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Turkish sources connect assassin to Gulen, reveal details of his connections

Jerome R. Corsi
World Net Daily
Tue, 27 Dec 2016 02:08 UTC
Fethulla Gulen
© REUTERS/ Charles Mostoller
Turkish government intelligence has determined Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22 - the police officer who recently assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov while the ambassador was giving a speech to open an art gallery in Ankara - was a member of the Gulen organization, which claimed to be the same group that staged an unsuccessful coup in Turkey in July.

WND reported Nov. 3 the Clinton Foundation was engaged in a pay-to-play scheme to obtain Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's support for the Obama administration decision to give asylum to Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim imam the Erdogan government holds responsible for the attempted coup July 15.

He's now living in Saylorsborg, Pennsylvania.

Trusted sources close to the Turkish government have explained to WND on the condition of anonymity that assassin Mert Altintas, born in 1994, joined the police in Turkey in 2012 and graduated in 2014, when Gulen's organization, known in Turkey as the Fetullah Terrorist Organization, or FETO, was at the peak of its power in Turkey.
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Christmas Tree

Dear Santa, can you spare a moment to change the world?

Neil Clark
RT
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 23:36 UTC
Christmas tree
© Ruptly
I know you must be quite busy today, but if you find the time here are ten changes which I believe would make the world a much better place in 2017. Changes which are urgently needed.

I've already written to you with a personal wish list, but these ones are public. Perhaps you won't be able to deliver on all of them, but others reading my letter to you on the RT website might be able to do their bit too.

Radical redistribution of wealth

Half of the world's entire wealth is owned by just 62 people. Yes, that's right, 62.

At the same time, more than half of the world's population in rural areas live and work without access to essential health care services.

How can we accept this state of affairs?

Now Santa, I know you're not Robin Hood, or Che Guevara, but could you help us share the wealth out more equally - so that everyone on the planet has adequate health care and a roof over their heads? If this means we've got to change our economic system then so be it. We can't carry on as we are at present.
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Info

US prepares to sell off its oil reserves

Nick Cunningham
Oil Price
Fri, 23 Dec 2016 22:15 UTC
Offshore drilling rig
The U.S. is beginning to wind down one of the core energy security policies of the past half century as the boom in domestic drilling eases concerns about supply.
US strategic oil reserves chart
The U.S. Department of Energy could begin to sell off some of its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) as soon as January, the beginning of a multi-year process to shrink the nation's stockpile of oil. Congress has authorized DOE to sell off $375.4 million worth of oil in its recent budget resolution. The DOE said that such a sale could be held in January 2017.
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Info

Palestinian official expects 'difficult period' due to Trump's pro-Israel bias


Sputnik
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 22:02 UTC
Donald Trump
© AP Photo/ Susan Walsh
Egypt has withdrawn its support for a UNSC resolution condemning the illegal construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory, amid fears the US would veto it. Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told Sputnik that he expects things to get more difficult once President-elect Trump steps into office.

On Saturday, Egypt announced that it had withdrawn its backing of a UN Security Council resolution on the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory. The draft resolution had passed Security Council voting on Friday, with 14 of 15 permanent and rotating members supporting the initiative, and the US delegation abstaining from the vote.

Comment: Indeed, times will be tough for Palestinians: Trump appoints ex-Israeli settler Jason Greenblatt to oversee peace process

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Stock Up

Foreign investors eager to invest in Russia's largest oil company Rosneft


RT
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 21:47 UTC
Rosneft Moscow headquarters
© Sergei Karpukhin / ReutersRosneft headquarters across the Kremlin wall, in central Moscow, Russia.
New shareholders may acquire a stake in Russia's largest oil company Rosneft, as a consortium of foreign investors will probably sell part of its share, according to the sources close to the matter as quoted by Vedomosti daily.

An unnamed fund from the Middle East is the most likely potential purchaser, according to two sources cited by the daily. Another person close to the matter says Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi government sovereign wealth fund, is interested in acquiring Rosneft's shares.

Earlier this month, the natural resource trader Glencore International and a Qatari sovereign wealth fund acquired 19.5 percent of the company for €10.5 billion ($11.3 billion).

The partners became the third-largest stakeholder in the business with over 50 per cent still belonging to the state-owned oil transportation agency Rosneftegaz, while another 19.75 percent is owned by BP.

Rosneft negotiated with more than 30 companies, sovereign wealth funds and financial institutions from Europe, Americas, Middle East and Asia before selling the stake to the Glencore-Qatar consortium, according to the company's CEO Igor Sechin.

Rosneft stock has become very attractive to investors, according to the newspaper's sources. The oil major has recently changed its dividend policy. The company has promised to disburse 35 percent of net profit in dividend to its shareholders instead of 25 percent.

Moreover, oil prices continue to rise after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and non-OPEC oil producers reached a deal to cap output.

Comment: Ruble closing year as world's best-performing currency

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Jet4

Iran begins massive air drill Defenders of Velayat Skies 7 - Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli


RT
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 20:52 UTC
Iran's domestically-produced Saegheh fighter jets
© Morteza Nikoubazl / ReutersIran's domestically-produced Saegheh fighter jets
A massive air drill, known as the Defenders of Velayat Skies 7, has begun in the south of Iran, aimed at improving the aerial security of the country.

Foreign and civilian pilots were warned not to enter certain parts of Iranian airspace as the wargames, which began Monday, might put them at risk.

"The 5-day massive drills codenamed Defenders of Velayat Skies 7 will start tomorrow morning in a 496,000-square km region from Ahwaz and Shiraz to Kerman, Bushehr, Hormozgan, the trio of islands [Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb], Kish Island and Khark Island and the air borders of all these regions," Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli said Sunday, as quoted by Fars News Agency.

"Of course, we are witnessing the presence of a number of trans-regional planes outside the air and sea borders of the country but we emphasize that these planes should know their limits and know that we will take action in less than one second. They should fully keep away from the drills zone," he added, warning any possible intruders.

The drills, known as "Modafe'an-e Aseman-e Velayat-e 7" in Farsi, involve over 17,000 troops from the both the army and Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) including members of the Army Air Defense, IRGC Aerospace Force, Navy, Police and Basij (mobilization forces), artillery units of the Army and the IRGC, and fighter jets from the Air Force, including American-made McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms.

S300 missile systems will also take part in the event.
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Bomb

Iraqi diplomat found dead in Moscow, investigators checking the circumstances


Sputnik
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 20:25 UTC
Embassy of Iraq in Moscow
© Wikipedia/ User KalanEmbassy of Iraq in Moscow
Russian investigators began checking the circumstances of the death of a 46-year-old Iraqi diplomat, whose body was found in the building of the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow, Yulia Ivanova, the press secretary of the Main Investigations Directorate the city of Moscow, said Monday.

"Main Investigations Directorate of the city of Moscow has opened the preliminary check of the circumstances of this [death]," Ivanova said.
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Rocket

India conducts successful Agni-V missile test, President Pranab Mukherjee congratulates


RT
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 19:54 UTC
The launch of an Agni V intercontinental ballistic missile at Wheeler Island, India's Orissa state, on September 15, 2013
© DRDO / AFPThe launch of an Agni V intercontinental ballistic missile at Wheeler Island, India's Orissa state, on September 15, 2013
India has successfully tested its most powerful Agni-V ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the country's Defense Ministry announced. PM Narendra Modi dubbed the launch a "tremendous strength" of the country's defense.

The launch took place at about 10:30am Monday local time, from Kalam Island off the coast of India's eastern state of Odischa. Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee confirmed the latest show of force in a twitter message.

"I congratulate @DRDO_India scientists for the successful test of Agni-V missile, and further strengthening India's defence capabilities," the statement said.


The locally built Agni-5 missile is a three-stage, solid propellant intercontinental ballistic missile measuring 17 meters in length and two meters in diameter. The surface-to-surface missile has a payload capacity of over one ton and can carry a nuclear warhead at a distance of over 5,000 kilometers.


The respective range cements India's presence in an exclusive club of states (including US, Russia, China, France and the UK) whose ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads can reach other continents. The latest test is the fourth for Agni-V and the second one from a canister on a Road Mobile Launcher.

Modi cheered the successful launch, saying it boosts the country's strategic capabilities. "[The] successful test firing of Agni V makes every Indian very proud. It will add tremendous strength to our strategic defense," the Prime Minister said in a statement.

Comment: See also: India Tests Nuke-Capable Missile Able to Hit China

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Monkey Wrench

Flashback Best of the Web: Manufactured Discontent: Syrian People Never Desired Revolution

Stephen Gowans
what's left
Sat, 22 Oct 2016 13:35 UTC
Apparently, the US Left has yet to figure out that Washington doesn't try to overthrow neoliberals. If Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were a devotee of the Washington Consensus - as Counterpunch's Eric Draitser seems to believe - the United States government wouldn't have been calling since 2003 for Assad to step down. Nor would it be overseeing the Islamist guerilla war against his government; it would be protecting him.

There is a shibboleth in some circles that, as Eric Draitser put it in a recent Counterpunch article, the uprising in Syria "began as a response to the Syrian government's neoliberal policies and brutality," and that "the revolutionary content of the rebel side in Syria has been sidelined by a hodgepodge of Saudi and Qatari-financed jihadists." This theory appears, as far as I can tell, to be based on argument by assertion, not evidence.

Syria Assad support
A review of press reports in the weeks immediately preceding and following the mid-March 2011 outbreak of riots in Daraa—usually recognized as the beginning of the uprising—offers no indication that Syria was in the grips of a revolutionary distemper, whether anti-neo-liberal or otherwise. On the contrary, reporters representing Time magazine and the New York Times referred to the government as having broad support, of critics conceding that Assad was popular, and of Syrians exhibiting little interest in protest. At the same time, they described the unrest as a series of riots involving hundreds, and not thousands or tens of thousands of people, guided by a largely Islamist agenda and exhibiting a violent character.
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Boat

Chinese aircraft carrier, 5 warships on its way to S. China Sea drills, Japan keeping a close watch


RT
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 13:26 UTC
aircraft carrier
© Japan Self-Defence Force / ReutersChina's Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Liaoning sails the water in East China Sea, December 25, 2016.
A Chinese aircraft carrier along with five other vessels has passed through waters south of Taiwan on its way to what are reportedly the carrier's first blue water drills in the Pacific. Japan says it is closely monitoring the exercises.

The 'Liaoning' carrier passed some 90 nautical miles south of Taiwan's southernmost point through the Bashi Channel, between Taiwan and the Philippines.

The Liaoning, with its accompanying fleet, will carry out drills in the Western Pacific "in accordance with annual exercise plans," the Chinese navy said in a statement on Saturday.

Tokyo will closely monitor the drill, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference on Monday, as reported by Reuters. The drill is largely seen as an indication of China's growing military potential.

Comment: See also:

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