Puppet MastersS


Megaphone

Lavrov: US wanted to use terrorists in Syria to overthrow Assad


TASS
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 18:04 UTC
jabhat al nusra terrorists
© AP Photo/Hassan Ammar
The United States wanted to use the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groupings (outlawed in Russia) to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sad at an annual press conference on Tuesday.

"There are a lot of examples showing that the Americans and their allies sneakily wanted to use al-Nusra and the IS to weaken and finally overthrow the Assad regime," Lavrov said.

"That is why, they were quite reserved in implementing their stated goal of fighting against terrorism," the Russian foreign minister said.

Similarly to how Al-Qaeda emerged when the Americans supported mujahideen in the 1980s, the IS came into existence after Iraq's occupation in 2003, Lavrov said.

"Exactly in the same way, Jabhat al-Nusra, which is one of Al Qaeda offshoots, is the most vicious, the cruelest and the most merciless terrorist force in the Syrian crisis now," he added.

As the Russian foreign minister said, "it was only after the Russian air task force started to operate in Syria in September last year at the request of President Assad that the US-led coalition that had existed for a year by that time started in earnest at least somehow to bomb IS positions and deliver strikes against its infrastructure, including oilfields, which the IS used for its own financing through smuggling," the Russian foreign minister said.

Comment: All anyone has to do to confirm what Lavrov is saying is to hear it from the horse's mouth: John Kerry admits that Russia entered Syrian war to stop ISIS, U.S. used ISIS to pressure Assad

Also read: Lavrov reminds Western 'messiahship' bred Ukrainian crisis, Arab Spring and the refugee flood

Read More...
Bad Guys

The deep state crawls to the surface to battle Trump

Eric S. Margolis
EricMargolis.com
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 17:40 UTC
Brennan CIA trump
President Trump and John Brennan
As President-elect Donald Trump fights off fierce assaults by the massed national security apparatus, Democrats, the neocon Praetorian Guard, and a host of other political foes, I am feeling a sharp sense of déjà vu.

Trump claimed that these attacks were like 'living in Nazi Germany.' Not so. The president-elect could have found a much better analogy: Moscow in August, 1991.

I was in Moscow, Central Asia and the Caucasus covering the Soviet Union's last days and meeting with senior KGB leaders. What a dramatic and exciting time it was. In fact, on my first night in Moscow a Russian friend and I, fired from drinking potent Georgian moonshine, managed to wake up the then director of KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, at two am by playing very loud music under his apartment. He kept stamping on the floor. My Russian-Georgian friend said, 'just ignore the old fool.'

Two years later, another old Soviet fool, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov, tried to overthrow the reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev. A so-called 'gang of eight' of senior Communist Party officials, intelligence bigwigs and military men secretly formed to overthrow party leader Gorbachev.

Reformist Gorbachev was trying to remake the Communist Party, end its brutal policies, stop the stalemated war in Afghanistan, and allow restive nationalities, like the Baltic peoples, to edge away from the USSR. Gorby also wanted to cut way back on military spending - then almost 40% of GDP - that was bankrupting the Soviet Union. He sought good, peaceful relations with the West.
Read More...
Star of David

Netanyahu's latest scandal: Who bribed whom in the Israeli media swamp?

Jonathan Cook
Al Jazeera
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 17:06 UTC
netayahu
© Gali Tibbon/ReutersIf Netanyahu is indicted, he will almost certainly have to step down
The smell of scandal has swirled around the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for years. But only now is the smell starting to turn to a stench, say analysts.

Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, have long been known for cultivating close relations with Israel's leading business families. Those ties, many Israelis assumed, explained why the famously parsimonious couple managed to indulge such expensive tastes.

Past investigations have looked into first-class transatlantic flights and stays at top hotels, but foundered on a lack of evidence that the Netanyahus had traded the high life for favours.

Until recently, most of the Israeli public had been amused, rather than outraged, by stories of astronomical bills at the prime minister's residence for wine, ice-cream and hairstyling.

But the latest revelations have the potential to be far more damaging. This week one Israeli commentator suggested Netanyahu's conduct risked being compared to the behaviour of a head of a "banana republic".

Police are pursuing two parallel investigations, dubbed cases 1,000 and 2,000. The latter may turn out to be the most serious.
Read More...
Info

Lavrov reminds Western 'messiahship' bred Ukrainian crisis, Arab Spring and the refugee flood


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 17:45 UTC
protester holds an Egyptian flag
© Yannis Behrakis / AFPA protester holds an Egyptian flag as he stands in front of water canons during clashes in Cairo January 28, 2011.
The foreign policies of Western nations have been driven by 'messiahship' and attempts to export their values worldwide, Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday. This approach ultimately led to the Ukrainian crisis, the 'Arab Spring' and the refugee crisis.

"The export of values continues to sow crises in international relations. This export of values and the demand to adhere only to a European perspective launched the crisis in Ukraine," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"Exporting democracy led to the so-called 'Arab Spring' [and] gave birth to the export of refugees into Europe," Lavrov said at a press conference on the results of Russian diplomacy in 2016. He also noted that from his point of view, current Western values are not traditional for Europe itself.

"If we talk about the Western, European values that we are all constantly reminded of as exemplary, they are not the values that were professed by the ancestors of modern-day Europeans, they are something new, modernized."

"I would describe them as post-Christian values [that] are fundamentally at odds with the values of our country, which we want to keep and pass on," Lavrov said.
Read More...
Heart - Black

Tip of the iceberg: UN 'estimates' death toll in Yemen has surpassed 10,000


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 05:46 UTC
destruction yemen
© Naif Rahma / Reuters A boy walks inside a house destroyed by a recent Saudi-led air strike in the northwestern city of Saada, Yemen January 4, 2017.
The death toll in the Yemeni conflict has surpassed 10,000 people, according to "estimates" from a senior UN official, amidst the ongoing chaos in the war-torn country suffering a tremendous humanitarian disaster.

"I don't know the figures but the estimates are that over 10,000 people have been killed in this conflict and almost 40,000 people injured," UN Yemen Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick told the reporters at a press conference in Sanaa.

The estimates seem to be pretty rough, since McGoldrick stated in August last year that "at least 10,000 people" had been killed in the protracted conflict.

Comment: The real death toll from the US/ Saudi war on Yemen is likely much higher due to the Saudi's deliberate starvation of the population; Yemeni NGO Save the Children has estimated that 1,000 children die every week.

Read More...
Info

In Davos debut, Xi Jinping warns against trade war and protectionism


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 17:23 UTC
Xi Jinping
© Ruben Sprich / Reuters
In his debut at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping defended globalization and warned that no one would win in a trade war.

Xi said economic integration has powered global growth and improved the lives of millions.

"It is true that economic globalization created new problems, but this is no justification to write off economic globalization altogether. Rather we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impacts and deliver its benefits for all countries," said Xi, marking the first Davos visit by a Chinese head of state.

Comment: Xi's speech may fall on deaf Westerner's ears because their version of free-trade is only for their benefit, not for the nations around the world that get sucked dry of their wealth.

Read More...
Info

Lavrov denies meddling in European votes and blasts US intelligence


RFE/RL
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 17:01 UTC
Sergei Lavrov
© Sputnik
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says any claims that Moscow is staging cyberattacks to interfere in European elections are "dreamt-up."

Speaking at an annual news conference on January 17, Lavrov also said U.S. intelligence agencies that he said tried to prove President-elect Donald Trump had compromising links to Russia "have drawn a blank and should be fired, because they've done worthless work."

He described the former British spy who wrote a dossier on Trump's alleged links to Russia, including an account of an alleged episode with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel, as a charlatan.
Read More...
Vader

Putin accuses outgoing US administration of attempting to undermine Trump's legitimacy


TASS
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 16:52 UTC
putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the outgoing US administration of trying to undermine the legitimacy of US President-elect Donald Trump.

"What we see is the continuing sharp domestic political struggle although the presidential elections are over and they ended with a convincing victory of Mr. Trump," Putin told reporters after talks with Moldovan President Igor Dodon.
Read More...
Handcuffs

Spain arrests Moroccan boxing coach accused of running ISIS terrorist recruiting cell


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 04:40 UTC
Spain arrest ISIL terrorist
© AGENCIA EFE / YouTube
Spanish security forces have arrested a Moroccan boxing coach suspected of running an Islamic State terrorist recruiting cell, two members of which were arrested in France and Morocco in 2016.

The detained suspect, who held a Spanish residency permit, is being accused of recruiting jihadist fighters by gaining the trust of young men through his coaching position.

"The accused was very active in finding new recruits and would approach young people at risk of social exclusion, easily influenced and emotionally unstable, and make the most of his position as a boxing coach to win their confidence," the interior ministry said on Monday.
Read More...
Bulb

"We must establish a relationship with Russia": Another German politician calls for rapprochement with Russia

Translated from German by Tom Winter
Fort Russ
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 16:58 UTC
Gregor Gysi
Former head of the LinksPartei Gregor Gysi
In an interview with watson.ch, the former head of the Linkspartei Gregor Gysi promotes a rapprochement between Germany and Russia. "I consider the sanctions as a failure," he replied to a question about Germany's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The German media has reported extensively on the pro-Russian course of the national conservative AfD party. Leading AfD politicians like Alexander Gauland regularly promote a German-Russian rapprochement.

But the AfD is not alone in this sentiment. More and more politicians of the Left Party criticize Germany's current Russia policy: Wolfgang Gehrke, Sahra Wagenknecht, Bernd Riexinger. Now Gregor Gysi also chimes in.

Comment: Also see: German Left leader echoes Trump: Dissolve NATO, create new military alliance with Russia

Read More...