Puppet MastersS


Heart - Black

Sheikh Nimr's brother: "I blame Obama for my brother's execution"


Press TV
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 01:37 UTC
Mohammed al-Nimr
© APFMohammed al-Nimr, brother of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr
The brother of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr has blamed US President Barack Obama for failing to prevent his brother's execution by Saudi Arabia, which has set off worldwide protests.

"I am sorry to say that the American government did not offer to make any efforts on this, although they knew the danger of this action and the repercussions," Mohammed al-Nimr said in an interview with Yahoo News.

"We asked very clearly for the American president to intervene as a friend of Saudi Arabia — and the Americans did not intervene," he said in a telephone interview from al-Awamiyah, a village situated in the Qatif region in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.
The Saudi regime said Saturday it had executed Sheikh Nimr along with 46 others, causing international outrage and a serious escalation of diplomatic tensions in the region. Sheikh Nimr, a critic of the Riyadh regime, was shot by Saudi police and arrested in 2012 in Qatif, which was the scene of peaceful anti-regime demonstrations at the time.
Mohammed al-Nimr said he personally asked officials at the US consulate in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, to urge the American president to speak out forcefully against his brother's death sentence, but "the Americans did not issue such a statement. They limited themselves to general statements from the State Department," he said.

Son of Mohammed al-Nimr
© brutallyuncensored.comSon of Mohammed al-Nimr
At a US State Department press briefing on Monday, chief spokesman John Kirby told reporters, "We've been very clear about our concerns about the legal process in Saudi Arabia. It's something that we have talked to Saudi officials about before. We all continue to do so."

Mohammed al-Nimr's own son, Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, has also been sentenced to death over his alleged role in anti-regime protests in 2012, when he was 17 years old. Mohammed al-Nimr said that, in the aftermath of his brother's execution, he is now increasingly concerned that his son will also be put to death. "Our fears were great, but now our fears are greater," he said. "We don't trust promises anymore. This issue needs political energy from the friends of Saudi Arabia."

Comment: Were the US State Department and Obama blindsided? With all their "diplomatic" meddle and control tactics, finger in every pot so to speak, you would think this issue would be obvious. Then again, the US has not been particularly bright in recent years -- its aggression is out of control, many hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the global destruction of liberty and justice for all and its hubris blinding the signs of its degradation bringing its own population to the brink of destruction -- hey, it's a lot to not think about. Who can blame them! Well done. Atoning is gonna be a bitch.

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Light Saber

Chechnya's Kadyrov blames US, Turkey 'personal ambitions' for Syrian crisis


RT
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 14:23 UTC
Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov
© Alexander Vilf / Sputnik Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov
Washington and Ankara are extremely unwilling to compromise and this position brings suffering to millions of Syrian citizens, the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov has told the press.

"Because of some personal ambitions, the United States and Turkey are not even trying to get on common ground with Syrian President Bashar Assad, despite the sufferings of millions of Syrians," Kadyrov said at the major annual press conference in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

"Just imagine, [Turkish President] Erdogan and America are saying that until Assad retires they are not even going to raise the question about stabilizing the situation. So many people are suffering because of their personal ambitions, a whole country has been destroyed because of them," he added.

Kadyrov also said that Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) received funds from Arab and European countries.

"Their numbers reach the tens of thousands. They are financed by rich Arab and Western European states. Best military specialists from these states are working with these terrorists. Of course they have a strong and powerful military machine," he said.

One IS's objectives is the destabilization of situation in Chechnya, Kadyrov told reporters, but he also noted that law enforcers were successfully containing this threat.

Comment:

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Snakes in Suits

Cameron's Saudi trip delayed amid outrage over executions


RT
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 14:22 UTC
British Prime Minister David Cameron (L) and Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf
© Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters
Prime Minister David Cameron has postponed his tour of the Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, amid outrage at the Sunni theocracy's mass executions and Britain's seemingly weak response to them.

The tour, which was due to start in Riyadh, will now take place in March at the earliest. Senior sources say there is no connection between recent Saudi executions and the delay, however.

The Gulf monarchy recently carried out a mass execution of 47 people, including long-time dissenter and prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
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Stock Down

The escalation of financial barbarity?

Ben Schreiner
Global Research
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 13:14 UTC
dollar collapse
With New Year celebrations barely in the rear view mirror, foreboding storm clouds are once again forming along the horizon. The blackening skies are casting a dour mood over 2016, which in its mere infancy seems all but assured to see deepening global tumult, conflict, and crisis.

At the root of this palpable disquiet lies the still fragile state of the global economy, coming up on eight years after the financial collapse of 2008.

Writing in the German newspaper Handelsblatt last week, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde pointed to "rising interest rates in the United States and an economic slowdown in China," coupled with slowing growth in global trade and "a decline in raw material prices," to warn that, "global growth will be disappointing and uneven in 2016."

Back in October, the IMF projected a lackluster 2016 global growth rate of 3.6%, a 0.2% reduction from its previous forecast. As IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld commented at the time, "Six years after the world economy emerged from its broadest and deepest postwar recession, a return to robust and synchronized global expansion remains elusive."

On Monday, stoked by fears of slowing growth in China, evidenced by a report from the market data firm Markit showing a contraction in Chinese manufacturing, global stock indexes tumbled as they rang in 2016. But as HSBC strategist Devendra Joshi noted of the plunge to the New York Times, "This will be the theme for the year. There will be more volatility."

Comment:

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Stock Down

China battles to shore up stocks, yuan after global markets rattled

Pete Sweeney and Samuel Shen
Reuters (UK)
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 08:56 UTC
Hang Seng index
© Reuters/Bobby YipA man walks past a panel displaying the benchmark Hang Seng index during afternoon trading in Hong Kong, China January 4, 2016.
China struggled to shore up shaky sentiment on Tuesday a day after its stock indexes and yuan currency tumbled, rattling markets worldwide, but analysts warned investors to buckle up for more wild price swings in the months ahead.

Stocks fell more than 2 percent in early trade, prompting fears that exchanges were set for a second day of panic selling after a 7 percent dive on Monday set off a new "circuit breaker" mechanism, suspending trade nation-wide for the first time.

But both the central bank and the stock regulator reacted quickly, and major indexes recouped most of their initial losses despite a late afternoon scare.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) poured nearly $20 billion into money markets, its largest cash injection since September, and traders suspected it was using state banks to prop up the yuan CNY=CFXS at the same time.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), for its part, announced it was planning new rules to further restrict share sales by major stakeholders in listed companies, and said it would further tweak the circuit breaker mechanism amid criticism that it had fuelled Monday's sell-off.

Comment: What actually happened in 2015, and what is to come in 2016. Are we looking at a major financial crisis?

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Mr. Potato

German media is stuck in an insane, anti-Putin time loop

Translated by Susan Neumann
Russia Insider
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 03:46 UTC
Propaganda
© Unknown
In Moscow the Russian president holds his annual press conference while there's discussion in the EU over repealing the sanctions against Russia. That means it's time for "Groundhog Day" in the media. The same kremlinologists keep inundating us with their interpretations of Putin: he's a one-man power structure, a reincarnation of Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler - he even travels through time and is immortal.

More than twenty years after its release, Harold Ramis' Groundhog Day is a great comedy that one can still enjoy. Bill Murray plays an arrogant TV weatherman who, while reporting on the ritual Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, finds himself stuck in a time loop where he is forced to repeat the same day again and again. He sees the same people who wear the same thing, say the same thing. It's maddening. Even suicide doesn't help because he wakes up every morning at six, hearing the radio playing the same song....

The ZDF documentary Machtmensch Putin (Power-seeker Putin) is very much like Groundhog Day. It was released shortly before Putin's big annual press conference and against the backdrop of the EU summit in Brussels, where discussion took place over whether to repeal or ease the sanctions against Russia. The same "Putin experts" keep playing the same song....

Comment: This is what passes for 'journalism' in the West, and in Germany in particular. It's an act of violence against thinking people, where the 'journalists' have completely abandoned their duty and will just make up whatever gets them a pat on the back from the 'power elite'. Also see:

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Dollars

British values and the bribery that got Saudi Arabia on the UN Human Rights Council

Binoy Kampmark
Global Research
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
Saudi Arabia UN Human Rights Council

Wither human rights - especially when it comes to strategic partnerships. The UK-Saudi Arabia relationship has been one of a seedier sort, filled with military deals, mooted criticism and hedging. When given the John Snow treatment as to what Britain's role behind securing Saudi Arabia its position on the UN Human Rights Council was, Prime Minister David Cameron fenced furiously before embellishing Riyadh's value in its relations with the West.[1]

The paper trail in such matters is always useful, and given that Britain remains one of the most secretive states in the western world, those things are not always easy to come by. Light, however, was already shed by cables released through WikiLeaks suggesting that a degree of haggling had taken place between the states over the subject of compromising human rights.

The Saudi cable trove, made available to WikiLeaks last June, has spurred various groups to comb through the foreign ministry collection with an eye to decoding the Kingdom's sometimes inscrutable positions.[2]
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Dollar Gold

Destination Syria: Bulgaria unloading Soviet military gear for US, Saudi, and UAE dollars

Valentin Vasilescu
Fort Russ
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:27 UTC
Arabia cargo plane
A BIRN investigation shows that since 2011 the United States, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have bought more than 600 million dollars worth of Soviet-style equipment in Bulgaria for armed groups fighting against the Syrian Arab Republic.

This traffic contravenes UN principles that prohibit attempting to overthrow a government by supplying offensive weapons to domestic opponents or to external mercenaries.

Since the beginning of the war against Syria, the US government spent 500 million dollars in Bulgaria on Soviet-type weapons. The military gear includes 18,800 portable anti-tank grenade launchers and 700 Konkurs anti-tank missile systems.
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Bad Guys

Saudi provocation may backfire: Will Iran now start actually aiding Houthis?


Moon of Alabama
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 23:39 UTC
houthis
© GettyHouthi fighters in Sana'a.
I still believe that, from the Saudi rulers' viewpoint, the execution of a bunch of al-Qaeda types and the Saudi Shia rabble-rouser Nimr Baqr al-Nimr was a smart move to divert the attention of their people from the accumulating problems of their rulers and the recent 40% gas price hike. But it comes with now escalating costs.

The biggest danger to the al-Saud family which dictatorially rules over Saudi Arabia is the proven validity of an alternative Islamic system. The Islamic Republic of Iran has such an alternative system and its reintegration into the world after the nuclear deal shows its validity. Some people and Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia might get the idea that they also could also have a system where every vote counts and policies are decided at the ballot box. This without a kleptocratic, dictatorial family and, importantly, without doing away with their core Islamic values. This, not religion, is why the Saudis have fought Iran since its revolution in 1979 and why they try to curb its influence wherever they can. The al-Sauds fear for their family and its sinecures.

That Saudis, together with Israel, tried everything to sabotage the nuclear deal. They want Iran back in the isolation box. But it is now too late. I have not read one piece in "western" media today that was negative on Iran and/or positive on Saudi Arabia. The wind of international politics has changed and it is now Saudi Arabia that comes under pressure. The impulsive reaction of the current Saudi rulers is to escalate and escalate even more and to fight Iran wherever it is present, like in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, or even where it is not present like in Yemen.

Comment: The Saudis were clearly banking on causing an uproar. While the Iranian government remained stoic, the Iranian vandals who set the Saudi embassy aflame gave the Saudis the response they wanted. Their swift and hyperbolic response - severing diplomatic ties, stopping civilian flights, cutting business - suggests it was planned in advance. The NATO-Gulf States bloc just won't quit. Now they'll be fighting Russia by fighting Iran, in Syria. Anything but dealing with the real problems facing the region: ISIS and the Saudi Wahhabi soil in which it was nurtured.

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Snowflake Cold

New York Governor orders officials to round up state's homeless into shelters when temperatures drop below freezing


Sputnik
Mon, 04 Jan 2016 23:03 UTC
Homeless
On Sunday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order for law enforcement to force the state's homeless population into shelters when the temperature drops below freezing.

The order goes into effect on Tuesday, and will allow for individuals to be taken — even against their will — by law enforcement.

Law enforcement agencies are to take "all necessary steps to identify individuals reasonably believed to be homeless and unwilling or unable to find the shelter necessary for safety and health in inclement winter weather, and move such individuals to the appropriate sheltered facilities."

Comment: It seems like Cuomo is trying to appear as if he cares about the plight of the homeless, but really this new executive order highlights his lack of real empathy as it treats the homeless like ignorant cattle and is not likely to go over well. Not to mention how it sets a precedent for rounding up large groups of people without legal grounds or justifications for doing so. It's a new year, and the pathocracy is wasting no time continuing to crush what's left of the human spirit.

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