Puppet MastersS


Dollar Gold

Strategic competitors and the petro-yuan bombshell

Pepe Escobar
CounterPunch
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 13:16 UTC
yuan
© Pinterest/reutersmedia
The new 55-page "America First" National Security Strategy

(NSS), drafted over the course of 2017, defines Russia and China as "revisionist" powers, "rivals", and for all practical purposes strategic competitors of the United States.

The NSS stops short of defining Russia and China as enemies, allowing for an "attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries". Still, Beijing qualified it as "reckless" and "irrational." The Kremlin noted its "imperialist character" and "disregard for a multipolar world". Iran, predictably, is described by the NSS as "the world's most significant state sponsor of terrorism." Russia, China and Iran happen to be the three key movers and shakers in the ongoing geopolitical and geoeconomic process of Eurasia integration.

The NSS can certainly be regarded as a response to what happened at the BRICS summit in Xiamen last September. Then, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on "the BRIC countries' concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies", and stressed the need to "overcome the excessive domination of a limited number of reserve currencies".

That was a clear reference to the US dollar, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of total reserve currency around the world and remains the benchmark determining the price of energy and strategic raw materials.

And that brings us to the unnamed secret at the heart of the NSS; the Russia-China "threat" to the US dollar.

Comment: The future of this issue is evident. The US can get on board with some manner of friendly participation or stick to its fading paradigm and be effectively bypassed into obsolescence. A choice.

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Laptop

North Korea invites US to provide evidence of Pyongyang cyberwarfare connection


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 07:42 UTC
wannacry computer
© blogwannacry
North Korea has demanded the US provide evidence to support its claims that the WannaCry ransomware attack was engineered by Pyongyang. The attack crippled 200,000 computers in 150 countries earlier in 2017.

Washington's allegations are merely a "baseless provocation" used to generate tensions between the countries, Pak Song Il, the North Korean ambassador for American affairs at the UN, told AP.

Pyongyang considers these claims an attempt to create an "extremely confrontational atmosphere," the North's top official stated. "If they are so sure, show us the evidence," the envoy added.

Earlier in December, White House Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert wrote an Op-Ed claiming that the US has proof that it was North Korea behind the WannaCry cyber-attack, citing a "careful investigation." Bossert named Pyongyang as the culprit in the attack, although no particular organization or person affiliated with the North Korean government was specifically named.

Comment: For more on this situation, see also:

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Attention

Moscow: Ukraine-bound US-Canadian weapons may end up in ME terrorists' hands


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 09:36 UTC
2 guys weapon
© World News-GoldWave
American and Canadian lethal weapons intended for Ukraine may end up in the wrong hands because of a high level of corruption in the country, a senior Russian diplomat has said.

First Canada and then the US announced that they had decided to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, purportedly for self-defense. But these countries should consider the risks associated with transferring advanced weapons to a country infamous for its high level of corruption, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told RIA Novosti.

"Are Washington and Ottawa certain that their weapons will not end up in 'the wrong hands'? For example, in the hands of terrorists? Or sold by crooked Ukrainian dealers to the Middle East or some other region that the US considers sensitive for its interests?" he remarked. "We ask these questions to our partners across the ocean; call on them to re-examine the risks associated with such hasty moves."

Comment: Weapons equal profit and all supply lines become 'points of sale'. That they target an enemy of the seller and are utilized by proxies on the enemy's doorstep...an added bonus.

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Top Secret

'Fake news' reports a US-China 'Korean crisis' intel hotline


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 14:43 UTC
XiTrump
© RT"Do you have the intel?" "No, I thought YOU had it!"
China's Global Times newspaper, which has government ties, has denied reports in the Japanese press which claim that Beijing and Washington have agreed to share intelligence related to North Korea.

The original report was published Monday by the influential Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The report said several US government sources told it that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to intensify intelligence sharing during Trump's November visit to Beijing.

The two sides reportedly agreed to compare notes on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and the effect that the international economic sanctions are taking on it. The sharing would "extend to such issues as how to secure North Korea's nuclear weapons and dealing with refugees from North Korea should a military encounter occur," according to the newspaper.

The agreement also reportedly includes periodic meetings between high-ranking military and intelligence officials of the two nations and a hotline established between the HQ of the US Forces Korea in Seoul and the Chinese military's Northern Theater Command, which is based in Shenyang, Liaoning province, the Asahi Shimbun said.

Comment: Is the US throwing scenarios out there to determine reactions, or to just keep susceptible parties on edge and guessing? The Japanese press, in a country that has a stake in how the peninsula conflict plays out, unwittingly participated and in doing so, jeopardized its credibility.

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Star of David

Israeli deputy FM Hotovely: Ten more countries 'could' recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 01:41 UTC
linethruhistory
© DavidDuke.comErasing History
Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has told a radio station that 10 more countries are considering recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital following earlier declarations by Guatemala and the US.

Speaking to Kan Bet public radio, Hotovely said the 10 states are following the lead of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who declared on Sunday that his country's embassy would be moved to Jerusalem. The Central American nation and six other states voted with the US and Israel, in contrast to the rest of the UN General Assembly which last week voted 128-9 to condemn the US decision to recognize Jerusalem. The other six were Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.

Hotovely did not name any of the 10 countries, but said many had a strong Christian tradition. Philippines, the Czech Republic and Romania abstained from the UNGA vote last week, but have entertained the possibility of joining Guatemala and the United States, with Czech President Milos Zeman supporting the move to Jerusalem. But European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini later said the Czech foreign minister had promised not to move the Czech embassy to Jerusalem, which the EU considers the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Comment: Israel is desperate to lock down the Jerusalem controversy in public impression and international recognition by dangling 10 unnamed (unconvinced) countries in the press. What is going on behind the scenes...promises, deals, threats?

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Snakes in Suits

Hungary criticizes arrogance of US State Department's 'liberal cabal'

Jack Montgomery
Breitbart
Sat, 23 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
kovac-melia
© Twitter/YahooDr Zoltán Kovács • Thomas Melia
The Hungarian government has slammed the "Obama-era State Department elite" for doing "grave harm to Hungarian-U.S. relations", which will take years to repair.

Dr Zoltán Kovács, Hungary's Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, made the remarks after former Deputy State Secretary Thomas Melia gave an interview to Hungarian weekly Heti Világgazdagság, in which the American claimed Hungary has been going in "the wrong direction" since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's conservative government came to power in 2010. "We are just as frustrated as many Hungarians that the government has made the country less democratic, silencing critics, be it NGOs, journalists or others," alleged Melia.

"He apparently missed the irony in his making this claim while giving an interview with an opposition-leaning magazine that happens to be one of the mostly widely read weeklies in the country," Kovács observed acidly.


Comment: The State Department has perfected the art of condescension and disdain, a new diplomatic normal in foreign relations and a disturbing sign of America's disintegration.

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Pills

Duterte's son resigns over allegations of drug smuggling


Sputnik
Mon, 25 Dec 2017 17:46 UTC
Paolo
© REUTERS/ Erik De Castro
Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte has been carrying out a year-long campaign aimed at battling the widespread use of illegal drugs.

Paolo Duterte, the son of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, has announced his resignation from the post of Vice Mayor of Davao city citing recent family problems and allegations of drug smuggling as the reasons for his decision, the AFP news agency reported Monday.

"These among others, include the maligning of my reputation in the recent name-dropping incident in the Bureau of Customs smuggling case and the very public squabble with my daughter," Paolo said, adding that "I take responsibility for all that has happened."

Earlier this year, an opposition senator accused Paolo Duterte of aiding drug smugglers to bring crystal methamphetamine worth some 6.4 billion pesos ($125 million) into the country from China.

Paolo Duterte denied the allegations during the September testimony in the Senate. Following the incident, Rodrigo Duterte allegedly said that he had ordered the police to kill his eldest son if it was proven that he was involved in smuggling or drug trafficking.
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Bad Guys

How tech billionaires, the media, and intelligence agencies work together to deceive the public


Moon of Alabama
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 20:35 UTC
Bezos
The promotion of the alleged Russian election hacking in certain media may have grown from the successful attempts of U.S. intelligence services to limit the publication of the NSA files obtained by Edward Snowden.

In May 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Hongkong and handed internal documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) to four journalists, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and separately to Barton Gellman who worked for the Washington Post. Some of those documents were published by Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian, others by Barton Gellman in the Washington Post. Several other international news site published additional material though the mass of NSA papers that Snowden allegedly acquired never saw public daylight.

In July 2013 the Guardian was forced by the British government to destroy its copy of the Snowden archive.
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Document

Thierry Meyssan: Trump's National Security Strategy lays out path for economic and social recovery of US

Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire Network
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:56 UTC
Trump Generals and advisers
Breaking with the habits of his predecessors, Donald Trump's National Security Strategy abandons the management of world affairs and lays out the path to the economic and social recovery of the United States. This project, which is perfectly coherent, represents a brutal change that his cabinet will now have to impose on the whole of his administration.

During the mandates of George Bush Jr. and Barack Obama, the documents defining their National Security Strategies were based on the principle that the United States of America was the world's only superpower. They could wage the « endless war » advocated by Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, in other words they could systematically destroy any political organisation in the already unstable areas of the planet, beginning with the « Greater Middle East ». The Presidents indicated their projects for every region of the world. All that the unified fighting Commands had to do was apply these instructions.

Donald Trump's National Security Strategy breaks almost entirely with this literature. It conserves certain of the mythological elements of these previous mandates, but attempts above all to reposition the United States as the Republic it was in 1791 (which is to say at the moment of compromise with the Bill of Rights) and no longer as the Empire that it became on 11 September 2001.

The role of the White House, its diplomacy and its armed forces is no longer to rule the world, but to protect « the interests of the people of the United States ».

Comment: Trump's NSS keeps some of the old nonsense, adds a little new nonsense, but gets rid a lot of the old nonsense, and includes a few doses of reality. On the whole, that seems like a good thing. We'll just have to see how it plays out - if it gets the chance.

See also:

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Sheriff

Gazprom: Arbitration for Ukraine gas debt rules in favor of Russia, Kiev claims of victory not in line with reality


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:50 UTC
gas pipeline
© Danil Shamkin / Global Look Press
A Stockholm arbitration hearing has validated the most important points of Gazprom's delivery contract with Ukraine, the deputy chair of Russia's gas giant has said, and Kiev will have to pay despite claiming it has won the case.

"The main provisions of the contract were recognized as valid" by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev told the Rossiya 24 channel, adding that Gazprom believes that its "lawsuit was satisfied in the key contractual terms." Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's claim that Naftogaz had won the case is "at least, strange and makes one wonder if he was correctly informed on results of this arbitration,"Medvedev said.

The Swedish arbitration body ruled on the three-year dispute between Gazprom and Naftogaz Friday, both entities acknowledged. The policy of the Institute prevents it from even acknowledging that it's mediating the case, which makes it impossible to obtain its own account of the final ruling. As a result, both energy companies have opposing takes on the outcome, both claiming victory in the case.
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