Puppet MastersS


Attention

Beijing warns tensions on Korean Peninsula at 'tipping point' after Pyongyang missile launch


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:41 UTC
Pedestrians watch the news on a huge screen displaying a map of Japan (R) and the Korean Peninsula, in Tokyo on August 29, 2017.
© Toshifumi Kitamura / AFPPedestrians watch the news on a huge screen displaying a map of Japan (R) and the Korean Peninsula, in Tokyo on August 29, 2017.
China has warned that the situation on the Korean Peninsula has reached a "tipping point," just hours after Pyongyang launched a ballistic missile. Meanwhile, North Korea has accused the US of driving the region towards an "extreme level of explosion."

Speaking at a regular news briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the situation is "now at a tipping point approaching a crisis. At the same time there is an opportunity to reopen peace talks.

"We hope relevant parties can consider how we can deescalate the situation on the peninsula and realize peace and stability on the peninsula," she added, as quoted by AFP.

Hua went on to mention joint drills staged by the US and South Korea, the most recent of which began last week, saying the two sides "held one round after another of joint military exercises and they exerted military pressure on the DPRK (North Korea).

"After so many rounds and vicious cycles, do they feel they are nearer to peaceful settlement of the issue?

"The facts have proven that pressure and sanctions cannot fundamentally solve the issue," Hua said, referring to UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.
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Treasure Chest

Military complex only winner: Pentagon awards $727mn contract to support Afghan Air Force


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:13 UTC
U.S. paratroopers patrol a village near Forward Operating Base Arian in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, May 29, 2012
© U.S. Army
The Pentagon has awarded a contract worth over $727 million in support of the Afghan Air Force and Special Mission Wing unit. It comes after Donald Trump's recent "fight to win" commitment to the nation's longest war, which has already cost over $780 billion.

"Leidos Innovation Corp., Gaithersburg, Maryland, was awarded a $727,689,796 firm-fixed-price contract to provide support for the Afghan Air Force (AAF) and Special Mission Wing (SMW) helicopter/fixed-wing fleets," the US Department of Defense said in a statement.

The statement added that bids were "solicited via the Internet with one received. Work will be performed in Kabul, Afghanistan, with an estimated completion date of May 31, 2020."

Leidos Innovation Corp, a unit of Leidos Holding Corp (LDOS.N), is a major contractor for the Pentagon and the National Security Agency (NSA).
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Gear

Repeating pattern: Barcelona attack terrorists' visit to France points to state foreknowledge

Kumaran Ira
World Socialist Website
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00 UTC
Barcelona attack
A spate of news reports last week raised questions about US and European government foreknowledge of the August 17 terror attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils that killed 15 people and wounded more than 100, and how this attack was allowed to proceed. It is ever clearer that the Islamic State (IS) terror cell was under close surveillance by multiple intelligence services of NATO powers, including France, the United States, and Belgium.

Astonishingly, only days before the attack, several members of the terror cell visited Paris, a center of intelligence monitoring of Islamist activity in Europe. They were under surveillance, and French officials informed Spanish officials after they were spotted in France, driving the Audi A3 car that they used to plough into pedestrians in the seaside resort of Cambrils, killing one woman. The car was flashed by a speed camera in France.

BFM-TV reported, "Two members of the jihadist cell that attacked Barcelona and Cambrils, including Younes Abouyaaqoub, the suspected driver in the attack on Las Ramblas, made an 'express' round-trip to Paris" on August 11-12. The Audi was photographed at 1 p.m. on August 11 at the Lestelle toll booths in the Pyrénées traveling north, before being flashed by a speed camera for speeding. The two cell members reportedly spent the night in a budget hotel in the Paris suburb of Malakoff and visited a mall before returning to Spain.

Comment: See also:

Van Mows Down People on Barcelona's Ramblas: 13 confirmed dead, dozens injured - UPDATES

Examining the timeline: Can the official reports of who was behind the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks be trusted?

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Cowboy Hat

Zakharova: US sanctions against Venezuela destabilizing and 'imbued with cynicism'


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:03 UTC
Civilians wear T-shirts with the face of US President Donald Trump
© Andres Martinez Casares / ReutersCivilians wear T-shirts with the face of US President Donald Trump as they parade during a military exercise in Caracas, Venezuela, August 26, 2017.
The latest sanctions imposed by the US on Venezuela are deliberately aimed at further destabilizing a country at a time when it's showing the first signs of emerging from a crisis, Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said.

The new measures, aimed at exerting more financial pressure on Caracas, were announced at a time when tensions in Venezuela started to decrease and the situation showed signs of relative stabilization, Zakharova said, adding that, in such circumstances, the new sanctions against Venezuela's financial and oil sectors were "clearly" aimed at "further destabilization of the situation."

"The very logic of sanctions implies further increase of tensions," she said. Zakharova added that the "actions of the people behind the sanctions are imbued with cynicism."
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Info

'It's a big country': Trump says US 'should and will' get along with Russia


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:54 UTC
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin
© Carlos Barria / Reuters
President Donald Trump has expressed confidence that the world's two nuclear superpowers would "get along" and that US relations with Russia will eventually improve from their record low, to if not "great," then at the very least, "good."

"I hope that we do have good relations with Russia. I say it loud and clear, I've been saying it for years: I think it's a good thing if we have great relationships, or at least good relationships with Russia," the US president said during a joint news conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto.

"It's a big country, it's a nuclear country, it's a country that we should get along with, and I think we will eventually get along with Russia," Trump added.
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Radar

Show of force: South Korea conducts bombing drill in response to Pyongyang's missile test


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:47 UTC
South Korean fighter jets
© FILE PHOTO Kim Hong-Ji / ReutersSouth Korean fighter jets take part in a US-South Korea joint live-fire military exercise at a training field near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Pocheon, South Korea April 21, 2017.
Demonstrating its "overwhelming" military force to North Korea, South Korea conducted bombing drills just hours after Pyongyang launched what appeared to be an intermediate range ballistic missile that reportedly fell in Japanese waters.

The show of force, ordered by South Korean president Moon Jae-in, involved four F15K fighter jets dropping MK84 multipurpose bombs on a shooting range near the inter-Korean border in Taebaek, the presidential press secretary told reporters, according to Yonhap.

Moon's chief press secretary, Yoon Young-chan, said the bombing drill was ordered immediately after the National Security Council meeting convened to discuss possible counter measures Seoul could take against Pyongyang's ballistic missile provocation.

"We assessed North Korea's provocations as extremely severe and decided to maintain a vigilant posture in preparation for the possibility of additional provocations by North Korea," the chief of the National Security Council added.
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Bad Guys

Afghanistan and the CIA heroin ratline

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Fri, 25 Aug 2017 18:41 UTC
Afghanistan and the CIA Heroin Ratline
© AFP 2017/ Bay ISMOYO
The Persian Gulf harbors an array of extremely compromising secrets. Near the top is the Afghan heroin ratline - with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) positioned as the golden node of a transnational, trillion dollar heroin money laundering operation.

In this 21st century Opium War, crops harvested in Afghanistan are essentially feeding the heroin market not only in Russia and Iran but especially in the US. Up to 93% of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan.

Contrary to predominant Western perception, this is not an Afghan Taliban operation. The key questions - never asked by Atlanticist circles - are who buys the opium harvests; refines them into heroin; controls the export routes; and then sell them for humongous profit compared to what the Taliban have locally imposed in taxes.

The hegemonic narrative rules that Washington bombed Afghanistanin 2001 in "self-defense" after 9/11; installed a "democratic" government; and after 16 years never de facto left because this is a key node in the Global War on Terror (GWOT), against al-Qaeda and the Taliban alike.

Washington spent over $100 billion in Afghan reconstruction. And, allegedly, $8.4 billion in "counternarcotics programs". Operation Enduring Freedom - along with the "liberation" of Iraq - have cost an astonishing several trillion dollars. And still the heroin ratline, out of occupied Afghanistan, thrives. Cui bono?
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Che Guevara

Fake News media finally discovers Antifa... only to defend its violence

Katie Pavlich
Townhall
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 01:46 UTC
antifa
© Robin Rayne Nelson / ZUMA Press / Global Look Press
After declaring the "alt-left" is a made up concept that doesn't exist, it seems the liberal media has finally caught on to the violent, alt-left group Antifa.

Over the weekend at UC Berekely Antifa rioters showed up and engaged in violent beat downs against who they perceived as "neo-Nazi" opponents, which included assaulting members of the media.

The Washington Post took notice, reporting "Black-clad antifa attack peaceful right wing demonstrators in Berkeley."

Comment: Further reading: Masked Antifa thugs violently attack Trump supporters at Berkley free speech rally

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MIB

The real threat to our republic: The Orwellian and fascistic Antifa

Ned Ryun
The Hill
Sun, 27 Aug 2017 07:00 UTC
two minutes of hate
'Two minutes of Hate' scene in the film adaptatation of George Orwell's 1984
Over the past few months, we have finally entered the fully realized historical revisionism promised in George Orwell's "1984," in which the motto, "Who controls the present controls the past. Who controls the past controls the future," was central to shaping the book's dystopian world. In the book, history was continually being rewritten and re-promulgated to meet the political necessities of the moment. There was no history to be remembered, let alone lessons to be learned.

For all the talk of Trumpian bluster or exaggeration, there is only one group that seeks to systematically and violently achieve its goals here in the United States on a broad scale: the so-called "anti-fascist" movement, now commonly called "Antifa." And the goal? It's not "anti-fascist" or "anti-racist" as they attempt to portray themselves. It's the systematic elimination of free speech, free assembly, and free thought via any means necessary, including violent protest, the media and Orwellian revisionism.

It is the imposition of a perverse type of intolerance based on Marxist and Chinese communist values that, it turns out, is far more welcome and pervasive within the Democrat Party of Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) than neo-Nazis, the KKK and white supremacists are in the Republican Party. The gunman, James Hodgkinson, who shot Rep. Steve Scalise and four others in Alexandria was a habitual Antifa website visitor and advocate and Sanders volunteer. Even Democrat vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine's (D-Va.) son has been identified as an Antifa activist.
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Star of David

Israel goes to Washington and Sochi, Russia to try and cut its losses in Syria - but cannot now even do that

Yossi Melman
Middle East Eye
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:49 UTC
Israel in Syria
They hoped Assad would fall. Then they wished Syria would fall apart, taking Hezbollah with it. Despite recent efforts, the Israelis may now find themselves staring down the group on two fronts

As Iran consolidates its presence and influence in Syria, Israel fears that its "Syrian policy" is collapsing. To cut its losses, the Jewish state has embarked on a new and urgent diplomatic-intelligence initiative spearheaded by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disrupted Russian President Vladimir Putin's summer holiday and flew to Sochi. He was accompanied by Cohen.

Last week, Cohen led a senior intelligence delegation, which included the chief of Israeli military intelligence Major-General Hertzi Halevi, to Washington for meetings with their counterparts.

In both meetings, the Israelis urged the Americans and Russians to put an immediate stop the deployment of Iranian, Lebanese Hezbollah and their Shia militias from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq near the Israeli border on the Golan and ask them leave Syria later on.

But according to well-informed Israeli sources, the missions failed. The Trump administration has decided to abandon its involvement in Syria once the Islamic State (IS) group is defeated, which will most probably happen in a matter of a few months.

Comment: Do not be surprised if Israel - out of desperation - tries some despicable new aggression or provocation towards Syria, or even Iran. It may be overt, or it may be 'by deception'; they will not allow their pathological plan for a 'Greater Israel' to be thwarted.

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