Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

China blames US for the recent spate of cyberattacks

Qwerty world
© CCO/Pixabay
The US hampers the world's concerted efforts to deal with against cybercrime, and its National Security Agency must shoulder some of the blame for the recent global cyberattack that infected computers at 30,000 Chinese institutions and businesses, China Daily wrote on Tuesday.

The newspaper added that in the wake of the latest spate of worldwide cyber attacks and the NSA's failure to cope with them Washington's decision to bar Chinese companies, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd., from operating in the US market looks hypocritical, to say the least.

The China Daily added that the link that clearly exists between some US computer programs and the latest global cyber attacks is adding urgency to China's effort to replace foreign computer software with its own.

In an interview with Sputnik China, Andrei Masalovich, a former specialist at Russia's Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), said he fully shared this opinion.

Gold Coins

What are the odds? Online gamblers bet on Trump's impeachment

trump impeachment
Online wagering sites are taking bets on whether Donald Trump, mired in controversies over the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, will serve out a full term as the 45th US president or will be impeached before year-end.

Political stock market PredictIt is seeing record bets on contracts about whether Trump would still be president at the end of the year.

The contract "Will Donald Trump be impeached in 2017?" saw its popularity skyrocket after reports of a memo written by Comey that said Trump had allegedly asked him to shut down the FBI's inquiry into ties between former NSA Advisor Michael Flynn, national security adviser to Trump, and Russia.

At its peak on Wednesday, the price of a 'yes' contract on the impeachment question reached a record 33 cents, implying a 33 percent probability that Trump would be impeached, as compared to only 7 percent last week.

The UK-based bookmaker Paddy Power said its customers had staked over £5,000 (US$6,470) Trump's early departure. The odds are currently at 21-10 that Trump is impeached in 2017.

Impeachment aside, odds are at 4-6 against Trump's survival of a full first term, Paddy Power spokesman Lee Price said.

Snakes in Suits

Tory manifesto targets immigrants, free school lunches and elderly home care

Theresa May campaign bus
© Justin Tallis / Reuters
The Conservative Party's election manifesto was officially published on Thursday, packed with social measures so harsh that tens of thousands of Brits could be forced to pay for their own home care in old age.

The move, branded a 'dementia tax', will see people with assets of £100,000 (US$130,000) or more having to pay for their own social care. The benchmark currently stands at £23,250, but, as the Tories plan to add people's homes to the equation, many more are expected to be liable to pay.

Info

Putin promises Russian cooperation to Islamic nations fighting terrorism

Russian deminers in Syria
© Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation / Sputnik
In a message to all participants of the Russia-Islamic World conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised support and cooperation to all Islamic countries that are currently fighting terrorism and extremism.

"Today, many Islamic nations face serious challenges, such as the escalation of terrorism and militant extremism, sharp increases in ethnic and religious controversies, of economic and social problems. I would like to emphasize that the Islamic world can fully count on support and assistance from the Russian side," Putin wrote in his telegram, published on the presidential website on Wednesday.

"I am confident that together we can do a lot to strengthen international security and stability, to build a fair, democratic world order that would be free from any form of intolerance, discrimination and dictatorship imposed by force," he added.

The KazanSummit 2017 international economic forum opens in the Russian city of Kazan on Thursday and will continue till Saturday. Ahead of the forum, the strategic vision group for the Russia-Islamic World held its third session in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Comment: More from The Duran:

Russian opposition leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, one of the only Russian politicians who speaks Turkish, delivered similar remarks at a conference on Russia and Islam in 2014


Even the modern Communist Party of the Russian Federation, under the leadership of Gennady Zyuganov has embraced the idea of religious ecumenicism.

As I previously wrote,
"Russia suffered a profound spiritual crisis in the 1990s at every level, both theoretically and practically. The internal stability and prosperity afforded by the Putin years has given Russia a sense of peace and has allowed Russia to return to its heritage as the largest Orthodox Christian state in the world.

As such, some would say Russia has a duty to defend fellow Christians. But Russian foreign policy is articulated differently. Russia defends its allies against aggression, but the fact remains that in doing so, Russia is by default, living up to its tradition as a defender of faith. But it is not just the Orthodox faith Russia is defending.

Russia is defending Muslims throughout the world at a time when western wars of aggression target Islamic populations and when western politicians like Geert Wilders lambaste Islam in the most disparaging terms.

Russia must make it clear to a Muslim world bombarded by western and Saudi propaganda, that it is a more honest defender of Islam than any major power on earth. It is able to say so because of its record of legality in foreign affairs and also because of a Christian tradition that Europe and to a large extent, America has entirely forsaken".
The importance of Russia in solving the political, spiritual and other long term crises in the Islamic world cannot be overstated. Many of these crises are the products of post-colonial realities which have in recent decades been augmented by neo-colonial meddling by western powers.

It is clear from their support of jihadists in Syria, that western powers would rather see a weak Islamic world in the grip of savages, rather than strong, tolerant, secular governments such as the one in Damascus that the west has tried and continues to try so hard to destabilize and destroy.

Russia by contrast favors a model of complete independence for Arab states and countries in the wider Islamic world and furthermore, Russia seeks partnership with countries whose constitutions whether secular (like Syria) or theocratic (like Iran), defend and protect religious minorities, particularly Christians.

Russia favors balance and it is only through further positive engagement with the wider Islamic world, including Russia's vast Muslim communities, that Russia will be able to achieve this.




Snakes in Suits

Russia threatened to use tactical nukes? US commission produces wildest claims in push for military buildup

Tests of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile
© Federal State Unitary Enterprise / SputnikTests of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile.
The Helsinki Commission has gotten creative on the notorious "Russian threat," pinning the blame for the death of an OSCE observer in Ukraine on Moscow and claiming it threatened to use "tactical nuclear weapons" - all while calling for more arms and troops on the Russian border.

Members of the US government commission, officially known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), on Wednesday sat down in Washington, DC for a hearing aptly named "The Growing Russian Military Threat in Europe: Assessing and Addressing the Challenge."

The hearing focused around claims that Moscow "flagrantly violated commitments enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act relating to refraining from the threat or use of force against other states; refraining from violating other states' sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence; and respecting the right of every state to choose its own security alliances."

Yoda

Putin: Russia and China compared to the West is like stability and purpose versus conflict and chaos

putin xi
Russian President Putin is back in Russia after a lengthy and important visit to China which has received almost no reporting in the Western media.

Putin's trips to China - and Chinese President Xi Jinping's visits to Russia - have now become such regular events, and have become so routine, that they are now almost invisible.

As it happens Putin's latest visit to China, which not only involved detailed discussions with China's leaders on bilateral questions, but which was first and foremost undertaken in response to an invitation from China's leaders to Russia to participate in China's grandiose One Belt, One Road international forum, was highly important.

China's One Belt, One Road initiative is ultimately intended to link together the two parts of Eurasia into a single gigantic economic and transport bloc. The Chinese and the Russians are working on marrying it with Russia's Eurasian Economic Union into a single system of political and economic institutions as part of the 'Greater Eurasia Project'. Putin's visit to Beijing was undertaken as part of the detailed work of negotiating the various aspects of the project.

Blackbox

Was Russian ambassador Karlov killed because of his North Korean connections?

kárlov
Andrei Karlov was the Russian ambassador to Turkey. He was assassinated by the Turkish off-duty police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas on December 19, 2016 while opening a photograph exhibition in Turkey's capital Ankara.[1] Altintas was later killed in the exchange of fire with the Turkish police.

The Russian president Vladimir Putin called the assassination "an assault on Russia and Russian-Turkish relations ... [possibly] by destructive elements ... who found their way into social structures, including the law enforcement and the army." At the same time, Putin expressed his belief that it would not damage the Russian-Turkish ties because "we realize [their] importance and will make every effort to deepen them."[2]

The similar sentiment was expressed by Putin's Turkish counterpart, the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who stated that "this is a provocation aimed at destroying the process of the normalization of relations between Turkey and Russia."[3]

And, indeed, there was no downturn in the relations between the two countries after the tragic incident. Turkey immediately made several symbolic steps to honor the memory of the murdered diplomat by, for instance, naming after him the Ankara street where the Russian embassy is located and the modern art center where he was killed. The Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated at the time that Karlov's death was "a sad loss for both Turkey and Russia" and that he "felt joy" that the street naming initiative was speedily "implemented."[4]

Map

Peace in Syria: The West's greatest fear

Syrian flag
Syria's successes in ceasefire/amnesty agreements is a greater threat to the West's plans for regime change than military conquests, but which would the UN prefer?

Many people have noted how successes by the Syrian government in its war on foreign-backed terrorists are often followed by 'propaganda sabotage', ranging from claims like the latest one of a Syrian 'prisoner crematorium' to the actual staging of deal-breaking atrocities blamed on President Assad and his 'loyal forces'. Governments who are most closely supporting the terrorist armies and their official looking political representatives in Geneva, notably those of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been at the front line of this propaganda war, but increasingly they are now echoed by all the Western 'allies', media, NGOs and the UN.

Bullseye

Cyber attacks will usher in the 'great economic reset'

cyber grenade
The world has been stunned over the past few days by the advent of "Ransomware;" the use of sophisticated cyber attacks on vital systems in order to (supposedly) extort capital from target businesses and institutions. I am always highly suspicious whenever a large scale cyber incident occurs, primarily because the manner in which these events are explained to the public does not begin to cover certain important realities. For example, the mainstream media rarely if ever discusses the fact that many digital systems are deliberately designed to be vulnerable.

Software and internet corporate monoliths have long been cooperating with the NSA through programs like PRISM to provide government agencies backdoor access to computer systems worldwide. Edward Snowden vindicated numerous "conspiracy theorists" in 2013 with his comprehensive data dumps, exposing collusion between corporations and the NSA including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. And make no mistake, nothing has changed since then.

The level of collusion between major software developers and the establishment might be shocking to some, but it was rather well known to alternative analysts and researchers. The use of legislation like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to skirt Constitutional protections within the 4th Amendment has been open policy for quite some time. It only made sense that government agencies and their corporate partners would use it as a rationale to develop vast protocols for invading people's privacy, including American citizens.

Jet2

US coalition jets strike Syrian government convoy in Southern Syria

US Special Forces
© Provided to BuzzFeed News
With most expecting Trump to strike North Korea as part of his next foreign military adventure-cum-distraction from the chaos in D.C., the president once again surprised everyone by pulling a lighting bolt, striking twice in one month in the same place.

According to Reuters coalition jets have struck an Assad convoy in Southern Syria; near Tanf where US and British special operations forces have been training Syrian rebel fighters near the border with Iraq and Jordan. A US-led coalition spokesperson has confirmed that coalition strikes in southern Syria struck Syrian government militia "after it moved against US-backed forces in Syria."

Reuters cited a US official as saying that the strikes occurred after "warning shots by U.S. aircraft meant to disuade the [Syrian army's] fighters."

It is unclear yet whether the strikes have killed any Syrian soldiers or pro-government militia fighters as there has been no official comment from Damascus so far. The Pentagon has released no official statement as well.