Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

US eavesdropping on hundreds of key German figures

spying protest
© AFP Photo/Britta PedersonDemonstrators protests against data preservation in front of the US embassy in Berlin on February 1, 2014
US intelligence has stepped up eavesdropping on hundreds of key figures in Germany, including a government minister, after Chancellor Angela Merkel was dropped as a direct target, a German report said Sunday.

Bild am Sonntag newspaper said that 320 political and business leaders in Germany were being monitored by the US National Security Agency (NSA), including Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.

"We have the order not to allow any loss of information whatsoever after the communication of the chancellor no longer being able to be directly monitored," Bild quoted an unnamed high-ranking US intelligence employee in Germany as saying.

US-German ties soured amid revelations leaked by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden that US intelligence agencies had allegedly eavesdropped on Merkel and collected vast amounts of online data and telephone records from average citizens.

Eye 1

Russia denounces Ukraine terrorists and west over Yanukovich ousting

Image
© Astakhov Dmitry/Itar-Tass/CorbisDmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister.
Moscow claims new government violating ethnic Russian rights and accuses west of one-sided geopolitical calculations

Moscow delivered a damning indictment of post-revolutionary Ukraine on Monday, denouncing alleged discrimination of the ethnic Russian minority, accusing the west of sponsoring a takeover of the country by "terrorists" and "extremists", and clashing with Washington over plans for early elections in May.

"Russia is extremely concerned about the situation in Ukraine," said a foreign ministry statement, which followed the highest-level reaction from Moscow so far to the collapse of Viktor Yanukovych's presidency. Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister and former president, accused the post-Yanukovych authorities and parliament of lacking legitimacy.

"If you consider Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks who are roaming Kiev to be the government, then it will be hard for us to work with that government," Medvedev said. "Some of our foreign, western partners think otherwise, considering them to be legitimate authorities. I do not know which constitution, which laws they were reading, but it seems to me it is an aberration ... Something that is essentially the result of a mutiny is called legitimate."

Bad Guys

'I am sure Ukraine will join the EU': Former PM Yulia Tymoshenko

Protests continue in Kiev Ukraine
© Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesProtests continued in Independence Square on February 22 despite deal
The former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been freed from prison and said that she is certain that the country will now join the EU, just hours after MPs voted to oust President Viktor Yanukovych.

"Our homeland will from today on be able to see the sun and sky as a dictatorship has ended," Tymoshenko told reporters after her release from the hospital where she had been held under prison guard for most of the time since she was jailed in 2011.

Comment: The corrupt Yulia Tymoshenko, aka "the gas princess", is freed from prison and claims a dictatorship has ended? Whatever the conditions in Ukraine have been to date, she fails to mention that a new dictatorship is beginning thanks to the manipulations of the US and EU.

More on Tymoshenko:

The Country Run by a Mafia: Ukrainian ex-PM Tymoshenko may face life in prison for 'ordering murder'

Free-dumb and Democrazi: Ukraine MPs vote for release of ex-PM and gas billionaire Tymoshenko, along with a return to 2004 CIA-imposed constitution

Whatever government was in place, it was indeed an elected one, with the next elections only around one year away, and what has actually happened, is as Yanukovych said, a coup d'etat. There is plenty of evidence that this coup was largely engineered by US and EU, taking advantage of the unhappy and gullible people of Ukraine, so they can pillage the country economically as they've done before in other countries.

In addition, as Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, we have extremist groups in control at the moment.

So, how are things any better in Ukraine than they were before?


USA

Venezuelan Interior Minister explains U.S. 'regime change' happening in his country

Image
Two Army Battalions are being deployed to Combat "Grave" Opposition Disorder in Tachira State near the Colombian Border

Ewan Robertson (VA) : The Venezuelan government is to send two army battalions to Táchira state, which borders Colombia, to combat a "grave" case of opposition-promoted disorder in the area.

According to press reports and an eyewitness testimony provided to Venezuelanalysis.com, the capital city of Táchira state, San Cristóbal, has been almost brought to a standstill in recent days by street barricades set up by hard-line opposition activists.

According to such reports, in recent days, almost no transport has been able to circulate, while the great majority of shops and businesses have been closed. Authorities warn that the street blockades are impeding the delivery of food and gasoline, and claim that transport workers have been threatened.

The government also suspects that "paramilitaries and criminal gangs" are involved in the actions, with the complicity of the local opposition mayor, Daniel Ceballos.

Bad Guys

US losing game to Russia in Ukraine: Paul Craig Roberts

Image
© UnknownUkraine has been gripped by unrest since late November 2013.
The United States is losing the game to Russia in Ukraine due to its miscalculated attempts at ousting the government in Kiev, an analyst writes in a column for the Press TV website.

"The problem with Washington's plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold," Paul Craig Roberts wrote in a column on Sunday.

That "the chosen US puppets" have lost control of the protests to Nazism-linked armed radical elements is one of the problems, he said, adding that the other is the fact that "Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence."

Bomb

Ukraine beaten and fragmented: uprising political groups once on the fringes are in the ascendancy

Image
© UnknownAnti-government protesters stand on a barricade at the entrance of Kiev's Independence square
Independence Square was a victorious arena; the hated enemy had been overthrown, his security forces driven from the streets; the capital and half the country belonged to the revolution.

The other half, however, remains loyal to Viktor Yanukovych and the reckoning which will unfold in the coming days is likely to show the alarming rise in the power of paramilitaries.

On Saturday night the prime attraction on the stage in the Maidan, as the square is known, was Yulia Tymoshenko, freed from prison and flown to Kiev to address the crowd of more than 50,000. There was heckling: it had not been forgotten that her seven-year sentence was for abusing her position as Prime Minister. There were also reminders that there had been a shift in the balance of power.

Comment: It seems that Ukraine is now a free battleground for competing extreme ideologies, all as ignorant as each other. The US/EU goal of destabilizing Ukraine is coming along nicely.


Gear

Dozens of Democrats quietly distancing from Obamacare - change tune to woo voters

Obamacare
© Eric Reed/MCT
California Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R-CA-42) with volunteer staff during the Color in Motion 5K charity run in Indio, Calif., Saturday, Feb., 15, 2014. "I would not have thought it would still be an issue. But now I think there will be an issue through the campaign."
Mark Kentley is the kind of voter who will help decide the short-term political verdict on the new health care law known as Obamacare.

A 27-year-old who studies business administration while working at the College of the Desert, he's swung back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans in the last two presidential elections. Now, he sits right in the middle of one of the most contested seats for the House of Representatives, and his dislike of the law will be a major factor in deciding who gets his vote this fall.

He resents that the government is forcing him to buy health insurance he doesn't want. "They're trying to reinvent the wheel," he complained during a break at the student union.

What he and others like him decide will determine whether the Democrats ride out the storm of mistakes and protests over the new Affordable Care Act or whether the Republicans ride that to another wave of gains in the House, as they did in 2010 when they seized control.

The House district around Palm Springs is one of three in California that the Democrats could lose this fall. And the trend reaches to all corners of the country. For Democrats running for Congress in dozens of districts, the Affordable Care Act they once boasted about is one of the largest obstacles to their re-election bids in November.

In 2010, Democrats ignored the slew of attacks on the health care law only to lose more than 60 seats - and their majority - in the House and six seats in the Senate. Now they're switching strategies, casting themselves as crusaders out to repair a broken law.

They call the law "imperfect" and "flawed." They air television ads that highlight the need to "fix Obamacare." They criticize President Barack Obama for the "disastrous" rollout of the website, healthcare.gov, and for breaking a promise to Americans that they could keep their health insurance if they liked it. Many defy the White House and support Republican proposals to change the law.

Cowboy Hat

Snowden warns of the dangers of state secrecy privileges

Image
© AFPA frame grab made from AFPTV shows US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden at an unidentified location, reportedly taken on October 9, 2013.
Former US security contractor Edward Snowden on Wednesday spoke out about the use of state secrecy privileges as he presented an Oxford University award to fellow intelligence leaker Chelsea Manning.

Snowden, who is in hiding in Russia, presented the prestigious British university's Sam Adams awards for integrity and intelligence to the jailed former US Army intelligence analyst via YouTube.

Snowden recorded a four-minute message, in which he warned of the dangers of "overclassification".

He said the term described governments' use of state secrecy privileges "to withhold information from the public that's not related to national security", adding it had become a "serious problem".

"The White House told us that 95 million records have been created and classified in the year 2012, more than any year on record," he continued. "Many other western governments are on the same trajectory."

Top Secret

NSA lawyers say lawsuits require the agency to keep phone records!

Image
The government is considering enlarging the National Security Agency's controversial collection of Americans' phone records - an unintended consequence of lawsuits seeking to stop the surveillance program, according to officials.

A number of government lawyers involved in lawsuits over the NSA phone-records program believe federal-court rules on preserving evidence related to lawsuits require the agency to stop routinely destroying older phone records, according to people familiar with the discussions. As a result, the government would expand the database beyond its original intent, at least while the lawsuits are active.

No final decision has been made to preserve the data, officials said, and one official said that even if a decision is made to retain the information, it would be held only for the purpose of litigation and not be subject to searches. The government currently collects phone records on millions of Americans in a vast database that it can mine for links to terror suspects. The database includes records of who called whom, when they called and for how long.

Telephone

Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks launch a "Hutton-style" inquiry into the News of the World six days before her arrest

Image
© Fiona Hanson/PATony Blair’s advice to Rebekah Brooks shortly before her arrest in the phone-hacking scandal included taking sleeping pills. The former prime minister also told her to ‘keep strong’ and ‘tough up’.
Tony Blair secretly advised Rebekah Brooks to launch a "Hutton-style" inquiry into the News of the World six days before her arrest as a suspect in the phone-hacking scandal, it has been revealed in evidence disclosed at the Old Bailey.

According to an email written by Brooks, following an hour-long phone call in July 2011, the former prime minister had also offered to act as an "unofficial adviser" to her, Rupert and James Murdoch on a "between us" basis.

The note from Brooks - sent to James Murdoch - was read out in the phone-hacking trial. In it, she said that Blair had suggested that News International set up an inquiry which would "publish a Hutton-style report" that would "clear you and accept short comings [sic]".

She also wrote that Blair told her the crisis would pass and she should "tough up" and not make any rash decisions. The former prime minister also told News International's then chief executive to "keep strong" and appeared to suggest she should take sleeping pills to keep a clear head.

The email was sent at 4.20pm on Monday 11 July, the day after the News of the World closed and seven days after the Guardian disclosed that the tabloid had hacked the voicemail messages of the missing Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler, triggering a chain reaction of further revelations and political outcry.

Comment:
The Mysterious Death of Dr David Kelly: Damning New Evidence Points to a Cover-up by Tony Blair's Government