Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Saudi Arabia huffs, puffs, and demands Hezbollah disarm

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir
© Faisal Al Nasser / ReutersSaudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir
Lebanon's Hezbollah movement must disarm and become a regular political party for the situation in Lebanon to stabilize, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said. He added that Riyadh's policy is a reaction to Iran's "aggression."

In an interview with Reuters, the minister called the Shiite Hezbollah party and militant group a "subsidiary" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and said that Saudi Arabia is currently consulting with its allies to decide what leverage it can use to force the Lebanese movement to comply with its demands. He added that Riyadh would make a decision "in time."

Jubeir went on to say that his country decided to take action in response to what it called the increasingly aggressive behavior of Iran in the region, particularly in Yemen and Lebanon. "Any way you look at it, they (the Iranians) are the ones who are acting in an aggressive manner. We are reacting to that aggression and saying enough is enough," he said.


Comment: Jubeir deserves his own stand-up routine! It's amazing how much of a fool one is willing to make of themselves with such blatant and wild hypocrisy. Just because you insist the opposite of truth is reality, doesn't make it so.


Network

Russia and China are creating a new geo-economic world while the US spends trillions on war

Norilsk Nickel
On November 8 Russia's large mining group Norilsk Nickel announced it had begun operations at a new state-of-the-art Bystrinsky mining and processing plant outside of China in Russia's Zabaykalsky Krai. Notable about the project is the participation of China, as well as the fact that four years ago the huge copper, gold and magnetite reserves of Bystrinsky were inaccessible to any market and completely undeveloped. It's one example of the transformation of the entire economic geography of Eurasia that's growing as a result of the close cooperation of Russia with China and especially with China's Belt Road Initiative, earlier known as the New Economic Silk Road.

The Bystrinsky mining and processing complex is a $1.5 billion project with total ore reserves estimated at 343 million tons. The huge project is jointly owned by Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of nickel and palladium and one of the largest producers of platinum and copper, along with CIS Natural Resources Fund, a Russian natural resources fund established by Vladimir Potanin, and by China's Highland Fund. The new mine complex is some 400 kilometers by rail from the China border in Russia's Siberian Far East.

Handcuffs

Turkey arrests over 100 suspected Gulen followers for role in 2016 failed coup

Turkey police arrests
© AP Photo/ Mahmut Bozarslan
Turkish security forces arrested 107 suspected followers of US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Ankara of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt, in nation-wide operations on Thursday, local media reported citing a security source.

According to the Anadolu news agency, 55 former soldiers were among those arrested during the Thursday operations. The suspects are reportedly accused of using the ByLock encrypted messenger which the Turkish government believes the Gulen followers had used to plot the failed coup.

Jet4

The end is nigh: Battle for Idlib slowly comes into sight

Syria war November 3, 2017
© Thomas van LingerSyria - general situation on November 3, 2017
There have been few significant movements during the last weeks. The war on Syria slowly grinds towards its end. The political tussle continues as ever. U.S. Secretary of Defense Mattis made a curious announcement of plans he can not fulfill.

Our last Syria summary looked at the situation around the last refuge area of the Islamic State near the Syrian-Iraqi border:
The twin-cities of Abu Kamal (al-Bukamal) in Syria and al-Qaim in Iraq are ISIS' last urban refuge. The cities are on the south site of the Euphrates with the important border crossing between them. Coming from the east Iraqi government troops retook the al-Qaim crossing today. They now control the border and are breaking into the city proper. Syrian government forces approach Abu Kamal from the north-west and from south-east.
...
The U.S. proxy forces north of the Euphrates announced that they had taken several oil-fields north of the river and were also progressing towards Abu Kamal. The Syrian government and its allies fear that the U.S. [is trying to take] Abu Kamal itself. It could then claim to have control over the border crossing towards Iraq and severe that important line of communication. A race is on to prevent that.

Quenelle

French lawmakers walk out to protest Israel shill Meyer Habib's anti-Palestinian diatribe

france walkout lawmakers anti-palistine speech
Lawmakers walking out of France's National Assembly on Wednesday in protest at an anti-Palestinian diatribe.
This video shows lawmakers walking out of France's National Assembly on Wednesday in protest at an anti-Palestinian diatribe by one of their colleagues, Meyer Habib.

France reserves a number of parliamentary seats for citizens living overseas, and Habib represents French citizens in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Israel.

But in practice, Habib, who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, functions more as a spokesperson for Israel's government.

Habib was responding to European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau, who told parliament that the French government "hopes for the quick release" of Salah Hamouri.

Hamouri is a Palestinian-French human rights defender who has been held without charge or trial by Israel since August.

Vinyl

Whistle-blower claims to have recordings of 'Russian officials' giving donations to Clinton Foundation

Peter Schweizer on Hannity
In an appearance Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity," Breitbart editor at Large Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and author of "Clinton Cash," revealed there were audio recordings of Russian officials demonstrating they were willing to use "bribery" to get favors from the former President Bill Clinton and his wife former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

According to Schweizer, that included giving donations to the Clinton Foundation.


Comment: ...which is how ALL business is conducted in Washington, from ALL foreign entities via ALL 'Foundations' to ALL powerful people in DC.


He added that had there been this body of evidence compiled on anyone else in an elected office, from President Donald Trump on down, they'd be under investigation.


Partial transcript as follows:

Comment: 'But Clinton did it too!' has been a terrible line of defense for the Trump administration (and their few allies in the media) to take.

They should never have gone on the defensive about Russiagate: they should have stuck to what they first called it: 'FAKE NEWS!' and called out the intel agencies' lies.

Alas, the People of the Lie are persistent pathologicals, so they pull most normies into their orbit sooner or later.

While shady deals likely went on on between Clinton and Russian companies, what if anything has that got to do with Putin 'hacking the US election'? NADA.

There's only one rogue nation worthy of the name: the US (specifically, the ramified networks comprising the Deep State, and its corrupting influence the world over), and there's no-one more ''involved in bribery, extortion, racketeering, money laundering and kickbacks" than the Clintons.

As for these alleged recordings allegedly unmasking 'Russian officials' being 'deviant Russians', well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we.

For more:

The real Russiagate? FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama admin approved nuclear deal with Russia - UPDATE

FBI informant cleared to testify before Congress on Obama-era Uranium One Russia scandal - sources say Trump personally gave the order

New FOIA documents reveal FBI scramble to preserve records in Uranium One scandal


War Whore

US and its vassal states Israel and Saudi Arabia are plotting war with Iran and Hezbollah

Hezbollah
Hezbollah
Having failed to unseat Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the United States has switched its focus to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In an act of blatant hypocrisy, the US House has passed "Sanctioning Hezbollah's Illicit use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act," a bill that sanctions Hezbollah for alleged war crimes while ignoring its own checkered past brimming with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Congress didn't need to do much in the way of homework prior to introducing this bill. Israel did that for them when its Intelligence and Terrorism Center at the Center for Special Studies, a research group that collaborates closely with the Israel Defense Forces and the American Jewish Congress, released report on Hezbollah's purported use of human shields during the 2006 war in Lebanon.

This is a remarkable allegation considering Israel specifically and indiscriminately targeted Lebanon's civilian population. "Israel's indiscriminate airstrikes, not Hezbollah's shielding as claimed by Israeli officials, caused most of the approximately 900 civilian deaths in Lebanon during the July-August 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah," Human Rights Watch reported in September, 2007.

Gold Seal

Best of the Web: James Bovard: Trump's liberal critics are increasingly unhinged, authoritarian

liberal snowflake protester screaming trump Inauguration
© YouTube / On Demand NewsA woman screams at the heavens during the inauguration of President Donald Trump, 2017
Last week's anniversary of Trump's election sparked widespread teeth-gnashing by the nation's pundits. Trump is supposedly the gravest threat to American democracy since the secession of the Confederacy. His presidency, probably, continues to be a boon for antidepressant sales across the land.

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, in a column last week headlined "Anniversary of the Apocalypse," lamented the "terror-struck and vertiginous days" after Trump's win and the ongoing "metaphysical whiplash" and "hideous interregnum," which leaves her "poleaxed by grief at the destruction of our civic inheritance." Professor Henry Giroux of McMaster University frothed that Trump's "ascendancy in American politics has made visible a culture of cruelty, a contempt for civic literacy, a corrupt mode of governance and a disdain for informed judgment that has been decades in the making."

It is understandable that folks would be riled by Trump's bluster about revoking the broadcast licenses of his critics or calling for the firing of protesting football players. His administration's rhetoric on trade and the drug war threaten to revive moronic policies that should have been banished forever by perennial failures. But while Trump poses plenty of constitutional perils, many of his opponents are even more authoritarian.

Red Flag

Production of opium in Afghanistan doubled over 2016 despite the West "trying" to stamp it out

poppy field
© Parwiz Parwiz / ReutersAn Afghan man works on a poppy field in Jalalabad province
Opium production in Afghanistan has almost doubled this year over 2016, according to a United Nations survey. As the Taliban returns to territory liberated by UK forces in 2001, the booming drugs industry is further proof the war failed in its basic aims.

One of the justifications given by former Prime Minister Tony Blair for Britain's intervention in Afghanistan against the Taliban back in 2001 was to stop the production of opium poppies used to make heroin.

In a speech at Labour Party Conference that year, he said the UK must intervene alongside the US.

"The arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for by the lives of young British people buying their drugs on British streets. This is another part of the regime we should destroy," he said.

Comment: While some parts of Western governments give lip service to cutting the amount of heroin produced in Afghanistan, the hidden actors of the Deep State are at the same time making sure it doesn't slow down:


Snakes in Suits

Fraud and criminal Bill Browder wants to stop Cyprus from revealing his offshore assets to Russia

William browder fraud russia magnitsky
© ReutersSome of hedgefunder William Browder's firms were caught involved in $230 million tax fraud in Russia
A group of MEPs have urged Cyprian authorities not to cooperate with Russia on an inquiry against the man behind the Magnitsky Act, William Browder. Now, a Russian lawyer claims that Browder himself arranged this petition to hide data on his operations.

Browder, a US-born British investor and the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, fears that his fraudulent investment schemes involving offshore assets in Cyprus would be revealed to European authorities if Cyprus continues to cooperate with Moscow on its probe against him, Natalya Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who conducted her own investigation into Browder's operations, told RT. She added that Browder is actively trying to paint the investigation against him as politically motivated.

"He [Browder] is afraid of the Russian probe that has conclusive evidence of his financial crimes and proof that his theory of Magnitsky's death is an absolute fake. That's why Browder is ready to stage any provocation," Veselnitskaya said. She went on to say that the investor's decision to intervene was particularly "influenced by the fact that the entire network of offshore companies that make up his organized criminal group is located on the territory of Cyprus."

Comment: We wouldn't expect any less from a fraud like Bill Browder. Only a guy like him could run a massive criminal operation, then play the victim when he gets caught - all while blaming his victims for doing exactly what he has done. The guy is a snake and a con.