Puppet MastersS


SOTT Logo Media

Video: China's new gold backed yuan, 911 and the death of the US dollar

dollar death
In this video, Luke Rudkowski reports on the breaking news of both China and Saudi Arabia making geopolitical moves that could cause a U.S economic collapse and obliteration of the U.S. hegemony petrodollar. We go over China's new gold backed yuan that cannot be traded in U.S dollars and rising tension with Saudi Arabia threatening economic blackmail if their role in 911 is exposed.

Comment: The US dollar appears to be in its death throes, see also:

Preparing for economic collapse? Fed issues ominous warning to JPMorgan Chase, leaders of world finance flock to secret meetings


War Whore

Russian foreign minister reveals the U.S. refuses to help identify terrorists in Aleppo

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced on Tuesday that the US refuses to work to identify and sort terrorists in Aleppo.

He pointed out that the problem lies in that the US and its relevant structures are unwilling to actually work on distinguishing between the terrorists and the opposition in the areas where terrorist groups are operating.

He noted that "the US and Syrian opposition had used the situation in Aleppo to hinder the talks in Geneva, and instead of dealing seriously with the information that Russia provided about the violations of the cessation of hostilities, they presented politicized demands that threaten to abort the talks."

MIB

Washington's fake war on ISIS now gets relocated back to Libya

IS homecoming
Out of all the explanations for the Islamic State's "move" to Libya, the only one that makes real sense is that they are being moved there by their foreign sponsors because it is believed they are "out of reach" of the Russian-led coalition that is truly fighting them in Syria.

Comment: SOTT tries to cull out and share the most important and relevant news we can find. Quite often, when the article is posted, the editor will accent those phrases that seem to stress the most salient points in the article, often in black, but far less often in red - for the really alarming stuff. If it wasn't so painful on the eyes, this SOTT editor would have highlighted most if not all of the following article entirely in red. What is described below is so criminal, so exasperating, so evil - that to stand witness to its level of malevolence without feeling at least some sense of revulsion, disgust, anger and sadness would not be standing witness to these events at all. And unfortunately, for most of us, aside from sharing this information with others, it's the least we can do.


Libya is one place the "Islamic State's" sponsors believe Russia can't get them... In 2011, a NATO coalition led by the United States used its own engineered regional campaign of political destabilization, the "Arab Spring," as a pretext to militarily intervene in first Libya directly, and in a more indirect way, Syria. US and European forces also "quietly" intervened in several other nations, including Mali and the Ivory Coast amid this regional conflagration.

Even in 2011, it was clear to geopolitical analysts that military intervention in Libya was an attempt to divide and destroy the country, giving the US and its collaborators a base of operations to further disrupt and reorder the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). Almost immediately after US-led strikes on Libya coordinated with terrorist factions on the ground successfully overthrew the Libyan government, weapons and fighters were sent to Syria via NATO-member Turkey. CNN's 2012 article, "Libya rebels move onto Syrian battlefield," would report that:
Their war for freedom in Libya may be over, but almost a year after they won the battle for the Libyan capital, a group of fighters have a new battlefield: Syria. Under the command of one of Libya's most well known rebel commanders, Al-Mahdi al-Harati, more than 30 Libyan fighters have made their way into Syria to support the Free Syrian Army rebels in their war against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Colosseum

Karmic retribution as the Western alliance self-deconstructs

Introduction: Prospects for Syria in light of elections and the Geneva talks

syrian parliamentary elections 2016
© Hassan Ammar/Associated PressA Syrian woman casts her vote at a polling station during the Syrian parliamentary election in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, April 13, 2016.
In Syria, elections were carried out last Wednesday, quite free and fair in respect to the primaries in the US. The numbers of women, Christians, and Sunnis elected ought to dispel the calumnies of the Western press, that the Assad regime is strictly Alawite sectarian. (To begin with, Bashar al-Assad is married to a Sunni.) These elections harbor a tenuous promise that is echoed by the semi-success of the Syrian ceasefire.

However, as the Geneva talks resume, few have hopes for quick permanent fixes. The crucial parties to the negotiations have not yet been settled in a logical manner. Kurds have been sidelined and the Saudi-assembled HNC have been included, and several foreign powers seem intent to pour fuel on the fire of still simmering tensions. Most manifestly, these naysayers and provocateurs include Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but the US and other NATO allies are also continuing their covert support for ISIS, al-Nusra and other terrorist factions. They still want Assad out, and are happy to use the vilest means to get there.

Sad to say, despite a tenuous but mostly successful 6-week ceasefire in Syria, the US and its allies also continue to talk out of both sides of their mouths, as they try to wriggle out of the corner into which they have been forced by the events of the last six months. Having been forced to acknowledge the success of Russia, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies in mostly clearing the terrorists from the corridor of important cities in the west of Syria, the US now tries to claim credit for these successes as much as the gullible Western press will swallow that lie.

The US State Dept also continues to propose, or threaten rather, a literally and forthrightly divisive "Plan B", which is essentially the Western Plan A regurgitated in the wake of Assad's successes. This still envisions the fragmentation of Syria into minute and powerless statelets, including a tiny Alawite one for Assad (not recognizing that much of his cabinet, many of his generals, and most of his army are Sunni, or even Christian.)

The West continues to act in support of several opposing sides of the conflict; "their" Kurds and "their" takfiri terrorists are now fighting each other with US arms, as I mentioned last time. Raytheon can't complain, but this does not seem just the usual omnivorous profit-seeking motive of the military-industrial complex. Rather, it may reflect deep fissures in the Western alliances, and within the US power structure itself.

Jet4

US-Polish navies, conducting electronic warfare 70km from Russia, provoked Russian jets response

Donald Cook
© US Navy / Reuters A Sukhoi Su-24 jet makes a low altitude pass by the USS Donald Cook April 12, 2016.
The confrontation last week between Russian aircraft and a US-Polish naval operation in the Baltic Sea, within shooting distance of Kaliningrad, was a long anticipated and professionally executed exercise by the military commanders of all three countries. "Unprofessional", as Admiral Mark Ferguson commanding US Naval Forces in Europe called it, was the very least thing it was. But who provoked, who feinted, who attacked first, and who defended are questions the publicity that has followed is meant to obscure.

One outcome that was not anticipated by either the attackers or defenders has begun to materialize in Warsaw. There, the rhetoric of military buildup along Poland's eastern frontier has run into the cold calculation that Poland's survival chances aren't likely to be much better than those of the USS Donald Cook, if there had been a real firefight, Turkish style.

The US destroyer Donald Cook is armed with the Aegis combat system, a combination of missiles intended to attack Russian nuclear, as well as non-nuclear missile batteries on land, sea, and in the air. The ship is normally docked at the NATO base at Rota, Spain. Between April 8 and 11, it was at the Polish port of Gdynia. The US Navy press reported the port call as part of the vessel's:
"fourth forward-deployed patrol in support of ballistic missile defense of Europe... Such port visits serve to enhance U.S.-Polish relations as the two nations work together for a stable, secure and prosperous region."

Info

Defiant Fidel Castro says he's nearing the end in farewell speech

Fidel Castro
© Omara Garcia / ReutersCuba's former president Fidel Castro attends the closing ceremony of the seventh Cuban Communist Party (PCC) congress in Havana, Cuba, in this handout received April 19, 2016.
Cuba's 89-year-old revolutionary leader Fidel Castro delivered a rare speech to the Communist Party, stating he is nearing the end of his life and that members should carry on his socialist ideals after he dies.

"I'll be 90 years old soon. Soon I'll be like all the others," Fidel Castro said in a "farewell" speech to the members of the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba that was broadcast on state television.

"The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without truce to obtain them," he added during the closing ceremony.

Party members responded by shouting "Fidel!"

Gem

Israel's diamond exchange rocked by embezzlement scandal

diamond inspection
© Nir Elias / Reuters
Israeli police arrested a diamond dealer on Wednesday suspected of taking part in a $65 million fraud at the country's diamond exchange. Some of his family members may also be involved in the embezzlement.

The suspect was identified as a well-known Israeli dealer Hanan Abramovich and head of Hanan Abramovich Diamonds.

"The suspect is under arrest and we are currently questioning him on suspicion of embezzlement," said a police spokeswoman as cited by Reuters.

The investigation was started after a number of dealers from the Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE) complained the Abramovich firm owed them "tens of millions of dollars" for gems it purchased but never paid for.

Comment: Read also: The human price of the Valentine's Day diamond


Blackbox

'Ordinary international research project'? Finland pitches in €100,000 for US study on Putin and Russia

Putin hunting
© Sputnik/ Alexei Druzhinin
Finland is planning to contribute 100,000 euros to an American study on Russia and Putin. The research will assess the likelihood of Russian president Vladimir Putin remaining in power until 2024, as well as the implications thereof.

Finland's Defense Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have agreed to take part in the world-famous US-based Brookings Institution's Russian-themed research project titled, "Russia's Revisionism: Implications for the West". Both ministries are planning to split the cost, contributing 50,000 euros each.

The project aims to extensively investigate Russia's objectives in relation to the West, at the same time addressing the internal events and personally President Putin.

Cardboard Box

Putin: Russia's political system needs new blood

Vladimir Putin
© Alexey Druzhinin/Russian presidential press service/TASS
The Russian political system needs new people to keep the country united and peaceful, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a video conference with participants in the primaries of the United Russia party, in which Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took part.

"You have said that the political system needs new blood. This is exactly what it needs! You are absolutely right," Putin said in reply to a statement by a combat operations veteran, a participant in primaries in Krasnoyarsk.

"To keep the country united and to avoid bloodshed in our country the political system should get new blood. Fresh, interested, promising people should be joining politics - people who know what is to be done and how it is to be done," the president explained.

"The people selected by the United Russia party are mature and well-prepared. They genuinely want to do a good cause in the broadest sense of this word. I am not going to talk about any politics, I just want to say about the sincere desire to work for the good of the people of Russia," Putin concluded wishing success to the primaries' participants.

Snakes in Suits

'No business like show business': Issues remain after first NATO-Russia Council meeting since 2014

NATO headquarters
© nato.int
Ambassadors from Russia and NATO member states have held a "frank and serious" discussion despite "profound and persistent disagreements" as they met for the first time since the Ukrainian crisis kicked off in 2014.

"There were profound disagreements related to the crisis with Ukraine. Today's meeting did not change that," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after the meeting.

"We have suspended practical cooperation between NATO and Russia, but we all agree that it is in all our interest to keep channels for political dialogue open. However, this does not mean that we are back to business as usual," he added.

Comment: Also ITAR-TASS reported:
Russia's Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said Wednesday:

"I think that this is a recognition that the project dubbed 'isolation of Russia' failed. It is evident that without Russia it is impossible to solve or regulate any international problem," Grushko told the Rossiya 1 television channel.

He underscored that NATO countries realize that they can't "keep isolating themselves from real processes in the sphere of security."

"This plays against the interests of not only global security, but also the alliance itself," Grushko said.