Puppet MastersS


Chess

N. Korea threatens retaliation for S. Korea & US 'provocative' war games

North Korea soldier troops
© Lee Jae-Won / ReutersA North Korean soldier
Pyongyang said it may attack US and South Korean troops participating in an annual joint military exercise, which North Korea believes could be a cover for military aggression against it.

"They should be mindful that the [North Korean Army] will deal deadly blows without prior warning any time as long as the... troops of the US and South Korean puppet forces involved in the 'special operation' and 'preemptive attack' targeting the DPRK remain deployed in and around South Korea," North Korean news agency KCNA saidon Sunday, citing a statement from the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA).

"The KPA will not remain a passive onlooker to hordes of robbers trying to hurt our people with daggers," it added.

Comment: Further reading: North Korea: The Grand Deception Revealed


Bad Guys

CIA front Newsweek tries, and fails, to link Putin with London terror attack

putin in meeting
Blame Putin. It never fails.
Newsweek finds a creative way to link Putin to the London terror attack

Many internet commentators and other important thinkers were relieved to learn that Putin was not being blamed for the recent terror attack in London.

They wish!

Although no direct links between Russia and the attack can be established (yet), our friends at Newsweek are reporting that Putin used the tragedy as a diversion so he could terrorize Ukraine with impunity.

Comment: It's a standard tactic of psychopaths, and western governments, to accuse others of what they themselves are doing.


Pistol

Yemeni pro-Houthi court issues death sentence for President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and 6 officials

Hadi
© Press TVPresident Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi
Yemeni ambassador to the United States Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak said that a court in Yemeni capital city of Sanaa, controlled by the Houthi movement, sentenced the country's President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and six other top government's officials to death.

"Houthi court in Sanaa has sentenced President Hadi and 6 of his senior assistants to death, proudly I am one of them," Mubarak wrote on Twitter late on Saturday.

According to media reports, the president and his officials were sentenced for high treason.

Yemen's civil war between the internationally recognized Aden-based government of President Hadi and the Houthi movement backed by army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh erupted in March 2015. Shortly after the start of the conflict, the Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries launched Operation Decisive Storm, which has since been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.

Comment: Unfortunately it is only a symbolic sentencing denouncing the illegal usurp of power by Hadi, the supported pawn of Saudi Arabia. Was his presidency worth the thousands of lives sacrificed? Saudi Arabia has waged an indiscriminate war on Yemeni civilians in order to eliminate the Houthis, a power play from which Saudi Arabia and its cohorts benefit.

Saba News Agency quoted the Sanaa criminal court as having convicted Hadi of "incitement and assistance to the aggressor state of Saudi Arabia and its allies."

From Yahoo News:
The Iran-backed rebels staged a show of force over the weekend with the mass rally in Sanaa and a symbolic court ruling against Yemen's embattled president. Crowds converged on the capital's Sabaeen Square on Sunday, chanting their vows to "resist to the end".

The protest came a day after a rebel court in Sanaa sentenced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to death for high treason in absentia.

The court found Hadi guilty of "usurping the title of president after the end of his term in office ... instigating attacks by Saudi Arabia and undermining the independence and integrity of the Republic of Yemen", the rebel-controlled Saba agency said. Six members of the Hadi government were also sentenced to death.

Hadi, whose two-year term in office expired in February 2014, now lives in Saudi Arabia although he also visits his government's temporary capital of Aden.



Bullseye

Le Pen exposes 'Russiagate' hoax in one easy courageous move

Le Pen Putin
© CNN.comSpeaking constructively with foreign powers is a good thing, even if one of those powers is Russia. Le Pen has shown the world the meaning of détente.
Marine Le Pen has just proved that she is more clever than the thousands of anti-Russian politicians in the west, but also more astute than many of the western politicians who are sympathetic to Russia.

Where people like Nigel Farage, Francois Fillon and even to a lesser extent Donald Trump have often distanced themselves from or played down their lack of hatred towards Russia, Marine Le Pen has gone the opposite way, she had a public meeting with President Putin with the eyes of the world watching.

This is why Le Pen is an admirable woman, even for those who may not agree with her politics. There's no better way to hush up a tired conspiracy than to expose the absurdity of the conspiracy theory.

Michael Flynn acted as though he wished that he'd never been in the same room with Russian vodka let alone a Russian man. Rex Tillerson pretended to have a more negative view of Russia before the Senate than he likely actually does. By contrast, Marine Le Pen has done what many prominent opposition candidates on the likely verge of power do; she met with a representative of an important foreign power with whom she may be directly dealing with in the near future, in this case the possible next President of France met with the current President of Russia.

Her public meeting has demonstrated the gist of many private meetings held between sane western officials and Russian ones, namely a broad commitment to improve rather than to further destroy diplomatic relations. When Nixon did it, it was called détente, but when people surrounding Donald Trump even attempted to do it, some call it treason.

Comment: Bravo, Le Pen. Hopefully it is a game-changer for more than just the French election.


Attention

NYT: Ryan, Priebus, Price blamed for healthcare proposal failure

Reince Priebus
© Tradebuddy.comReince Priebus
On Friday morning, when it was still unclear if the GOP would round up enough votes to pass the Republican healthcare proposal, we noted that Bloomberg reported that as a "Plan B" contingency plan, Trump was preparing to sacrifice Paul Ryan, to wit "several Trump associates have already laid groundwork to blame the speaker" as well as potentially Reince Priebus.

Trump's long-time friend, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy was quoted as saying "I think Paul Ryan did a major disservice to President Trump, I think the president was extremely courageous in taking on health care and trusted others to come through with a program he could sign off on. The President had confidence Paul Ryan would come up with a good plan and to me, it is disappointing." Additionally, Bloomberg quoted a Trump associate who said that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus may also be imperiled.

Comment: Let's see what Trump's next move is. He doesn't seem to give up easily after one try. At minimum he has flushed out the hand he has been dealt.

See also: Why Trump was lucky the Obamacare repeal bill failed


Briefcase

Two can play that game: Iran sanctions 15 US companies over alleged backing of Israeli 'atrocities'

Tehran Ministry of Foreign Affairs building Iran
© Sipo / WikipediaIran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Tehran
Tehran has imposed sanctions on 15 US firms over their alleged backing of Israel and its perceived "atrocities" committed against Palestinians, according to a foreign ministry statement cited by the Iranian State Agency (IRNA).

"The sanctioned companies have, directly and/or indirectly, been involved in the brutal atrocities committed by the Zionist regime in the occupied Palestinian territories," the statement said, as cited by the news agency.

The alleged actions, Tehran claims, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which calls on Israel to stop its settlement expansions.

As a result, the US companies in question are prohibited from making any deals with Iranian firms, and former and current top management of the companies will not be eligible for Iranian visas.

Bullseye

Well known al-Qaeda terrorist killed in US airstrike in Afghanistan

drone
© AFP 2017/ Bonny Schoonakker
A well-known terrorist from al-Qaeda was killed in an airstrike conducted by the US forces in Afghanistan, US Department of Defense said on Sunday.

"The U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed that a U.S. counter-terrorism airstrike conducted March 19 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, resulted in the death of Qari Yasin, a well-known al Qaida terrorist leader responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent victims, including two American service members," the statement released by the Department reads.

According to the Pentagon, among other attacks that Yasin was responsible for was the bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on September 20, 2008, which left dozens of people killed, among them two US officers.

Bizarro Earth

Paul Craig Roberts: The day earth was murdered

earth changes
"Change you can believe in" disappeared in the early days of the Obama regime as the same Washington insiders filled the new government's ranks. David Brooks sung the praises of those who made change impossible: "the best of the Washington insiders, Achievetrons who got double 800s on their SATs."

Eight years later Donald Trump was specific about the changes he intended, the two most important being normalized relations with Russia and the return home of the middle class jobs and associated state and local tax base that US corporations had moved offshore to foreign locations. But Trump's government quickly became home to corporate polluters, Wall Street executives, defense contractors, and Russophobic generals.

Obama's disappointed supporters held firm to their conviction that their man would set the agenda and not the Washington insiders who occupied his government. Trump's disheartened deplorables are currently finding refuge in this same conviction. But it looks like we will not get the good part from Trump, only the bad part of more pollution and more damage to the social safety net.

Eye 1

UK Met and Indian police accused of hacking emails of political activists and journalists

seeing thoughts
The U.K. Metropolitan police are accused of collaborating with Indian police and hackers to illegally access the emails of hundreds of activists and journalists.

A secret unit of the Metropolitan police has been partnering with hackers to monitor the emails of hundreds of political activists and journalists, according to a whistleblower familiar with the unit. The individual claims that the secret unit worked with Indian police and hackers to steal the passwords for the emails of activists, reporters, and photographers. The Guardian reports:
The person, who says he or she previously worked for the intelligence unit that monitors the activities of political campaigners, detailed their concerns in a letter to the Green party peer Jenny Jones. The peer passed on the allegations to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is investigating.

Hacked passwords were passed to the Metropolitan police unit, according to the writer of the letter, which then regularly checked the emails of the campaigners and the media to gather information. The letter to Jones listed the passwords of environmental campaigners, four of whom were from Greenpeace. Several confirmed they matched the ones they had used to open their emails.

Pistol

Bumbling NATO instructors on the brink of getting laughed out of Ukraine

Ukarain troops/nato instructors
© Agency France Presse/Yury Dyachyshyn
NATO instructors training Ukrainian troops in the art of war have been accused of incompetence. Recently, Ukraine's Defense Ministry decided to show off fresh photos of NATO troops training their Ukrainian counterparts for battle. However, eagle-eyed observers pointed out that all they ended up showing off was the NATO trainers' ineptitude.

Last week, Ukraine's Defense Ministry published photos from the latest training exercises in Lviv region, where Ukrainian servicemen are being trained up to NATO standards by instructors from the United States, Canada, Poland and Lithuania.

Comment:
NATO instructors preparing Ukrainian Army for combat