Puppet MastersS


Chess

Tensions mounting: South Korea to use EMP weapon in fight against North's drones


RT
Sun, 27 Nov 2016 14:07 UTC
south korea emp weapon
© Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters
South Korea will soon put to use a powerful weapon in the fight against North Korean drones - the electromagnetic pulse (EMP), its military reported.

The directional, high-powered EMP generator has already been developed, according to Yonhap news agency.

It was presented last week at a conference hosted by the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology, and developed by the Agency for Defense Development (ADD). It is now up to Seoul to figure out how to adjust it for use against Pyongyang's UAVs.

An electromagnetic pulse sends out a wave that disables all electrical equipment it targets.

Comment: Tension grows between North and South Korea: US Empire is the real enemy of both

Read More...
Arrow Up

U.S. Congress ups aid to Ukrainian Nazis and Syrian terrorists


RT
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 20:30 UTC
soldier
© Alaa Al-Marjani / Reuters
Congress has authorized $618.7 billion for the 2017 military budget. The bill ups aid to Ukraine by $50 million and allows the transfer of missiles to Syrian rebels. However, it omits controversial provisions about drafting women or religious exemptions for contractors.

The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed in the Senate on Thursday with 92 votes in favor and seven opposing. It already cleared the House last Friday in a 375-34 vote. With the annexes, appendices and the conference report harmonizing the two chambers' versions, the final document is 3,076 pages long.

Absent from the NDAA is the proposal to allow female Americans to register for the Selective Service system, which replaced the Vietnam War-era draft but currently only applies to men aged 18-25. That proposal was sent to the Government Accountability Office for further study.
Read More...
Laptop

Wikileaks emails reveal The Colbert Report gave Clinton Foundation's CGI production control

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
Stephen Colbert
© Consumerist'Stephen Colbert' is CGI's intellectual property.
"Money makes the world go around," the old adage states, but when the worlds of politics and crony capitalism come together, a lot can get done, and as we know, a lot of money changes hands. Thanks to Wikileaks' release of John Podesta's emails (Hillary Clinton's campaign manager), any average Joe can now peer into the way the world works, focusing on the Clintons' politics and their strategic media partners, one of which appears to be Stephen Colbert and Comedy Central's cable network.

Colbert was unabashedly supportive of Clinton for president. He must surely be eating humble pie after confidently declaring in 2015, concerning Donald Trump's chances at winning the presidency, "You're not gonna be president, it's been fun, it's been great, I love you, but come on, come on, buddy! All let's say cow poo poo aside, there is zero chance we'll be seeing you being sworn in on the capitol steps with your hand on a giant golden Bible."

Frankly, Comedy Central and Stephen Colbert (who currently hosts The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ) can make arrangements with charities and advertisers, alike, if they so choose, but the American people are now much more keenly aware of the networks' business dealings, thanks in part to Wikileaks' leak of Podesta's emails.

Comment: We live in a world of layers and what is on the surface does not necessarily or accurately represent the whole. It is up to individuals and truth-seeking organizations to bring those layers to light and expose the depths to which they go.

Back in July, 2016:
CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert brought back his 'arch-conservative former alter ego — also named Stephen Colbert' — from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to comment on the goings-on in Cleveland [The Republican National Convention]. The brief stunt apparently didn't go over well with the lawyers at Comedy Central, forcing Colbert to a new intellectual property work-around: introducing a completely new character [who just happens to look and sound exactly like him].

"Immediately after the show, CBS's top lawyer was contacted by the top lawyer from another company to say that the character Stephen Colbert is their intellectual property," said Colbert on last night's show. "Which is surprising because I never considered that guy much of an intellectual." As such, "the character of Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, will never be seen again. What can I do?" asked the host. "I can not reasonably argue I own my face or name."

Rather than mourn the loss of one Stephen Colbert, Colbert celebrate the birth of another Stephen Colbert: his identical twin cousin Stephen Colbert, who appeared via satellite from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.


Read More...
Blue Planet

Controversial choice: Trump picks EPA chief who fought Obama's climate rules


RFE/RL
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
Gen Scott Pruitt
© AFPOklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will nominate a strong opponent of the Obama administration's climate change regulations to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), news media reported on December 7.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, whose state is a top oil and gas producer in the United States, has led court challenges to President Barack Obama's first-ever climate regulations requiring power plants to switch from coal to natural gas and other clean energy sources.

News of the Pruitt pick enraged environmental activists and cheered the powerful oil industry.

Trump during his White House campaign promised to severely cut back EPA regulations, restore coal mining, free up drilling, and roll back Obama's legacy of imposing the first-ever U.S. curbs on greenhouse gases. The power plant regulations, along with rules ratcheting up vehicle fuel efficiency standards, are a central part of Obama's plan to comply with the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump said he would pull the United States out of that agreement during the campaign but has appeared more open to honoring the deal at times since his election.

Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders vowed to "vigorously oppose" the Pruitt nomination, which environmentalists likened to "having the fox guard the henhouse."

Comment: As with all of Trump's deliberations and choices, there is again that aspect of a moving target with definition forthcoming.

Read More...
USA

The 2016 "Saker man of the year": America's 'basket of deplorables'

Saker
The Saker
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
USvoters
© VOA News
Yeah, once again, I am going to engage in that silly business when I pretend that my blog is a "respectable media outlet" and, as such, to give myself the proper credibility and gravitas I have to copy Time magazine and others and chose a "man of the year". This year, however, this truly was a no-brainer. The 2016 "man of the year" is, of course, the American "basket of deplorables".

No, not Trump. Trump might well be Time's man of the year, but as far as I am concerned, this man is just a promise, and he will remain that to me until he delivers on what he has promised the American voter. No, the real heroes of our story today are, of course, the millions who dared defy the Empire and who voted for Trump.

The American voter who inflicted the worst bitch-slap to the US propaganda machine (aka "the mainstream media") ever. What happened in this election is nothing short of the biggest defeat in the history of propaganda.

As an ex Cold Warrior who studied the Soviet media for a living, I can say that the US media nowadays is infinitely worse in its willingness to not only lie, but condescendingly deny the obvious, show a total lack of conscience or even basic decency. US presstitutes give prostitution a bad name.

The American voter was subjected to the most intensive (and, probably, expensive) propaganda barrage in history. Keep in mind that in overtly dictatorial regimes most adults realize that they are being lied to. In the USA, every American is brainwashed from birth to believe that the US press is the best and freest in the world and that the US democracy is also the best and freest in the world. To vote for Trump, the US voter had to go against every single sacred dogma the US Empire has tried so hard to indoctrinate its subject in. This is far harder than one would think. Those interested in this topic can consult this article on the Asch conformity experiments or Milgram's famous experiment on obedience and authority.

Comment: Though the 2016 election exposed the 'worst of the worst,' the American voters survived, saving 'the best' for last.

Read More...
Stock Up

Emergencies Minister to UN: Humanitarian crisis costs must be footed by the conflict instigators


RT
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:19 UTC
humanitarian aid
© EMERCOM of Russia"We deliver."
The head of Russia's Emergencies Ministry has proposed a new economic model of humanitarian assistance and reparation payments to victims of war zones, recommending that initiators of conflict pay for the destruction and suffering caused by their policies.

"The Russian Federation proposes to build a new economic model of international humanitarian aid," Vladimir Puchkov told the UN General Assembly in New York. The model is quite simple, according to Puchkov, who said that nations which initiate, incite and sponsor conflicts in other states should be "obliged to bear primary responsibility, including financial" for providing aid to refugees and persons internally displaced as a result.

The need to create a new mechanism arises from the lack of funding for international humanitarian relief budgets. Currently only around 5 percent of the funds required to remedy the widespread destruction and suffering are available, the Russian minister said.



Comment: You break it; you fix it; you pay for it. Nations shouldn't be any different. Enforcing it will be the trick, apparently one the UN doesn't have.

Read More...
Rocket

Editorial: China may need more nuclear weapons dealing with Trump just in case

Gareth Davies
Daily Mail
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 02:30 UTC
trump
© The Daily DotDoes Trump hold the China card?
China needs more nuclear weapons to deal with Donald Trump should the US treat Beijing unacceptably, according to a government mouthpiece newspaper. An editorial in the pro-government Global Times said China should 'significantly' increase military spending and build more nuclear weapons as a response to comments made by the President-elect Donald Trump on the country's policies.

China should 'build more strategic nuclear arms and accelerate the deployment of the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile' to protect its interests, should Trump attempt to corner the country in an 'unacceptable way', it said.'China's military spending in 2017 should be augmented significantly,' it added in the print article run in both English and Chinese.

The paper is not part of the official state media, but has close ties to the ruling Communist Party. Chinese officials are sometimes thought to use it as a rhetorical hammer.

The president-elect frequently savaged China on the campaign trail, even calling it America's 'enemy' and pledging to stand up to a country he says views the US as a pushover. But he has also indicated he is not interested in projecting US power away from home, saying America is sick of paying to defend allies like Japan and South Korea - even suggesting they should develop their own nuclear weapons.

Comment: Perhaps a definition of 'treating China unacceptably' and clarification of Trump's yin-yang position would be a good start.

Read More...
Nuke

Fukushima disaster costs have doubled to near $200B


Rt
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 14:46 UTC
fukushima debris
© Toru Hanai / ReutersDebris removal at Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The costs related to the Fukushima nuclear accident have significantly grown to $188 billion (21.5 trillion yen), according to the Japanese government. The costs were initially projected at about 11 trillion yen. The rising estimated cost means a heavier burden on Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and other utilities, which are being urged to conduct drastic restructuring and reforms. It could also result in higher power bills for consumers.

In 2011, a nine magnitude earthquake struck Japan, triggering a deadly tsunami. Flooding then caused a cooling system failure at TEPCO's Fukushima plant and a meltdown in three reactors. Officials say the decommissioning of the wrecked Fukushima reactors will take several decades. The cost is now estimated at $70 billion (8 trillion yen), quadruple an earlier projection of $17.5 billion (2 trillion yen).

TEPCO's portion of the bill has more than doubled to $138 billion (15.9 trillion yen) from $63 billion (7.2 trillion yen). The other leading utilities will need to pay $32 billion (3.7 trillion yen) while new electric companies will have to shoulder $2 billion (240 billion yen).

Comment: Vigilance and pro-active solutions to potential problems must be part of all nuclear facility protocols. The costs of a disaster are not just confined to the state of the facility and physical restitution. There is an ongoing global and human cost that is not calculated.

Read More...
Rocket

China preps for anti-satellite missile test

Bill Gertz
The Washington Free Beacon
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 05:00 UTC
DN-3 Contrails
© Tiananmen's Tremendous Achievements - WordPress.comThe handwriting's in the sky.
China is preparing to conduct a flight test of a new missile capable of destroying satellites in space, one of Beijing's most potent asymmetric warfare weapons. Test preparations for the Dong Neng-3 anti-satellite missile were detected at a military facility in central China, according to Pentagon officials familiar with reports of the impending test.

Intelligence agencies were alerted to the impending test by China's announcement of air closure zones covering the expected flight path of the DN-3. The flight test could come as early as Thursday, the officials said. No other details of the missile test were available. A Pentagon spokesman and a State Department official both said, "We do not comment on intelligence matters."

Asia watcher Henri Kenhmann reported on his website Eastpendulum.com this week that missile tests were expected from the People's Liberation Army satellite launch facility known as Jiuquan, located in Inner Mongolia, and a second launch complex at Korla, located in Xinjiang, western China. The expected tests were based on Chinese government announcements of air closure areas for Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 near those sites. Kenhmann said the flight tests could involve a missile defense interceptor test.
KZ11
© unknownKuaizhou-11 space launcher
Read More...
TV

Murdoch's 21st Century Fox agrees to buy British satellite broadcaster Sky

Rebecca Penty and David Hellier
Bloomberg News
Fri, 09 Dec 2016 13:50 UTC
Sky headquarters
© Bloomberg NewsBritish Sky Broadcasting Group's headquarters in London.
21st Century Fox Inc. reached a preliminary deal to acquire full control of Sky Plc for 11.2 billion pounds ($14.1 billion), as billionaire Rupert Murdoch seeks to consolidate his television empire.

Fox, which already holds a 39 percent stake in Sky, proposed acquiring the rest for 10.75 pounds a share, according to a filing Friday in the U.K., a premium of 36 percent over Thursday's closing price. The bid revives a 2010 deal that was derailed amid a phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch newspapers.

Gaining total ownership of Sky would give Fox, which owns cable networks including FX and Nat Geo, a powerful distribution platform in Europe for pay television and internet. Sky, Europe's top pay-TV company, provides service to 21.8 million customers across the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Austria and Germany. A deal would marry the global content business of 21st Century Fox with Sky's direct-to-consumer capabilities, Fox said in a statement.

"It would also enhance Sky's leading position in entertainment and sport, and reinforce the U.K.'s standing as a top global hub for content generation and technological innovation," the statement from Fox said.

Comment: Knowledge and freedom go hand in hand. Those who control information can control the masses of people. See:

Read More...