Puppet MastersS


Brick Wall

Deluded Ukrainians build 'Maginot Line' to repel Russia

John Reed
Financial Times
Mon, 31 Mar 2014 19:32 UTC
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© FT
In a field near the village of Uspenka, eastern Ukraine, an orange earthmoving vehicle is carving out a trench about a metre deep, nicknamed by some locals the "Maginot line", along the border with Russia.

Serhiy Taruta, the billionaire oligarch who serves as Donetsk province's governor, is paying out of his own pocket for the trench, which is reinforced with massive concrete tetrapods thrown down at strategic points across roads.

Manning a machinegun point at a roadside nearby are two scruffy army reser­vists called up last week who identify themselves as Igor and Viktor. They say they had to improvise to equip themselves for duty.

"Local people are really keeping us going: food, can­ned goods, clothing," says Igor. "They even charge our cell phones for us."
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USA

US elections 2016: Will the GOP back another Bush?

David Usborne
Independent
Sun, 13 Apr 2014 00:00 UTC
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Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida whose father and brother have both served as president, is emerging as the most viable alternative to a hard-right Republican candidate
There was one man missing from an early beauty contest of possible candidates for the Republican Party's 2016 presidential nomination in New Hampshire at the weekend but his name came up quickly anyway. And when it did the audience, made up almost entirely of grassroots conservatives, erupted in sighs and belligerent boos.

Prompted by Donald Trump, possibly the party's most practised political provocateur, the moment threw into vivid relief the civil war that is rattling the party as jockeying for the 2016 race gets under way. He was shooting arrows at Jeb Bush and his recent assertion that illegal immigrants had mainly come into the country as "an act of love" so they could support their families. "That's one I've never heard before... it's out there," Mr Trump scoffed.
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Light Sabers

Silvio Berlusconi's messenger to the Mafia Marcello dell'Utri seized by Interpol in Beirut

Michael day
Independent
Sun, 13 Apr 2014 00:00 UTC
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Marcello dell’Utri, 72, helped Berlusconi form his Forza Italia party in 1993
The man widely believed to have been ex-premier Silvo Berlusconi's go-between with Cosa Nostra - the Sicilian Mafia - has been seized in Beirut by Interpol agents after appearing to flee Italy days ahead of a Supreme Court ruling in which he may be sentenced to seven years in prison for Mafia association.

The dramatic capture of Marcello dell'Utri, the former senator, provides a reminder of the mogul's murky past, even as judges in Milan are debating which form of community service Berlusconi should be dealt for his tax fraud conviction in August last year.

Dell'Utri was traced to the five-star Hotel Phoenicia through use of his credit card and mobile phone.
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Laptop

Dropbox faces online protests after appointing Condoleezza Rice to board

Stuart Dredge
Guardian
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 17:52 UTC
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© Andy Rain/EPADr. Condoleezza Rice's appointment has sparked protests from some Dropbox users over her past defence of warrantless wiretaps
Dropbox's decision to appoint former US secretary of state Dr Condoleezza Rice to the cloud storage service's board of directors has sparked a heated online row over her views on internet surveillance.

Protesters have set up a website - Drop Dropbox - describing the appointment as "deeply disturbing" and encouraging people to switch to rival services if the company doesn't "drop" Rice.

But supporters of Rice's appointment have also been making their views known on the blog post by Dropbox chief executive Drew Houston that announced the appointment. "When looking to grow our board, we sought out a leader who could help us expand our global footprint," wrote Houston.
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Road Cone

Russia, West lock horns at UN as Ukraine launches military response

Yavgen Savilov and Dmitry Zaks
AFP
Mon, 14 Apr 2014 06:35 UTC
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© AFP Photo/Genya SavilovPro-Russia activists warm themselves near a barricade outside a regional police building seized by armed separatists in Slavyansk on April 13, 2014
The UN Security Council has held emergency talks after Ukraine declared a "full-scale" military operation against pro-Russia forces, amid deadly clashes in its restive east.

Russia and the West locked horns over the escalating crisis in Ukraine with Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin saying "there has already been bloodshed and a further escalation must be swiftly stopped".

US ambassador Samantha Power accused Russia of waging propaganda and bombarding Ukraine with incitement and violence.

"This is the saddest kind of instability. It is completely man made. It was written and choreographed in and by Russia," Power told the 15-member council.

The latest clashes broke out a day after masked gunmen stormed police and security service buildings in coordinated raids, especially unsettling for Kiev and Western leaders because of their similarity to events leading up to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
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Cheesecake

Ignoring America: Russia says not bound by U.S. sanctions on Iran as it brokers massive oil-for-goods deal


Press TV
Mon, 14 Apr 2014 04:14 UTC
Iranian oil workers
© UnknownIranian technicians work at the oil-separator facilities in the country's Azadegan oil field, 80 km west of Ahvaz. (file photo)
A top Russian official has dismissed the US threats against the Kremlin over its trade ties with Iran, saying Moscow sees no reason to drop economic deals with Tehran.

"We are having conversations with Iran on trade and economic relations. They have not been completed. We don't see reasons why we should give up the development of economic relations with Iran. We are not violating any international sanctions by such actions," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vasili Nebenzya said on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Iran and Russia are close to sealing a USD 20-billion oil-for-commodities deal.

Under the deal, which is yet to be finalized, Russia will buy 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day in return for goods.

On April 8, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington could impose sanctions if Russia and Iran move forward with the oil deal.


Comment: Could it be any clearer that U.S. government policy is to thwart intra-Eurasian trading and thus control the world?

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Stormtrooper

Kiev launches 'full-scale' military op as massive protests grip eastern Ukraine


RT
Mon, 14 Apr 2014 03:54 UTC
Pro-Russian protesters
© AFP Photo / Alexander KhudoteplyPro-Russian activists hold umbrellas under the rain and shout slogans during a rally near a barricade outside the regional government building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on April 13, 2014
(This is the official version, but in reality we all know that these are all just Russian special agents dressed up to look like locals but in truth all ready to kill. Oh, you thought they were just normal umbrellas? Shame on you!)
Over 10,000 pro-autonomy demonstrators rallied across eastern Ukraine as Kiev's coup-appointed President threatened military force if protesters and paramilitaries reject a Monday morning deadline to vacate occupied govt buildings.

The deadline expired on Monday morning, however no use of force followed it immediately. Tension remains high in the Donetsk Region, as protesters prepare for a possible assault.

"The people demand that local authorities take orders from the [self-proclaimed - RT] Donetsk People's Republic, so nobody among the protesters is going to vacate the government buildings. We'll take our stand," Nikolay Solntsev, one of the protest leaders, told RIA Novosti.

Anti-Maidan activists still occupy govt buildings in Donetsk, the region's capital. A city centre rally on Sunday saw a senior 'Donetsk People's Republic' figure call for pro-autonomy activists to deploy across the region to prepare for a referendum.

Over 100 volunteers were also recruited to man defence lines against Kiev's "an anti-terrorist operation", underway most notably in Slavyansk. Buses waited to ferry the eager volunteers.
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HAL9000

Kiev must stop war on Ukrainians - Churkin says at UNSC meeting


RT
Mon, 14 Apr 2014 03:35 UTC
The United Nations Security Council
© Reuters / Eduardo MunozThe United Nations "Security" Council
The international community must demand that those who are in power in Kiev stop war on their own citizens in south-eastern Ukraine, Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told the UN Security Council.

"The international community must demand the stooges of Maidan stop the war against their own people", Churkin said at an emergency Security Council session.

Churkin stressed that "reckless actions" of the Kiev government are "threatening to rip apart the delicate garment of Ukrainian mosaic society."

Kiev's post-coup authorities "stubbornly," Churkin says, refuse to listen to those who do not accept Kiev's "radicalized, chauvinistic, russophobic, anti-Semitic forces."

"Some, including those in this hall, constantly look for Moscow's hand in the events in the southeast , persistently without wishing to see the true reasons of the events in Ukraine. Quit doing it," Churkin told the meeting.

"Quit spreading tales that we built up military armadas on the border with this country, ready at any moment, within a few hours to reach almost as far as La Manche, that we sent hordes of agents to coordinate actions of the protesting people of Ukraine."
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Wolf

Psychopaths All! Eric Holder rips Congress: 'unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive'

Mike Levine
ABC News
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 11:09 UTC
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© Blaze
A fed-up Attorney General Eric Holder is accusing congressional critics of launching "unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive" attacks on him and the Obama administration.

During a speech to the National Action Network, a group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton, in New York on Wednesday lauding the organization's effort to advance racial equality, a heated Holder went a little off-script.

"Forget about me [specifically]. Look at the way the attorney general of the United States was treated yesterday by a House committee," Holder told the crowd. "What attorney general has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? What president has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?"

The remarks drew loud applause from the crowd.
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Sheriff

New York lawsuit claims SAFE Act allows warrantless police searches

Mary Lou Byrd
The Washington Beacon
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:59 UTC
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© APGun rights advocates outside of the N.Y. Capitol building.
The registry process of New York's SAFE Act allows for warrantless police searches into gun owners' homes, a violation of the Fourth Amendment, according to plaintiffs of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Eastern District.

The law firm representing plaintiff Gabriel Razzano argues the registry process is "essentially secret and results in a mandatory, warrantless Penal Law 400 gun removal visit from police."

"The entire purpose of the registry is a sham to permit intrusions into a person's home on consent without a warrant for a 'gun removal,'" La Reddola, Lester and Associates said in a release. "The entire registry and database seek to justify warrantless police searches, which my client and I now believe to be the real purpose of the SAFE Act."
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