Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

CIA director heads to Bosnia on unannounced visit for "counterterrorism meetings"

Guy Taylor
Washington Times
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:44 UTC
CIA Director John Brennan
© Alex Brandon
The Obama administration dispatched CIA Director John O. Brennan to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a series of counterterrorism meetings Friday amid ongoing concern among intelligence officials that the Islamic State terror group aims to open a front in southeastern Europe.

Mr. Brennan arrived in Sarajevo on an unannounced visit from Saudi Arabia, where he held meetings this week with senior officials from six Arab nations on the sidelines of President Obama's own trip to Riyadh.

The Associated Press reported that the head of Bosnia and Herzegovina's anti-terrorism group, Goran Salihovic, told reporters Friday that Mr. Brennan's visit was a "great honor" and that Bosnian officials would brief the CIA chief on their counterterrorism activities.

Mr. Brennan's visit comes roughly four months after Bosnian authorities engaged in an aggressive sweep that arrested at least 11 people suspected of ties to the Islamic State, the Syria- and Iraq-headquartered terrorist group known as ISIS and ISIL.

While ISIS has claimed responsibility for last month's suicide bombing attacks on Brussels, as well as those that ripped through Paris last November, the Bosnian arrests underscored growing concern among U.S. and European officials that the terror group may see the Balkans as a major target opportunity.
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Map

Russia: Sorry, Israel, Golan Heights is Syrian territory


Sputnik
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:41 UTC
AFP 2016/ JALAA MAREY
Illegal occupiers in Golan Heights.
Russia will abide by the UN Security Council resolutions on the Golan Heights, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

Moscow's stance on the Golan Heights remains unchanged and is in line with UN Security Council resolutions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

"The Russian stance is not changing in any way, it is in line with the relevant Security Council resolutions, there are no new elements to this position," Peskov told reporters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting on Thursday that the Golan Heights would remain under Israel's control. The UN Security Council defines the region as occupied Syrian land.
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Light Sabers

German alternative party wants France and other southern EU states excluded from Eurozone


RT
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:34 UTC
eiffel tower
© Mal Langsdon / Reuters
Senior officials in the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party want France and southern EU states - Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece among them - to be banished from Eurozone, as they lack "cultures of stability" like Germany's.

The remarks were made by AfD deputy leader Alexander Gauland and party's federal spokesman and co-leader Joerg Meuthen in an interview to German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

"We can have a common currency with the Netherlands, Austria, Finland or Baltic states. They have similar cultures of stability like ours," Meuthen said, as quoted by Deutsche Welle. "But the French have a different one, not to mention the Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks. They don't want austerity at all."

When Gauland was asked if AfD wants France to be excluded from the EU currency zone, he said that while "no one wants to throw France out," the country is "certainly a political problem."

Comment: Maybe the southern EU states should leave, and join ranks with Russia in forming a true partnership instead of being vassal states of the US like Germany and the UK.

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Snakes in Suits

Going for broke: Congress uses Donald Cook incident to quadruple anti-Russian arms spending


Sputnik
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:28 UTC
US bomber strike group
© Flickr/ U.S. Pacific Fleet
Citing the Russian fighter jet maneuvers that warded off US ships and aircraft near Russia's border in the Baltic Sea earlier this month, lawmakers from the US House Armed Services Committee said that there will be plenty of money devoted to "to deter Russia" in the finalized 2017 defense budget, The Hill reports.

Lawmakers, the political newspaper writes, are fired up about supporting President Barack Obama's military budget proposal, particularly the section devoted to quadrupling US military expenditures in Europe. The spending would allow the Pentagon to station more troops and weapons in Central and Eastern Europe.

"We do have money to station troops in various parts of Eastern Europe, and that's the main thing, to have a presence in the region and to show support for our allies," Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, the ranking member of the committee, told The Hill.
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Bad Guys

The Brazil fingerprint: Just look at who is to be installed as president and finance chiefs

Glen Greenwald
The Intercept
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 12:01 UTC
Temer, Cunha
© www.revistaforum.com.brMichel Temer, Eduardo Cuhna...Boys from Brazil
IT'S NOT EASY for outsiders to sort through all the competing claims about Brazil's political crisis and the ongoing effort to oust its president, Dilma Rousseff, who won re-election a mere 18 months ago with 54 million votes. But the most important means for understanding the truly anti-democratic nature of what's taking place is to look at the person whom Brazilian oligarchs and their media organs are trying to install as president: the corruption-tainted, deeply unpopular, oligarch-serving Vice President Michel Temer. Doing so shines a bright light on what's really going on, and why the world should be deeply disturbed.

The New York Times' Brazil bureau chief, Simon Romero, interviewed Temer this week, and this is how his excellent article begins:
RIO DE JANEIRO — One recent poll found that only 2 percent of Brazilians would vote for him. He is under scrutiny over testimony linking him to a colossal graft scandal. And a high court justice ruled that Congress should consider impeachment proceedings against him. Michel Temer, Brazil's vice president, is preparing to take the helm of Brazil next month if the Senate decides to put President Dilma Rousseff on trial.
How can anyone rational believe that anti-corruption anger is driving the elite effort to remove Dilma when they are now installing someone as president who is accused of corruption far more serious than she is? It's an obvious farce. But there's something even worse.

The person who is third in line to the presidency, right behind Temer, has been exposed as shamelessly corrupt: the evangelical zealot and House speaker Eduardo Cunha. He's the one who spearheaded the impeachment proceedings even though he got caught last year squirreling away millions of dollars in bribes in Swiss bank accounts, after having lied to Congress when falsely denying that he had any accounts in foreign banks.

Comment: Cui Bono? There is an ongoing corruption investigation in Brazil that involves significant politicians in various positions of power (including 60% of congress). By creating and voting for this coup, those who are already implicated in corruption will likely assume power. Assuming power provides the opportunity to compromise or negate the corruption investigation, a "get out of jail free" card." Corrupt individuals, at the helm of Brazilian government, are easy prey for imperial schemes. Disrupting BRICS states is on the Western PTB agenda in order to maintain global control of the dollar, manipulate markets, remain the only game in town. It has found its wedge for Brazil, retraceable (at minimum and on the surface) back to the impeachment set-up of Dilma Rousseff. The pattern and fingerprint are there, just themes and variations.

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Star of David

Cruel treatment: 12yo Palestinian girl released from Israeli prison after almost 3 months behind bars


RT
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:20 UTC
Dima al-Wawi
© Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFPThe mother (L) and brother of Palestinian Dima al-Wawi, 12, who is believed to be the youngest female detained by Israel, greet her in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, upon her release from Israeli prison on April 24, 2016.
Palestinian 12-year-old Dima Al-Wawi has been released from an Israeli prison. She was sentenced to four-and-a-half months in custody for allegedly plotting to carry out a stabbing attack against Israelis in the Hebron area. She spent two-and-a-half months behind bars.

The girl's family have also been obliged to pay a fine of 8,000 Shekels (about $US2,080).

Having informed Dima's family, who live in the town of Halhoul near Hebron, about her release, Israeli authorities handed the girl over to relatives at the Jbarrah checkpoint near Tulkarem in the West Bank on Sunday.

Israel's practice of prosecuting children in military courts has been criticized in the report titled No Way to Treat a Child: Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System, compiled by Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP) and released on April 14.

"Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children in military courts each year. Since 2012, Israel has held an average of 204 Palestinian children in custody each month," the report says.
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Chess

U.S., Germany: Golan Heights not a part of Israel despite Netanyahu's claims

JTA
Forward
Mon, 18 Apr 2016 16:18 UTC
Golan Heights-Syria border
© Moshe Shai/Flash90The Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights.
The United States and Germany both criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration that the Golan Heights "will forever remain part of Israeli sovereignty."

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Monday that the Obama administration does not consider the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, despite Netanyahu's assertion at a Cabinet meeting there Sunday, Haaretz reported.

"The U.S. position on the issue is unchanged," Kirby said at a daily media briefing at the State Department in Washington. "This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations."

Earlier in the day, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said, "It's a basic principle of international law and the UN charter that no state can claim the right to annex another state's territory just like that," according to Haaretz.

The Arab League and Hezbollah also criticized Netanyahu's statement about the Golan Heights.

Comment: See also:

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Cowboy Hat

Putin making sense: Russia will never allow loss of its own sovereignty and development prospects


ITAR-TASS
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:08 UTC
Vladimir Putin
© Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS
Russia will never allow the loss of its own sovereignty, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday at the forum of the All-Russia People's Front.

"If we agreed and said yes [to other countries], we would be good for everyone. However, we would gradually lose our significance, and the next step after losing the significance, I think, would be the irreparable loss of our sovereignty and loss of future prospects," Putin said adding that "we will never allow that."

"Not many [countries] want such an independent, effective player that knows his own worth and is capable of stating them. They will try to bring him down a little, put him in his place," he noted.

"We do not ask anyone for anything, apart from what belongs to us. And we are ready to look for compromise," he stressed. "We understand that the world does not consist of only our interests, and others have their own interests," he added.
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Top Secret

U.S. spy chief looking at sub-optimal ways to disclose number of Americans caught in internet data grabs


Reuters
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:14 UTC
James Clapper
© Reuters/Carlos BarriaJames Clapper
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Monday his office was looking at "several options" to publicly disclose an estimate of the number of U.S. persons caught incidentally in Internet surveillance intended for foreign targets.

"We are looking at several options right now, none of which are optimal," Clapper told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor news organization, though he cautioned the task would be difficult and potentially run afoul of privacy considerations.

Clapper's comments came in response to a letter sent last week by 14 bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives, pressing the country's top spy to provide a public estimate of the number of Americans ensnared in data grabs of foreign Internet communications traffic. They said the information was needed to gauge possible reforms to the controversial program.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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Info

Austrians surprised by results of presidential elections first round


Sputnik
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:49 UTC
Austria election campaigne posters
© REUTERS/ Leonhard Foeger
Reinhard Pickl-Herk, a spokesman for the Green Party, said that the result of the first round of the presidential elections in Austria with most votes secured by the far-right politician Norbert Hofer was not predicted by any opinion polling.

The outcomes of the first round of the presidential elections in Austria with most votes secured by the far-right politician Norbert Hofer came as a shock for many Austrians, a spokesman for the Green Party told Sputnik on Monday.
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