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Light Sabers

SOTT Focus: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un Don't Want War, So Why Are They Playing This Dangerous Game?

Andrés Perezalonso
Sott.net
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 11:06 UTC
North Korea missile parade
North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un is not looking for a war. If we want to understand the motives behind his shocking threats - surpassed only by his US counterparts - we have to look past the Western media pundits and political figures dismissing him as "a crazy fat kid".

Many statements in the Western press against the North Korean regime are exaggerations or fabrications with a kernel of truth, as part of the usual propaganda treatment that the Western establishment reserves for the 'objectionables'. As far as we know, Kim Jong-un is a dictator who, following in the steps of his father and grandfather, holds tight control of his country, and who executed his uncle Jang Song-thaek (and possibly his uncle's family) back in 2013 after accusing him of treason and attempting a military coup.

But as ruthless as he may be, there is no reason to think Kim Jong-un would be willing to engage in nuclear war with the United States. Kim Jong-un and his father cannot have missed the way in which the US and their allies destroyed Iraq and Libya, despite Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi's attempts to appease the West, and have surely learned from those lessons.
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Bomb

Venezuela drops petro-dollar for oil exchange

J. Martin
Sott.net
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:26 UTC
PDVSA Socialis
© Panama Post
Venezuela has announced to oil traders that it won't accept U.S dollars as payment for crude oil and fuel, instead switching to accepting payments in local currencies, such as the Yuan or Ruble. This spells good news for emerging economies, and may be the first small step in breaking the U.S. dollar hegemony.
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Info

Russian MoD says seven warlords, 1,000 militants agree to side with Syrian army


Sputnik
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 19:52 UTC
Troops of the Syrian 5th Army Corps
© Sputnik/ Mikhail AlayeddinTroops of the Syrian 5th Army Corps join army units in the south of Deir ez-Zor following the breaking of the ISIL blockade at the main entrance to the city in the south
Seven militant field commanders and more than 1,000 fighters in Syria agreed to side with the government troops, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday in a statement.

"An agreement envisaging that seven field commanders of illegal armed formations and more than 1,000 militants subordinated to them will side with the Syrian government troops has been achieved," the statement said.

Comment: See also:

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Laptop

Kaspersky Lab to prove that US accusations of its 'Russian intelligence ties' are baseless


RT
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 19:33 UTC
Kaspersky Lab
© Vladimir Astapkovich / Sputnik
Kaspersky Lab, the Russian-based multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider has expressed confidence that "further investigations" will show that all accusations concerning its alleged links to Russian state agencies are "baseless."

The Moscow-based world leading cybersecurity company's response came after the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered all government agencies to "develop plans to remove" all Kaspersky products from their information systems.

"The company would continue to work together with the US Department of Homeland Security as [it] is sure that further investigations would prove that all accusations brought against it are baseless," Kaspersky Lab's press service said in a statement as cited by TASS.

Comment: See also: DHS orders removal of all Kaspersky Lab products - 'because Russian spies'

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Bad Guys

International investigation reveals US government cover-up of weapons shipments to Syrian terrorists

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:04 UTC
Pentagon
A new bombshell joint report issued by two international weapons monitoring groups Tuesday confirms that the Pentagon continues to ship record breaking amounts of weaponry into Syria and that the Department of Defense is scrubbing its own paper trail. On Tuesday the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) produced conclusive evidence that not only is the Pentagon currently involved in shipping up to $2.2 billion worth of weapons from a shady network of private dealers to allied partners in Syria - mostly old Soviet weaponry - but is actually manipulating paperwork such as end-user certificates, presumably in order to hide US involvement.

The OCCRP and BIRN published internal US defense procurement files after an extensive investigation which found that the Pentagon is running a massive weapons trafficking pipeline which originates in the Balkans and Caucuses, and ends in Syria and Iraq. The program is ostensibly part of the US train, equip, and assist campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, a coalition of YPG/J and Arab FSA groups operating primarily in Syria's east). The arms transfers are massive and the program looks to continue for years. According to Foreign Policy's (FP) coverage of the report:
The Department of Defense has budgeted $584 million specifically for this Syrian operation for the financial years 2017 and 2018, and has earmarked another $900 million of spending on Soviet-style munitions between now and 2022. The total, $2.2 billion, likely understates the flow of weapons to Syrian rebels in the coming years.
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Info

Russian MoD announces two Russian submarines fire cruise missiles from Mediterranean, hitting ISIS targets in Syria


RT
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 19:00 UTC
Launching missile
© Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Two Russian submarines have fired Kalibr cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, hitting Islamic State terrorist targets in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Seven Kalibr cruise missiles were launched Thursday from Russia's Velikiy Novgorod and Kolpino submarines in the eastern Mediterranean, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Targets hit included "control centers, communication hubs, militant weapons and ammunition warehouses in ISIS-controlled areas in southeast Deir ez-Zor," the ministry said in a statement.


Comment: Further reading:

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Attention

What Happened? Amazon deletes bad reviews of Hillary Clinton's new book

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 15:48 UTC
amazon
© Good e-Reader
In what many have dubbed a flagrant intervention by Amazon itself to seemingly boost the rating of Hillary Clinton's new book What Happened, the Telegraph first reported, and subsequently many others observed first hand, that Amazon has been monitoring and deleting 1-star reviews of Hillary Clinton's new book "which was greeted with a torrent of criticism on the day it was released."

Reviews of What Happened have been mixed, with some accusing Clinton of using it as an opportunity to blame others - such as former FBI head James Comey, Bernie Sanders, Vladimir Putin, social media and pretty much everything else - for her failure, rather than herself. Even The New York Times, which supported Clinton's campaign, wrote that the book is "a score-settling jubilee".

Comment: It must have been all those nasty Russian trolls leaving bad reviews. Surely, this vindicates Clinton!

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Mr. Potato

Unhinged Killary thinks the message of "1984" was that people should trust their leaders and the press

Jack Crowe
The Daily Caller
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 15:16 UTC
Clinton batty
© CBSHillary Clinton on CBS, Sept. 10, 2017
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign memoir includes a questionable interpretation of the central lesson of George Orwell's novel "1984," namely that individuals should trust those in positions of authority.

Clinton's memoir What Happened, released Tuesday, suggests the goal of the government-sanctioned torture featured prominently in Orwell's novel is to erode trust in the authoritarian overlords who control all aspects of society. This perspective is diametrically opposed to the central lesson most readers have drawn from the book since it was published in 1949.

"Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. This is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell's classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered. The goal is to make you question logic and reason and to sow mistrust toward exactly the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, ex-perts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves. For Trump, as with so much he does, it's about simple dominance."
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Stop

Trump blocks $1.3 billion sale of US tech company to China for 'national security' reasons


RT
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 15:19 UTC
Donald Trump
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
President Donald Trump has blocked one of the largest attempted acquisitions of a US company by a Chinese firm, with the tough policy against China continuing, despite the exiting of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who favored "economic nationalism."

On Wednesday, Trump issued an executive order through the Defense Production Act of 1950, denying the Chinese-backed private equity firm Canyon Bridge Capital Partners from acquiring US-based chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor Corporation for $1.3 billion.

Trump stated that Canyon Bridge "shall take all steps necessary to fully and permanently abandon the proposed transaction," within a timeframe of 30 days, according to Reuters.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin released a written statement on Wednesday outlining the reason for blocking the deal.

"Consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of US national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Mnuchin said, according to the Oregonian.

Late Wednesday evening, Trump tweeted, "China has a business tax rate of 15%. We should do everything possible to match them in order to win with our economy. Jobs and wages!"
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Info

US proposes 'broad mandate' for UN peacekeeping mission in Ukraine


RT
Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:53 UTC
UN Peacekeepers
© Afolabi Sotunde / Reuters
Washington supports the idea of placing a UN peacekeeping mission in Ukraine to protect OSCE representatives who are monitoring the implementation of Minsk agreement, but only if the Blue Helmets also patrol the Russian-Ukrainian border.

"We believe the possibility of a UN peacekeeping force for eastern Ukraine is certainly an idea that is worth exploring," US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told journalists Wednesday.

"We consider that a possible means of protecting Ukrainian citizens regardless of their ethnicity, their nationality," Nauert said. "We see it potentially as a pathway to restoring Ukrainian sovereignty and also territorial integrity."

On September 5, Russia proposed a draft resolution to the UN Security Council on sending UN peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine, after President Vladimir Putin voiced the suggestion during the three-day BRICS summit in the Chinese city of Xiamen.
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