Puppet MastersS


Jet2

Russian MoD states the obvious: US never aimed to fight terrorism in Syria


RT
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 20:56 UTC
us soldiers syria
© Khalil Ashawi / ReutersU.S. soldiers drive a military vehicle on the road connecting al-Rai town to Azaz city, northern Aleppo countryside, Syria October 4, 2016.
US officials have previously "dragged out" efforts to fight jihadists in Syria, but now they are attempting to "openly obstruct" Russia's anti-terrorist operation in the region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"Previously, the US side showed a counteraction to Russia fighting ISIS and Al-Nusra [Front] through dragging out any talks, failures to meet obligations to separate the opposition from terrorists and constant promises to some day provide information on the militants," the ministry's spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday.

Now the State Department "has openly called on other countries to obstruct our Air Force in fighting international terrorism in Syria," he added.

The defense ministry official referred to an earlier statement from US State Department spokesman Mark Toner, in which he encouraged other nations to not provide assistance to Russian oil-tankers delivering fuel for Russian jets in Syria.

Comment: The only thing the US regime change camp can 'only dream of' is the complete destruction of Syria through use of their mercenary army, just like Libya. It's not going so well for them anymore though. With the Trump presidency the situation could go either way, and is important to keep an eye on:

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Propaganda

RT's editor-in-chief slams new EU report as hypocritical and 'free speech doublethink'


RT
Wed, 23 Nov 2016 23:09 UTC
Margarita simonyan
© Russia InsiderRT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
For decades the EU has been lecturing Russia and touting freedom of speech as one of its core principles, but hypocritically dismissed it as an unnecessary luxury once their narrative was challenged, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said.

"We of course are extremely disappointed, this is really outrageous," Simonyan said on the subject of the EU's so-called anti-Russia propaganda resolution. "We are disappointed at how easily the European establishment gives away its own principles. The principles that we've been hearing for ages. The principles about which Russia has been lectured for years, for decades. And now we see that this whole principle of freedom of speech is not really needed and looks scary to Europeans themselves."
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Stock Up

Unlike the West, Russian economy continues to strengthen in October

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 20:41 UTC
Russian Kamaz truck assembly
The Russian economy continues its slow rebound from recession in October, though the pace of recovery continues to be held back by the Central Bank's harsh counter inflation strategy.

Russia's economy continued to strengthen in October, with industrial output 5.8% higher than in September (the biggest rise since April) and inflation falling to an annual rate of 6.1% (below market expectations). Inflation at the end of November will probably be below 6%. Both manufacturing and services PMI were in positive territory 52.40 and 52.70 respectively).

Meanwhile Russia continues to be in line for a record grain harvest this year of around 106 million tonnes.

This reflects an across the board strengthening of the Russia's whole agriculture sector, which is growing at an annual rate of around 3%.

Comment: And Russia is growing its gold reserves: Russia gold buying in October was biggest monthly allocation since 1998

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V

Tulsi Gabbard's 'screw the neocons' meeting with Trump sparks outrage from neocons and media lapdogs

Philip Weiss
Mondo Weiss
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 20:45 UTC
Tulsi Gabbard
During his round of interviewing potential job applicants, Donald Trump had one meeting with a Democratic politician: Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a leading antiwar figure, an Iraq war veteran and Bernie Sanders ally and former rising star in the party.

The Monday meeting is important because of what Gabbard said about foreign policy: screw the neoconservatives and dump the idea of regime change in Syria, which Hillary Clinton had supported. The meeting thus contains seeds of ideological convergence between the antiwar left and right. It has been read as misguided, tragic, or hopeful - depending on the observer's point of view. Here's a short tour.

First off, Gabbard filed her own report, titled "My meeting with Donald Trump." She said the meeting was all about Syria; and she called out the neoconservatives and others advocating intervention.
This was an opportunity to advocate for peace — and I felt it was important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect to counteract neocons' steady drumbeats of war, which threaten to drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government.

This war has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families. It has also strengthened al-Qaeda and other violent, extremist groups in the region. It would have been irresponsible not to accept this invitation. I feel it is my duty to take every single opportunity I get to advocate for peace, no matter the circumstances of those meetings.

I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia - potentially resulting in a nuclear war. We discussed my bill to end our country's illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government and the need to focus our precious resources on rebuilding our own country, and on defeating al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people.
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Bulb

French presidential candidate Fillon: France should restore relations with Russia and US, abandon "schizophrenic" policy towards Russia


Sputnik
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 19:27 UTC
fillon
© AFP 2016/ Eric Feferberg
The next president of France will face a serious challenge of restoring relations not only with Russia but also with the United States, Francois Fillon, the winner of the first round of The Republicans party primaries, said on Thursday.

"The next president will have a difficult task: to restart open and strong relationships not only with Russians but also with the Americans. We have grown distant from each other, but we need them on all the issues," Fillon wrote in an article published in Le Monde newspaper.

He called on abandoning the "schizophrenic" policy toward Russia, consisting in imposing more and more sanctions against Moscow, while asking it for help to fight terrorism.

"The status of France demands it to conduct global and independent diplomacy. Our diplomacy, so hardheaded during the US invasion in Iraq in 2003, has become submissive. To Brussels. To the United States. To UNESCO, where we were unable to say "no" to a resolution, rewriting the historical reality of Jerusalem. And even, often to the Gulf states, whose influence on our national territory raises questions," Fillon said.

Comment: More on Fillon and Putin:

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Smiley

Mainstream media distorting the facts, turning realities upside down

Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 19:26 UTC
Turmoil in Tibet
The mainstream corporate media is desperate.

They want to suppress independent and alternative online media, which it categorizes as "fake news".

Readers on social media are warned not to go onto certain sites.

The intent of this initiative is to smear honest reporting and Truth in Media.

Our analysis confirms that the mainstream media are routinely involved in distorting the facts and turning realities upside down.

They are the unspoken architects of "Fake News".

One area of routine distortion is the use of fake videos and images by the mainstream media.

Four Notorious Cases of Media Distortion

These are four examples and there are many more. The manipulation of videos and images is routine. In some cases, they revealed by readers, independent media and social media. In most cases they go undetected. and when they are revealed, the media will say "sorry" we apologize: they will then point to technical errors. "we got the wrong video"
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Megaphone

Hypocritical EU resolution on Russian "propaganda" is attack on free speech and media freedoms

Danielle Ryan
RT
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 18:46 UTC
rt studio
© Igor Russak / Sputnik
There's news. There's fake news. And then there's "pseudo" news, which according to the European Parliament, encompasses any Russian media which doesn't adhere to a Western narrative and neglects to present an entirely pro-EU perspective on world events.

In a completely bonkers move this week, the EU Parliament approved a resolution to counter "Russian propaganda" and the "intrusion of Russian media" into the EU. The resolution was adopted with 304 MEPs voting in favor, 179 MEPs voting against it and 208 abstaining. The most bizarre part, however, is that the resolution lumped Russian media in with Islamist propaganda of the kind spread by terror groups like the so-called Islamic State. Thus Russian media is put on the same level with videos of ISIS beheadings and incitements to mass murder.


Comment: Never mind that ISIS was and is funded and armed by covert Western intelligence agencies and the videos of ISIS beheadings are spread online via Western sources.


According to the resolution, Russian media exists to "undermine the very notion of objective information or ethical journalism," and one of its methods is to cast all other information "as biased or as an instrument of political power."


Comment: By all appearances, Russian media serves to undermine the US Empire and its use of media and information as an instrument of political power. That is why it is being targeted by the West.


The real hypocrisy here is that this last part almost exactly describes how Brussels regards any media critical of its own actions. The resolution criticizes channels like RT for casting other news sources as biased or as instruments of political power while smearing anyone who associates with the Russian media as Kremlin puppets, bought and paid for by Vladimir Putin — and yet the irony appears completely lost on them.

Comment: The West doesn't seem to think very far ahead when they have their backroom strategy meetings. It has already been reported that the EU resolutions against Russia and Turkey will actually bring the two countries closer together, possibly as allies against the EU. There have been a number of EU lawmakers who have blasted the resolution against Russia, saying it could fuel a new Cold War and that the resolution was a sign of the collapse of Western civilization. The resolution itself actually garnered only 44% of the elected body's representatives voting in favor, while 208 abstained, which could be a sign that many who abstained opposed the bill but must toe the party line by not voting against . All in all, it looks like this resolution is merely another attempt by the US Empire to try to steer public opinion into a more negative view of Russia. Those with two firing neurons will see this as just another desperate attempt to hold on to power which the Empire is rapidly losing.

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Boat

Royal Navy's hi-tech destroyer breaks down in NATO wargame, towed back to port


RT
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 00:01 UTC
The Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer
© Luke MacGregor / ReutersThe Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer
One of the Royal Navy's cutting edge Type 45 destroyers had to be humiliatingly towed back to port just two days after setting off to take part in NATO exercises.

The HMS Duncan is believed to have suffered total propulsion failure, forcing it back into Plymouth harbor on Wednesday, according to the Telegraph.

The 4,500 ton hi-tech ship left Davenport naval base on Sunday to take part in naval exercises alongside Spanish, Portuguese and German warships.
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Dollars

Dollar strengthens to 14-year high, almost evening it with euro


RT
Thu, 24 Nov 2016 18:26 UTC
dollars
© Edgard Garrido / Reuters / Reuters
The US dollar strengthened to a near 14-year high against its peers on Thursday on strong data from the world's biggest economy.

The greenback reached $1.0523 against the euro before retreating to $1.0551. The Japanese yen fell to an eight-month low, while China's yuan dropped to an eight and a half year low.

"There doesn't seem to be anything stopping US yields going higher in the near-term so I think people are going to stay on the dollar trend," State Street Global Markets' head of global macro strategy, Michael Metcalfe told Reuters.

"The only risk to this are that the dislocations in markets outside of the US, particularly in emerging markets, get to a point where they start to feed back into concerns (for the Federal Reserve as it looks to raise interest rates)," he added.
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Георгиевская ленточка

Putin's purge of the liberals: Will Nikolai Patrushev be Russia's next PM?

Filip Kovacevic
Newsbud
Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:16 UTC
Nikolai Patrushev
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev
With the recent arrest of the Russian economy minister Aleksey Ulyukaev by the FSB, the Russian equivalent of the FBI, the president Vladimir Putin's purge of the liberal faction within the Kremlin nomenklatura is now in the full public view.[1] This faction is headed by the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev who succeeded Putin as the president from 2008 to 2012. It now appears that Medvedev is in danger of losing his position and perhaps, just like Ulyukaev, his freedom as well. In fact, the last month's sudden cancellation of Medvedev's trip to Serbia,[2] which at this time is the only (and hence very significant) official Russian ally in East-Central Europe, demonstrates that his authority is already seriously eroded.

Therefore, there are two questions that require a thorough investigation. First, why would Putin conduct the purge at this time (or at all)? And, secondly, if the purge of Medvedev does indeed take place, who will be his replacement?
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