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Bad Guys

Trump contradicts Israeli PM on schedule for US embassy move


Sputnik
Fri, 19 Jan 2018 16:46 UTC
bibi netanyahu
© REUTERS/ Sebastian Scheiner/Pool
Comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the much-touted move of the US embassy to Jerusalem will happen sometime in 2018 have been contradicted by US President Donald Trump as well as Netanyahu's own office.

Netanyahu noted that the controversial decision to move the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will happen sometime 2018. "My solid assessment is that it will go much faster than you think - within a year from now," Netanyahu told Israeli reporters during his ongoing visit to India on Wednesday.

But an anonymous official with the conservative PM's office backed away from that timeline when asked about it by Reuters. A new embassy will have to be built - no hasty feat, as embassies are very particular about their security. The logistics of securing a site and permanent housing for embassy personnel are also major concerns.

There could be, however, "interim measures that could result in an embassy opening much faster," the anonymous official mentioned. Israeli media has reported in the past that the US ambassador would spend some of his time in a temporary embassy in Jerusalem.

Comment: What game is Trump playing here? He (apparently) moved forward on one of Israel's dearest wishes, but still finds ways to stall.

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Russian Flag

Anything to hurt Russia: US to issue 'blacklist of oligarchs' close to Putin

Saleha Mohsin
Bloomberg
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 16:29 UTC
vladimir putin
© Grigoriy Sisoev / SputnikRussian president Vladimir Putin.


The U.S. Treasury Department is finishing its first official list of "oligarchs" close to President Vladimir Putin's government, setting off a flurry of moves by wealthy Russians to shield their fortunes and reputations.

Some people who think they're likely to land on the list have stress-tested the potential impact on their investments, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Others are liquidating holdings, according to their U.S. advisers.

Russian businessmen have approached former Treasury and State Department officials with experience in sanctions for help staying off the list, said Dan Fried, who previously worked at the State Department and said he turned down such offers. Some Russians sent proxies to Washington in an attempt to avoid lobbying disclosures, according to one person that was contacted.

The report is expected to amount to a blacklist of Russia's elite. It was mandated by a law President Donald Trump reluctantly signed in August intended to penalize the Kremlin for its alleged meddling in the 2016 election. A rare piece of legislation passed with a bipartisan veto-proof margin, the law gave Treasury, the State Department and intelligence agencies 180 days to identify people by "their closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth."

That deadline is Jan. 29.
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Dollars

Millions of 'mishandled' dollars funneled from Australian govt to Clinton Foundation now under investigation by FBI

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 17 Jan 2018 16:33 UTC
Clinton australia PM
Hillary Clinton and former Australian PM Julia Gillard
The FBI has asked retired Australian policeman-turned investigative journalist, Michael Smith, to provide information he has gathered detailing multiple allegations of the Clinton Foundation receiving tens of millions of mishandled taxpayer funds, according to LifeZette.
"I have been asked to provide the FBI with further and better particulars about allegations regarding improper donations to the CF funded by Australian taxpayers," Smith told LifeZette.
Of note, the Clinton Foundation received some $88 million from Australian taxpayers between 2006 and 2014, reaching its peak in 2012-2013 - which was coincidentally (we're sure) Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's last year in office.

Smith names several key figures in his complaints of malfeasance, including Bill and Hillary Clinton and multiple Australian government officials - including senior diplomat Alexander Downer, whose conversation with Trump aide George Papadopoulos that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton allegedly launched the Trump-Russia investigation (as opposed to the Fusion GPS dossier, of course).

Comment: The point of foreign governments donating to the Clinton Foundation was clear. Those who who did so sought to influence the U.S. when Killary was secretary of state, and when it it seemed she had the election clinched.

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War Whore

Mattis threatens world with American military retaliation if it doesn't bow to Empire


RT
Fri, 19 Jan 2018 16:27 UTC
mattis
The US will counter any "threat to America's democracy experiment" in the world, if necessary with military force, the Pentagon chief threatened. Jim Mattis said Russia and China are potential adversaries for the US.

Unveiling the Trump administration's new National Defense Strategy, Mattis said the main focus for US defense was competition with resurgent powers Russia and China which, he said, want to impose an authoritarian model of government on other nations.


Comment: The US government is authoritarian, not Russia or China.


"We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order-creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security," says the summary of the new NDS published simultaneously.
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Russian Flag

Russian election 2018: The West's 'only' opposition to Putin is Navalny who has a criminal record and 2% support

Catte
OffGuardian
Wed, 17 Jan 2018 14:31 UTC
Alexei Navalny
Alexei Navalny aka the “firebrand bidding for Russia’s soul”
March 2018 will almost certainly see Vladimir Putin re-elected to the presidency of the Russian Federation. His overwhelming popularity will pretty much guarantee this outcome. But this is not the story being told in the Western media.

Even though Vladimir Putin's ascendancy in the polls has been verified by Western pollsters, and even though a few more level-headed Western outlets feel obliged to admit he would likely win a free and fair election with ease, the majority of the mainstream media have taken the launch of the presidential campaign as a cue to almost entirely bury even these basic facts, and instead to focus on claims that the 'only real opposition' in Russia has been banned from challenging Putin due to flagrant political censorship.

By 'only real' opposition they mean Alexei Anatolievich Navalny, lawyer, 'activist', occcasional chum of neo-nazis with an awkward tendency to compare racial minorities to cockroaches, and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, who is, ironically, currently serving a suspended sentence for fraud and embezzlement, and is, thereby, banned under the Russian Federation's constitution from running for elected office.

In case it has passed you by, the western media love this guy. For them he is a mash up of Jesus and John Lennon spiced with a whiff of bad boy. They eat him up. And when high enough on his amazingness they celebrate him in rich prose:

Comment: One could say that if answers to those questions could have been answered in the affimative, evidence would have been presented by now. However, we have yet to see any and doubtful any will appear unless they fabricate it out of thin air. As to his character, a good place to start would be here. Now Navalny on the other hand..... What a joke!

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Chess

Putin under no moral obligation to stop Israel bombing Syria, doing so would make situation worse

The Saker
The Unz Review
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 14:46 UTC
Putin and Netanyahu
Informationclearinghouse recently posted an article by Darius Shahtahmasebi entitled "Israel Keeps Bombing Syria and Nobody Is Doing Anything About It". Following this publication I received an email from a reader asking me the following question:
"Putin permitting Israel to bomb Syria - why? I am confused by Putins actions - does Putin support the Zionist entity, on the quiet like. I would appreciate your feedback on this matter. Also - I have heard, but not been able to confirm, that the Russian Jewish immigrants to Occupied Palestines are the most ardent tormenters of the Palestinians - it takes quite some doing to get ahead of the likes of Netanyahu. Please comment".
While in his article Darius Shahtahmasebi wonders why the world is not doing anything to stop the Israelis ("Why haven't Iran, Syria, and/or Hezbollah in Lebanon responded directly?"), my reader is more specific and wonders why Putin (or Russia) specifically is not only "permitting" Israel to bomb Syria but even possibly "supporting" the Zionist Entity.

I often see that question in emails and in comments, so I wanted to address this issue today.
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Vader

Trump's destabilizing and escalating threats against Iran

Patrick Cockburn
Counterpunch
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 14:14 UTC
trump
© Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP
The US-Iran confrontation is already destabilising parts of the Middle East that were starting to settle down after the defeat of Isis in the second half of last year. "The escalating American threats against Iran mean that the Iranians will be more vigorous in safeguarding their position in Iraq and Syria," said a former Iraqi minister who did not want his name published.

He warned that senior US officials, particularly those with a military background, "will do everything short of war against Iran". They had convinced themselves that Iran's clerical government was weaker than was really the case. "They believe that they just have to kick the system and it will collapse," he said. This wishful thinking has been encouraged by the protests that have broken out in Iranian cities since 28 December.

US-Iran tensions increased last Friday when President Donald Trump said he had signed a waiver on the reimposition of draconian US sanctions on Iran for the last time. He would not do so when the issue comes up again in 120 days unless the nuclear deal agreed with Iran two years ago is substantially modified, something that is unlikely to happen. The uncertainty about sanctions has already cut the economic benefits to Iranians stemming from the agreement because foreign banks and companies do not want to risk spending money doing business in Iran and then find that they have to stop because of sanctions.

Comment: That is one problem with being the president of the global superpower: You can't just say whatever you want without there being consequences. Sometimes you say 'sh*thole' and the media goes crazy for a few days. Others, you threaten the Iranians with regime change and the whole Middle East sinks further into chaos.

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Newspaper

'All debts are paid': France clarifies position on Czarist-era bond claims


RT
Fri, 19 Jan 2018 12:27 UTC
'All Debts Are Paid': France Clarifies Position on Czarist-Era Bond Debt Claims
© CC BY-SA 3.0 / Praticien / Cronstadt Paris Louvre
Paris cannot demand that Russia reimburse French holders of pre-revolutionary Russian bond debt, France's Ministry of the Economy and Finance has said.

Earlier this week, French media reported on a hundred-year-old story about the descendants of hundreds of thousands of 19th century investors into Czarist government-backed bonds, who are now demanding that Moscow compensate them with tens of billions of euros.

Asked to clarify Paris's official position on the issue, the French Economy Ministry emphasized that all Russian-French country-to-country debts are considered paid.

Comment: There are much more recent and pressing debts which have yet to be clarified by the US and EU: $200bn to reconstruct war-torn Syria: The US and its allies are responsible and should be charged for war crimes

Also See:

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Blue Planet

Why Russia grants temporary status to refugees

Mariya Petkova
Al Jazeera
Wed, 17 Jan 2018 12:00 UTC
Baibers Suleiman, who is Syrian Circassian, and his wife Sara fled to Russia in 2016
© Mariya Petkova/Al Jazeera
When Baibers Suleiman arrived in Lebanon in 2014, having fled the war in Syria, he did not feel at ease.

"We felt alienated, foreign, although we were just three hours away from our home," the 36-year-old Syrian electrician says. He and his 30-year-old wife Sara felt they needed to leave.

A Syrian friend of Baibers' living in Russia suggested they go there.

The fact that Baibers is ethnically Circassian helped.

Adygea, one of the Russian republics in the historical Circassian homeland in the Northern Caucuses, had been helping Syrian Circassians find refuge in Russia, a policy in line with its efforts to repatriate descendants of the Circassian tribes ethnically cleansed from the region in the 1860s.

Comment: Russia instead made it safe for Syrian refugees to return. By the way, they've taken in up to 4 million Ukrainian refugees from America's proxy war in eastern Europe: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis

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Stock Down

Poll: US world approval rating plummets to a 10-year-low, lower than China's


RT
Fri, 19 Jan 2018 10:57 UTC
Trump drinks funny
© Mandel Ngan / AFP
America's global approval rating has plunged to its lowest point in a decade, according to a new Gallup poll, with Germany and China ahead on the world stage.

A thousand adults, aged 15 years or older across more than 130 countries, were questioned between March and November 2017. They were asked whether they approved or disapproved of the current US administration. The survey results were published Thursday.

President Donald Trump has shaken up US foreign policy during his first year in office - decertifying the nuclear deal with Iran, recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and threatening North Korea with a nuclear strike.

Comment: Considering how misinformed the public is on the real issues these surveys can often be misleading, but it is clear that more people are beginning to see America's role in the world in a negative light. Whether this is because of their corrupt foreign policy or simply because they 'don't like Trump' we can't be sure.

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