Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

New economic protests in Iran, pro-government rallies also held

Amir Vadhat
AP
Sun, 31 Dec 2017 09:59 UTC
iran protest dec 2017
© Ebrahim NorooziIranian protesters chant slogans at a rally in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017. Iranian hard-liners rallied Saturday to support the country’s supreme leader and clerically overseen government as spontaneous protests sparked by anger over the country’s ailing economy roiled major cities in the Islamic Republic.
A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran's weak economy swept into Tehran on Saturday, with college students and others chanting against the government just hours after hard-liners held their own rally in support of the Islamic Republic's clerical establishment.

The demonstrations appear to be the largest to strike the Islamic Republic since the protests that followed the country's disputed 2009 presidential election.

Thousands already have taken to the streets of cities across Iran, beginning at first on Thursday in Mashhad, the country's second-largest city and a holy site for Shiite pilgrims.

The protests in the Iranian capital, as well as President Donald Trump tweeting about them, raised the stakes. It also apparently forced state television to break its silence, acknowledging it hadn't reported on them on orders from security officials.


Comment: Trump praises economic protests in Iran, says people are tired of 'corruption' and 'funding terrorism'

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X

The US continues to evacuate IS terrorists from Syria


TASS
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 12:02 UTC
Helicopter
© AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic
US helicopters evacuated Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia) commanders from several districts of the Deir ez-Zor province in eastern Syria on Wednesday, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported citing information received from local residents.

According to SANA, US helicopters evacuated the IS commanders from the Deir ez-Zor province to Al-Hasakah province in northeastern Syria. According to the agency's sources, this is the second time the US evacuates IS terrorists.

Earlier in the week, the Syrian government sent a message to the United Nations, accusing the US-led coalition of making deals with the Islamic State and coordinating its actions with the terror group.

Comment: After all the money they've spent on them, the US wants to hang on to their assets as they need them to continue with their de-stabilization plans. See also:

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Russian Flag

Russia's UN representative Pyotr Ilyichev lambasts Ukraine's illegal arms trafficking


Russian.ru
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 11:08 UTC
UN Security Council
After the words of the representative of the Ukrainian delegation:

Mr. Chairman,

The overall instability in the country, as well as the use of the "Donbass factor" in internal political disagreements, the growth of the influence of radical and extremist forces and direct flirtation of the authorities with them, have a negative impact on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which remain the unchallenged basis for a settlement in the southeast of Ukraine. Increasingly, the tool for resolving conflicts is becoming the weapon in the hands of extremists, to monitor the turnover of which the country's authorities are not able to follow.

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that, according to the independent NGO Small Arms Survey of April this year, the volume of small arms that was in Ukraine in illegal circulation amounted to about 3 million units in 2013. The coup d'etat of 2014 only aggravated this situation. It was with the connivance of the putschists that the looting of army warehouses, including in the west of the country, which was well highlighted in the media, and uncontrolled distribution of small arms and light weapons to extremists, were carried out, which were then legalized by inclusion in the armed forces of the country.

In this regard, we hope that the Kiev authorities will fulfill their international obligations to control the trafficking in SALW and take the necessary measures aimed at combating its illicit trafficking.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 2

How British Intelligence uses dirty tricks online to 'deny, disrupt, degrade, deceive' (VIDEO)

Mustafa Al-Bassam
Chaos Computer Club
Sun, 31 Dec 2017 09:59 UTC
JTRIG British intelligence online counter
© The interceptThe “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services.
The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), a unit in one of Britain's intelligence agencies, is tasked with creating sockpuppet accounts and fake content on social media, in order to use "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them. In this talk, we reveal some of that content, in relation to infiltrating activists groups around the world, including during the Arab spring and Iranian revolution.

Comment: The UK government, like the US government, is fond of accusing other countries, particularly Russia, of the very foul play they're knee deep in:

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Target

Trump praises economic protests in Iran, says people are tired of 'corruption' and 'funding terrorism'

Carla Herreria
Huffington Post
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 10:26 UTC
trump
© Carlos Barria / Reuters


Iranian officials call Trump's support of protesters in the country "deceitful" and "opportunist."

The Iranian government denounced President Donald Trump on Saturday after he escalated his support for the anti-government protesters who have been holding demonstrations in the country for three days.

Trump tweeted Friday his praise of the "peaceful protests" in Iran, calling protesters "Iranian citizens fed up with regime's corruption & its squandering of the nation's wealth to fund terrorism abroad."

On Saturday, the president tweeted two video clips of his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September, in which he called the Iranian government an "oppressive regime" and suggested that Iran's leaders are afraid of their own citizens.

Comment: Iranians have good reason to protest. Rouhani's policies have not helped the Iranian economy, unemployment is high, many aren't receiving their paychecks. And while Iran's theocracy is much milder than it was in the 80s, it's still a theocracy. But all that is beside the point. Protests are normal. But when such protests happen in a country that happens to be a U.S. enemy, said protests take on an extra dimension of importance. Stoked on by shady actors and intelligence assets, they are weaponized as tools for regime change and used to tarnish the government's reputation even further - witness Ukraine 4 years ago. (Protests in the U.S., by contrast, are put down or ignored as the ravings of bunch of mentally deranged rabble.) The timing of these protests, their relatively low turnout, and the involvement of the MEK terrorist organization all should raise an eyebrow or two. See:

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Quenelle

Is this net neutrality? Facebook deleting accounts at the behest of the U.S. and Israeli Governments

Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 15:15 UTC
Mark Zuckerberg
© Eric Risberg/AP
In September of last year, we noted that Facebook representatives were meeting with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts of Palestinians should be deleted on the ground that they constituted "incitement." The meetings - called for and presided over by one of the most extremist and authoritarian Israeli officials, pro-settlement Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked - came after Israel threatened Facebook that its failure to voluntarily comply with Israeli deletion orders would result in the enactment of laws requiring Facebook to do so, upon pain of being severely fined or even blocked in the country.

The predictable results of those meetings are now clear and well-documented. Ever since, Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials. Indeed, Israeli officials have been publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders:
Shortly after news broke earlier this month of the agreement between the Israeli government and Facebook, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Tel Aviv had submitted 158 requests to the social media giant over the previous four months asking it to remove content it deemed "incitement." She said Facebook had granted 95 percent of the requests.

Comment: While Facebook has been working behind the scenes with the US Deep State in a clandestine censorship operation, it is rather amazing how their work with Israel goes on in plain sight. See also:

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Propaganda

UK intelligence report claims pro-ISIS hackers could be Russians, citing single Telegraph article


RT
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 08:45 UTC
Man working on a laptop
© Global Look Press
A parliamentary report on UK intelligence speculates that Russian hackers could be conducting 'false flag' cyber-attacks by posing as Islamic extremists. Its evidence? One article in the Telegraph newspaper.

The heavily redacted report cited an October 2017 Telegraph article when noting that "some commentators have speculated that certain cyber-attacks, which have been widely reported in the media as being Russian... have been 'false-flagged' as Islamist extremist attacks."

The attacks in cited were on the US Central Command's Twitter account and another against TV5Monde's network, though the report offered no evidence of Russia's involvement beyond the article cited.
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Jet5

Israeli jets strike Gaza as Lieberman blames 'Iran supplied missiles to numerous groups'


RT
Sun, 31 Dec 2017 07:52 UTC
Israeli Air Force F-15 planes
© Amir Cohen / ReutersIsraeli Air Force F-15 planes fly during an aerial demonstration at the Hatzerim air base in southern Israel, December 27, 2017
Israel conducted airstrikes in Gaza for a second straight day after shells reportedly launched from the area landed in its territory. The IDF blamed Iran for the attack, claiming it supplied the unknown attackers with weapons.

The Israeli military said its warplanes targeted a Hamas position in southern Gaza late Saturday in response for the shelling carried out by the yet unidentified militants on Friday. While Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it's "too early" to name those culpable in the attack, he promptly blamed Tehran for the incident. "Iran has supplied these missiles to numerous groups," Lieberman told Israeli media, saying that an initial examination of the shells fired "confirms they are from Iran."

"The Iranian regime continues to risk the safety of the residents of the Gaza Strip and puts them in grave danger. Wherever the Iranian regime operates or is involved, it only wreaks havoc and destruction," the IDF tweeted after the attack. The IDF also accused Iran of deliberately fomenting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through its proxies - "rogue and extremist terrorist groups" - by funnelling arms to them in an attempt to reignite stalled hostilities "after years of quiet."

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Down

Rex Murphy on Justin Trudeau's descent from celebrity selfie-prince to nincompoop politician

Rex Murphy
National Post
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 18:12 UTC
Justin Trudeau
2017 was not kind to the PM nor his government. And that last press conference? In Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it will bode for him

What's true about first impressions - that you never get a second chance to make them - is logically symmetrical with the truth about last ones. No do-overs for them either, by definition. The last impression many Canadians have of Justin Trudeau in this year of Our Lord, 2017, was of him, shock-faced, rattled and babbling incoherently for a TV eternity of a minute and a half.

For all the sense he made, he could have been speaking Njerep ( I have a Masters in Google search) a language that survives only on the tongues of four people in the entire world, the youngest of whom is already 60.

It's not because the question was tough, nor could it possibly have been unforeseen. He had been found guilty by the ethics commissioner of, not one, but four provisions of the conflict of interest law.

Comment: Trudeau has done more than what's alluded to in the article above. And very little was said about the ideological underpinnings that he's infused into the Canadian government or selling of weapons to corrupt governments that are in violation of human rights. What is clear is that the current Prime Minister and his Cabinet's inability to govern properly has spilled into just about all sectors. For more on this:

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Control Panel

Politicians and experts of Russia weigh in on the most important achievements of 2017

Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 17:55 UTC
Alexei Pushkov
Alexei Pushkov, member of the Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security
Russian politicians and experts shared their opinion with Pravda.Ru about most important events of the outgoing year 2017.

Alexei Pushkov, member of the Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security:

"The biggest event of the year is the success of the Russian operation in Syria and the liquidation of ISIL* as a combat-ready formation and even more so, a state formation in Syria. This, in my opinion, is the most important thing.

"Another most important event of the year, or, to be more precise, an anti-event, is the fact of USA's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This decision has set the Middle East on fire again, it became a gross violation of international law, because international resolutions of the UN and the UN Security Council, which the US supported, envisage a special status for Jerusalem.

"The decision to single-handedly recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital has come as a violation of all norms of international law. I think that this event is very indicative from the point of view of the role that Russia plays in the world and the role of the USA. Russia's role is stabilizing and positive, whereas the role of the USA is destabilizing and destructive."
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