Puppet MastersS


Gold Bar

Don't worry, gold can still hit $1,400 this year, it won't be a parabolic rise but $10,000 gold is coming

Steve Hanke and Jim Rickards
Kitco News
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 20:09 UTC
gold symbolbild
© Pixabay
With U.S. political tensions rising, one expert says now is the time to hold on to gold. "There's so many potential black swans that could enter the scene so you want to hold gold as an investor right now," Steve Hanke, professor of Applied Economics at John Hopkins University, told Kitco News.

The academic sees the metal heading towards $1,400 an ounce before year end as geopolitical events are leaving investors anxious, although he says gold prices could cool off ahead of the Federal Reserve's plans to raise interest rates and reduce its balance sheet.

After hitting its highest level this year, gold has fallen back on profit taking, but best-selling author of Currency Wars Jim Rickards isn't giving up on the metal just yet. "The bigger picture, the one I'm looking at, is that gold hit an interim low on Dec 15 and it's been grinding higher ever since. It's one of the best-performing assets of 2017," he told Kitco News.

Gold prices rallied to 11-month highs this week as North Korea launched a missile over Japan and even if tensions seem to have cooled off, pushing the safe-haven metal back down to around $1,312.70 an ounce, Rickards is not quite convinced. "People seem to have very short attention spans. I'm just looking down the road and you can see the war is coming," he said
Read More...
Info

Assad notes several states halted financing terrorists after Syrian Army's victories


Sputnik
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 19:44 UTC
Syrian army tank
© REUTERS/ Omar Sanadiki
Syrian President Bashar Assad said that victories of the Syrian army and its allies over terrorists have resulted in several states giving up their support for "terrorists" in the country.

"Several countries have changed their positions in relation to the victories of the Syrian Army and its allies. Most importantly, several countries have taken measures aiming to suppress the financing of terrorists remaining in Syria," Assad at a meeting with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari, as quoted by the presidential press service.

The Syrian president also noted the importance of the assistance provided by Iran and several other states, adding that the "project of terror in Syria is defeated, and there is no way back, until the total victory and restoration of peace and security in the entire territory of Syria".
Read More...
Book 2

Medusa File II: No end to coverups

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 19:29 UTC
wreckage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
© ReutersThe wreckage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, early April 21, 1995.
Craig Roberts (yes, there are two of us) is a former US Marine and a 27-year veteran of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, police force. He is a capable and committed person. Since 1989 he has written 13 books. His latest, just published, Medusa File II, consists essentially of his voluminous files of the investigation of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995, known as "the Oklahoma City Bombing."

The FBI, appreciative of Roberts' capabilities, requested his service in the investigation. As officially part of the investigation, he took the investigation seriously. The investigation proceeded rapidly, developing many leads. Numerous witnesses saw Timothy McVeigh with many dark complexioned men prior to and just after the bombing. Leads were also developed to militias in Elohim City, to the German, Strassmeir, and others.

Before any of these leads could be developed, the investigation was taken over by President Bill Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno. Once Washington took over, the investigation stopped. In its place was Washington's theory that it was Tim McVeigh's lonely protest. The voluminous evidence of McVeigh's accomplices or controllers, as might have been the case, was in the way of the official story that imposed itself on the investigation. Many people resisted the coverup that descended on the case, including local journalists who eventually lost their jobs or moved on.
Read More...
Info

Rohani dismisses US call for UN access to its military sites


RFE/RL
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 19:17 UTC
Hassan Rohani
© AFP
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has rejected a U.S. demand that UN nuclear inspectors visit Tehran's military bases, while other Iranian officials called the idea a "dream."

In a televised address on August 29, Rohani said he believed that the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would be unlikely to agree to such visits in any case.

"Our relations with the IAEA are defined by rules, not by the United States," Rohani said. "I see it as unlikely that the IAEA will accept the request for inspections, but even if they do, we will not."

Rohani also asserted that the United States would get little support from allies if it tried to back out of Tehran's 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.

"Twenty-eight [European Union] countries, which are America's allies, clearly say we are committed to the [deal]," he said.
Read More...
Chess

Transgender policy for military frozen by Mattis, will allow troops to serve pending results of study

Tom Vanden Brook
USA TODAY
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 19:03 UTC
mattis
© Jacquelyn Martin, AP
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis late Tuesday announced that transgender troops will be allowed to continue serving in the military pending the results of a study by experts.

The announcement follows an order from President Trump - first announced in a tweet - declaring that transgender service members can no longer serve in the military, effectively reversing an Obama administration policy. The order also affects the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Coast Guard.

"Once the panel reports its recommendations and following my consultation with the secretary of Homeland Security, I will provide my advice to the president concerning implementation of his policy direction," Mattis said in the statement. "In the interim, current policy with respect to currently serving members will remain in place."

Mattis' move buys time for the Pentagon to determine how and if it will allow thousands of transgender troops to continue to serve, whether they will receive medical treatment, or how they will be discharged.
Read More...
Chess

Trump could be facing a fresh crisis in his Administration

Michael Goodwin
NY Post
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 18:38 UTC
Donald Trump and Gary Cohn
© APDonald Trump and Gary Cohn
As horrible as it is, the Houston deluge eventually will fade from the headlines and the media's attention will return full-time to the rising waters around Donald Trump's presidency. The first stop will be a deeper dive into the curious cases of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and top economic adviser Gary Cohn.

Both felt the need to let it be known publicly they didn't like Trump's remarks after the Charlottesville violence. Cohn's "friends" told the New York Times he drafted a resignation letter before deciding not to quit, and the former Goldman Sachs banker himself told an interviewer that the administration "can and must do better" about condemning hate groups.

Tillerson chimed in with his shocking television comment that "the president speaks for himself" on questions of values.

Taken in isolation, each remark could show an accomplished individual deciding to protect his professional reputation and save face with friends and family.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Ceasefires with ISIS are only okay when U.S. makes them - Lebanon condemned for doing the same thing


Moon of Alabama
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 18:15 UTC
hezbollah
© AP Photo/ Bassem Mroue
Last week the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah defeated ISIS in the Lebanese-Syrian border area of Qalamun. A ceasefire was announced and a deal was made. Lebanon received the bodies of its army fighters earlier captured and killed by ISIS. The remaining ISIS fighter and their families would disarm and receive free passage to ISIS held areas in east Syria.

The U.S. has now launched a media campaign against this deal. The Iraqi government has joined in.

As noted in the last Syria Summary here:
In the Qalamun area at the Lebanese border the Lebanese army and Hizbullah attacked the last ISIS enclave along that border. Today the remaining 200 ISIS fighters in the area agreed to lay down arms in exchange for an evacuation towards east-Syria.
The later announced total of evacuees was higher with 308 ISIS fighters and about 500 of their relatives including kids. These are transported in 17 buses and several ambulances across Syria towards the Syrian city of Abu Kamal (Bukamal) at the Iraqi border.

The overall military motive is sound. In the end ISIS will be concentrated and surrounded in the desert along the Syrian-Iraqi border. Removing ISIS outposts throughout the country frees up lots of soldiers for the big fight. Its concentration in one place also allows to concentrate forces to fight it. Just like al-Qaeda in Idleb governate ISIS will have no way out to leave and can be killed from the air and from the ground.

Comment: See: US threatens to bomb ISIS convoy that agreed to leave Lebanon under Hezbollah deal

After reports that the U.S. military had targeted the convoy, they released this statement:
The Coalition has not struck the convoy. In accordance with the law of armed conflict, the Coalition cratered the road heading east between Hamaymah and Abul Kamal to prevent the further transport of ISIS [Daesh] fighters to the border area of our Iraqi partners and struck individual vehicles and fighters that were clearly identified as ISIS.


Read More...
Cell Phone

Making stuff up on Twitter is the new 'journalism', and we deserve it for not questioning media sources or narratives

Danielle Ryan
RT
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 17:47 UTC
woman with phones
© Mike Segar / Reuters
On Monday, The Guardian published a story which should have surprised no one: Information pushed aggressively on Twitter by anti-Trump conspiracy theorist duo Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor came from a hoaxer who duped Taylor in an email.

Taylor, a former White House staffer under Bill Clinton, tweeted out "fake details of criminal inquiries" related to Donald Trump which did not exist and were "invented" by a hoaxer claiming to work for the New York attorney general.

Mensch, a former conservative member of parliament in the UK and now a self-styled journalist, helped Taylor to spread the information on Twitter, while also claiming to have separate sources to back it up.

Conning the con artists

Among the details provided by the hoaxer was a false allegation that Trump's inactive model agency in New York is being investigated for sex trafficking. The Guardian reports the hoaxer fed information to Taylor by email, acting out of frustration over the "dissemination of fake news" by Taylor and Mensch.

According to the hoaxer, Taylor did not try to verify her identity and did "no vetting whatsoever" to confirm her information was correct. Nor did he try to seek confirmation from a second source, a standard practice in journalism. Instead, the hoaxer claims Taylor "asked leading questions to support his various theories" and asked her to verify his suspicions.
Read More...
Magnify

Stop comparing the Taliban to Daesh - it's nothing like Daesh

Andrew Korybko
Sputnik
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 17:35 UTC
Taliban
© AP Photo/ Allauddin KhanTaliban fighters
The only thing that the two groups have in common is a Salafist ("Islamist") ideology, but apart from that, any other comparison is superficial and ignores the many differences between them.

Trump's "new Afghan strategy" was really a formalization of the ongoing Hybrid War on CPEC, which at this stage seeks to drive the Taliban (banned in Russia) out of the Afghan-Pakistani border and replace them with ISIS-K terrorists, after which the US plans to manufacture a "plausible" "anti-terrorist" pretext via false flag attacks and cross-border infiltration for striking CPEC and later sanctioning it. The renewed global attention on Afghanistan as the staging ground for this grand operation has also brought the Taliban back into focus, seeing as how it's the most effective anti-government fighting force and already controls or influences approximately half of the country's territory, if not more.

The US has been fighting against the Taliban for 16 years now, yet it's been unable to defeat them, and it's doubtful that a paltry 4000 extra troops will make much of a tangible difference in the overall battlefield dynamics. In any case, the US is once again emphasizing the supposed anti-terrorist origins of the War on Afghanistan, bearing in mind that it and many other countries have classified the Taliban as a terrorist group. Be that as it may, however, the Taliban is nothing like Daesh (which is also banned in Russia), and the two regularly fight against one another in Afghanistan. In fact, despite their shared Salafist ideology, there's actually quite a lot that differentiates these two groups and contradicts any superficial comparison between them.
Read More...
Attention

US threatens to bomb ISIS convoy that agreed to leave Lebanon under Hezbollah deal


RT
Wed, 30 Aug 2017 17:04 UTC
ISIS convoy
© Reuters
The US-led coalition said it may bomb a convoy of Islamic State militants who agreed to leave the Syria-Lebanon border and move towards Iraq under a deal brokered by Hezbollah, adding that it will not allow the terrorists to escape.

Coalition aircraft have already struck a bridge and punched a crater in a road to keep the convoy from moving toward the Iraqi border, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon told AP.

The coalition "will not rule out strikes against IS fighters being moved," Dillon said, adding, "we are not party to any agreements that were made by the Lebanese Hezbollah and ISIS or the (Syrian) regime."

Any strike will be in accordance with "the law of armed conflict," Dillon said.

The government in Damascus has repeatedly called coalition operations in Syria, carried out without its consent, a violation of Syrian sovereignty.
Read More...