Puppet MastersS


Black Magic

Ukraine court rules Christian monks to be banned from their centuries-old monastery


RT
Fri, 11 Aug 2023 18:57 UTC
Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery
© Joern Pollex/Getty ImagesKiev Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves) in Ukraine
A court has ruled in favor of evicting the clergy from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, claimed by the state

A court on Thursday ruled against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, giving the green light to the government to begin forcibly evicting monks from the historic monastery in the heart of Kiev.

"We are listening to a short text of one of the most shameful decisions in the history of modern Ukraine!" Nikita Chekman, an attorney representing the UOC, said on his Telegram channel.

According to Chekman, the state court has upheld the motion by the national historic preserve to "remove obstacles to the use of property" by evicting the monks. On Wednesday, the same court ruled that the government had every right to terminate the lease with the UOC.

Comment: Ukraine is busy severing the last link it has to be able to claim it is a democracy. Not to mention destroying its last cultural link to societal sanity.

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Eye 2

The sloppy, dirty, secret grab of Trump's DMs

Julie Kelly
Declassified with Julie Kelly
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 00:01 UTC
Judge Beryl Howell
Judge Beryl Howell
Working with the Obama-appointed chief judge of D.C. federal court, Special Counsel Jack Smith squeezed Twitter for Trump's data and a hefty fine for contempt. Both claimed Trump was a flight risk.

They claimed if the government got his direct messages, he would flee the country.

"They" are Special Counsel Jack Smith and D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Howell. "He," of course, is former President Donald Trump.

Taking advantage of an undoubtedly hectic time a few months after Elon Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter in October 2022, the Department of Justice attempted to serve the company with a court-ordered search warrant seeking all records related to Donald Trump's Twitter account. But Smith — who has unlimited resources, a large staff of experienced attorneys and investigators, and an (unjustified) reputation among the expert legal class as a by-the-book prosecutor — didn't do it the old-fashioned way.

Comment: More from Fox News:
"Just found out that Crooked Joe Biden's DOJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making it a point not to let me know about this major 'hit' on my civil rights," Trump posted Wednesday on Truth Social after the court documents were unsealed. "My Political Opponent is going CRAZY trying to infringe on my Campaign for President. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Does the First Amendment still exist? Did Deranged Jack Smith tell the Unselects to DESTROY & DELETE all evidence? These are DARK DAYS IN AMERICA!"

...

Twitter suggested two less restrictive alternatives to the nondisclosure order, one of which was to only alert Trump and his legal team, which the court said was a "nonstarter."

"[T]he whole point of the nondisclosure order was to avoid tipping off the former President about the warrant's existence," wrote Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee. The other judge on the panel were Michelle Childs, a Biden appointee, and Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee.

The panel said the disclosure order was temporary and "narrowly tailored" to Smith's investigation. The judges observed that Twitter "remained free to raise general concerns about warrants or nondisclosure orders, and to speak publicly about the January 6 investigation."


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Bad Guys

Ecuador presidential candidate assassinated: Fernando Villavicencio is shot dead while leaving a political rally less than two weeks before the vote

Harriet Alexander
Daily Mail
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:44 UTC
Fernando Villavicencio ecuador
The former journalist is seen speaking at the rally on Wednesday evening shortly before his murder
Gunmen in Ecuador shot dead presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio as he was leaving a rally on Wednesday night, with less than two weeks to go until a bitterly contested election.

Footage shared on social media showed Villavicencio, 59, being escorted out of the rally venue at 6:20pm local time and into a waiting car. He was climbing into the back seat when gunfire rang out. The windows did not appear to be bulletproof.

One suspect was shot dead in crossfire with security services, the country's attorney general said, adding that nine people were injured - among them a female candidate for the National Assembly and two police officers.

Comment: France Info reported that six people were arrested after the assassination and the authorities "specified that the individuals arrested are of Colombian origin and confirmed the involvement of "organized criminal groups"." CNN reported:
During overnight raids, authorities found a rifle, a machine gun, four pistols, three grenades, two rifle magazines, four boxes of ammunition, two motorcycles, and a stolen vehicle believed to have been used by the men, Zapata said.

The attack prompted Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso to request help from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he tweeted that a delegation would soon be arriving in the country.


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Evil Rays

Georgia's Invasion of South Ossetia Was Testing Ground for NATO Proxy War

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Tue, 08 Aug 2023 10:34 UTC
Georgian border
© Border between Georgia and South OssetiaSputnik / Ruslan Vakhaev
Exactly 15 years ago, Georgia launched a full-fledged invasion of South Ossetia which claimed the lives of Russian peacekeepers in the region.
Could the operation be considered NATO's first proxy conflict with Russia?

On August 7, 2008, at approximately 11:35 pm (GMT+4), the sleeping city of Tskhinval, South Ossetia, was rocked by Georgian artillery shelling.
After the bombardment, Georgian troops and tanks stormed the city. The invasion was authorized by then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

When Did Georgian-South Ossetian Confrontation Start?

The Georgian-South Ossetian confrontation began during the years of Soviet Perestroika. In 1989, the South Ossetian Autonomous Region proclaimed itself an autonomous republic, and a year later declared sovereignty. In response, the Supreme Council of Georgia abolished the Ossetian autonomy.

Nonetheless, when on April 9, 1991 Georgia officially withdrew from the USSR, South Ossetia opted to remain.Tensions between Georgia and South Ossetia translated into a full-fledged conflict that started in January 1991. Meanwhile, on December 25, 1991 the USSR ceased to exist and South Ossetia decided to unify with Russia. On January 19, 1992, the breakaway republic held a referendum on independence and/or reunification with Russia, with the overall majority of its population voting "aye."

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

Ecuador declares state of emergency after killing of presidential candidate at campaign event


Sputnik
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 09:27 UTC
ecuador
On Wednesday, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso confirmed media reports that presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been killed and announced that a meeting of the country's security cabinet would be held within minutes.

Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso announced on Thursday a state of emergency across the country for 60 days in connection with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

"I am declaring a state of emergency for 60 days ... From now on, the armed forces are mobilized throughout the country to guarantee the security of citizens, the tranquility of the country and free and democratic elections," Lasso said in an address to the nation.

The president also declared three days of national mourning in connection with the assassination of the presidential candidate.
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Magnify

ECOWAS military intervention unlikely to normalise situation in Niger says Russian Foreign Ministry, EU to begin sanctioning junta


Sputnik
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 10:18 UTC
Niger
© AFPSupporters of the Nigerien defence and security forces rally outside the national assembly in Niamey on July 27, 2023
On July 30, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned military coup occurred in Niger on 26 July, with President Mohamed Bazoum being ousted and detained by his presidential guard. In early August, the ECOWAS members adopted a plan in case of military intervention in Niger.

The intervention of ECOWAS troops to resolve the crisis in Niger is unlikely to contribute to the stabilization of the situation in the country, said Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexey Zaitsev.

"We support the mediation efforts being made by the African community in order to assist the Nigeriens in overcoming the current crisis. At the same time, we proceed from the fact that the intervention of ECOWAS troops in a sovereign state is unlikely to contribute both to achieving lasting peace in Niger and to stabilizing the situation in the subregion as a whole," he said at a briefing.

Comment: Reuters reports on the EU plans to start sanctions:
Neighbouring countries backing the armed takeover called on the United Nations to prevent a military intervention threatened by other West African states.

An EU official involved in sanctions work and an EU diplomat said the bloc has started discussing the criteria for punitive measures. The official said that would include "undermining of democracy" in Niger and was likely to be agreed soon.

"The next step would be sanctions against individual members of the junta" deemed responsible, the EU diplomat said.

National officials were discussing the matter on Wednesday, said the official and another EU diplomat. All three sources spoke under condition of anonymity.

Agreement by all 27 EU member states is required to impose sanctions and it was not immediately clear when that could happen. Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) were due to meet on Thursday after their deadline passed for reinstating Niger's ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.

"The EU is ready to support ECOWAS's decisions, including the adoption of sanctions," said Peter Stano, the EU executive's spokesman on foreign policy.

EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the Niger situation, including sanctions, at a meeting in Toledo, Spain, on Aug. 31.

The EU, one of the biggest providers of aid to Niger, said already last month it was suspending security cooperation and financial support that had been set at 503 million euros ($552 million) in 2021-24 to help improve governance and education.

On Wednesday, a former rebel leader and politician launched a movement opposing the junta, in the first sign of internal resistance to army rule in Niger since the July 26 coup.
It's rather telling how quickly Western-backed ECOWAS is to resort to economic warfare and threats of military intervention; it hasn't taken the EU very long to threaten a sanctions package either; meanwhile Russia continues to encourage dialogue, despite apparently agreeing with the West that the junta isn't necessarily the ideal leadership for the country.

See also: For more on the situation, check out The Duran's analysis on Nuland's visit to the junta's leaders:





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Bad Guys

West 'accepts' Ukrainian corruption - Kiev


RT
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 06:39 UTC
Sergey Marchenko, Finance Minister of Ukraine
© Getty Images / Hannah McKaySergey Marchenko, Finance Minister of Ukraine
The US has admitted it can't keep track of all the money sent to Ukraine due to endemic malpractice and a lack of accountability.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko has claimed that Kiev's Western backers accept that endemic corruption in the country will not be cleared up in the short term. Speaking to US state-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Wednesday, the minister declared that corruption in Ukraine is at its lowest level in two decades and has fallen "completely under public monitoring."

Asked how he had reached the conclusion, Marchenko insisted that it came from "experience," a "gut feeling," and a "certain understanding of numbers."

"[Ukraine's partners] are ready to accept that we may have corruption," the minister stated, noting that corruption has taken on new forms due to the conflict with Russia.

Comment: See also:

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Footprints

Ukraine orders evacuation of key city near Kharkov


RT
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 20:20 UTC
Russian soldier Kupyansk area
© Sputnik / Evgeny BiyatovA serviceman of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the Kupyansk direction.
The move comes following reports that Russian troops are advancing in the area

Ukrainian authorities have announced a mandatory evacuation in part of Kharkov Region bordering Russia's Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. The order comes after the Defense Ministry in Moscow said its troops had made headway in the area.

In a written order on Thursday, Andrey Kanashevich, acting head of the Kupiansk military administration, published a list of 37 settlements near the combat zone that were to be evacuated by local residents. He cited "constant [Russian] artillery attacks and the security situation" as the reason for the decision, adding that the order also applies to the city of Kupiansk itself.

Comment: The Pentagon is grateful to Russia for so thoroughly clearing its outdated inventory and that no Americans were hurt in the process. Ukrainians? Well, yeah, that's a shame. Let the new defense contract tenders commence!

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Question

7 key questions for Attorney General Merrick Garland

Kerri Kupec Urbahn
Fox News
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 06:00 UTC
agGarland
© Jose Luis Magana/APAG Merrick Garland
Attorney General Merrick Garland is not afforded the luxury of staying silent during mounting frustration...

There may be no harder job in the U.S. government than attorney general. What makes it uniquely challenging? On the one hand, the attorney general is a political position which is responsible for executing the White House's policy agenda. But on the other, the attorney general and the Department of Justice he or she leads is responsible for enforcing the law in an even-handed and neutral fashion without partisan considerations.

Today, public trust in the Department of Justice is rapidly deteriorating on multiple fronts due to what increasingly appears to be selective enforcement. Merrick Garland has the opportunity - and I would argue, the obligation - to re-instill confidence in the Department of Justice, but he needs to move fast.

Comment: These are but seven questions unlikely to gain response. There is undoubtably many, many more.

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Bug

Weaponization of food goes into high gear. "Eating insects for dinner"

Stephen Karganovic
Global Research
Sun, 30 Jul 2023 00:00 UTC
KissQuote
© Unknown
Way back in the 1970s, the far-seeing genius Henry Kissinger identified food (in addition to energy) as a major mechanism that could be used to subdue recalcitrant mankind:
"Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents;
who controls money can control the world."
- Henry Kissinger
Control of money seems to be slipping out of the hands of Dr. Henry's cabal, and their dominion over the global energy supply seems to be evaporating as well, but they are not giving up on their trump card. That is the capacity to control and, most importantly, to catastrophically diminish the world's food resources.

True to his word, at the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome Henry unveiled the plan how to use food to cull the world's population and blackmail governments into doing his masters' will. It was all circumspectly phrased, of course, and couched in the Aesopian language fully intelligible, besides the cognoscenti, only to a lesser number of alert observers, but remaining largely opaque to the serfs whose mass extermination is being contemplated.

Since then, with their characteristic persistence Henry's friends and mentors have been hard at work to make it happen. An engineered global food crisis is in the works.

Comment: Remember the massive seed bank where thousands of samples are kept for posterity? Current events suggest this failsafe was in the planning for decades as the post apocalyptic source of future food. And now we can surmise, as the world population plummets, who its recipients will be.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure backup facility for the world's crop diversity on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The Seed Vault provides long-term storage of duplicates of seeds conserved in genebanks around the world. This provides security of the world's food supply against the loss of seeds in genebanks due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts, war, sabotage, disease and natural disasters. The Seed Vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement among the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen).

The Norwegian government entirely funded the Seed Vault's approximately 45 million kr (US$8.8 million in 2008) construction cost. Norway and the Crop Trust pay for operational costs. Storing seeds in the vault is free to depositors. - Wikipedia


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