Puppet MastersS


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You are not free: Spanish court axes Catalonia's independence plans


RT
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:33 UTC
catalonia
© Albert Gea / Reuters
Spain's constitutional court has suspended Catalonia's pro-independence roadmap, which was passed by the region's parliament last week. It followed allegations from Madrid that Catalonia violated the Spanish constitution by allowing a vote on the plan.

Magistrates accepted an appeal by the Spanish government on Monday, which claimed that Catalonia's Committee to Study the Constitutive Process - the group responsible for designing the region's strategy towards independence - violated the Spanish constitution when it allowed parliament to vote on the roadmap on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

The Catalan Chamber will now have 20 days to communicate the court's decision to its members and present any appeals.

Comment: Common sense: constitutions can be wrong. Kosovo and Crimea are precedents, one internationally recognized as 'legal', the other not. We'll just have to see how far the Spanish authorities are willing to go to enforce their will over the democratic will of Catalonians.

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Info

France closed 20 mosques and prayer halls since December for preaching radical Islam


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:03 UTC
Muslims pray at a mosque in Paris
© Zohra Bensemra / Reuters
French authorities have closed around 20 mosques and prayer halls considered to be preaching radical Islam since December, according to the country's interior minister. He went on to promise that "there will be others."

"There is no place...in France for those who call for and incite hatred in prayer halls or in mosques, and who don't respect certain republican principles, notably equality between men and women," Bernard Cazeneuve said following a meeting with leaders of the French Council of the Muslim Religion on Monday, as quoted by AFP.

"That is why I took the decision a few months ago to close mosques through the state of emergency, legal measures or administrative measures. About 20 mosques have been closed, and there will be others," he continued.
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Cult

Is Europe doomed by the EU's vassalage to Washington?

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:13 UTC
EU vassals washington
"One Ring to rule them all . . . and in the darkness bind them."
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

World War II resulted in Europe being conquered, not by Berlin but by Washington.

The conquest was certain but not all at once. Washington's conquest of Europe resulted from the Marshall Plan, from fears of Stalin's Red Army that caused Europe to rely on Washington's protection and to subordinate Europe's militaries to Washington in NATO, from the replacement of the British pound as world reserve currency with the US dollar, and from the long process of the subordination of the sovereignty of individual European countries to the European Union, a CIA initiative implemented by Washington in order to control all of Europe by controlling only one unaccountable government.

With few exceptions, principally the UK, membership in the EU also meant loss of financial independence. As only the European Central Bank, an EU institution, can create euros, those countries so foolish as to accept the euro as their currency no longer have the power to create their own money in order to finance budget deficits.

The countries that joined the euro must rely on private banks to finance their deficits. The result of this is that over-indebted countries can no longer pay their debts by creating money or expect their debts to be written down to levels that they can service. Instead, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, and Ireland were looted by the private banks.

The EU forced the pseudo-governments of these countries to pay the northern European private banks by suppressing the living standards of their populations and by privatizing public assets at pennies on the dollar. Thus retirement pensions, public employment, education and health services have been cut and the money redirected to private banks. Municipal water companies have been privatized with the result being higher water bills. And so on.

As there is no reward, only punishment, for being a member of the EU, why did governments, despite the expressed wishes of their peoples, join?
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Dollar Gold

Kremlin mum on Clinton's alleged investment in Russia except 'if it was, it was good'


Sputnik
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 15:53 UTC
Skolkovo
© Artiom Korotaev/TASS
Moscow is not commenting on the publication claiming that the US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has allegedly been engaged in attracting US investment in the Russian Skolkovo Innovation Center while being US secretary of state, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.

On July 31, The Wall Street Journal reported that US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party Clinton, while serving as the 67th secretary of state, was attracting US investment in the Russian Skolkovo Innovation Center, a move that might "have substantially undermined U.S. national security."

During Clinton's tenure, the US State Department promoted the establishment and development of the Russian version of Silicon Valley.
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Jet5

Russian media reports Moscow may launch massive airstrikes to take back bodies of helicopter crew


FARS News Agency
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 15:39 UTC
Russian helicopter shot down
A Russian daily said Moscow might launch massive airstrikes on the terrorists in areas controlled by Fatah al-Sham Front (the newly formed al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group previously known as al-Nusra Front) if the militants don't give back the bodies of the slain helicopter crew that was shot down on Monday.

According to Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper, Russia is to warn the terrorists to return the bodies of the crew killed in the Monday helicopter downing in Idlib or wait for massive airstrikes on their positions.

The daily added that the operations to transfer the bodies of the Russian pilots to Hmeimim air base in Lattakia will be complicated and the Russian forces should launch intensive attacks against the terrorist-held regions to make them withdraw and then advance in that area to return the corpses.

A Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Idlib by ground fire following the delivery of humanitarian supplies to Aleppo, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday. Three crew and two officers from Russia's Reconciliation Center died, according to a Kremlin statement.
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Cheeseburger

The Economist's "Big Mac index" compares national economies - shows ruble to be undervalued


RT
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 03:08 UTC
Hamburger food diet protein
© Paul J. Richards / Agence France-Presse
The Russian ruble is severely undervalued against the US dollar, according to the 'Big Mac Index'. The currency analysis of the price of the popular McDonald's burger across the world was created by The Economist.

While a Big Mac in the US in June costs $5.04, in Russia the burger is priced at $2.05. The Big Mac price indicates this exchange rate undervalues the ruble by nearly 60 percent, and that one dollar should currently cost 25.8 rubles instead of Monday's official exchange of 66.40 rubles to the greenback.

According to the analysis, the Ukrainian hryvnia is undervalued by 68.8 percent with the cost of a Big Mac kept to $1.57.

The 'Big Mac Index' reveals that emerging nations' currencies are still left significantly undervalued with the Chinese yuan and South African rand down by 45 and 58 percent respectively.

Comment: This is a good illustration of how countries manipulate their currencies to try to gain an economic advantage in world markets.

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Bad Guys

US trolls manufacture imaginary Russian backlash if non-existent evidence was released of Moscow involvement in DNC hack


PressTV
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 14:22 UTC
Obama Clinton
US officials say President Barack Obama must carefully consider how to respond to what security experts believe was Russia's involvement in the hacking of Democratic Party organizations amid Washington's concerns of a confrontation with Moscow. US intelligence officials said publicly blaming the intelligence services of Russian President Vladimir Putin would bring immediate pressure on Washington to disclose its evidence, which relies on highly classified sources and methods.


Comment: Of course they cannot disclose evidence... because there isn't any! Its 'classified sources and methods' is jargon for back-room troll propaganda, nothing more.


The intelligence officials said they fear of a rapid escalation of cyber attacks by Russia if Washington retaliates against Moscow in cyberspace. Under a worst-case scenario, Russia's sophisticated hackers could attack financial systems, power grids and other critical infrastructure, the intelligence officials said.


Comment: For crying out loud! These maniacal 'reality creators' are engaging the American public in pure deluded fantasy of monumental proportions! The State Department might as well release a mobile app where Americans can find Russian monsters hiding under their beds. The level of absurdity surrounding this fiasco is astounding.

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Hardhat

Wasting no time: Russia lands first major deal with Iran post sanctions


RT
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:04 UTC
iran russia energy deal sanctions
© Raheb Homavandi / ReutersA view of the reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Russian state company Rostec has reached a €1 billion deal with Iran to build a 1.4 gigawatt power station, Kommersant daily reports. Rostec is the first Russian company to get a firm contract with Tehran since the ending of sanctions.

The Hormozgan plant in the port of Bandar Abbas will be built by Rostec subsidiary Tekhnopromexport and will take five years to construct.

According to the newspaper, it will have four 350 megawatt generators and a seawater desalination plant with a capacity of 200,000 cubic meters per day. Tekhnopromexport won't invest its own money, 85 percent of the funds will come from a Russian state loan at 2.77 percent interest, with the difference provided by Tehran.

This isn't the biggest power plant Russia has built in Iran. In the 1980s, the USSR built the Ramin (1.89 gigawatt) and the Isfahan (1.6 gigawatt) plants in the country.

The devaluation of the ruble has made Russian projects more competitive abroad, although analysts polled by Kommersant regard the new project as more political.

"This is a totally political project, and the construction margin is very low," said Vladimir Sklyar from Renaissance Capital. He said it's hard for Moscow to make big profit from such projects, as they are funded by Russian loans and built by Russian contractors.

Despite growing political ties between Moscow and Tehran, economic cooperation between the countries is complicated by project financing, the newspaper says. Iran is ready to attract Russian contractors, but only for Russian loans.

Thus, Russian Railways and Tehran have agreed a €1.2 billion project to electrify 495 kilometers of Iranian railroad, but the contract hasn't been signed. Inter RAO is ready to modernize and expand Iranian hydroelectric and power generation but financing is still unclear, reports Kommersant.
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Pistol

Serbia protests Croatia's statue of fascist terrorist Miro Baresic who assassinated Yugoslav ambassador in 1971


Radio Free Europe
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:53 UTC
croatia statue assassin Barsic
The Serbian Foreign Ministry demanded on August 1 the removal of the monument to Miro Baresic that was unveiled in the seaside Croatian village of Drage on July 31.
Serbia has issued a strong protest against a new statue in Croatia of an ultranationalist independence fighter who assassinated the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden in 1971.

The Serbian Foreign Ministry demanded on August 1 the removal of the monument to Miro Baresic that was unveiled in the seaside Croatian village of Drage on July 31. Croatian cabinet members and prominent public figures attended the unveiling.

Baresic was a supporter of the Ustasha -- the Nazi puppet regime -- who campaigned and fought for Croatian independence from Yugoslavia. He shot Ambassador Vladimir Rolovic in the Yugoslav Embassy in Stockholm and was sentenced in Sweden to life in prison.

But a group of Croatian far rightists hijacked a Scandinavian Airlines plane in 1972 and forced officials to release Baresic. He fled to Paraguay but was eventually recaptured and extradited to Sweden in 1980.

In 1991, Baresic was released from prison and returned to Croatia where he was killed while fighting against Serbian-led forces.

Baresic is considered a terrorist in Serbia but a hero among many Croats due to his devotion to Croatian independence.

Comment: Just another European nation that idolizes their Nazi psychopath heroes. Nothing to see here.

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Info

UK anti-terrorism cops on permanent standby in preparation for attacks


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 14:34 UTC
British police
© Eddie Keogh / Reuters
UK counter-terrorism cops are going on permanent standby amid fears of a Europe-style assault on targets across Britain.

Specialist armed police units will provide 24 hour coverage ready to respond to attacks like those in Nice in July if there is an attempt to replicate them on British streets.

London Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe wrote in the Mail newspaper that his force was "training hundreds of extra officers so they are ready to supplement our numbers during an attack similar to that seen in Paris. This increases armed officers by 600 to 2,800."
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