Puppet MastersS


Vader

Round two: The West appears to be preparing another regime change 'uprising' in Syria

Eva Bartlett
RT
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 20:05 UTC
oil tankers theft US syria
© Agence France-PresseA US occupation convoy in Syria
There are new signs of a foreign-sponsored destabilization with the intent to repeat the 2011 'revolution'

Twelve years on, the West's war on Syria continues, with seemingly new plans to destabilize the country and overthrow its leadership. This after years of brutal sanctions against (and crocodile tears for) the Syrian people.

Earlier this year, a discussion between journalist Edward Xu and Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, went viral when Xu's questions led to a bold-faced display of feigned ignorance on the UN spokesman's part. Asked whether he thought the presence of the US military in Syria was illegal or not, Haq stammered out, "There's no US armed forces inside of Syria...I believe there's military activity, but in terms of a ground presence in Syria, I'm not aware of that."

Xu had referred to a US airstrike the day prior that had killed 11 people in Syria and asked for Haq's comment on whether or not Syria's territorial integrity should be respected. Haq called for "foreign forces" to exercise restraint, but presumably he didn't mean US forces - since, of course, according to him, none were there.
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Sherlock

CIA tried to pay off analysts to bury findings that COVID lab leak was likely: whistleblower

Josh Christenson
NYPost
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 20:22 UTC
wuhan lab
© REUTERS
The Central Intelligence Agency offered to pay off analysts in order to bury their findings that COVID-19 most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, new whistleblower testimony to Congress alleges.

A senior-level CIA officer told House committee leaders that his agency tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans, according to a letter sent Tuesday to CIA Director William Burns.

Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) requested all documents, communications and pay info from the CIA's COVID Discovery Team by Sept. 26.
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Dollar

Moscow releases Russia-China de-dollarization update


RT
Sat, 09 Sep 2023 19:48 UTC
ruble yuan Russian Chinese currency
© Getty Images / Oleg Elkov
The de-dollarization of Russia-China trade is practically complete, according to Georgy Zinoviev, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's First Asian Department, as cited by RIA Novosti.

The official said the share of the US dollar in mutual settlements between the neighboring nations has substantially shrunk over the past two years.

"The share of national currencies in Russian-Chinese payments is growing at an extremely rapid pace," Zinoviev told the news agency. "At the beginning of 2022 it was hovering around 25%, now it is exceeding 80%."

He added that the volume of trading in the ruble-yuan pair on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) had outpaced volumes in the dollar-ruble pair long ago.
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Bad Guys

EU is 'racist' against Russians - Moscow


RT
Mon, 11 Sep 2023 19:20 UTC
Maria Zakharova
The European Union's ban on Russian nationals bringing personal items into the bloc has nothing to do with sanctions and is instead an expression of blatant racism by Western officials, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed.

Her comments come after Brussels explained on Friday that the sweeping sanctions imposed on trade with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine also extends to personal items such as phones, luggage, and even shampoo and toilet paper.

The European Commission urged EU operators to "assess and understand the possible risks of sanctions circumvention" and confiscate any such belongings when conducting customs checks.
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Bullseye

Russian diplomat writes that US incapable of negotiating


RT
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 16:57 UTC
Russian ambassador Alexander Kramarenko
Russian ambassador Alexander Kramarenko
Strategic dialogue with Washington has done nothing for Moscow's national security, Aleksandr Kramarenko claims

No amount of negotiating with the US has been able to bring about meaningful results, as Washington has repeatedly broken the trust of its partners and refused to respect agreements, acting solely in its own interests, Russian diplomat Aleksandr Kramarenko has said.

In an article for International Affairs published last week, Kramarenko, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry Institute of Current International Problems, said that despite decades of trying to maintain strategic dialogue with the US, Russia has ultimately been unable to achieve any results in ensuring its national security, and neither has China.

He added that trust between Moscow and Washington was undermined long ago. In 2011, Russia allowed the passing of what seemed to be a humanitarian UN resolution on Libya, which was then used by the West to lay ruin the country.

Comment: Russia has understood for a long time now, that the West cannot be trusted in any way, shape or form. Libya showed them that, and Syria cemented it.



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Stormtrooper

NATO's steadfast defender drills near Russia signal bloc's shift to 'war footing'

Illya Tsukanov
Sputnik
Mon, 11 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
poland tank
© Roman KoksarovMilitary Drill • Poland's tank in the lead
All thirty-one NATO countries plus Sweden are reportedly gearing up to conduct the bloc's biggest military drills since the Cold War in early 2024. Sputnik reached out to Michael Maloof, a former security policy analyst with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to get a sense of the risks posed by the exercises.

British business media reported Monday that NATO plans to hold large-scale exercises across Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries between February and March of 2024, with the drills' pretext being to practice "repelling Russian aggression" against allies. The drills, dubbed Steadfast Defender 24, are set to involve up to 41,000 troops, 50 warships, and to feature between 500-700 air combat missions, according to sources familiar with the plans.

The exercises are the first of their kind since 2021, with the alliance previously mostly avoiding large-scale exercises in Russia's direct vicinity amid concerns about Moscow's possible reaction amid repeated warnings by Russian Foreign Intelligence that some NATO countries may be preparing to transform the Ukrainian proxy conflict into a direct shooting war with Russia.

The drills are "designed to put Russia and allies in the most unfavorable position," Former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik.
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Pistol

The mills of the gods

James Howard Kunstler
Clusterfuck Nation
Mon, 11 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
Garlandelf
© screenshot/screenrant.com/KJN'Lawfare Elf' US AG Merrick Garland
Do you think that more than half of the US public may be getting a little irked with "Joe Biden's" lawfare elf, AG Merrick Garland, as he rolls one innocent J-6 protester after another into decades of hard-time for strolling through the US Capitol building — while the special counsels assigned to only a few of the Biden family crimes play hide-the-salami with due process?

For all their cheap talk about "our democracy," it's a little scary to see what Democratic Party lawyers actually think of the legal system that is supposed to allow a society based on liberty to function fairly. Court filings last week indicate that Special Counsel David Weiss is about to indict Hunter Biden on that gun charge they have used as the joker in a three-card Monte game for going on five years.

Last time, they ran the game before Delaware federal judge Maryellen Noreika, she detected a teeny-weeny, sneaky clause in the plea agreement to a watered-down gun charge that would have granted immunity to Hunter B from any other past wrongdoing, including, of course, the entire alleged Biden family racketeering operation that had the First Son acting as prime broker and bag-man for tens of millions of dollars in bribes from foreign actors in countries less than friendly to US interests, funneled into any number of Biden family shell corporations. Judge Noreika nixed the plea agreement.
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Arrow Up

G-20 adds the African Union as a member

Nick Robertson
Yahoo News
Sat, 09 Sep 2023 08:11 UTC
banner
© India
The Group of 20 economic summit has added the African Union as a permanent member, Indian President Narendra Modi announced Saturday, as the group gaveled in its annual meeting in New Delhi, India.

The G-20 now includes 21 members — 19 individual member states plus the European and African Unions.

Adding the African Union has been a popular movement among G-20 members. President Biden officially requested the change last December.

"We need more African voices in international conversations," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last year, saying the inclusion of the African Union would allow the continent to be better represented on matters of the economy, climate, health policy and national security.

South Africa was previously the continent's only representation at the summit. The African Union includes membership of every country on the continent and is represented at the G-20 by its chairman, Comoros President Azali Assoumani.
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Nuke

IAEA sees no problem with depleted uranium weaponry - Grossi


RT
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 17:08 UTC
30mm armor-piercing shell containing depleted uranium
© AP / Hidajet DelicFILE PHOTO: A member of a radiation team holds a 30mm armor-piercing shell containing depleted uranium near Sarajevo, Bosnia, January 15, 2001
There are "no significant radiological consequences" to the use of depleted uranium ammunition, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi has declared. Russia insists that Grossi is "not telling the whole story."

"From a nuclear safety point of view there are no significant radiological consequences" to the use of this ammunition, Grossi told reporters during a briefing on Monday.

"Maybe in some very specific cases, people near a place that was hit with this kind of ammunition, there could be contamination," he continued, adding that "this is more of a health issue of a normal nature than a potential radiological crisis."

Depleted uranium is used to make the hardened cores of certain armor-piercing tank and autocannon rounds. Although it is not highly radioactive, uranium is still a toxic metal, and this metal is turned into a potentially hazardous aerosol when a depleted uranium round strikes its target.
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Putin

US decline, Kiev's warmongering, Russian economic successes: Key takeaways from Putin's panel in Vladivostok


RT
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 16:47 UTC
Vladimir Putin, Eastern Economic Forum
© Sputnik/Alexander VilfRussian President Vladimir Putin attends the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed the view that the US and its allies may be inadvertently diminishing their influence by ignoring new global power dynamics. As an example Putin cited Ukraine as a nation that has opted to align with the West, noting that its people have borne significant consequences as a result.

The Russian head of state made the comments during a speech at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Tuesday, during which he attended a panel discussion alongside Pany Yathotou, the vice president of Laos.

The West is shooting itself in the leg

In a critique of the US and its allies, Putin highlighted how they unintentionally harm their own interests when they misuse international financial mechanisms for geopolitical purposes.

"What, for example, are the restrictions on transactions in dollars leading to? All nations are mulling creating their own tools, new payment systems," he explained.
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