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For decades the CIA and other deep state organisations have been instrumental in propagandising an often ignorant public.
Many have expressed their shock and horror that the a 'documentary' on the White Helmets organisation has won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
Russian political analyst Valeriy Piakin
Comment: Piakin is not the only one to come to this conclusion:
- 9 Russian officials have died unexpectedly in the last two years - signs of a Deep State war?
- State sponsored terrorism: Has CIA's plot to 'covertly' kill Russians in Syria come to pass?
Sabrina De Sousa, a former CIA agent, denies she played a role in the kidnapping and rendition of an Egyptian cleric in Italy.
Sabrina de Sousa spent the night in a women's prison near Lisbon after a Portuguese court ordered police to extradite her, her Portuguese lawyer, Manuel Magalhaes e Silva, told the Associated Press in an interview.
He said she was detained Monday after a two-year fight against extradition and would be put on a plane once formalities between Portuguese and Italian police were concluded.
Comment: Sabrina De Sousa appears to be the fall-guy and the sacrificial lamb now the Bush administration has been caught out. Although she may not have been the mastermind as Italian officials like to claim, it's hard to believe that she had no involvement in the operation, one could assume that as a translator she got the general gist of what was going on. Had she not been treated so poorly by her CIA-comrades and "left out to dry" would she have spoken out against them? To quote Martin Luther King:
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
- Ex-CIA agent defends herself in rendition case: report
- Former CIA officer facing prison time in Italy over kidnapping and torture
- Torture report leaves no doubt - Bush Administration guilty of war crimes
I.F. Stone called B.S. on Washington's anti-Russia narratives in the 1950's
What makes Stone's body of work so valuable is not its illumination of history but rather its illumination of the present. What's most striking about his newsletters is how little changes when it comes to U.S. government propaganda and militarism, and the role the U.S. media plays in sustaining it all. Indeed, reading through his reporting, one gets the impression that U.S. politics just endlessly replays the same debates, conflicts, and tactics.
Much of Stone's writings, particularly throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, focused on the techniques for keeping Americans in a high state of fear over the Kremlin. One passage, from August 1954, particularly resonates; Stone explained why it's impossible to stop McCarthyism at home when — for purposes of sustaining U.S. war and militarism — Kremlin leaders are constantly being depicted as gravely threatening and even omnipotent. Other than the change in Moscow's ideology — a change many of today's most toxic McCarthyites explicitly deny — Stone's observations could be written with equal accuracy today.
In the three-part investigative article published by Newsbud earlier this year, I have analyzed the 2016 FSB public releases, as published on the FSB official website, in order to assess the FSB activities in the fields of counterespionage, counter-terrorism, cyber defense, and other law enforcement matters.[1] In this article, I will extend my analysis by discussing president Putin's view of the role and mission of the FSB as presented in his three latest annual addresses, in 2015, 2016, and 2017. I believe that this analysis will shed important light on the main concerns of the Russian foreign policy as well as demonstrate in what ways (if any) they have changed over this period of time.
© REUTERS/ Khalil Ashawi
FSA forces, supported by Turkey and some Gulf states, recently claimed the city of al-Bab, despite the CIA's move to freeze military aid to the group. Al-Bab had previously been held by Daesh militants before FSA reclaimed the city. Just four kilometers south of al-Bab, Syrian government forces seized the nearby town of Tadef. Between the two towns is where the violence is thought to have occurred.
© AP Photo/ Yoan Valat, Pool
Airliner PT JASA Angkasa Semesta (JAS) president Adji Gunawan said the company would need an additional 178 workers to handle cargo shipments to Jakarta, and 394 more laborers in Bali, according to the Jakarta Post.
Joining King Salman will be 800 delegates, 25 princes, and 10 ministers, the Post noted. A majority of the supplies, 396 tons, will be delivered to Bali, while the rest will be sent to Jakarta.
Comment: Russia is also eyeing Indonesia: Indonesia: Russia's ticket to successful cooperation with ASEAN
© Ali Jarekji / ReutersA worker at the Khurais oilfield, about 160 km from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Ahead of the initial public offering (IPO), Saudi Aramco's value is no more than a guess. The company has stuck to its claim that it has 261 billion barrels of proven reserves, enough for decades to come, and has never publicly released financial statements.
The $2 trillion estimate put forward by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last March comes by multiplying the industry-standard estimate of $8 a barrel by the number of Saudi-claimed reserves.
Comment: Further reading: End of tax-free living in Saudi Arabia as oil revenues dry up, the Saudi people get squeezed
© Public CitizenTrump administration in shift against free trade signals desire to opt out of conflict resolution mechanisms of World Trade Organisation.
By contrast the story of Donald Trump's trade policies is real and it hugely matters but because international trade appears complicated the media barely touches the subject, though I suspect the media's lack of interest in the subject is not shared by millions of people who voted for Trump for whom it is an issue of vital importance.
Donald Trump has put together a team of people to run his trade policy whose views differ markedly from those of the accepted globalist orthodoxies. Wilbur Ross, his pick for Commerce Secretary, and Peter Navarro, his pick to lead the new National Trade Council in the White House, are known economic nationalists, as is Robert Lighthizer, his pick for US representative to the World Trade Organisation. Ross is expected to be confirmed as Commerce Secretary shortly, whilst Navarro is an outspoken critic of the US's trade relationship with China and Lighthizer is a longstanding advocate and defender of the interests of the US steel industry.
It has now been confirmed that the Trump administration has instructed Lighthizer to look for ways for the US to opt out of the trades dispute resolution procedure of the World Trade Organisation, the body that has been set up to regulate world trade.
This is a potentially highly important development. The World Trade Organisation's dispute resolution procedure lies at the heart of the existing globalist world trade system. If the US - the keystone of the world economy and the country whose currency is used in the great bulk of international trade transactions - distances itself from it, then the whole globalist economic agenda will start to go into reverse.
Comment: The WTO has been controversial since its inception in 1995. The completion of corporate globalization spells the demise of singular economies, the enterprise of the people and confirms a closed system of corporate-managed trade by the elite.
© Brendan McDermid / Reuters
The DOJ asked the federal appeals court to put the case on hold after it had upheld a restraining order against enforcing the ban in mid-February. On Monday, the 9th Circuit declined to do so, Reuters reported.
President Donald Trump is expected to issue a replacement order on Wednesday.
During the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said he would not address the ruling because he had not a chance to read it, and asked for a chance to speak with the White House Counsel's Office.
Comment: