SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Puppet MastersS
The latest WikiLeaks dump from this morning includes a very detailed list of 2012/2013 donors to the Clinton Global Initiative. Like the donors to the Clinton Foundation (which we reviewed here), the list is a who's who of wall street banks, giant energy corporations, chemical conglomerates and multi-national pharmas...you know, all the "shady" corporations that you've been told were in bed with the Republicans.
© John Cole/The Times Tribune
As The Hill details, in a report published Thursday, multiple sources within the FBI say that deep antipathy toward Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and anger that FBI Director James Comey did not bring charges against her this summer have motivated leaks that could damage her presidential campaign.
One agent told The Guardian that many at the bureau view Clinton as the "antichrist" and are supportive of Trump.
The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is "the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel," and that "the reason why they're leaking is they're pro-Trump."
"The FBI is Trumpland," said one current agent.
Comment: Another peek into the factional war going on between elite power groups seeking to control the U.S. The Guardian article gives a bit more background on the mood in the FBI:
Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey's July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton's maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
...
This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House.
© Ruptly
In a 2014 email made public by Assange's WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to "bring pressure" on Qatar and Saudi Arabia,"which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Islamic State, IS, ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups."
"I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection," Assange, whose whistleblowing site released three tranches of Clinton-related emails over the past year, told Pilger in an exclusive interview, courtesy of Dartmouth Films.
"All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some "rogue" princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS."
When Philippine fishermen were finally able to fish the outside of the Scarborough Shoal (not the area inside the atoll but in conformity with the UNCLOS arbitration settlement), I sensed some sour grapes from the pivoteer commentariat at the Philippines yielding so abjectly to the PRC's concession.
I have been unable to acquire firm figures on the potential value of the catch from the Scarborough Shoal, but I suspect it accounts for less than 1% of the Philippines' total catch, perhaps $20 million dollars.
And I suspect that Duterte—who hails from the fishing-friendly south of the Philippines, which accounts for about 50 times as much—is happy his foreign policy is not being held hostage to the shoal.
The tunnel vision that marks US efforts to turn "Philippines can't have an independent foreign policy" from wishful thinking into self-fulfilling prophecy was marked in recent days by the high profile announcement that the US State Department would hold up the sale of 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippines in response to a congressman's concerns over Philippine human rights violations.
© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
"Currently available information suggests that the bank may have filed defamatory statements to retaliate against employees who questioned aggressive cross-selling practices," Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts wrote in a letter to Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan on Thursday.
The letter, which was also signed by Senators Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), shows that beyond the bank itself, the brokerage business Wells Fargo Advisors was also involved in the fake accounts scandal.
They believe the San Francisco-based bank "had ample information" about the scope of fraudulent sales practices long before it reached the $185 million settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in September.
The senators have learned from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a major securities industry regulator, that between 2011 and 2015, Wells Fargo filed reports on the terminations of 207 of its employees. All of them were related to the sales scandal, which did not come up until this year.
According to the letter, FINRA provided congressional staff with information that it had received dismissal documents known, officially known as Form U5s, for more than 600 of those fired Wells Fargo employees.
The CH-5, which was keenly awaited after a video of its maiden flight was broadcast by Chinese networks last year, "can perform whatever operations the MQ-9 Reaper can, and is even better than the US vehicle when it comes to flight duration and operational efficiency," said Shi Wen, chief designer of the CH series at China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, to local media ahead of the exhibition.
Comment: Just what the world doesn't need, more killer robots.
The travel advisory was issued in response to comments made to media by regional police that said six Abu Sayyaf rebels were in Cebu, an island popular for diving and racy nightlife and far from the Islamist group's stronghold in the south.
The warning said it had no specific information of the kidnap threat but advised citizens to be vigilant and avoid travel to certain areas.
Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said authorities were still trying to confirm the media report but the Philippine National Police were taking it seriously and beefing up security measures, including at public venues where crowds gather.
© gofundme.comDr. Stephen Frost
Dr David Frost was sacked by the Ministry of Defence in 2013 after an incident involving a super-strong painkiller issued to a wounded Afghanistan veteran.
Frost did not write the prescription or dispense the painkillers, a point that the MoD accepts.
The employment tribunal considering a suit Frost has brought against the UK military has already heard accusations that senior military officers libeled him because of his activism and used Stasi-like tactics to ruin his career.
Emails between senior medical officers have emerged that Frost, whose 20-year career as a civilian GP serving the military is reportedly blemishless, says amount to malicious libel.
Colonel John Burgess of the army's clinical department told the tribunal that his subordinate, Colonel Carson Black, had sent him the emails.
© AFP 2016/ Nazeer al-Khatib
Turkey's recent military deployment to its borders with Iraq and Syria is an effort to protect Turkey's national interests and resist US plans to redraw the Middle East, former Turkish air force commander Erdogan Karakus told Sputnik Turkiye.
On August 24, Turkey launched its "Euphrates Shield" operation in Syria, and began to deploy infantry and dozens of tanks across the border to assist units of the FSA in an offensive against Daesh at Jarabulus.
© Flickr/ Robert OrrUK HMS Grimsby
The ministry added that the group comprised of BNC Narcis, HMS Grimsby, ENS Sakala, LVN Simanta, HNOMS Maloy, Skalvis from Belgium, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Latvia, Norway and Lithuania respectively.
"[A group of] six minesweeping warships of NATO [member states'] navies is arriving to the port of Klaipeda," the statement read.
Comment: For the latest highlights from the Wikileaks releases, check out Most Damaging Wikileaks.