Puppet MastersS


Dollars

Russian lawmaker wants to outlaw U.S. dollar, calls it a Ponzi scheme

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© LM Otero
Predicting the imminent collapse of the U.S. dollar, a Russian lawmaker submitted a bill to his country's parliament Wednesday that would ban the use or possession of the American currency.

Mikhail Degtyarev, the lawmaker who proposed the bill, compared the dollar to a Ponzi scheme. He warned that the government would have to bail out Russians holding the U.S. currency if it collapses.

"If the U.S. national debt continues to grow, the collapse of the dollar system will take place in 2017," said Mr. Degtyarev, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democrat Party who lost in Moscow's recent mayoral election.

"The countries that will suffer the most will be those that have failed to wean themselves off their dependence on the dollar in time. In light of this, the fact that confidence in the dollar is growing among Russian citizens is extremely dangerous."

Black Magic

SOTT Focus: Blinded by the blackness: Is Obama getting on your nerves yet?

Obama is my homeboy
© photobucket
I'd like to direct these words to my fellow black people. (This, by no means, excludes non-blacks so feel free to read on cause this definitely affects you too.) Specifically those of you who remain spellbound by the POTUS. Looking back to 2008, I can remember the cheshire cat smiles, the secret, gloating conversations away from the ears of white folks, the misplaced sense of pride when Obama took to the podium and gave one of his erudite and articulate speeches. Older black men -- Dad, this includes you -- who looked dreamily into space saying, "I never thought it would happen in my lifetime...." It was as if Uncle Sam himself kissed the boo-boo of 400 years of slavery, jim crow segregation, lynchings and rampant discrimination, wrapped it in a bandage and gently swatted us all on our collective butts urging us back outside to play cause it'll all get better.

There was so much talk about how cool Obama was, how he had "swag". Besides being an actual black person, he was way cooler than our ostensible first black president, Bill Clinton, when he got down on the saxaphone on the Arsenio Hall show. Then there was Obama showing off his super smoothe dance moves with Ellen, playing pick up basketball games and wonder of wonders, crooning an Al Green tune at the Apollo!

Are you too blinded by the blackness to notice that interspersed with all this Super Soul Brother Number One activity there are some very nefarious deeds taking place?

Bad Guys

Russia to deploy long-range attack drone by 2016

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© APThe U.S. MQ-9 Reaper said to be similar to the Russian drone in development
Russia is developing its first long-range drone aircraft capable of conducting ground attack missions, but lags behind other militaries in building unmanned aerial combat vehicles, according to U.S. officials.

The new drone is being developed in secret and was first revealed in online images earlier this year.

U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports said the drone is being called the Altius-M and work is being done at the Sokol Design Bureau in Tatarstan, a Russian republic.

Recent analysis of images of the propeller-driven aircraft indicates the drone will be a medium or high-altitude strike aircraft, based on its long wingspan and V-shaped tail, the officials said.

The aircraft appears similar to the U.S. MQ-9 Reaper missile-firing UAV.

Sherlock

Evidence of Revision - A 'Must-See'

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Daunting and exhilerating ten and a half hour look at the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations with side trips into organized crime, mind crontrol and Jonestown

Stitched together from other sources, both news reports, documentaries, interview pieces and other sources. Evidence of Revision is frequently one hell of a killer historical document, never mind the subject matter.

The thesis of the film is that the John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Assassinations were all conspiracies, perpetrated by people connected to the government (LBJ, CIA) and covered up in part thanks to J Edgar Hoover. I don't know if the film ever proves who actually was behind the killings* however thanks to the use of simple news footage they make it clear that something more than the story reported in the history books was afoot.

I'm not going to wade into a discussion of the conspiracy that the film sets out. This is not laziness on my part nor is it any sort of commentary about the validity or lack thereof, its simply that the entirety of the series is ten hours long and that any detailed discussion of the material would take up the better part of a large book. It would also require sitting down and spending several weeks going backward and forward through the series, which as of this writing is time I don't have. Pieces in part one ties into part six. It's a stunning achievement and if you can get through some odd technical hiccups due to the variety of sources the film provides real food for thought.

Comment: Join us on SOTT Talk Radio this Sunday 17th of November, from 2-4pm EST (11am-1pm PST, 8-10pm CET) as we as we look at the life and legacy of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - JFK Assassination - 50 Years Later.

November 22nd 2013 will mark 50 years since the Day America Died. A tragic event for most Americans and for ordinary people the world over who choose peace over war, equality over injustice, and happiness over greed, the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy was pivotal in setting the United States on its current path towards doom.

This week on SOTT Talk Radio we're going to reflect on the life of a man who dreamed of a better world, and was making that dream a reality until assassins' bullets killed the American Dream that sunny November day in Dallas, Texas.

Half a century later, it's common knowledge in the U.S. that JFK's murder was ordered by a powerful cabal. And yet, successive U.S. administrations have refused to release documents that would fill in the remaining gaps. Who exactly carried it out? And on behalf of whom? How did they organise it? And why did they do it?

Despite the passing of time, the 'suiciding' of key witnesses, the barrage of misinformation and disinformation, and the 'loss' of crucial documentation, excellent research has enabled others to form a cohesive and reasonably objective narrative that counters the official propaganda and places the assassination in proper historical context.


No Entry

OPCW misses Syria deadline as Albania refuses to host chem weapons destruction

Albanian protests in Tirana
© AFPAlbanian environmental activists hold up national flags and signs as they take part in a protest in front of the Albanian parliament in Tirana on November 14, 2013, over the possibility of the Republic of Albania processing and destroying 1.000 tons of chemical weapons from Syria in its military facilities.
Albania will not host the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons under the OPCW plan, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has announced. The country decided to turn the option down despite a request by its NATO ally, the US.

"It is impossible for Albania to get involved in this operation," Rama said, following a heated debate in his country and discussions with several UN members, including the US.

The possibility of Tirana inviting thousands of tons of toxic waste from Syria to be destroyed on its territory sparked protests, with hundreds of demonstrators taking to the streets to say "no" to such a plan.

Albania's refusal coincides with the November-15 deadline for a detailed plan on chemical stockpile destruction to be agreed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Damascus. Syria needs to get rid of 1,300 tons of sarin, mustard and other nerve agents, which are too dangerous to eliminate amid the ongoing conflict in the country.

Albania was considering hosting a facility for dismantling the chemicals at the request of the United States, its close Western ally.

Eye 1

Fracking executive confirms: Homeland Security thinks fracktivists are terrorists

fracking
© Unknown
According to comments made by Mark Grawe, Chief Operating Officer at EagleRidge Energy (EagleRidge), Denton, Texas residents who object to his company's reckless operations way too close to their homes, schools and parks are terrorists worthy of inclusion on the Department of Homeland Security's watch list.

Wednesday night Grawe attended a Home Owners Association meeting in Mansfield where EagleRidge has drilled and fracked several wells very close to a neighborhood, schools and playgrounds.

He appeared at the meeting with a police officer in tow. When a resident asked if the officer was for his protection, Grawe talked about a Barnett Shale Energy Education Council meeting he attended where his industry peers advised him to take security with him to community meetings because "they" have been to meetings where "it escalated."

I have been to hundreds of fracking meetings but I have yet been to one where anything "escalated." Sometimes we have carried paper gas mask masks glued to Popsicle sticks. Once in Denton after 4 ½ years of treating the council with respect while they ignored the residents' wishes, we refused to obey the 3 minute time limit and, one-by-one, were quietly escorted out by a nice police officer. But that's about as fractious as I've seen things get in the Barnett Shale.

Grawe went on to tell the Mansfield residents that some people in Denton are "preaching" civil disobedience and that they are on "the watch list" but not his watch list.

When another resident asked whose watch list, Grawe said "Homeland Security."

Nuke

Some Fukushima fuel rods were damaged before 2011 catastrophe

Spent nuclear fuel rods
© AFP Photo / Kimimasa Mayama / Pool) Spent nuclear fuel rods are seen at the nuclear reactor 4 building at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (Tepco) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Three of the spent fuel assemblies that will be pulled from the Fukushima nuclear plant during a year-long operation were damaged before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Japanese facility.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the plant, said the damaged assemblies - 4.5 meter high racks with 50 to 70 rods of highly irradiated used fuel - won't be lifted from the plant's Reactor No. 4 when a large steel chamber, or cask, is employed to move over 1,500 assemblies to safe storage, Reuters reports.

In an 11-page information sheet released in August, TEPCO said one of the assemblies was even damaged as long ago as 1982, when it was bent out of shape during a transfer.

In 2010, TEPCO said that another two spent fuel racks in the reactor's cooling pool possibly contained wire trapped in them. Rods in the assemblies have small cracks and are leaking low-level radioactive gases, TEPCO spokesman Yoshikazu Nagai told Reuters on Thursday.

The damaged racks were first reported by a Fukushima area newspaper on Wednesday, as TEPCO is preparing to decommission the plant and remove the spent fuel assemblies from Reactor No. 4.

No Entry

'We reject illegal killings': Germany suspends drone purchase

Drone
© AFP Photo/Armin Weigel/Germany Out
Berlin has suspended the purchase of armed drones on the grounds that it "categorically rejects illegal killings." This follows a report by Amnesty International that accused Merkel's government of aiding the US with drone strikes in Pakistan.

A draft agreement between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives obtained by Der Spiegel condemns the use of drones for targeted attacks.

"We categorically reject illegal killings by drones. Germany will support the use of unmanned weapons systems for the purposes of international disarmament and arms control," said the statement. The government says that before acquiring the remote-controlled craft, it must thoroughly examine "all associated civil and constitutional guidelines and ethical questions."

In spite of significant opposition in Germany - 59 per cent of the population according to a Pew Research poll in 2012 - outgoing German defense minister, Thomas de Maziere, spent hundreds of millions of euros on drones that were not permitted to fly in German airspace.

"We cannot keep the stagecoach while others are developing the railway," declared Maziere, who announced to the German public in May that talks were underway to discuss the purchase of US Predator drones and Israeli Heron drones.

However, with the formation of a new government in Germany following Chancellor Merkel's reelection in September, the German policy on drones looks set to change. Both the Social Democrats and the Christian Socialist Union parties voiced their opposition to the deal, writes the Local.

Display

Iran putting brakes on nuclear expansion under Rouhani: IAEA report

President Rouhani
© Reuters/Adrees LatifIran's President Hassan Rouhani takes questions from journalists during a news conference in New York September 27, 2013.

Since Hassan Rouhani became president, Iran has stopped expanding its uranium enrichment capacity, a U.N. inspection report showed on Thursday, in a potential boost for diplomacy to end Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West.

The quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said that since August no further major components had been added to a potential plutonium-producing reactor that worries the United States and its allies.

The marked slowdown in the growth of activities of possible use in developing nuclear bombs may be intended to back up Rouhani's warmer tone towards the West after years of worsening confrontation, and strengthen Tehran's hand in talks with world powers due to resume on November 20.

The six powers - the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China - are pressing Iran to curb its nuclear program to ease fears that it may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

Iran halted a previously rapid increase in its capacity to refine uranium - which can fuel nuclear power plants but also bombs if processed much more - "when their team changed" in August, a senior diplomat familiar with the IAEA report said, referring to Rouhani and his administration.

Comment: Reuters forgets to mention that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) and has been since the beginning on July 1st 1968.
The list of parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty encompasses the states which have signed and ratified or acceded to the international agreement limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.
Israel has never joined and will neither confirm or deny that is has nuclear weapons. Therefore no inspections are made in Israel as it has not ratified the treaty.


Mr. Potato

France clueless on Iran

Laurent Fabius le Coq
© Mohammed Kargar/Fars News Agency
Here is definitive proof - if any was needed - that the Gallic fit-throwing that burned the possibility of an interim Iranian nuclear deal last week in Geneva was completely pointless.

The key "concern" expressed by Israel-firster French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to derail an interim deal was about the Arak heavy-water reactor.

Well, UN inspectors this week reported that they had detected no new developments in Arak over the three months since August. [1]

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, was also in Tehran on Monday, and - unusually for his trademark paperboy role for Washington - had nothing to complain about.

Fabius used the Arak gambit at the last minute in Geneva to derail the talks, provoking the ire of even fellow European diplomats. That was out of pure disinformation; Tehran was already doing what Fabius insisted they were not doing.