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Venezuela's Maduro plans to visit Moscow in October

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 17:17 UTC
Putin and Maduro
Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela's embattled President, faced with threats and sanctions from the US (in which Canada has now joined) and savage criticism from US President Trump, is intending to travel to Moscow in early October to attend Russia's Energy Week.

It is a certainty that during his visit to Moscow Maduro will meet with top Russian officials, including almost certainly President Putin himself.

A little noticed fact is that over the last few months, as the economic crisis in Venezuela has deepened, Russia has quietly emerged as Venezuela's major foreign investor and financial backer, with Russia's state oil company Rosneft positioning itself to become a major investor in Venezuela's oil industry.

Rosneft's investments in Venezuela, though providing Venezuela with desperately needed foreign exchange, are not uncontroversial both in Venezuela and Russia.
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Info

The Kurds that have signed up with Daesh

Translation Anoosha Boralessa
Voltaire Network
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 17:08 UTC
Mullah Krekar
The Western Press is presenting Daesh as a racist organization that would be fighting Kurds simply because they are Kurds. Baloney: there are Kurdish units within Daesh.

Abu al-Hadi al-Iraqi was the Kurdish leader in Al-Qaeda. During the CIA's Operation Cyclone against the Soviets, he led Al-Quaeda's "Kurdish camp". After the US invasion, he managed the Ashara guest house in Kabul, as al Quaeda's number three man. Now he is being detained in Guantanamo.

In November, the Islamic Emirate in Iraq (from which would germinate Daesh) released a video entitled "Message to Kurds and the Martyr Operation". The organization was calling Kurds to join it.
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Bizarro Earth

Barbarism and shame: Why the US can't have a Korea Peace Treaty

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 21 Sep 2017 16:38 UTC
38th parallel in Korea
The Korean crisis is a powerful lens on American barbarism, past and present. Despite Washington's self-righteousness and pretensions of virtue, the modern history of Korea is an especially powerful lesson that destroys the American national mythology.

Listening to President Trump's conceited rhetoric about wiping out North Korea has an eerie resonance with the rhetoric of President Truman. Truman launched into the Korean War more than six decades ago with same arrogant, mythical presumptions of American virtue and self-ordained right to use overwhelming military force.

For reasons of political self-preservation, Washington must live in denial of historical reality. US leaders out of necessity have to construct an alternative, fictional narrative for their nation's conduct. Because if historical reality were acknowledged, the rulers in Washington, and the whole edifice of presumed American greatness, would implode from the endemic moral corruption.
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Snakes in Suits

Delusional NATO ex-Secretary General boasts 'Russia is trembling, let's finish it off with force'

Politnavigator - translated by Inessa Sinchougova
Fort Russ News
Sun, 17 Sep 2017 16:25 UTC
Anders Rasmussen
Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to the deployment of the UN contingent to the Donbass, because he was frightened by the US leadership's statements about the provision of lethal weapons to Ukraine. This was announced by the former NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen in Kiev at the "Yalta European Strategy" conference.

"Putin understands that the price of continuing destabilization in Ukraine has become higher. Very often, political and diplomatic processes can be conducted through a clearly articulated threat of the use of force. I am confident that further pressure on Russia will help this process, " Rasmussen said.

He believes that in order for the UN peacekeeping mission to become "realistic," it needs a mandate to control the border between Ukraine and Russia, and will have the power to protect "not only the OSCE, but the population."

"If Russia accepts everything that I have listed, then it can be given a carrot in the form of lifting sanctions," Rasmussen added.
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Chess

Nightmare scenario in the making: U.S. has still not given up in Eastern Syria - and Russia is not backing down

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch
Fri, 22 Sep 2017 00:00 UTC
US in Syria
The impending collapse of ISIS has touched off a race for territory in the oil-rich eastern part of Syria pitting US-backed forces against the Russian-led coalition of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah. This is the nightmare scenario that everyone wanted to avoid. Washington and Moscow's armies are now converging on the same area at the same time greatly increasing the probability of a conflagration between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. The only way a clash can be avoided is if one party backs down, which seems increasingly unlikely.

The situation can be easily explained. The vast swath of territory captured by ISIS is steadily shrinking due to the dogged perseverance of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) which has liberated most of the countryside west of the Euphrates River including the former ISIS stronghold at Deir Ezzor, a critical garrison at the center of the fighting. ISIS is also getting pressure from the north where the US-backed SDF is pounding their capital at Raqqa while deploying troops and tanks southward to the oil fields in Deir Ezzor province.

Washington has made it clear that it wants its proxy-army to control the area east of the Euphrates establishing a soft partition between east and west. The US also wants to control Deir Ezzor's vast oil resources in order to provide a reliable revenue stream for the emergent Kurdish statelet.

Comment: Only a few months after Trump withdrew financial support for the CIA's operations in Syria and now, it seems, none of that matters very much in affecting the US Deep State's plans:

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Gold Coins

Fitch upgrades Russia's sovereign credit rating from stable to positive, reflecting the improving economy


RT
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 01:29 UTC
Moscow
© Alexey Druzginin / Anton Denisov / Russian Presidential Press Office / Sputnik
In a press release, the Fitch credit agency has upgraded Russia's sovereign credit rating from "stable" to "positive," though it also predicted that economic growth will be slow and oil revenues will not rise to the heights of the early 2010s for some time.

In a statement issued on Friday, Fitch said that Russia's Issuer Default Rating (IDR) had been raised to reflect the country's improving economy.

"Russia continues to make progress in strengthening its policy framework underpinned by a more flexible exchange rate, strong commitment to inflation targeting and a prudent fiscal strategy, reflected in the recently approved budget rule," the statement read.

Comment: According to a recent analysis from Moscow-based consultancy Awara, the Russian economy is looking rosy, as the US and NATO campaign against Russia has failed to do much damage. The punchline of the report: "We predict Russia to push through the 4 trillion level in 2017 and overtake Germany by 2018 to become the world's fifth biggest economy."

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Arrow Down

French soldier killed in 'combat-related incident in Iraq/Syria'


RT
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 14:32 UTC
French soldiers
© Olivier Laban-Mattei / Reuters
A soldier in a French Army special reconnaissance regiment was killed in a "combat-related" incident on Saturday somewhere in the Iraq and Syria warzone, the French government confirmed despite the unit officially not being deployed to either of the countries.

In a statement issued by Élysée Palace on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that that an "adjutant of the 13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment" was killed while "accomplishing his mission to defend our country, protect our fellow citizens and win the struggle against barbarism."

Neither the soldier's identity, nor the exact location or the country where the paratrooper was killed, have been revealed. Former French General Dominique Trinquand, cited by France-24, said it is common for details of special forces missions to be kept secret from the public.
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War Whore

Trump administration to obscure arms exports after Pentagon 'pipeline' to Syria exposed

Finian Cunningham
RT
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 14:28 UTC
American arms exports
© Patrick Baz
The day after US President Trump's barnstorming speech to the UN General Assembly decrying 'the scourge' of rogue states and terrorism, it was reported that his administration is set to greatly loosen American arms exports.

The trade in question is in the private sector of so-called "non-military weapons". There seems little doubt that unleashing an already massive American export trade in private weapons will further fuel "the scourge" of conflicts and terrorism around the world.

What is also telling is the timing of the move by the Trump administration.

The move to boost exports of private American gun makers also follows an investigative report revealing a $2.2 billion arms pipeline run by the Pentagon and the CIA into Syria. Citing incriminating procurement papers, the explosive report shows how American government agencies are funneling assault rifles and rocket launchers, among other munitions, from Central and Eastern Europe into Syria to arm anti-government militant groups.

What the latest move by the Trump administration will do is obscure the potential paper trail of the weapons trade. In effect, the proposed change in US export regulations amounts to privatizing arms dealing.
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Dollars

Elizabeth Warren squirms when reporter confronts her about her wealth, attacks on 1%

Victor Skinner
The American Mirror
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 13:00 UTC
Elizabeth Warren
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersU.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was recently confronted with a simple question, and her reaction speaks volumes.

WRKO radio host Jeff Kuhner caught up with Warren the other day and recorded his brief encounter, during which he asked the Massachusetts senator an easy question.

"You often say, and I agree with you, that the 99 percent are getting shafted by the 1 percent," Kuhner told Warren as she shook her head in agreement. "Let me ask you this. A lot of people, especially my listeners, say you live in Cambridge. You have a $2 million mansion, plus you're a multi-millionaire yourself. So how can you rail against the 1 percent, when you are and live like the 1 percent?"

The senator launched into a oral history of her family and the "opportunities" that landed her in the upper-upper class.

"I wasn't born in Cambridge," Warren said, "I was born into a family where my daddy worked one job after another and ended up as a janitor."

Her mother worked for minimum wage, and her brothers were in the military, and she wanted to be a school teacher and didn't even have money to pay for the college application, she said. Eventually she graduated from a "commuter college that cost $50 a semester" to become a special needs teacher. After that, she was a mom and attended a state law school, Warren said, avoiding Kuhner's original question.

"But you are part of the 1 percent?" the radio host persisted. "You are a multi-millionare and have a mansion in Cambridge, do you not? It's worth north of $2 million."

Comment: Broken promises? Elizabeth Warren draws fire from Left and Right over Clinton endorsement

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Snakes in Suits

Mush for brains: Poroshenko speaks at West Point, says American weapons will assist Ukraine in 'freeing' Donbass, help save lives

DNR News - translated by Inessa Sinchougova
Fort Russ
Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:00 UTC
Petro Poroshenko
American weapons will help Ukraine recapture the Donbass. Such a statement was made by President Petro Poroshenko during a speech at the US Military Academy "West Point" on Monday in New York.


Comment: That sniveling psychopath Poroshenko was even invited to speak at West Point does not bode well for any kind of peaceful resolution between Kiev and the besieged Donbass region of the Ukraine. It means that (along with mad dog Mattis's promise of delivering more weapons to the Poroshenko regime) that the US is indoctrinating its military to side with Kiev's belligerent aggressors for the longer-term.


"First of all, US weapons can help us free the Donbass and return Ukrainian territories" - said the head of the Ukrainian state. Poroshenko expressed regret that the issue of providing Ukraine with lethal weapons still remains controversial and unresolved. Also, the president of Ukraine refuted the statements that American weapons can not help resolve the situation in Ukraine.


Comment: More weapons means more fighting and more death - probably on Kiev's side. What ever happened to the Minsk 2 agreements you signed to Poroshenko?! Oh yeah, they're meaningless to you.

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