Puppet MastersS


Light Sabers

'Wishful thinking': Kremlin pours cold water on reports Putin and Trump to meet in May


RT
Thu, 27 Apr 2017 18:33 UTC
trump putin
© Reuters / Sputnik
No preparations are being made for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, the Kremlin spokesman said, commenting on media reports that the Russian and US presidents would meet in May.

"This isn't the case," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said when addressed on the issue by journalists on Thursday.

He called reports on the planned meeting between Putin and Trump "wishful thinking" on the part of the authors.

On Wednesday, Russia's Kommersant newspaper cited unnamed Russian and American officials, who reportedly said that the leaders would meet in late May in an EU member country.
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Info

Russia's former anti-corruption police chief sentenced to 22 years for corruption


RFE/RL
Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:34 UTC
Denis Sugrobov
© Sergei Savostyanov / TASSDenis Sugrobov, former chief of the Russian Interior Ministry's Anticorruption and Economic Crimes Directorate, attends a court hearing in Moscow on April 27.
A former chief of the Russian Interior Ministry's Anticorruption and Economic Crimes Directorate, Denis Sugrobov, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison on corruption charges.

The Moscow city court issued the sentence on April 27, shortly after convicting Sugrobov of abuse of office and of creating a criminal group.

Sugrobov and several of his subordinates were arrested in 2014 on suspicion of involvement in organizing a criminal group, soliciting bribes, and exceeding their authority.
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Snakes in Suits

Pepe Escobar: There Will Be No Russophobia Reset

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Thu, 27 Apr 2017 17:39 UTC
Donald Trump
© REUTERS/ Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool
In the end, there was hardly a reset; rather a sort of tentative pause on Cold War 2.0. Interminable days of sound and fury were trudging along when President Trump finally decided NATO is "no longer obsolete"; still, he wants to "get along" with Russia.

Just ahead of meeting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin had stressed on Russian TV that trust (between Russia and the US) is "at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn't improved. On the contrary, it has degraded." Emphasis on a pedestrian "workable," but most of all "degraded" - as in the National Security Council releasing a report essentially accusing Moscow of spreading fake news.
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Radar

IDF reports Israel intercepted airborne target over Golan Heights


Sputnik
Thu, 27 Apr 2017 17:36 UTC
IDF soldiers
© AFP 2017/ JALAA MAREY
Israel's air defenses have intercepted an airborne target over the Golan Heights, coming from the direction of the Syrian border, the press service of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday.

"The Patriot Aerial Defense System intercepted a target above the Golan Heights," an IDF spokeswoman told Sputnik.

The official did not specify the type of the target, but local media earlier reported it was an aerial drone.

Comment: And earlier today: Israeli Intelligence Minister: New strikes near Damascus 'in line with Israel policy to stop Iran arms transfers'

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Attention

Letting the 'Mad Dog' loose: Trump authorizes Pentagon to manage number of troops deployed to Iraq and Syria


RT
Thu, 27 Apr 2017 17:27 UTC
US soldiers
© Mohammed Al-Ramahi / Reuters
US President Trump has given the Pentagon authority to independently set troop levels in Iraq and Syria, and to ensure commanders' flexibility. Over 5,000 troops are deployed in Iraq, and 500 in Syria, where they operate without Damascus' invitation.

"The President has delegated the authority for Force Management Levels (FML) for Iraq and Syria to the [Defense] Secretary [James Mattis]," said Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, as cited by ABC.

He also said that no change has been made at this stage to the number of US troops in the Middle East, adding that the current military strategy involves rendering support to local militias fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
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Red Flag

Western MSM creates another fake news narrative, spinning North Korea-Syria "axis of evil" partnership

Finian Cunningham
RT
Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:14 UTC
north korea tanks
© Sue-Lin Wong / Reuters
US media reports this week blamed North Korea for having a dastardly role in an alleged chemical weapons massacre in Syria. As if the two countries could not be demonized enough. The latest spin of the "axis of evil" suggests Washington is hell-bent on war.

Demonize, dehumanize, destroy. That's the logic being throttled by the Trump administration toward both North Korea and Syria. This week war hawk US Senator Lyndsey Graham after a dinner with President Trump referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a "nutjob," while Trump earlier labeled Syrian leader Bashar Assad an "animal."

Now the two "evil dictators" are bonded in US media reports for complicity in the alleged chemical weapons attack earlier this month in Syria's Idlib Province, where it is claimed Assad's armed forces dropped toxic munitions on civilians, killing up to 80.

The supplier of the alleged chemical weapons in Syria is the "Kim Jong-un regime" in North Korea, according to US reports.

USA Today claimed: "The horrors of the civil war in Syria have proved a blessing for North Korea. The regime of Kim Jong-un has made a killing from selling arms and ammunition to the regime of fellow dictator, Bashar Assad." It goes on to cite claims that a "key supplier" of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal is the northeast Asian nation.

Another publication, Defense One, headlined: "Syria's war has been a goldmine for North Korea."
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Attention

Trump orders review of new national monuments, gives power back to the states


RT
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 18:57 UTC
Bear Ears Natl Monument
© Bob Wick/BLM/FlickrCedar Mesa Citadel Ruins in Bear Ears National Monument
President Donald Trump has directed the Interior Department to review a slew of national monuments, arguing their designations as such over the last two decades was an "abusive" federal land grab. Critics contend the move will destroy sensitive lands.

"Today I'm signing an executive order to end another egregious abuse of federal power and to give that power back to the states and to the people, where it belongs," Trump said in a signing ceremony at the Department of Interior headquarters. "Today, we are putting the states back in charge. It's a big thing."

The order calls on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to consider whether monument designations at up to 40 sites should be "rescinded, resized or modified in order to better benefit our public lands." The 45-day review covers all monument designations over 100,000 acres dating back 21 years.


Comment: If Trump is giving the power to create national monuments back to the states, what then is the 'cursory look' by Trump, et al, regarding Bear Ears, unless it is a jab at Obama's designation of the monument...which is a personal, not national, not even state-level assessment. Preserving historical lands, especially ancestral Native American sites, is a good and necessary honoring of culture, history and irreplaceable natural wonders. One now must hope the individual states are able to battle the big bucks behind private interests that seek to pillage the natural riches these lands hold, should they even deem to do so. Preserve or gone forever...that is the choice.

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Star of David

Open letter to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley regarding dissed report on apartheid in Israel

Richard Falk, Virginia Tilley
The Nation
Tue, 25 Apr 2017 00:00 UTC
Haley Khalaf Falk Tilley
© Daily Wire/Reuters/Pluto Press Blog/WikipediaNikki Haley • Rima Khalaf • Richard Falk • Virginia Tilley
Dear Madam Ambassador:

We were deeply disappointed by your response to our report, Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, and particularly your dismissal of it as "anti-Israeli propaganda" within hours of its release. The UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) invited us to undertake a fully researched scholarly study. Its principal purpose was to ascertain whether Israeli policies and practices imposed on the Palestinian people fall within the scope of the international-law definition of apartheid. We did our best to conduct the study with the care and rigor that is morally incumbent in such an important undertaking, and of course we welcome constructive criticism of the report's method or analysis (which we also sought from several eminent scholars before its release). So far we have not received any information identifying the flaws you have found in the report or how it may have failed to comply with scholarly standards of rigor.

Instead, you have felt free to castigate the UN for commissioning the report and us for authoring it. You have launched defamatory attacks on all involved, designed to discredit and malign the messengers rather than clarify your criticisms of the message. Ad hominem attacks are usually the tactics of those so seized with political fervor as to abhor rational discussion. We suppose that you would not normally wish to give this impression of yourself and your staff, or to represent US diplomacy in such a light to the world. Yet your statements about our study, as reported in the media, certainly give this impression.

Comment: A fair representation of the report and the thought and work behind it, as well as, the call-out on Ambassador Haley. It is obvious that a one-sided bias exists and Haley has made it her crusade.

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Chess

Thickening the border: Trump and Trudeau in 'war of words' over lumber tariffs


RT
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 12:56 UTC
Canada logging
© Ben Nelms / ReutersLogs are pushed into the water at Squamish Mills Ltd in Howe Sound near Squamish, British Columbia, Canada April 25, 2017.
President Donald Trump has railed against Mexico and China for unfair trade policies but saved the first tariffs for Canada. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau predicts Trump's action will "thicken" the border between the two countries.

On Monday, the Department of Commerce announced the Trump administration would impose a 20 percent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber, including specific tariffs for five Canadian lumber firms that range from three to 24 percent.

At Tuesday's White House press briefing, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross told reporters the taxes were being imposed, because Canada had "violated legitimate practice."

Ross explained how the dispute over lumber has been waging for decades. In Canada, the provinces subsidize the lumber industry allowing them to charge a lower subsidized price on exports to the US. Ross said the price difference is as high as 25 percent and an average of 20 percent.

Comment: Update: Canada has threatened to play hardball with Trump over the new tariffs:
Trade relations will not be easy-going after the US imposed 20 percent tariffs on Canadian lumber, warned Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.

"When it comes to defending Canada's economic interests, we're going to play hard," Freeland told CNN on Tuesday.

"We're nice guys: Politeness is something we believe is a national virtue, but it's not an accident that hockey is our national sport," she said

An investigation by the Commerce Department has concluded that Canadian authorities subsidize timber companies to help them sell to the US at lower prices.

The decision by the Trump administration came after failed talks to cut Canadian tariffs on US dairy products, which are 270 percent. This helps Canada to increase domestic prices and keep American and other countries' produce out of the country.

However, when Canada' s supply management was introduced in the late 1960's, it had 140,000 dairy farms. Now it has fewer than 12,000, but Canadian authorities are still voting to support the protectionist measure.

"Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!" Trump tweeted Tuesday morning before the announcement.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico are expected to start renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed in 1992 and defines trade between the countries.


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Health

Trump administration and Congress reach deals on Obamacare issues


RT
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 22:58 UTC
Doc and Cadeusus
© wqad
The Trump administration has reached deals with a range of disparate factions in Congress to both repeal and replace the Affordable Healthcare Act and to temporarily continue Obamacare's required subsidies, allowing the government to remain funded.

A month after Republicans crashed and burned at their first attempt to fulfill their longstanding promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, the majority party is ready to try again to get rid of the ACA.

The first attempt, strongly backed by President Donald Trump, failed after moderates balked at concessions made to a group of conservatives, which could not reach a consensus among itself either.

Now, however, those two factions within the GOP have reached an agreement, allowing the House to try again. The deal comes at the same time that the Trump administration has agreed to continue Obamacare placements in order to keep the federal government funded beyond a looming deadline.

One group left out of the political horse-trading, however, is the United Nations, which has warned that any measures that would cause millions of Americans to lose coverage would be a violation of international law.
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