Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

Mukachevo has become the contraband capital of Ukraine


Fort Russ
Fri, 17 Jul 2015 15:08 UTC
war ukraine
© Reuters / Maxim Shemetov
You probably already heard that in Mukachevo there was a shootout with lethal results (three bodies)? It was an argument of pravoseki with the police and the local mafia.

But in my post I want to talk not even about the unstable and volatile situation on the borders of Ukraine, but some insider info from distributors about Mukachevo.

Delivery drivers (from Ukrainian suppliers) have said that Transcarpathia is a perfect "black hole", sucking the merchandise. One driver said that a third of all the products of his factory is sold in Transcarpathia, the other said that almost half. Others - less, but still, a disproportionate amount compared to other regions.

Comment: The most pathological elements are at each other's throats, and the ones with Washington's backing will probably win out in the end.

SOTT Exclusive: Chaos brewing in Ukraine, Right Sector gaining ground

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USA

SOTT Focus: One year later: All evidence still suggests MH17 shot down by a jet fighter

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:43 UTC
Image
British tabloid two days after the downing of MH17. Note the 'coincidental' juxtaposition of an image of the royal baby
One year ago today over Eastern Ukraine, someone deliberately shot down Malaysian Flight MH17 killing all 298 passengers and crew, most of them Dutch citizens.

In the immediate aftermath of the event, and I mean, 'immediate', the Western media and the Western political elite it works for, blamed 'pro-Russian rebels', Russia, and even Vladimir Putin himself for bringing down the plane with a Buk M1 missile. No evidence was presented to back up the claim.

Since then, the 'trial by media' has continued, although still without one shred of evidence that 'Russia did it'. With the 1-year anniversary approaching, CNN released a 'damning' new report citing unnamed "U.S. officials" who said they had seen a draft of the final official report by Dutch investigators due in October this year. The draft apparently reveals shocking new hard evidence in the form of the statement: "Russia did it". Slam dunk!
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Star of David

US offers 'to boost' military aid to Israel after Iran nuclear deal


RT
Thu, 16 Jul 2015 21:50 UTC
Image
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
The US has offered to increase military aid to Israel by another $1.5 billion per year to ease tensions over the nuclear deal with Iran, media has reported. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is expected to make the offer during next week's visit to Tel Aviv.

The proposed increase would see Israel getting an additional squadron of F-35 fighter jets, funding for research and development of missile defense systems, and ammunition to replenish the stocks used in last year's bombing of Gaza, Israeli sources told Jerusalem Post.

Under the current arrangement, Israel is receiving $3 billion a year, most of which is used to purchase US military hardware such as fighter jets and missile defense systems. Israeli and US officials have been discussing increasing the amount of aid to anywhere between $4.2 and $4.5 billion per year, sources familiar with the talks told the New York Times.

Comment: Washington keeps sending Israel money so they can buy more US weapons, the circus continues.

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Crusader

EU treating Greece like occupied hostile state

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph
Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:32 UTC
Image
The deal will leave Greece so economically fragile that it is almost guaranteed to crash into a fresh crisis in the next global downturn
A new deal for Athens is the worst of all worlds and solves nothing

Like the Neapolitan Bourbons - benign by comparison - the leaders of the eurozone have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.

The cruel capitulation forced upon Greece after 31 hours on the diplomatic rack offers no conceivable way out the country's perpetual crisis. The terms are harsher by a full order of magnitude than those rejected by Greek voters in a landslide referendum a week ago, and therefore can never command democratic assent.

They must be carried through by a Greek parliament still dominated by MPs from Left and Right who loathe every line of the summit statement, the infamous SN 4070/15, and have only agreed - if they have agreed - with a knife to their throats.

EMU inspectors can veto legislation. The emasculation of the Greek parliament has been slipped into the text. All that is missing is a unit of EMU gendarmes.

Such terms are unenforceable. The creditors have sought to nail down the new memorandum by transferring €50bn of Greek assets to "an independent fund that will monetise the assets through privatisations and other means". It will be used in part to pay off debts.
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Chess

U.S. trains 60 moderate rebels in Syria - that's all they could find

SteveMC
Reports from Underground
Wed, 15 Jul 2015 18:25 UTC
moderate rebel
The fact that the US can find only 60 Syrian rebels to train is quite telling.

It means that out of nearly 18 million Syrians (reduced by 4 million since the start of the conflict) the US could only find 60 that were willing to fight against the Syrian Army, only 60.(1)

In other words, only an increase of ~0.000333% of the Syrian population is deemed "moderate" by the US and willing to fight. The military is currently in the process of vetting 7,000 volunteers, so if we assume that all of them will pass inspection, that will amount to a mere ~0.039222% of the population. A far cry from 0.1%, let alone 1% of the total inhabitants.

The fact that only 60 can be deemed "moderate" is also quite telling. This coming from a government who deemed the Free Syrian Army, among others, as "moderates." In September of 2014, FSA "moderate" commander and recipient of US aid Bassel Idriss admitted that "We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front," the reason for this being "We have reached a point where we have to collaborate with anyone against unfairness and injustice."(2)
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Airplane

Best of the Web: Russian aviation experts: 'Israeli-made Python air-to-air missile (fired from Israeli-upgraded Su-25 Scorpion) may have downed MH17'


RT
Thu, 16 Jul 2015 16:38 UTC
Image
© Maxim Zmeyev / Reuters
A report on Malaysian Airlines MH17 air disaster in Ukraine last year by a group of old-hand aviation security experts maintains that the Boeing might have been downed by an Israeli Python air-to-air missile.

The report was leaked via the private LiveJournal account of Albert Naryshkin (aka albert_lex) late on Tuesday and has already been widely discussed by social media communities in Russia.

The authors of the investigative report have calculated the possible detonation initiation point of the missile that hit the passenger aircraft and approximate number and weight of strike elements, which in turn designated the type and presumed manufacturer of the weapon.

Image
© albert-lex.livejournal.com

Comment: When you combine this information about the probable missile being Israeli-made with the information Sott.net found about Su-25s having been upgraded by an Israeli firm...

'MH17 Who Dunnit? Western Media Silent on the Evidence', published on Sept 1st, 2014:
The Russians have stated that the jet they spotted on radar near MH17 at the time of the crash was most likely an Su-25. The Su-25 basic model is a rather 'dated' fighter aircraft that does not have a pressurized cockpit meaning that flying for any length of time above its operational ceiling of 7,000 meters is problematic for the pilot (MH17 was at 10,000 meters). The standard SU-25 also has fairly basic instruments and weapons, with only a laser guidance system for rocket and canon fire which, apart from being designed for ground target acquisition, has an error range of up to 13 feet. If the Su-25 came no closer than 3-5 kms and was only equipped with laser guidance, accurate targeting of the cockpit would not have been possible... with a standard Su-25.

Since the 1970s, several variants of the Su-25 have been produced, the most recent of which is the Su-25KM 'Scorpion' which was announced in early 2001 by the original manufacturer, Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing in Georgia, in partnership with Elbit Systems of Israel.
The aircraft uses a standard Su-25 airframe, enhanced with advanced avionics including a glass cockpit, digital map generator, helmet-mounted display, computerized weapons system, complete mission pre-plan capability, and fully redundant backup modes. Performance enhancements include a highly accurate navigation system, pinpoint weapon delivery systems, all-weather and day/night performance, NATO compatibility, state-of-the art safety and survivability features [...]
See also:

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Bad Guys

Ukraine before and after Euromaidan: The Far Right and an underground resistance


Borotba
Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:39 UTC
Dmytro Yarosh, a leader of the Right Sector
© Reuters / David MdzinarishviliDmytro Yarosh (L), a leader of the Right Sector movement, addresses during a rally in central Independence Square in Kiev February 21, 2014

Report for the International Anti-EU Forum, Athens, 26-28 June 2015.

Ukrainian fascism, whose existence is hard for even the most ardent supporters of the Kiev regime to deny today, did not emerge in 2014. Ukrainian fascism did not arise suddenly. Its development, first slowly and then rapidly, can be traced to the turn of the 1980s-90s and reached its culmination during the so-called "revolution of dignity" last winter.

This gradual fascization of Ukrainian society, the peak of which naturally came at a time of economic crisis, has long been the subject of analysis by the Ukrainian left. In 2012, two years before the Maidan, our organization, Borotba, published a report entitled "Ukrainian oligarchy prepares a creeping fascist coup." The report predicted the events of last winter with remarkable accuracy.

Here are some quotes from the document:

Comment: For more on the neo-Nazi battalions, and their reign of terror across the Ukraine, check out:

SOTT Exclusive: Chaos brewing in Ukraine, Right Sector gaining ground

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Gold Seal

Europe will be haunted by "new Versailles Treaty" agreed to by Greece

Yanis Varoufakis
yanisvaroufakis.eu
Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:12 UTC
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© MILOS BICANSKI/GETTY IMAGESYanis Varoufakis
In the next hours and days, I shall be sitting in Parliament to assess the legislation that is part of the recent Euro Summit agreement on Greece. I am also looking forward to hearing in person from my comrades, Alexis Tsipras and Euclid Tsakalotos, who have been through so much over the past few days. Till then, I shall reserve judgment regarding the legislation before us. Meanwhile, here are some first, impressionistic thoughts stirred up by the Euro Summit's Statement.

A New Versailles Treaty is haunting Europe - I used that expression back in the Spring of 2010 to describe the first Greek 'bailout' that was being prepared at that time. If that allegory was pertinent then it is, sadly, all too germane now.

Never before has the European Union made a decision that undermines so fundamentally the project of European Integration. Europe's leaders, in treating Alexis Tsipras and our government the way they did, dealt a decisive blow against the European project.

The project of European integration has, indeed, been fatally wounded over the past few days. And as Paul Krugman rightly says, whatever you think of Syriza, or Greece, it wasn't the Greeks or Syriza who killed off the dream of a democratic, united Europe.
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Dollars

12 banks: "Living Wills" that hint toward a future bail-in

Susanne Posel
OccupyCorporatism
Tue, 07 Jul 2015 00:00 UTC
bank crack
© www.foxbusiness.comAs big banking falls through the cracks of its own making...
Twelve major banks have made their living wills open to the public in response to US regulators pushing for more "convincing plans" for self-dismantling should their operations fail. The purpose of living wills is a way "to give bankers and regulators a clearer understanding of a bank's operations and its assets and liabilities [and] map out the steps the banks would take to distribute large losses among stakeholders."


Comment: Why is there a need to have bank living wills? Bank Unregulated Derivatives A "living will" requires that banks clearly outline how they operate in the case of a bankruptcy. The most likely cause of a big bank bankruptcy comes from the triggering of unregulated derivatives.


The Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) are overseeing the bank's contingency plans, ensuring that no bank is "too big to fail". This includes financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets; as well as non-financial firms that are considered systemically important as understood by the US Department of Treasury (USDT) Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).

The banks participating in this exercise include:
- JPMorgan Chase & Co
- Morgan Stanley
- Bank of America
- Credit Suisse Group AG
- Goldman Sachs Group
- Wells Fargo & Co
- State Street Corp
- Bank of New York Mellon Corp
- UBS Group AG
- Deutsche Bank AG
- Barclays Plc

Should another financial crisis rear its head again, these revelations provide investors and traders a better sense of the standing of banks. Collectively, the banks divulged that they have "stockpiled long-term debt" within holding companies (or the parent company that owns the bank) to make their portfolios appear to be "less complex". In other words, banks have placed their derivatives (or stockpiled long-term debt) within the main corporation that owns their subsidiaries. The only problem is that if the parent fails, so do its "children".

Comment: Who is regulating the regulators in charge of the "living wills?" And, who can hold them to it? At this point it is naive to believe there are any honest and trustworthy agencies connected to law or money, let alone ones that have the clout to enforce compliance. The arms and tentacles of the banks' various and extensive banking mechanisms are so intrenched in this incestuous system that even one bank failure could unravel the whole banking caboodle. Dodd-Frank or no Dodd-Frank, unpayable debt always creates some kind of financial crisis. Your bank account has been legally collateralized against the derivatives debt, thanks to the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, where derivatives counter-parties are given preference ("super-priority") over all other creditors and customers of the bankrupt financial institution. Someone else has first rights to your money.

We all know, in reference to a boat, the idea of a "bail-out" to save the boat. Think about the consequences, in this context, of a "bail-in."

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Chess

Iran nuke deal could reset Eurasian geopolitical picture

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Tue, 14 Jul 2015 15:43 UTC
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Foreign ministers pose for a group picture at UN building in Vienna
This is it. It is indeed historic. And diplomacy eventually wins. In terms of the New Great Game in Eurasia, and the ongoing tectonic shifts reorganizing Eurasia, this is huge: Iran — supported by Russia and China — has finally, successfully, called the long, winding 12-year-long Atlanticist bluff on its "nuclear weapons."

And this only happened because the Obama administration needed 1) a lone foreign policy success, and 2) a go at trying to influence at least laterally the onset of the new Eurasia-centered geopolitical order.

So here it is - the 159-page, as detailed as possible, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); the actual P5+1/Iran nuclear deal. As Iranian diplomats have stressed, the JCPOA will be presented to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which will then adopt a resolution within 7 to 10 days making it an official international document.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has described the deal — significantly — as a very Chinese "win-win" solution. But not perfect; "I believe this is a historic moment. We are reaching an agreement that is not perfect for anybody but is what we could accomplish. Today could have been the end of hope, but now we are starting a new chapter of hope."
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