trump's withdrawal promise


RT
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 06:14 UTC
US tank syria
© Rodi Said/Reuters
While President Trump has reiterated his intention to withdraw troops from Syria, the US military is reportedly working on plans to send an additional contingent to secure a foothold in the north of the war-torn country.

"I want to get out, I want to bring the troops back home, I want to start rebuilding our nation," US President Donald Trump said Tuesday during a news conference at the White House with leaders of the Baltic nations, noting that the "primary mission" of defeating the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists in Syria is "almost completed."

Promising to make a decision on the pullout "very quickly," the president noted that the US gained "nothing out of $7 trillion" spent in the Middle East over the last 17 years. "It's very costly for our country and it helps other countries a hell of a lot more than it helps us."

While reiterating his resolve to withdraw 2,000 US soldiers from Syria, first mentioned in Ohio last week, Trump hinted that the US might be willing to stay in Syria if its Middle Eastern ally, Saudi Arabia, pays for US troop deployment.

Comment: A confrontation within Syria between Turkey and the US would not be the best of news.

See also: Saudi Crown Prince: US troops should stay in Syria

Read More...