Puppet MastersS


Alarm Clock

Interview with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad

The US has said it has evidence that the chemical nerve agent sarin was used in a deadly attack in Damascus last month.

When asked if the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the BBC's Jeremy Bowen that they were used by Western-backed armed groups aka 'al-qaeda'.

He said that if there was an attack by the US, terrorism would flourish everywhere, and that US evidence for a CW attack by the Syrian government was the same as the 'evidence' for Saddam Hussein's WMDs.


Gold Coins

Pay day: Saudi Arabia signs off 1 billion dollars to France

Warship
© Unknown
King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia wished to thank France for it's offensive position in Syria by ordering the signature of a state to state contract, Life Extension Sawari 1 (LEX), for over 1 billion dollars of worth.

The public firm ODAS (the consortium gathering the DCNS, Thales and MBDA) will upgrade four frigates of Al Medinah class and two supply tankers of Boraida class, in service since 1985-1986, at the time of the Sawari I contract.

This contract could be followed by an even juicier one : the sale of six multi-mission Fremm frigates.

However, LEX was signed before the French backtracking in the Syrian bombing and it isn't certain that the favours of the monarch will persist.

Translation:
Alizée Ville

Pharoah

Egypt to try ex-President Morsi for inciting murder

Morsi supporters
© AFPSupporters of Mr Morsi have kept up the pressure for him to be reinstated
Egypt's state prosecutor says he has referred ousted President Mohammed Morsi for trial on charges of inciting the murder of protesters.

The accusations relate to violence outside the presidential palace in Cairo last December when at least seven people were killed in clashes. Fourteen other members of the Muslim Brotherhood are to stand trial on the same charges.

Mr Morsi has been held at a secret location since he was deposed in July. He faces a number of charges but this case is his first referral for trial. Since he was ousted from power, the military-backed interim government has cracked down on Brotherhood supporters, who are demanding Mr Morsi's reinstatement.

Last month, hundreds of protesters died when security forces stormed pro-Morsi camps in the capital.

Magnify

US evidence on chemical attack in Syria 'does not convince' Russia

Russia says the evidence provided by the United States and its allies to prove that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons is not convincing.

Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said during an address to the students of the Moscow State University of International Relations on Monday, "What our American, British and French partners have shown us before - as well as now - does not convince us at all."
"There are no supporting facts. There is only repetitive talk in the vein of 'we know for sure.' And when we ask for further clarification, we receive the following response: 'You are aware that this is classified information, therefore we cannot show it to you.' So there are still no facts," Lavrov stated.
"If there truly is top secret information available, the veil should be lifted. This is a question of war and peace. To continue this game of secrecy is simply inappropriate."

Lavrov added that there were "many doubts" about the images posted on the Internet that allegedly relate to the chemical attack in Syria.

Heart - Black

Business as usual in Egypt: Army destroys food supply tunnels into Gaza (again)

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© SAID KHATIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGESSmoke rises in the southern Gaza Strip along the border with Egypt where a smuggling tunnel dug beneath the border was demolished.
Egyptian security forces have destroyed a number of tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Video footage showed explosions and then clouds of smoke rising up in the town of Rafah, on the border between the Palestinian territory and Egypt on Saturday.

About 80 percent of the tunnels, which are used to transfer goods and medicines into Gaza from Egypt, are no longer functional due to similar incidents carried out by the Egyptian security forces.


Propaganda

NSA leaks propaganda via Snowden: 'Secret files show Pentagon conducted DNA tests after Bin Laden's death'

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© Reuters / PentagonOsama bin Laden
United States intelligence documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden now confirm that US authorities positively identified the body of Osama bin Laden with a DNA test shortly after his May 2011 execution.

According to the Washington Post, top-secret documents provided by the national security whistleblower revealed that a DNA sample was taken from bin Laden's body around eight hours after he was killed inside his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.

The sample, the Post reported, "provided a conclusive match" between the DNA taken from the corpse and other bin Laden intelligence.

When the Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request after the May 2, 2011 killing, the Pentagon responded that it had no such testing documents in its possession. Post reporters Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman wrote Thursday that information about the test was included within the secretive "black budget" document leaked by Mr. Snowden and published in part by the paper this week.

Comment: Bin Laden was dead long before the CIA staged that event in Abbottabad, Pakistan: Benazir Bhutto confirms Osama bin Laden is dead


Eye 1

Anabel Hernández, author of 'Narcoland': 'Mexico's war on drugs is one big lie'

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© Adam Wiseman for the ObserverJournalist and author Anabel Hernández, photographed for the Observer in Parque Mexico, Mexico City.
Anabel Hernández, journalist and author, accuses the Mexican state of complicity with the cartels, and says the 'war on drugs' is a sham. She's had headless animals left at her door and her family have been threatened by gunmen. Now her courageous bestseller, extracted below, is to be published in the UK

During January 2011, Anabel Hernández's extended family held a party at a favourite cafe in the north of Mexico City. The gathering was to celebrate the birthday of Anabel's niece. As one of the country's leading journalists who rarely allows herself time off, she was especially happy because "the entire family was there. There are so many of us that it's extremely difficult to get everybody together in one place. It hardly ever happens."

Anabel Hernández had to leave early, as so often, "to finish an article", and it was after she left that gunmen burst in. "Pointing rifles at my family, walking round the room - and taking wallets from people. But this was no robbery; no one tried to use any of the credit cards - it was pure intimidation, aimed at my family, and at me." It was more than a year before the authorities began looking for the assailants. And during that time the threats had continued: one afternoon last June, Hernández opened her front door to find decapitated animals in a box on the doorstep.

Hernández's offence was to write a book about the drug cartels that have wrought carnage across Mexico, taking some 80,000 lives, leaving a further 20,000 unaccounted for - and forging a new form of 21st-century warfare. But there have been other books about this bloodletting; what made Los Señores del Narco different was its relentless narrative linking the syndicate that has driven much of the violence - the Sinaloa cartel, the biggest criminal organisation in the world - to the leadership of the Mexican state.

Bomb

Three militants dead in suspected U.S. drone strike in Pakistan

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© Sipa Press/RexMilitants from Turkmenistan or China were among those at the seminary but the nationality of those killed was not immediately known.
Two also wounded in Mussaki village in North Waziristan as Pakistan's foreign ministry condemn strikes as 'unilateral'

Two missiles launched by a suspected US drone killed at least three foreign militants in an abandoned seminary near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan on Saturday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Two militants were also wounded in the strike in Mussaki village in North Waziristan, the officials said, adding that militants from Turkmenistan or China were among those at the seminary but the nationality of those killed was not immediately known.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Vader

"Proof" Assad used chemical weapons is one hundred YouTube clips: Full report attached

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Below is the government's assessment of the "Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013." It is exactly as expected, putting the full blame on Assad.

What however is absolutely mindblowing is the following:
"We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage. We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack."
In other words, America may be about to launch World War III on the basis of one hundred videos, which it believes "the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate."

God help us all.

Arrow Down

Winston Churchill's shocking use of chemical weapons

Churchill
© Hulton ArchiveWinston Churchill speaking at a munitions factory in Ponders End, 1916.
Secrecy was paramount. Britain's imperial general staff knew there would be outrage if it became known that the government was intending to use its secret stockpile of chemical weapons. But Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for war, brushed aside their concerns. As a long-term advocate of chemical warfare, he was determined to use them against the Russian Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1919, 94 years before the devastating strike in Syria, Churchill planned and executed a sustained chemical attack on northern Russia.

The British were no strangers to the use of chemical weapons. During the third battle of Gaza in 1917, General Edmund Allenby had fired 10,000 cans of asphyxiating gas at enemy positions, to limited effect. But in the final months of the first world war, scientists at the governmental laboratories at Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device", an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine. The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised".