Puppet MastersS


Radar

European Parliament urge action on 'frequent' Russian Navy visits to Spanish port

Overall view shows the Spanish northern-African enclave of Ceuta
© Desmond Boylan / ReutersOverall view shows the Spanish northern-African enclave of Ceuta.
Eleven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have called on the EU's foreign policy chief to oppose the visits of Russian warships to the Spanish port of Ceuta, which they argue has turned into a de facto Russian naval base.

In a letter addressed to Federica Mogherini, the MEPs asked whether she was aware that Ceuta - a Spanish semi-autonomous region located on the African side of Gibraltar - is "essential for maintaining the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine," the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

The group of lawmakers includes a Spaniard who backs Catalonian independence, a Flemish nationalist, and MEPs from Poland and the Baltic republics, the newspaper said. The officials said that since 2011 more than 50 Russian warships and military submarines have used Ceuta for supplies and as a rest stop for crew members. The MEPs asked whether Spain's cooperation with the Russian military was in line with EU sanctions against Moscow.

Quenelle - Golden

Message to Saudi Arabia & Turkey: Regime change in Syria is not going to happen

Syria Russia
© AP Photo/ Muzaffar Salman, File
As Syrian army advances Turkish and Saudi threats to intervene in Syria increasingly look like a bluff which has been called

A couple of weeks ago I wrote for Russia Insider that I thought it unlikely President Erdogan would send the Turkish army into Syria and that the talk of his doing so in alliance with the Saudis was probably bluff.

For the moment that is how it has turned out.

As I also predicted fears Erdogan might also close the Straits to Russian ships have also proved groundless. Though there seems to have been some petty harassment by and large Russian ships en route to Syria have been able to pass through the Straits without difficulty.

Though there remains a remote possibility that Erdogan might decide to intervene that is now looking increasingly unlikely.

If he has ever considering intervening then his window for doing so is closing fast and he must know it.

That begs the question why did Erdogan not intervene when the opportunity to do so presented itself?

Cult

Best of the Web: Saudi Arabia Uncovered: ITV documentary exposes the West's original 'Islamic State'

Saudi arabia
Saudi Arabia, pathocrats' paradise in the Middle East
In what is probably a world-first, a team of British investigative journalists have put together this documentary exposing daily life inside Saudi Arabia. Public executions, including beheadings and crucifixions, 'religious' police enforcing Sharia law (but only on the mass of ordinary Saudis), horrendous conditions in jails teaming with political prisoners, spectacular wealth for the few and slums for the masses, and public 'education' that teaches children to kill Christian, Jewish and Shia 'infidels' - these are just some of the horrors produced by a regime that is sustained thanks only to its 'most-favored-nation' status with the Western banking cartel.

Meet the regime that sends head-choppers to Syria to 'bring it freedom and democracy'... with the full support of Western 'democracies'.

Smiley

Best of the Web: Turkey summons Berlin's ambassador after German TV mocks Erdogan

emperor erdogan
© themuslimissue.wordpress.com
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has summoned the German ambassador to the country after one of the German television channels broadcast a satirical song about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, local media reported.

According to the Spiegel magazine's Monday report, the NDR television channel broadcast a two-minute song mocking Erdogan on March 17. The magazine claims, citing its sources, that ambassador Martin Erdmann was summoned to the foreign ministry over the incident on March 22.

Erdogan is famous for his reaction to criticism. According to media reports, more than 1,500 people in Turkey are being investigated for insulting the president.

Turkey's crackdown on journalists and restrictions on freedom of speech have been criticized by the international community, including the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF).


Comment: Erdogan is one unbelievably self-important, terrorist-loving dictator.

Also see: Busted! RT films trove of ISIS docs detailing illegal oil trade with Turkey


Chess

Kiev should accept that no Western white knight is coming to the rescue

fighting over Ukraine
Article in Forbesadmits Western leaders will not come to Ukraine's rescue in conflict where Russia holds all the cards.

As the political crisis in Kiev continues Forbes has published one of the most brutally frank and realistic appraisals of the Ukrainian conflict to appear in the Western media.

That this article should appear in a US magazine that mainly addresses itself to the US business community is no surprise. The degree of ideological conformity in Europe today makes it difficult to imagine such an article appearing in any of the leading journals in Germany, Britain or France.

The article basically makes the same point we have always made: in a geopolitical contest in Ukraine between Russia and the West it will always be Russia that will in the end prevail because in Ukraine it is Russia which holds all the high cards.

Quite simply, because of intense connections of geography, economics, culture, religion, language and history, Ukraine matters to Russia in ways it can never matter to the West so that Russia both can and will act to defend its interests there in ways that no Western state - not even the US - can ever do.

Colosseum

Best of the Web: Syrian forces clear ISIS out of Palmyra - RT reports from 'Pearl of the Desert' (VIDEOS)

syrian forces ISIS
Syrian armed forces burn the black flag of ISIS/Daesh after liberating the ancient city of Palmyra
Days after the Syrian Army recaptured Palmyra from Islamic State militants, RT's Lizzie Phelan visited the ancient archeological treasure to see if the UNESCO World Heritage Site suffered any irreparable damage after being in the jihadists' hands.

Just getting to Palmyra is a challenge. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) mined the entrances to the world-famous site, which have been painstakingly cleared by the Syrian Army, with Russian assistance.

RT's Lizzie Phelan was one of the first journalists to set foot in Palmyra since the site was captured by IS militants in May 2015.


Comment: Footage from some of the Russian airstrikes on Daesh:




Play

South Front: Egypt strengthening its national security apparatus

south front
Egypt is struggling to strengthen its special and security services in order to counter destructive actions of the foreign backed militant groups, especially in Sinai Peninsula, and the underground resistance of the Muslim Brotherhood. The inability to defeat the militancy and terrorist attacks in other regions show that the Egyptian special services aren't able to counter the threat yet. This is why Cairo is making steps to increase their efficiency.


Arrow Up

Update on the Boston Marathon Bomb case - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not guilty

Tsarnaev
© Associated PressTsarnaev.
Movies are used to set official stories in stone, and a movie is going to be made about the heroic capture of a badly wounded 19 year old kid, not old enough to buy a beer, who, despite being shot up and severely wounded, is alleged to have written a confession in the dark on the side of a boat under which he was hiding to escape execution. Apparently, the 10,000 troops who violated the US Constitution and searched the houses of a shutdown Boston without warrants are going to be credited for "saving America from terrorism."

I find it difficult to believe that a shot-up kid, who had to be put into intensive care when he was discovered, who was hiding from execution under an upturned boat, spent what little energy and life force he had left writing a confession in the dark on the inside of a boat. What convenient instrument to write with did he happen to have on hand?

Why would we believe assurances of such an unlikely confession from the same lying government that assured the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction justifying a multi-trillion dollar invasion that destroyed a county? We know for a fact that Saddam Hussein most certainly did not have weapons of mass destruction as President Bush later admitted, and even if he had, such possession is no justification for illegal US aggression that destroyed a country. Why would we believe a government that assured the world that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, which we know for a fact was Washington's made up excuse for invasion?

One wonders how much the Boston Marathon Bombing movie makers have been paid for setting the official story in stone. As one correspondent asked: "I'm wondering how they are going to portray Boston cops as heroes as they kill the older brother and then surround an unarmed teenager who is hiding under a boat. They start firing...they put a bullet through his face but the damned kid won't die! Heroic Senator John McCain then explains how Miranda rights don't apply in his case. Suddenly it's discovered that while hiding in the boat he's written a confession on the inside of the boat with a Sharpie..."

John Remington Graham has 48 years of legal experience as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor. An aunt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is herself an attorney in the Russian Federation, requested John Remington Graham to assist her in making an amicus curiae intervention in the federal district court in Boston. Mr. Graham has since written to the US Attorney General about conflicts between the government's evidence and the guilty conviction. After three months, he has received no answer, an indication that the US Department of Justice has no interest whatsoever in what appears to be a wrongful conviction carrying a death sentence.

Mr. Graham brings us up-to-date on what has the appearance of judicial murder of another innocent in order to serve the secret agenda of the military/security complex. "America is under attack," so we need a police state to protect us and more money for wars abroad that take the lives of massive numbers of innocents, while economic conditions at home drive the American people deeper into the ground.

Pistol

Israeli democracy: Minister calls for soft-assassination of BDS leaders

katz
Israel Katz
The Yediot Achronot conference attacking BDS has become a veritable carnival of hate. Everyone from delusional Hollywood celebrities (Roseanne Barr) to cabinet ministers, to the leader of the Opposition have pledged fealty to the cause.

But the apogee same yesterday when Transportation Minister Israel Katz called for the "civil targeted killing" of BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti. The phrase he used (sikul ezrahi memukad) derives from the euphemistic Hebrew phrase for the targeted killing of a terrorist (the literal meaning is "targeted thwarting"). But the added word "civil" makes it something different. Katz is saying that we won't physically murder BDS opponents, but we will do everything short of that.

One may rightly ask what business a transportation minister has conducting targeted killings, physical or otherwise, against anyone. Though everything in Israel is in service to the national security state, has transportation fallen under that bailiwick as well?

Green Light

Russia and U.S. to coordinate liberation of Raqqa? Not according to the Pentagon!

raqqa
© REUTERS/ Rodi Said/Files
Russia and the US will discuss specific military steps for the capture of Raqqa — the "capital" of the "Islamic State". This was stated by the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleg Syromolotov in an interview to"Interfax".

"Specific aspects of such cooperation, including taking into account the withdrawal of our contingent, are being discussed between our military and the Pentagon", — he said. Syromolotov said that Washington have become "enlightened", and the US government is aware of the need not only to exchange information about military operations, but to actually coordinate their actions in the fight against terrorism.

He recalled that the idea to coordinate efforts for the liberation of the "capital" of the self-proclaimed Caliphate was proposed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov. "We attach great importance to dense dialogue between Moscow and Washington on the Syrian issue", — summed up Syromolotov.

Comment: The Pentagon clarified their (non-)position. They will not support Russia and Syria. Rather, they will continue to support terrorists:
The United States has no plans to carry out a joint operation with the Russian military to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa from the Daesh jihadist group, a US Defense Department official told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"We are not planning any operations with Russia to jointly liberate Raqqa from Daesh control," the official stated. "In Syria, our focus remains on equipping and enabling local, motivated forces who can take the fight to Daesh."