Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Turkey will not hand over al-Bab to Syrian government forces, says deputy PM

Daren Butler, Humeyra Pamuk
Reuters
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 18:52 UTC
Numan Kurtulmus
© REUTERS/StringerTurkey's Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus visits the grave of late Moroccan Minister of State Abdellah Baha at Martyrs' Cemetery in Rabat, March 4, 2015. Kurtulmus is in Morocco for an official visit.
Claims that Turkey will hand over the Syrian town of al-Bab to President Bashar al-Assad's forces after driving out Islamic State are not true, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told the state-run Anadolu agency on Tuesday.

Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes, have been besieging al-Bab since December. Kurtulmus said the U.S.-led coalition had failed to give sufficient support to Turkey's operation to seize the town.

Comment: They have to actually take the town first before they can not give it back to the Syrian government. See also:

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People

In France, we respect election results - Marine Le Pen on possible protests following French vote


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 18:01 UTC
marine le pen
© Charles Platiau / ReutersMarine Le Pen, French far-right National Front (FN) party president
France's National Front leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told RT she believes the French citizens will accept the outcome of the presidential elections if they turn in her favor - without staging mass protests like those sweeping across the US.

RT's Charlotte Dubenskij asked Le Pen if she expects a similar wave of protests that hit the US after Trump's election to follow her potential victory in the French presidential elections. Tens of thousands of anti-Trump protestors took to streets across the US following his inauguration on January 20. Sister rallies were also held abroad.


"France is a democratic country, when elections are over, we respect the result," Le Pen told RT, speaking on the sidelines of her first conference as presidential candidate in Paris on Thursday.
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Vader

Does McCain hate Russia because he was shot down by a Soviet missile? Russian TV examines his Vietnam capture

Mark Nicholas
Russia Insider
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 18:27 UTC
John McCain
A great report from Russian TV on McCain. Russian journalists traveled to Vietnam and spoke to his captors, the man who shot him down, and many others.

It shows how Russians see the duke of chaos, and has some great info from when his career as war criminal was interrupted by a Soviet missile and Soviet-trained men.

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Stock Down

Mexico's peso hits record low on Trump's wall tax suggestion


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 19:35 UTC
A worker stands next to a newly built section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at Sunland Park, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez
© Jose Luis Gonzalez / ReutersA worker stands next to a newly built section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at Sunland Park, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez
The Mexican currency continued a downward slide against the dollar after US President Donald Trump floated an idea how to make Mexico pay for the border wall.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested a 20 percent tax on imports from the country, which could help to finance the initiative.


This pushed the Mexican currency down one percent to 21.3 pesos against the greenback. Since the beginning of the year, the peso has plunged nearly three percent against the dollar, and the currency is down over 16 percent since Trump's election on November 8.

"If you tax that $50 billion at 20 percent of imports - which is, by the way, a practice that 160 other countries do - right now our country's policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. By doing it that we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone," said Spicer.


Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Thursday that his country would not pay for any wall, which "divides" the US and Mexico.

Comment: See also: Mexican President cancels US visit over Trump's order to build border wall

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Bad Guys

Theresa May hypes Iran's 'malign influence' ahead of Trump meeting


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 17:56 UTC
tehran iran
© Tehran24.comTehran, Iran
Ahead of her first audience with US President Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Theresa May warned of what she called Iran's "malign influence," but urged brokers of the 2015 nuclear deal to engage with the agreement.

May told an audience at a Republican event that Iran is "a priority for the UK too as we support our allies in the Gulf states to push back against Iran's aggressive efforts to build an arc of influence from Tehran through to the Mediterranean."


Comment: What exactly is an 'aggressive effort to build an arc of influence'?! Iran is behaving perfectly reasonably and within the bounds of its interests.


Since diplomatic relations were restored in 2015, May has arguably used the most belligerent rhetoric about the regime in Tehran of any UK leader.

Iran, which has played a major role in fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), has seen its influence grow in the Middle East since the US and UK toppled the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.


Comment: Aha! Iran's military campaign against ISIS is a major reason why Iran is so demonized by the terrorist sponsors in the UK and US.

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Binoculars

US seeks to double surveillance towers along Mexican border

Spencer Woodman
The Intercept
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 17:26 UTC
shadow helicopter
On January 18, a week before Donald Trump issued Wednesday's executive order decreeing the immediate construction of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency posted a "Request for Information" to a federal database of government contract opportunities for private businesses. Although released without fanfare, the solicitation appears to be one of the earliest operational glimpses into the federal government's plans for heightened security along U.S. land borders under the Trump administration.

The request makes clear that in the days preceding Trump's swearing in, CBP was already taking steps to dramatically scale up its surveillance capabilities along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Because of the often treacherous and desolate terrain along the country's 1,954-mile southern land border, many have speculated that in such areas Trump's wall could be more of a digital surveillance shield composed of video camera towers and drones that scan for border crossing activity.
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Propaganda

'Fail Stream Media': RT America special on how mainstream journalists became fake news


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 17:21 UTC
RT news casters
The mainstream media has been heavily criticized over the last year due to its biased coverage of the US presidential election, the Syrian crisis and other stories. In a special report, RT America looks at how certain news outlets' credibility was undermined.

In Fail Stream Media, RT America's Alexey Yaroshevsky and Anya Parampil take a look at why the mainstream media failed at objectivity when reporting the important stories of 2016. While outlets from CNN to even Fox News called Republican Donald Trump "a clown" and "a joke," they were also responsible for his meteoric rise to the White House.

Media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) looked at 128 front-page campaign stories by three major newspapers over the course of two months. Their analysis found that Trump got twice as much coverage as his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

"The coverage did not focus on the issues much ‒ it covered less than 12 percent ‒ and the majority of it was campaign strategy pieces that really just focused on the horse race... who was teetering or who was gaining ground," FAIR's Ben Johnson told RT. "A lot of polling, too. That made up around 60 percent... which didn't really tell the voters anything."
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Attention

Prime Minister May condemns torture... as ex-army Tory MP says 'sometimes it might be justified'


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 14:48 UTC
Toture
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Prime Minister Theresa May has condemned torture in response to President Donald Trump's suggestion he will resume post-9/11 interrogation practices. But one of her own MPs has admitted he "was a kind of torturer" while serving in Northern Ireland.

Colonel Bob Stewart told the BBC he would likely be counted as a torturer today due to methods he employed as a soldier serving in Northern Ireland during 'the Troubles', the name given to the unrest there during the late 20th century.

The admission came just hours after May, who is visiting the US, distanced herself from reports that President Trump is considering an executive order to reopen torture 'black sites' like those employed by the US during the so-called War on Terror.

At a Republican Party event on Thursday, May appeared to stand firm on the issue, telling the politicians gathered: "We condemn torture and my view on that won't change - whether I'm talking to you or talking to the president."

"Our guidance is very clear about the position that the UK takes, and our position has not changed," she insisted.

Comment: 'Stand up to Trump, but stand with him,' - British media's advice to Theresa May on meeting The Donald
It's troubling that two days before May's meeting with Trump he stated that "torture works," The Times says.

Trump is expected to rip up restrictions put in place by former President Barack Obama after earlier stating that he wanted to bring back waterboarding and "a hell of a lot worse."

It has been highlighted that May could withhold intelligence sharing with Trump's CIA if it adopts torture techniques. May said the UK's guidelines on torture were "very clear" and that the approach towards it had not and would not change.

"What we think about torture is we condemn it. We do not believe in torture. That position has been clear for some time and that position is not going to change," the Times writes.

"As May left for Washington, Conservative and opposition MPs alike urged her to talk tough on torture in the Oval Office. What is needed is clarity.

"There will never be a level playing field in the fight against terrorism, and stooping to torture will only postpone victory. May's message should be that torture is wrong, but intelligence shared is intelligence squared," it adds.
See also: First Trump interview since becoming president: 'The world is a mess' and 'torture works' (Video, Transcript)

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Snakes in Suits

Federal Reserve bankers mocked unemployed Americans behind closed doors

Matt Stoller
The Intercept
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 16:57 UTC
A recruiter, left, takes the resume of an applicant during a job fair, in Philadelphia
© Matt Rourke/AP
In 2011, unemployment was at a near crisis level. The jobless rate was stuck around 9 percent nationally, an unusually high number due to the continuing effects of the financial crash.

House Democrats were aghast. "With almost five unemployed Americans for every job opening, too many people remain jobless because of a lack of work, not a lack of wanting to work," said Congressman Lloyd Doggett, D-Tex. So in early November 2011, they introduced a bill to reauthorize Federal unemployment benefits, an insurance program designed to aide those looking for work.

Behind closed doors at the Federal Reserve however, the conversation struck a different tone.
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Quenelle

Tulsi Gabbard's tour of Aleppo shames Western media

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 12:48 UTC
Tulsi Gabbard
© www.cnn.comCongresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, going against the congressional grain.
Tulsi Gabbard's tour of Aleppo shames Western journalists

My colleague Alex Christoforou has reported on the US Representative Tulsi Gabbard's forthright response to US media attempts to perpetuate the myth of President Assad's sole responsibility for the Syrian war.

A key point to make about Tulsi Gabbard is that she has made these comments after actually visiting Syria, and going to places like Damascus and Aleppo.

Comment: Further reading: Tulsi Gabbard travels to Syria, confirms "no difference between 'moderate' rebels & al-Qaeda or ISIS"

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