Puppet MastersS


Boat

Will meetings with Putin and Nazarbaev help Hollande grow a spine?

Mikhail Kuzmin
Fort Russ
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 01:39 UTC
Hollande Putin
© EPA/LETAHas Hollande after the meeting with Putin started to stand up and act in favour of the interests of his country?
A two-day visit to Kazakhstan and unplanned meeting with Putin at "Vnukovo-2" attempts to break France away from opponents of Russia or at least make it neutral.

Mission maximum - to lure Paris into Moscow's allies. This age-old line of Russian diplomacy, however, often stumbled on Anglo-Saxon rake. Even today Hollande is under a curse of the Mistress of the Seas and overseas friend. Hence such weakness on Mistral issue, reaching a complete loss of sovereignty, but which did not prevent Putin and Hollande from talking about a whole range of acute problems of the world during the flight of the President of France from Astana to Paris with a stopover in Moscow.

A flight over Russia without landing in the capital would be disrespectful towards Putin on the part of Holland, not to mention the fact that it is not the Russian side that owes the French a couple of boats, but quite the contrary.

However, at the government airport "Vnukovo-2", where the meeting of both leaders took place (at the request of the French side), in addition to the situation in Ukraine, the situation in Syria was discussed along with the Iranian nuclear program, bilateral Russian-French relations, but not ... Mistral.

Comment: Could it really be? Could Hollande the clown turn into a real man? Or is that asking too much? Putin can only do so much, after all!

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Gift 3

'Dear John': Ukraine will no longer transport Russian gas, says Gazprom head


Fort Russ
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 01:19 UTC
putin gazprom
"Nord Stream" and a Turkey pipeline will make the transit of gas through Ukraine meaningless, announced the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller in an interview to the TV program "Vesti on Saturday with Sergey Brilev": "Yes, in fact, the role of Ukraine as a transit country is reduced to zero," - said Miller.

"The decision to stop the "South Stream" is a beginning of the end of our business model, when we focused on the delivery to a final consumer in the European market."

At the same time, he noted that Russia will supply Ukraine with all its gas needs for domestic consumption. "In fact, we will provide the amount that Ukraine needs for its domestic consumption. Deliveries to Europe will be made by alternative routes,"- said Miller.

Comment: Yeah, Russia will supply Ukraine with gas they need - if they pay for it! It will be fun to hear what the EU states who have been on the receiving end of this transit think of this new development!

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X

You shall not pass! Turkey blocks Kiev's access to U.S. gas shipments

Isis Almeida
Bloomberg
Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:38 UTC
bosporus strait
© Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine's plan to diminish its energy dependence on Russia is adrift in the Bosporus Strait.

The nation, which gets half its gas from Russia, wants to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the Black Sea and held talks with Cheniere Energy Inc. (LNG) to import U.S. cargoes. The only path to the terminal is through Istanbul's 17-mile waterway.

Turkey doesn't allow LNG shipments through the Bosporus because of safety concerns and congestion. The strait is about half a mile wide at its narrowest point and classified as a maritime chokepoint, among the most difficult to navigate.

Comment: Looks like that promise from the U.S. to supply Ukraine's energy needs in place of Russia are empty as usual. Could this be another positive development to come out of Russia and Turkey's closer relationship as a result of the South Stream Snafu? We can only hope! Maybe a little cold in the winter will bring Ukrainians to their senses.

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Attention

The Kiev junta: Disaster awaiting meltdown

Finnian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 19:23 UTC
Zaporozhye
© RIA Novosti / FalinFILE PHOTO: The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
Was the forced shutdown of the biggest nuclear power plant in Ukraine last week a result of the country's fuel crisis? That crisis is itself a product to the political crisis that the Western sponsors have engendered in the country with the illegal coup in Kiev earlier this year.

The Western-backed Kiev regime has claimed that there was «no threat» to public safety or the environment from the week-long closure of the nuclear reactor at Zaporozhiya. But with scant detail on the nature of the incident and given the regime's total unreliability and unscrupulousness in other matters, there are grounds to be extremely cautious.

Also, the Kiev authorities did not report the shutdown until at least five days after it occurred. Such maverick incompetence is typical of this regime. After all, it took a bizarre unprecedented step this of appointing three foreign nationals, including an American citizen, to its ministerial cabinet. But why the apparent secrecy over the nuclear accident? What are they hiding?

Comment: Observing the Kiev regime's behavior and decisions this past year has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion, driven by lobotomized orangutans.

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Star of David

Israel bombs Syria, airstrikes hit near Damascus airport


Moon of Alabama
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 18:56 UTC
Image
© wikipedia.orgDamascus international Airport
Today Israeli jets attacked some Syrian military positions near Damascus. Details are yet unknown. But it is important to note that these are not one-off attacks but part for an ongoing active campaign Israel is waging against Syria mostly though through proxy "insurgent" forces.

Three days ago the UN General Secretary received a report from the UN Observer Mission mission on the Golan Heights (UNDOF). The report was an indictment of Israel for its strong cooperation with Syrian insurgents including the Syrian al-Qaeda group Jabhat al-Nusra.

For readers of MoA the extensive support by Israel of Jabhat al-Nusra and others against the Syrian army, including with direct artillery fire against Syrian government troops, is not news. But the main-stream media had so far lacked any reporting on it.


Comment: See also: Israel supports ISIL terrorists - Syria

Helping terrorists: Israeli military shot down Syrian warplane over Golan Heights


Today the Israeli paper Haaretz is the first to publish about the UN report but it does so very toned down and lacking significant details:
Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures.
...
According to the report, UN observers stated that tents were set up about 300 meters from the Israeli position for some 70 families of Syrian deserters. The Syrian army sent a letter of complaint to UNDOF in September, claiming this tent camp was a base for "armed terrorists" crossing the border into Israel.
While Haaretz notes some medical support for wounded insurgent fighters in Israel it does not reveal that the numbers are in the hundreds.

Comment: To learn more about the links between Israel and insurgents in Syria see:



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Bulb

Best of the Web: EU idiots! Russia's cancellation of South Stream gas pipeline is biggest economic sanction yet

Alexander Mercouris
Vineyard of the Saker
Wed, 03 Dec 2014 21:35 UTC

Comment: Must-read analysis on the recent South Stream developments involving Russia, the EU and Turkey, by Alexander Mercouris. For more details, don't miss SOTT's coverage here: EU losers! Russia scraps South Stream pipeline project, announces major alternative gas deal - Did Putin just poach Turkey?


The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully.
Privatization
© UnknownThe EU always wanted Russian resources to be privatized and controlled by Western corporations. Putin put a stopper to that dream and took the interests of his people seriously.
In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s.

Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe. This was the period of Europe's great "rush for gas" as the Europeans looked forward to unlimited and unending Russian supplies. It was the increase in the role of Russian gas in the European energy mix which made it possible for Europe to run down its coal industry and cut its carbon emissions and bully and lecture everyone else to do the same.

However the Europeans did not envisage that Russia would just supply them with energy. Rather they always supposed this energy would be extracted for them in Russia by Western energy companies. This after all is the pattern in most of the developing world. The EU calls this "energy security" - a euphemism for the extraction of energy in other countries by its own companies under its own control.

It never happened that way. Though the Russian oil industry was privatised it mostly remained in Russian hands. After Putin came to power in 2000 the trend towards privatisation in the oil industry was reversed. One of the major reasons for western anger at the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the closure of Yukos and the transfer of its assets to the state oil company Rosneft was precisely because it reversed this trend of privatisation in the oil industry.


Comment: It is easy to see why Putin has been so demonized in the West, as he acted for the interests of the people of Russia rather than the European/US bankers and corporations.


Comment: Bam! Once again, Moscow transmutes Europe's blustering machismo into a win for Russia and a defeat for the EU. They really should get it by now: you can't bluff with Russia when everyone KNOWS she has a better hand. You just end up looking like the arrogant, ignorant sycophants you really are, completely divorced from objective reality. You know it, and your people know it. And you'll get what you deserve: ridicule and obsolescence.

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Info

Update: US sends 6 Guantanamo Bay detainees to Uruguay as 'refugees'


RT
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 15:50 UTC
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica
© AFP Photo / Miguel RojoUruguayan President Jose Mujica chides UN official
The US has taken up Uruguay's offer of resettling six detainees from Guantanamo Bay detention center, which has stained the reputation of Barack Obama after he promised to close the facility in 2008.

Six individuals who have been held more than 12 years at Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to Uruguay where they will be resettled as refugees, according to a statement by the US government and reported by AP.

All six had been imprisoned for suspected affiliations with Al-Qaeda but were never formally charged. The Pentagon on Sunday identified the nationalities of the men as four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian.

Comment: This certainly is a surprise that the US would take Uruguay's offer. Hopefully this is a sign of continued activity to finally close Gitmo.

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Bad Guys

Politicians benefit from humanity's ability to self-deceive

Kevin Ryan
Dig Within
Sat, 06 Dec 2014 07:55 UTC
puppet hand
Politicians and pundits often use terrorism to promote the interests of their financiers. This fear mongering goes hand in hand with attempts at military profiteering, population control, and the concentration of political power. What many are beginning to discover is that deception is integral to the success of the terrorism business. That is, the official accounts of terrorist events are typically fraught with omissions of fact and the concealment of clues that point to the involvement of more powerful people. The success of these false accounts reveals important aspects of human nature and points to ways in which thoughtful people can help to overcome such challenges.

There will always be a few people greedy enough to lie to others for personal gain, but we can live with this. What we can't live with is large numbers of people lying to themselves because habitual self-deception is fatal. Long-term successful lies require motivated liars but also willing listeners and when millions or billions of citizens engage in such duplicity they make it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to survive.

Comment: See also:

Using language as a weapon of mass deception

The USA's non-stop insults to the world's intelligence

Media fakes war propaganda all day, every day

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Quenelle

Western leaders are scratching their heads as Ankara pivots East

Andrew Korybko
Sputnik
Tue, 02 Dec 2014 13:49 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Russia has abandoned the troubled South Stream project and will now be building its replacement with Turkey. This monumental decision signals that Ankara has made its choice to reject Euro-Atlanticsm and embrace Eurasian integration.

In what may possibly be the biggest move towards multipolarity thus far, the ultimate Eurasian pivot, Turkey, has done away with its former Euro-Atlantic ambitions. A year ago, none of this would have been foreseeable, but the absolute failure of the US' Mideast policy and the EU's energy one made this stunning reversal possible in under a year. Turkey is still anticipated to have some privileged relations with the West, but the entire nature of the relationship has forever changed as the country officially engages in pragmatic multipolarity.

Turkey's leadership made a major move by sealing such a colossal deal with Russia in such a sensitive political environment, and the old friendship can never be restored (nor do the Turks want it to be). The reverberations are truly global.

Missing The Signs

It's amazing how much the West lost in such a short period of time and due to such major and totally unnecessary political miscalculations, and they owe their roots to the disastrous regime change operations in Syria and Ukraine.

The US In The Mideast:

Nearly four years ago, the US co-opted Turkey to 'Lead From Behind' in overthrowing the democratically elected Syrian government. However, things didn't go as quite as planned and the Syrian people engaged in a fierce Patriotic War to defend the existence of their secular state. Turkey purposely sat out on the anti-ISIL coalition because it wanted solid guarantees of its reward in a regime-changed Syria, but none were forthcoming. Its leadership held firm, so the US started playing the 'Kurdish Card' of ethnic nationalism to bully them into submitting - which eventually backfired. The US crossed the line by arming and training the Kurds (some of whom are registered as terrorists by Turkey), and faced with such an existential threat to their state (that would either be unleashed wittingly or unwittingly with time), they knew they had to pivot, and fast.

Comment: Once again the EU puppets have buckled under the U.S. pressure and blackmail. The same can't be said about Turkey which will now be moving closer to Eurasia.

See also: EU losers! Russia scraps South Stream pipeline project, announces major alternative gas deal - Did Putin just poach Turkey?

The implications of the Russian-Turkish gas deal for the future of NATO

Putin's counterpunch to EU: Exit South Stream, enter Turk Stream

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TV

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Russian gas deal with Turkey - 'F*ck the EU!'

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 19:00 UTC
Image
This week on Behind the Headlines, we're discussing 'pipeline-istan', the economic battle between the West and Russia over who supplies Europe with its energy needs. Putin recently upset the EU by cancelling the planned South Stream Russian natural gas pipeline via Bulgaria... and replacing it with an alternative route to Turkey, which could possibly go from there into Greece and elsewhere in the Mediterranean. While this development came as a surprise to some, it's actually part of a decades-old issue that reappears in different guises: the US considers Europe to be its own, therefore Russian 'invasions', even in the form of peaceful trade deals, must be kept minimal.

Running Time: 02:17:00

Download: MP3

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