Puppet MastersS


Info

Egypt's court acquits ex-President Mubarak on charges of 2011 protester killings

Hosni Mubarak
© Sputnik
Egypt's court of cassation finally acquitted ex-president Hosni Mubarak on charges of killing protesters in 2011.

The Egyptian Court of Cassation on Thursday acquitted ex-president Hosni Mubarak on charges of complicity in deaths of protesters during the unrest in 2011, local media reported.

This trial will be the last for Mubarak in this case, the verdict is final and not subject to appeal, the Youm7 newspaper reported.

Info

French-Swiss company Lafarge admits funding militants in Syria

Lafarge plant in Paris
© REUTERS/ Thibault Camus
French-Swiss construction company LafargeHolcim Group has admitted funding militants in Syria.

The company said it had funded the militants in order to ensure the security of its employees at a plant in north-eastern Syria, according to Le Monde newspaper.

"It appears from the [internal] investigation that the local company provided funds to third parties to work out arrangements with a number of these armed groups, including sanctioned parties, in order to maintain operations and ensure safe passage of employees and supplies to and from the plant. The investigation could not establish with certainty the ultimate recipients of funds beyond those third parties engaged," the company said in a press release.

Comment: More on this Paris company Lafarge: Paris strikes corporate partnership with Lafarge, who secretly sponsored ISIS for profit and has ties to Killary


Info

China defends WTO after Trump threat to break organization's trade rules

World Trade Organization building entrance
© Xu Jinquan / Xinhua / Global Look Press
The Chinese government said it supports the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after President Donald Trump threatened to go against the trade body's rules if they hurt the United States.

"Since China joined the WTO it has always proactively supported the WTO's work, and this position will not change," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Monday.

Keeping the WTO at the center of global trade is profitable for all, he said.

Chess

Nostalgia & 'soft power' in Turkey's neo-Ottoman blueprint

erdogan ottoman
© Adem Altan/ReutersTurkey's President Tayyip Erdoğan walks down the stairs in between soldiers, wearing traditional army uniforms from the Ottoman Empire.
Neo-Ottomanism is the driving ideology behind contemporary Turkey's domestic and foreign behavior

It's no secret that Turkey endeavors to restore its Great Power status all across its former Ottoman realm, driven in part by the strategic calculations outlined by former Foreign and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and carried through to its present iteration through the pioneering charisma of President Erdogan. The policy of so-called "Neo-Ottomanism", as it's been popularly referred to by outside commentators over the years, has proven itself to be one of the most disruptive ideologies of the 21st century. Supporters laud its ambitious vision to return Turkey back to its Ottoman roots - both in terms of de-facto religiously influenced governance and Great Power status - while detractors point to the death and destruction that Neo-Ottomanism has directly contributed to in Syria as evidence that it's resulted in much more harm than good.

Che Guevara

Donbass blockade will spell the end of Poroshenko and Akhmetov

poroshenko
Ukraine once again demonstrates that a state which loses the monopoly on the use of force becomes a nothing, rapidly descending to the level of Somalia. During the night of March 1, the ultimatum issued by LDPR authorities, and which demanded that the unlawful economic blockade of the Republics be lifted or else external control would be established over enterprises hitherto under the control of oligarchs loyal to Kiev, expired. Blockade was not lifted, and therefore Kiev will have to deal with the consequences of its errors. For naught are Ukrainian journalists and politicians complaining that, in response to the Donbass blockade, LDPR supposedly "seized" Donetsk factories from their Ukrainian owners. First of all, they were not "seized" but placed under external management, and secondly, before complaining about LDPR leaders, these journalists and politicians should turn their attention to the Kiev regime from whom a group of radicals is openly seizing power.

The LDPR ultimatum was not issued in order to seize enterprises which until now continued operate in accordance with Ukrainian laws. If that's what Zakharchenko really wanted, it would have been done a long time ago. The ultimatum was, as strange as it may sound, an attempt to help Poroshenko by giving him a pretext he badly needed to take out the radicals who took away his power and control over the economy of a country whose president he believes himself to be. It was also the final, clear signal to Ukrainian oligarchs who have to be made ot understand that, under the conditions of anarcho-Nazism there is no such thing as property rights, irrespective of what they believe. LDPR could tolerate the oligarchs for as long as they were preserving social stability by, for example, continuing to pay salaries to Donetsk industry workers, but if these industries are idled by the blockade, the society's interests dictate they be reoriented toward Russia, which means doing that which Akhmetov and people like him would never do.

Jet3

US warplanes carry out airstrikes on al-Qaeda targets in Yemen

US Air Force fighter jets
© US Air Force
A series of U.S. airstrikes targeted alleged al-Qaida positions on Thursday in a mountainous area where three Yemeni provinces meet, leaving at least four militants dead, Yemeni officials said.

The officials told The Associated Press that U.S. jets and drones targeted at least six districts and they were all located in a mountainous area where the three provinces of Bayda, Shabwa and Abyan meet. The vast region is known for its rocky mountains, which have been used by al-Qaida as a hideout.

One media official in Bayda said a total of 23 airstrikes were carried out by U.S. jets. Another official said four al-Qaida militants were killed in the airstrikes that targeted Shabwa's Saeed district.


Comment: There are reports that it may have been drone strikes:
Meanwhile, two US drone strikes killed at least four people, suspected to be al-Qaeda members, in the Yashbum Valley in Yemen's southern province of Shabwah.

A separate drone strike also hit an area in the eastern parts of the Shaqra town in the southern province of Abyan. However, there were no immediate reports of possible casualties from the latter strike.

The bombings took place between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., shaking houses and causing panic among sleeping residents who fled in fear, while smoke billowed into the sky and flashes of light were seen from a distance because of the explosions.

The Yemeni officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

U.S. military officials were not immediately available for comment.

Bad Guys

Poking the Bear: US deploys Black Hawk choppers in Latvia

Blackhawk helicopter US Army
© Mark El-Rayes / ReutersA U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter
Five UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and nearly 50 crew members have arrived in the Latvian capital of Riga as part of NATO's Atlantic Resolve operation which sees an enhancement of American forces across the Baltic States.

The helicopters were unloaded from a transport plane on Wednesday and welcomed by officials including US Ambassador to Latvia Nancy Bikoff Pettit.

"US Air Force transport aircraft with UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and military units Phoenix 10th Air Brigade of the US Army arrived at Riga airport," the Latvian Defense Ministry reported. The ministry said earlier that the new arrivals will replace the existing unit of Black Hawk helicopters deployed at the Lielvarde Air Base in central Latvia.

Comment: Further reading: Putin visits the FSB and outlines how a deal with Trump can be made
On the question of the pressure Russia has been under, during his meeting with the FSB President Putin made this quite extraordinary comment:
Counterintelligence services also face greater demands today. Operational data show that foreign intelligence services' activity in Russia has not decreased. Last year, our counterintelligence services put a stop to the work of 53 foreign intelligence officers and 386 agents. ...
It bears saying that over the course of the whole hysterical scandal in the US about the DNC and Podesta leaks, the fake "Trump Dossier", and the telephone conversation between the Russian ambassador and General Flynn, not a single person has so far been arrested or charged with anything. Yet here we have President Putin blandly saying that over the same period that this wave of hysteria and scandal has been underway in the US, the FSB in Russia has "stopped the work of 53 foreign intelligence officers and 386 agents".



Bad Guys

Enemy of the Year: What's with all the Russophobia?

blame putin
I once had an online conversation with a journalist whose name you would instantly recognize that started with a question for me: "Why Russia?" Why, this person wanted to know, are we witnessing a hate campaign aimed at Moscow, decades after the implosion of international communism and the breakup of the USSR?

I tried to give him a coherent and comprehensive answer, but Twitter is not conducive to in-depth discussions of that sort, and so I filed it away as a question to be answered at a later date. And certainly now is the time to answer it: the Democratic party and its media minions are demanding an "investigation" (i.e. a fishing expedition) into the burning question of whether the President of the United States is the Manchurian Candidate: "Putin's puppet," as Hillary Clinton infamously averred. Our out-of-control intelligence agencies are furiously pushing the same line.

This echo of the 2016 presidential campaign is surely one major reason why the anti-Russsian hysteria has reached such a fever pitch. As Glenn Greenwald writes in a recent piece in The Intercept:
"[I]t's used to avoid confronting the fact that Trump is a by-product of the extraordinary and systemic failure of the Democratic Party. As long as the Russia story enables pervasive avoidance of self-critique - one of the things humans least like to do - it will continue to resonate no matter its actual substance and value."

Eye 2

The morally reprehensible rehabilitation of George W. Bush

George W. Bush
© Joshua Roberts / Reuters
The big chimp is back. No, I'm not talking about the imminent release of the new King Kong film, but the return of George W. Bush.

Incredibly, or perhaps not so incredibly, given the current insanity, the man who launched a blatantly illegal war based on an outrageous lie - and which destabilized not just the Middle East but the entire world, is now being lauded in Western liberal circles for his tacit criticism of Donald Trump's attacks on the press and for calling for 'answers' on the new President's alleged ties with Russia.

What next? If the octogenarian psychopath Charles Manson comes out and takes the 'right' position on Trump, the media, and Russia, will newspapers be quoting him with approval too? You can just imagine the conversations: 'OK, his 'Family' might have killed a few people, but it was a long time ago, and you've got to admit Charles is absolutely right about Putin and Trump and the threats to our wonderful free media. Yah?'.

Windsock

White House preps for trade wars, "US will not be bound by WTO decisions"

Trump
© America's Trade Policy
In the latest warning from the White House that it is set to unleash trade policy that will be in sharp conflict with generally accepted trade norms, most likely a reference to some form of Border Adjustment Tax, the Trump administration has warned that the U.S. isn't and won't bound by decisions made at the World Trade Organization, in outlining a new trade agenda that "promises to root out unfair practices by foreign countries" and to escalate what are already simmering trade conflicts.

According to a document obtained by Bloomberg News and titled 2017 Trade Policy Agenda, the US plans to defend its "national sovereignty over trade policy," the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in an annual document laying out the president's trade agenda. The reason for the loophole: under the terms of its entry into the WTO, the U.S. didn't abandon its trade rights. "Given this history, it is important to recall also that Congress had made clear that Americans are not directly subject to WTO decisions," according to the trade office, which takes the lead in negotiating trade deals.

Comment: Whatever Trump ends up doing, he does decisively and with conviction. Many may not like his gusto, but they may like his results.