Puppet MastersS


Newspaper

Egyptian newspaper releases documents of Saudi Crown Prince's support for ISIL and Al-Qaeda


FARS News Agency
Sun, 09 Jul 2017 17:33 UTC
Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan
A leading Egyptian newspaper released a number of documents proving that Saudi Arabia's new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his counterpart in Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan have long been supporting the ISIL and al-Qaeda terrorist groups' global operations.
"A leaked document in Qatar's embassy and a letter to Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on October 26, 2016, show Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed's support for certain key al-Qaeda members in the Arabian Peninsula," Arabic language al-Badil newspaper wrote.
Based on the documents, US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said that the Saudi and Abu Dhabi crown princes have established continued contacts with two Yemeni nationals, namely Ali Abkar al-Hassan and Abdollah Faisal Ahdal, who are on the US blacklist of most wanted terrorists.
Read More...
Binoculars

Dumb and dumber: Comey leaked classified info in Trump memos

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 17:24 UTC
Comey lies
Amid the constant media outrage over everything Trump, Trump, Trump, some might have forgotten that in the political rollercoaster over the past 12 months, there were numerous other high-profile individuals involved, including not only former DOJ head Loretta Lynch, whose every interaction with the Clinton campaign is about to be probed under a Congressional microscope, but the man who some say started it all: former FBI Director James Comey.

First loved by the Democrats when he personally absolved Hillary Clinton of any sins regarding her (ab)use of her personal email server, then furiously loathed when he reopened the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton one week before the election, then finally getting into a feud with President Trump which cost his him job, Comey ultimately admitted to leaking at least one memo which contained personal recollections of his conversations with the president, in hopes of launching a special probe into the president's alleged Russian collusion.

There was just one problem: according to a blockbuster report from The Hill, in addition to the leaked memos, Comey also leaked classified information in gross and direct violation of FBI rules and regulations. And just like that Comey finds himself in trouble. Only not just any trouble, but the virtually same trouble that Hillary Clinton was in in the summer of 2016... and which James Comey was tasked to investigate.

Comment: And here's Comey last month during his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee:
And in an exchange with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), he said he wrote the memos in a way that would be unclassified (video):
WARNER: And I — I found it very interesting that, in the memo that you wrote after this February 14th pull-aside, you made clear that you wrote that memo in a way that was unclassified.

If you affirmatively made the decision to write a memo that was unclassified, was that because you felt, at some point, the facts of that meeting would have to come clean and come clear and actually be able to be cleared in a way that could be shared with the American people?

COMEY: Well, I remember thinking, this is a very disturbing development, really important to our work. I need to document it and preserve it in a way — and — and this committee gets this, but sometimes when things are classified, it tangles them up. It's hard...

WARNER: Amen.


Read More...
Gold Bar

Weathering the shock: Qatar's wealth enough to outlast political and economic blockade by Arab neighbors


RT
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 11:39 UTC
doha qatar
© Naseem Zeitoon / ReutersDoha, Qatar
The governor of Qatar's central bank said the emirate has enough money to weather the Saudi-led economic and political blockade.
"This is the credibility of our system, we have enough cash to preserve any kind of shock," Abdullah Saud Al-Thani told in an interview with CNBC.

The head of the Qatari finance regulator added that it has $40 billion in reserves plus gold, while the Qatar Investment Authority has $300 billion.

"So we don't believe that there is anything to worry about at this moment. What I can say is that our environment is proof to anybody that we are first of all solid, strong and resilient against any kind of shocks," said Al-Thani.

Comment: The mouse that roared: How Saudi Arabia underestimated Qatar

Read More...
Question

Will Trump and Putin claw us out of the swamp?

Tom Luongo
Russia Insider
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 17:20 UTC
Putin and Trump
© Whitehouse.gov
There is a lot of work to be done. But Putin was likely relieved to find a kindred soul of pragmatism now occupies the White House versus the ideologues that have brought the world to the brink of madness.

What could have been a complete disaster in Hamburg on Friday thanks to Trump's overly-aggressive rhetoric in Warsaw the day before, ended up far better than I could have hoped. Trump and Putin began the process of draining the foreign policy swamp that has existed since the 1970s.

And they did it with such style that it has the Beltway Intelligentsia frothing at the mouth and scrambling to maintain a narrative of contrived hostility that serves no one save them.

My only regret was that Zbigniew Brzezinski wasn't alive to see it, so he could choke on his own bile. I'll have to settle for his partner-in-regime-change-crime, George Soros, doing so. I'm sure Soros' dinner last night was a little too rich for him even if he only ate a salad.

But it is the delicious silence from Senators John McCain (RINO-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) that is the most satisfying.

Comment:

Read More...
Info

Russia and China: Challenging a divided West

Federico Pieraccini
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 09 Jul 2017 16:57 UTC
Putin and Jinping
On July 4, 2017, Xi Jinping was welcomed to Moscow by Putin. Their twenty-first official meeting was useful for coordinating their next moves concerning the international issues on the agenda ahead of the G20 meeting.

More than twenty agreements have been signed between Russia and China, amounting to almost twelve billion dollars worth of investment. Such figures are reflective of these two nations that define their bilateral relations as the most balanced and fundamental in the world, evidenced by the unprecedented levels of relations between Moscow and Beijing. The ease with which complicated and wide-ranging agreements are realized emphasizes the level of confidence and development cooperation developed personally by Putin and Xi Jinping. In their third annual meeting, the most prominent themes on the agenda were also discussed with a view to the upcoming G20 meeting. The intention is to coordinate the next steps together on the world stage in order to express a common point of view on many themes, mutually reinforcing their positions in the process. This is the case with matters to do with Syria and North Korea.
Read More...
Star of David

Israel proven to be involved in grand theft of ancient Middle Eastern artefacts

Wayne Madsen
The Intrepid Report
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 16:45 UTC
hobby lobby stolen antiquities
© Museum of the Bible and DOJSteve Green, president of Hobby Lobby, and a tablet.
The right-wing Christian-owned store chain Hobby Lobby has settled a federal case that saw the Oklahoma City-based crafts retailer fined $3 million for illegally importing stolen artefacts from Iraq for "the Museum of the Bible" the store's owner, Steve Green, is building near the National Mall in Washington, DC. Oddly, the title of the civil asset forfeiture case, brought in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of New York, does not mention the 600-store Hobby Lobby chain or Green as the major culprits. Had the case been criminal, as it should have been, since Hobby Lobby violated a 1990 law on trafficking of Iraq, the case would have been United States of America v. Hobby Lobby, Inc.

In 2016, Hobby Lobby donated to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina, and the Senate campaigns of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. In 2012, presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Herman Cain received Hobby Lobby campaign cash. Another major recipient has been Oklahoma Senator Jim Lankford.

Democrats in Congress suspect that the Justice Department, under pressure from Green's fellow right-wing Christian fundamentalist, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, gave Green a pass in allowing him to avoid criminal charges in return for accepting a fine and civilly forfeiting the stolen artefacts. Somehow, Green and Hobby Lobby managed to evade criminal prosecutions. The formal civil forfeiture case title is "United States of America, plaintiff, against Approximately Four Hundred Fifty (450) Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand (3,000) Ancient Clay Bullae." None of the Israeli or UAE agents are identified in the federal court filing. They are given the designations as "Israeli Dealer #1," "Israeli Dealer #2," "Israeli Dealer #3," and "UAE Dealer."
Read More...
Bad Guys

Russia considers recalling permanent NATO representative


RT
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 16:59 UTC
NATO - Rusija
© NATO-Russia
Russian authorities are considering replacing the permanent representative with NATO with a temporary one due to the bloc's unwillingness to hold a constructive dialogue, a popular Russian daily reports.

According to anonymous diplomatic sources quoted by Izvestia newspaper the changes should be expected when the current permanent representative of the Russian Federation with NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, leaves his post.

The sources noted that the decision was caused by the alliance's unwillingness to build relations with Russia on the basis of equality and also with the tendency of Western military and diplomats to turn any discussion into one-sided accusations against Russia.

In particular, the unnamed diplomats said that in view of the next session of the NATO-Russia council, due on July 13, NATO representatives refuse to "listen to and hear" the Russian side, and continue to present Moscow as the main culprit in the Ukrainian crisis.

Comment: Will Russia's "anonymous sources" turn out to be more reliable than their American counterparts? Regardless, it's amazing Russia has been willing to put up with NATO for as long as it has... It's a den of vipers.

Read More...
Dollar Gold

What sanctions? German-Russian trade up 27% in 2017

Klaus Dormann (translated by Tom Winter)
Oxtexperte.de / Fort Russ
Sat, 08 Jul 2017 16:42 UTC
shipping containers
Foreign trade with Russia in focus
  1. German-Russia exports rose by more than one fourth despite sanctions
  2. Can the deep drop in exports since 2012 be picked up quickly?
  3. How strongly do the sanctions dampen the export and growth of the EU?
  4. New estimates by the East Committee and Berlin Economics
In the first four months of 2017, according to the announcement by the Eastern Committee of the German economy, German exports to Russia were about 27 percent higher than in the previous year. It should, however, be taken into account that they had fallen by 43 per cent between 2012 and 2016. At the same time, all German exports continued to grow.

Russia's share of the German goods exports has halved since 2012 to almost 1.8 percent. In the ranking list of the German esport countries, Russia fell back to 16th place. What are the prospects for sustainable growth and an early recovery in trade with Russia?
Read More...
Info

Sanctions and cybersecurity: Trump says 'it's time to move forward in working constructively with Russia'


RT
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 16:46 UTC
Putin and Trump
US President Donald Trump has tweeted that "it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia," citing a ceasefire negotiated for southwest Syria as proof that this is possible.

Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for more than two hours in Hamburg on Friday, the first day of the G20 summit.

"We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
Read More...
Briefcase

Crown Prince bin Salman to visit Russia: Bringing Saudi-Russian relationship to new phase

Alex Gorka
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 16:34 UTC
Saudi Arabia Russia Mohammed bin Salman Putin
Much has been said about the much vaunted trip of US President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia where he was lavished with extravagant royal pomp. The $110 billion arms deal was signed and the plans to create an Arab NATO set the agenda. The visit - the president's first foreign trip - was described as a major step to boost the US clout in the Middle East but the days when the region was Washington's exclusive sphere of influence are gone.

The Kingdom has launched an ambitious Vision 2030 program to start a new chapter in its history, turning itself from a US dependent oil exporter to a regional powerhouse with diversified economy, gradually opening the doors to the whole world. Investment flows are to come from different directions with money put into different baskets. Saudi Arabia is intensifying its diplomatic efforts to change its perception to start a new era. Russia is viewed as a partner in the far-reaching plans.

The blossoming relationship between Russia and Saudi Arabia signals yet another sea change in the ever-evolving global order. King Salman is to become the first Saudi monarch to visit Russia. The trip is expected this month with talks on the way to specify the date. The visit acquires special importance as the King has taken a decision not to attend the July 7-8 summit of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

Comment: For more background:

Read More...