Puppet MastersS


Rocket

Ramping up the fear: US missile defense chief says North Korean missiles a 'great concern'


RT
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 12:26 UTC
THAAD
© Missile Defense Agency
Pyongyang's ballistic missile tests are a cause for concern to the US and its allies, but existing missile defense technology can address the current threat, the head of the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has told Congress.

"It is incumbent on us to assume that North Korea today can range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead," Vice-Admiral James Syring, director of the MDA, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

"The advancements in the last six months" in North Korean ballistic missile technology "have caused great concern to me and others," the admiral told the committee at a hearing on missile defense posture and priorities in light of the proposed 2018 budget.

He also said that he was confident in America's ability to defend from such threats, citing the recent test in which a California-based interceptor hit a simulated intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Comment:

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Jet4

US kills civilian in Syrian airstrike, declares it a 'blow to al-Qaeda' but where's the evidence?


RT
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 11:02 UTC
Aleppo Syria US airstrike mosque civilians damage rubble rebels
© Ammar Abdullah / Reuters Civil defense members and people inspect a damaged mosque after an airstrike on the rebel-held village of al-Jina, Aleppo province in northwest Syria March 17, 2017
A military investigation into a US airstrike on a mosque in Syria's Aleppo province found that the strike was "lawful," even though it likely resulted in the death of a civilian. More than 40 people died in the attack, which targeted an Al-Qaeda meeting.

On Wednesday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) released the findings and recommendations of an internal investigation into the March 16 airstrike in Al-Jinah, Syria. The conclusions were first announced in a series of tweets.

The US initially refused to take credit for the strike, admitting only to striking a nearby terrorist gathering in the bordering Idlib. The Pentagon also insisted that the mosque was still intact, despite video evidence to the contrary. In early May, however, CENTCOM acknowledged that it destroyed the mosque.

Comment: Further reading:

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Bad Guys

Canada to 'increase its role in the world' by spending 73% more on defense over next decade


RT
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 11:02 UTC
Canada NATO Orzel Alert Poland military exercises
© Kacper Pempel / ReutersTroops from Canada's 3rd Division, participate at a NATO-led exercise "Orzel Alert", south Poland May 5, 2014
Canada has announced it will increase its defense budget by 73 percent over the next decade, raising its budget to US$24.2 billion. It comes after US President Donald Trump challenged NATO countries to meet the bloc's defense spending target.

Details of the plan were announced by defense minister Harjit Sajjan and transport minister Marc Garneau during a Wednesday news conference in Ottawa.

According to Sajjan, Canada's overall defense budget will jump by almost three-quarters over the next 10 years, reaching $24.2 billion in 2026/27 - a significant increase from $13.9 billion in 2016/2017.

Comment: It's been said that the Military budget is the biggest scam in American politics, and now Canada is stepping up her game too. From the passage of Orwellian gender pronoun laws to the ramping up of the military-industrial complex while the banking system collapses, Canada's future is not looking very bright.

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Bad Guys

Too little, too late: Republicans 'revolt' against US intelligence, consider cutting back surveillance authority

Tim Johnson
McClatchy DC Bureau
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 11:02 UTC
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr
© Jacquelyn Martin APSenate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, will preside over a hearing Wednesday on proposed reauthorization of a crucial surveillance program known as Section 702. He’s seen here at a May 11 hearing.
A small revolt in corners of the Republican Party bedevils plans for reauthorization this year of surveillance capabilities considered the "crown jewels" of the U.S. intelligence community.

Those capabilities, subject of a Senate intelligence committee hearing Wednesday, has some Republicans worried that they could get caught up in the same secret government intercepts of communications that helped to land President Donald Trump's short-lived national security adviser in legal jeopardy.

Indeed, some conservatives on Capitol Hill think intelligence sources could leak information on them too, as they did on former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and routinely flout laws sharply limiting surveillance on Americans.

Comment: Further reading: Don't fall for the NSA's latest ploy: Big Brother is still watching you
[T]he NSA cannot be reformed.

This is an agency whose very existence—unaccountable and lacking any degree of transparency—flies in the face of the Constitution.

Despite the fact that its data snooping has been shown to be ineffective at detecting, let alone stopping, any actual terror attacks, the NSA has continued to operate largely in secret, carrying out warrantless mass surveillance on hundreds of millions of Americans' phone calls, emails, text messages and the like, beyond the scrutiny of most of Congress and the taxpayers who are forced to fund its multi-billion dollar secret black ops budget.

As long as the government is allowed to make a mockery of the law—be it the Constitution, the FISA law, or any other law intended to limit its reach and curtail its activities—and is permitted to operate behind closed doors, relaying on secret courts, secret budgets and secret interpretations of the laws of the land, there will be no reform.


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Bad Guys

No Surprises: Both London and Manchester terrorists linked to UK covert operations in Syria and Libya

Mark Curtis
Mark Curtis
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
Manchester Arena blast false flag
© Unknown
The Telegraph reports that London attacker Rachid Redouane fought in the 2011 British/NATO war against Qadafi - as did Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber - and joined a militia which went on to send jihadist fighters to Syria. In Libya, he is believed to have fought with the Liwa al Ummah unit.[1]

The Liwa al Ummah was formed by a deputy of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the former emir of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. In 2012, the Liwa al Ummah in Syria merged with the Free Syrian Army (FSA)[2], which was formed in August 2011 by army deserters based in Turkey[3] whose aim was to bring down Assad.

In Syria, the Liwa al Ummah was often referred to as an 'FSA unit'[4] and sometimes teamed up with al-Nusra, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria. [5]

Comment: 'ISIS' influences the UK Election: Will it work? Only with the help of massive vote rigging

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Chess

Unknown Aircraft bombed US-backed forces near Tabqah and Raqqah cities? - Unconfirmed report


South Front
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
SDF forces
© AFP 2017/ DELIL SOULEIMAN
Unknown aircraft bombed positions of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) at the Abu Asi area west of Tabqah and in the Harqalah area west of Raqqah, according to unconfirmed reports circulating online.

The reports appeared late on Wednesday following the Tuesday US-led coalition airstrike on Syrian government forces near the At Tanf area at the Syrian-Iraqi border.
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Caesar

Putin on war with US: 'No one would survive'


Sputnik
Tue, 06 Jun 2017 03:24 UTC
putin
© Sputnik/ Aleksey Nikolskyi
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a series of interviews to renowned film director Oliver Stone, answering the questions on the most controversial issues of modern-day international politics. Talking on a possible military conflict between Russia and the United States, the Russian leader said that no one on Earth would survive it.

Putin said in an interview with US film director Oliver Stone that no one would survive if a war began between Russia and the United States.

"I think no one would survive [such a conflict]," Putin said answering a question if the United States would be dominant in a "hot war" with Russia. The part of the interview was partially released by the US Showtime TV channel.

Putin added that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is constantly looking for an enemy to justify its existence.

"There is no longer an Eastern Bloc, no more Soviet Union. Therefore, why does NATO keep existing? My impression is that in order to justify its existence, NATO has a need of an external foe, there is a constant search for the foe, or some acts of provocation to name someone as an adversary."

However, Putin said that the hope for normalization of the Russia-US relations still exists.

"America has had the election. Donald Trump won. Is there any hope for change?" Stone asked Putin in a part of the interview published on Tuesday.

"Hope? There is always hope. Until they are ready to bring us to the cemetery and bury us," Putin answered.

According to the US media reports, as part of the preparations to the interview, Stone and Putin watched the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb of 1964 by the US filmmaker Stanley Kubrick about a nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Russian leader said in an interview as cited by The Daily Beast news outlet that Kubrick foresaw some contemporary issues from a technical point of view however the idea of a retaliatory weapon had become even more dangerous today with more sophisticated and complex weapons elaborated.

Stone gave the DVD wit the film to Putin who subsequently found that the case contained no DVD inside and called the move a "typical American gift," the US media reported.

The four-part Putin's interview is expected to be aired by Showtime on June 12-15.
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Yoda

Flashback Why the British Establishment is terrified of Jeremy Corbyn

Graham Vanbergen
TruePublica
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 00:54 UTC
Corbyn
The term "the establishment" refers to leading politicians, senior civil servants, senior barristers and judges, aristocrats, Oxbridge academics, senior clergy, the most important financiers and industrialists, governors of the BBC, members of and top aides to the royal family to mention most, but not all.

The term in this sense is sometimes mistakenly believed to have been coined by the British journalist Henry Fairlie, who in September 1955 in the London magazine The Spectator defined that network of prominent, well-connected people as "the Establishment", explaining: "By the Establishment, I do not only mean the centres of official power—though they are certainly part of it—but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised".

Following that, the term, the Establishment, was quickly picked up in newspapers and magazines all over London, making Fairlie famous. Today, the term 'the establishment' is used generally in a negative sense and it's easy to understand why.

"The British public has become deeply cynical about the political class at Westminster", states a recent Financial Times editorial.

"Bankers feel they have an ethical duty to steal from taxpayers" - another reads

"Why are we subsidising the royal family at a time of gross inequality" says another headline.

There has been a rising tide of contempt and anger towards bankers, property speculators, hedge fund bosses, politicians and even religious leaders and the royal family.
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Hardhat

North Korea launches 'multiple unidentified missiles'


RT
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 23:10 UTC
Missile in the air
© KCNA via KNS/AFPFile photo
North Korea has launched several unidentified ground-based projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff announced.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the JCS statement said, according to the Yonhap news agency.

President Moon Jae-in was immediately notified of the launch, the statement added.

The last time North Korea conducted a missile launch was on May 29, when it fired at least one short-range ballistic missile. The projectile, believed to be a Scud-class missile, flew around 450 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan, some 300 km off the Japanese islands.

Comment: US deployment of THAAD deliberately stirring up crisis in Korean peninsula to achieve military superiority over China and Russia

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Magic Wand

SOTT Focus: 'ISIS' influences the UK Election: Will it work? Only with the help of massive vote rigging

Niall Bradley
Sott.net
Wed, 07 Jun 2017 12:09 UTC
corbyn uk election
© Press AssociationJeremy Corbyn speaking to another overflow crowd, this time in Gateshead, northeast England, on 5 June 2017
Ever since Jeremy Corbyn won his leadership challenge last year (which was actually an attempted coup organized by former leader Blair and the British establishment) by more votes than in his first Labour Party leadership contest victory in 2015, I've thought that if May called a snap election, he'd win it. The wind of change is with him, no doubt about it. Forget the polls; Corbyn is drawing larger crowds than Blair did 20 years ago, and that monster's 'New' Labour party won the '97 election by a landslide. Theresa May, meanwhile, shrank from public sight in recent weeks, refusing even to participate in TV debates, while hardly anyone showed up at her campaign rallies.

A 'populist' Corbyn victory for an 'Old' Labour party in the UK would be the latest in a series of political earthquakes across the West in recent years. The non-stop bleating in the UK media about how 'unelectable' Corbyn is has proven to be inversely proportional to a.) just how popular the man is, and b.) just how much most people despise the entrenched elites. People who've never shown an interest in politics before, much less voted, are getting behind the plain-talking, plain-dressing Corbyn.

So, all other things being equal, this is Corbyn's election to lose. What needs to be taken into account, however, is the amount of vote rigging the British security services may be willing to risk. Everything is at stake for them at this time: Brexit, Scottish independence, Irish reunification; you can bet that all lights are flashing red in GCHQ, Whitehall, St James' Palace and the Foreign Office. The United Kingdom's very existence as such is in question, the country's international alliances are in flux, and 'democratic regime change' threatens from within.
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