Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

CIA godfather Brennan admits he visited Kiev, refuses to call Russia enemy


RT
Mon, 12 May 2014 03:24 UTC
CIA director John Brennan
© Reuters / Yury Gripas
John Brennan, the head of the CIA, said in an interview he did go to Kiev "a few weeks ago" to talk to Ukrainian "partners and friends." He also declined to call Russia an enemy dubbing it instead "a major power".

While talking to Fusion's Jorge Ramos, Brennan admitted to the host's question his visit to Ukraine's capital in mid-April.

"I was out there to interact with our Ukrainian partners and friends. I had the opportunity to walk through the streets of Kiev and also go to Maidan Square and see the memorials to those Ukrainians trying to find liberty and freedom for their people," he said.

Following the visit, deposed Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich accused Brennan of de facto sanctioning a crackdown on pro-Russian activists in the country's south-east.

Until now the CIA had not disclosed if and why Brennan had been to Kiev but White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that the CIA director went in Kiev as part of his trip to Europe and met with high-ranked Ukrainian officials.

In the interview with Fusion, the Brennan said that the situation in Ukraine is "something that needs to be addressed" and insisted that the US wants "the Ukrainian people to have their ability to define their future."

Comment: The US and the CIA have been very much involved in the coup in Ukraine and the violent aftermath:
Ukraine is crawling with FBI and CIA agents - Germany's Bild newspaper
Big surprise: CIA Director Brennan's trip to Ukraine initiates use of force
Was CIA director in Kiev to locate missing Greystone mercenaries?
Secret team: CIA behind Ukraine crisis, ousted Yanukovych says
Meet the Americans who put together the coup in Kiev

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Coffee

The Donbass referendum and the will of the people - yet another abject failure of US foreign policy

The Saker
The Vineyard of the Saker
Mon, 12 May 2014 02:44 UTC
Mariupol referendum
© UnknownCitizens of Mariupol vote on Sunday the 11th of May, 2014 at the referendum.
The exact results of the referendum in the Donbass are still unknown, but the following three facts are undeniable:

1) Participation was extremely high.
2) The yes vote won by a landslide.
3) The neo-Nazi junta tried hard, but failed to disrupt the vote.

We also know that the validity of this referendum will be rejected by a crushing majority of UN members. Ditto for the regime in power who has already denounced it as a "farce". As for the Ukie terror squads in the Donbass, they are unlikely to simply pack up and leave. So this begs a simply question:

Is this referendum a non-event or does it matter?

I would argue that far from being a non-event, the outcome of this referendum is a huge development, a watershed really. Why? Because the importance of this referendum is not in its legal acceptance by any party, but in the fact that it now makes undeniable a fact which previously could not be established with certainty: the Donbass does not want to be part of Banderastan.
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Arrow Down

Taxes will rise unless we can raid people's bank accounts says UK Prime Minister

Steven Swinford
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 09 May 2014 01:48 UTC
Raising Taxes
© Alamy
Taxes will have to rise unless officials are given new powers to raid people's bank accounts, David Cameron has said.

Taxes will have to rise unless officials are given new powers to raid people's bank accounts, David Cameron has said.

The Treasury select committee warned that allowing HM Revenue and Customs to remove cash from bank accounts without court orders is "very concerning" because of its history of mistakes.

The committee said that taxpayers could suffer "serious detriment" if officials are able, either by mistake or through an "abuse" of power, to take money from people who have done no wrong.

Mr Cameron yesterday claimed that the alternative was to "put up taxes". He told Sky News: "We have a choice here. If we don't collect taxes properly and make sure people pay their taxes properly we look at the problems of having to raise tax rates. I don't want to do that, so I support the changes the Chancellor set out in the Budget which is to really say that not paying your taxes is not acceptable.

"It is very clear that they can only do this if there is a debt of over £1,000, they can only do it if there's £5,000 or more in the account after this has been completed. The general principle - do we want to pursue every avenue of making people pay their taxes they are meant to pay before we put up taxes, because that's the alternative - absolutely, yes we do."

Comment: This is shocking and disgusting when you consider the number of major corporations that have AVOIDED paying taxes to the British public pursue. Consider

Amazon makes billions from British customers, pays pennies in tax

The tax man cometh...unless you're a big corporation

Taxes are for slaves: Google boss says "I'm very proud of our tax avoidance scheme - it's called capitalism"

The fact of the matter is that the British government does not even consider the £12 billion in annual lost taxes in the UK as a result of favorable conditions for big corporations to avoid paying tax as a problem! They're happy for these corporations to engage this kind of thievery.

And yet, the UK government is threatening to steal money from the little people. It iss VERY clear that government and big corporations are two sides of the same coin, and both of them exploit and abuse the gullible masses.

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Stock Up

A president who delivers what he promised: Russian government hits halfway mark implementing 218 socio-economic reforms drafted by President Putin in 2012


RT
Wed, 07 May 2014 00:00 UTC
Russian White House
© Reuters / Sergei KarpukhinA general view shows the Russian White House, House of the Government of the Russian Federation, in central Moscow
The Russian government reports it has fulfilled about a half of the 218 "May Orders" - the points in the major social and economic program signed by President Putin right after his inauguration two years ago.

According to the report published on the government's web-site on Wednesday, ministers have managed to execute 121 presidential orders in two years. The reports on the execution of 17 more orders are currently being reviewed by the Presidential Administration and 97 orders are still being worked on, the report reads.

The authors of the document add that the execution of three orders are overdue - they should have been implemented before December 2013. The work on the rest is on schedule and the program must be fully completed before 2020 - well beyond Vladimir Putin's current presidential term that expires in 2018.

The government released a report a year ago that said it had managed to fulfill only two thirds of the presidential plans for the period, and President Putin said that he had deliberately set high objectives to make civil servants work harder.

The May Orders are the major guidelines for national development signed by Putin after his inauguration as president in May 2012. They include the plan for economic development, reforms in state administration, foreign policy, in science and the military, and also various social reforms, including healthcare, demographics and ethnic policies.
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Light Saber

'Ukraine' finished? Early results show landslide support in Donetsk and Lugansk regions for self-rule


RT
Sun, 11 May 2014 00:00 UTC
referendum-results-east-ukraine
© Reuters / Valentyn OgirenkoMembers of a local election commission empty a ballot box as they start counting votes of today's referendum on the status of Lugansk region in Lugansk May 11, 2014
Election commissions in Donetsk and Lugansk are still counting the ballots, but preliminary results show the majority of eastern Ukrainians supported self-rule, despite intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.

After the last polling stating closed in Lugansk and Donetsk regions at 23:00 local time (20:00 GMT), election commissions began counting the votes.

According to preliminary results - based on phone call reports from local commissions - in Donetsk region 89.7% of votes were cast in favour of political independence from Kiev. In Lugansk region preliminary results have not yet been announced, but the leader of the local "people's front" said only around 5% voted against the "Act of state self-rule of the Lugansk People's Republic."

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Cow Skull

Never-ending American-Afghan War: Hundreds of thousands of Afghans permanently displaced


RT
Sun, 11 May 2014 14:23 UTC

"The war isn't over," residents of one of Kabul's refugee camps told RT's Lucy Kafanov. Tens of thousands of Afghans have been displaced by conflict in the country and their situation is not likely to change with the withdrawal of US troops this year.

"There's no difference anymore between the Americans, the government or the Taliban," Aisha Bibi, one of the residents of a district on the outskirts of Kabul populated by Afghan citizens fleeing from violence, told Kafanov. Three generations of her family were killed in an airstrike in Helmand province.

"On the ground, there were Taliban and in the skies were planes with bombs. We lost everything."

Aisha is just one of over 100,000 Afghan citizens forced from their homes by the ongoing violence that still grips the country. Many have taken refuge in crumbling shanty towns on the outskirts of Kabul and are unable to return to their homes. Residents are forced to live without electricity and running water and with jobs thin on the ground many are hard pressed to pull themselves out of poverty.

Image

Comment: Just go, get out. Let Afghanistan heal in whatever way it can. If it falls into the hands of religious Muslims, then so be it. Enough with the 'saving people by blowing them up' already.

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Document

Whacko Kerry again embarrassing himself - rebukes EU for inciting Ukraine 'tug of war'


RT
Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:02 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Yannis BehrakisAnti-government protesters detain a policeman (2nd L) during clashes in the Independence Square in Kiev February 20, 2014.
While publicly denying Russia's accusation that the EU forced Ukraine choose between Russia and Europe, in private America's top diplomat reportedly admitted this as fact and that it played a part in escalating the ongoing crisis.

"Some folks in Europe made mistakes, the association agreement became too much of an East-West tug of war. It shouldn't have been," US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly said at a private meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington last Friday. His words were quoted by the Daily Beast on Tuesday.

Russia has long insisted that the EU and the US sparked the political crisis in Ukraine last October. The EU Association Agreement, which President Viktor Yanukovich refused to sign after long deliberation, would require Ukraine to sever or downgrade many of its economic ties with Russia, which would hurt greatly its economy. Yanukovich's decision triggered the protest in Kiev, which eventually escalated into an armed coup that deposed him.
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Chess

Serbia goes own way: 'Respects' EU but will not introduce measures against Russia


InSerbia News
Sun, 11 May 2014 15:41 UTC
Ivica Dacic serbia
© mfa.gov.rsIvica Dacic – Deputy prime minister and foreign minister
Serbia wants to be an EU member and we are aware of our obligations on that pathway, however we have to bear in mind our national interests as well, Ivica Dacic, Serbia's first deputy prime minister and foreign minister, stated on Sunday.

Commenting on the calls by certain European officials on Serbia to align its policy with the EU regarding the Ukrainian crisis, Dacic said for Radio and Television of Serbia that Serbia respects the EU rules, but it will not introduce measures against Russia, which is its traditional friend. "The more we approach the EU, the more we will be obliged to abide by the common foreign and security policy of the EU. However, in this phase Serbia has to demonstrate its commitment to the EU on one side, while on the other it should assess its state and national interests in every individual case," the minister said. He said that Serbia has voiced its stance very clearly. "We respect the territorial integrity of every UN member state, while Serbia cannot and will not introduce any sanctions against its traditional friend - Russia," Dacic said, adding that this stance is principled. "We are familiar with our obligations, but life has taught us that we have to bear in mind our interests as well. It would be much easier for us, if we had heard something similar when Kosovo acted illegally in relation to Serbia," Dacic said.
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Newspaper

No joke: Obama administration bans officials from mentioning the news

David Harris Gershon
Daily Kos
Fri, 09 May 2014 07:45 UTC
Obama
© Unknown
When President Obama stated last year that his White House is "the most transparent administration in history," he acknowledged that this pronouncement did not necessarily translate to the national security arena.

What he failed to say is that, with regard to 'national security' concerns, this White House has become historically and bombastically opaque - so much so that articles such as this one require the "not satire" tag.

Per The New York Times:
The Obama administration is clamping down on a technique that government officials have long used to join in public discussions of well-known but technically still-secret information: citing news reports based on unauthorized disclosures.

A new pre-publication review policy for the Office of Director of National Intelligence says the agency's current and former employees and contractors may not cite news reports based on leaks in their speeches, opinion articles, books, term papers or other unofficial writings.
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Bell

Congo president: Africa needs Russia


RT
Thu, 01 May 2014 17:49 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Hakon Mosvole Larsen/ScanpixCongolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso
The Republic of the Congo, a resource-rich state in central Africa, plans to attract infrastructure investment from Russia, President Denis Sassou Nguesso told Russian media.

"We plan to develop co-operation in all areas: hydrocarbons, agriculture, minerals, logging and education and training," he said to RIA Novosti.

Sassou Nguesso, who first became the leader of his country in 1979, was originally a committed Marxist, and relied on the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

He still thanks the USSR "for fighting for the freedom of the people of Africa," and speaks warmly of the thousands of Congolese who studied and married in the Soviet Union. However, he realizes that the relationship had to be rebuilt anew, following wide-scale political and economic transformations in both countries.
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