Puppet MastersS


Mr. Potato

France: Prostitution Probe to Quiz Strauss-Kahn

Pierre Savary
Reuters
Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
© unknownDominique Strauss-Kahn
Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to be questioned next week by police investigating an alleged prostitution ring in Lille, northern France, a police source said.

The former finance minister, who left the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last May to face attempted rape charges in New York that were later dropped, had publicly demanded to be interviewed in the separate Lille case.

Strauss-Kahn has been summoned for 3:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday, the source said, confirming a report in La Voix du Nord newspaper on Saturday. He is to be taken into custody and questioned for up to 48 hours, according to the regional daily.

Messages left for Strauss-Kahn's Paris attorney were not immediately returned.

Once seen as a likely contender against French President Nicolas Sarkozy in upcoming elections, Strauss-Kahn bowed out of public life after his U.S. arrest on allegations that he attempted to rape a Guinean hotel maid.
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Passport

Report: Israel's Mossad still using foreign passports in undercover operations


Haaretz
Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:38 UTC
Image
© UnknownSuspects in Dubai assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
According to The Times, new evidence indicates that foreign nationals in Israel willingly allow the Mossad to use their passports in order to carry out undercover operations abroad.

Israeli Mossad spies are still using foreign passports, including those of British nationals, when conducting undercover operations abroad, according to The Times of London.

According to the report, new evidence suggests that foreign nationals in Israel continue to allow the Mossad to use their passports - on many occasions willingly.

The Times article stated that two young men agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity - and only once they had had their passports returned. A third man said he had been involved in a similar scheme, but was still serving in the Israeli military and declined to be interviewed.
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Target

US officials believe Iran sanctions will fail, making military action likely

Chris McGreal
The Guardian
Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:23 UTC
Image
© Associated PressIranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2008
Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed this week that Iran had loaded its first domestically made fuel road into a nuclear reactor.
Growing view that strike, by Israel or US, will happen
'Sweet spot' for Israeli action identified as September-October
White House remains determined to give sanctions time

Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran's already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration - including in the Pentagon and the state department - that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.
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Gear

Best of the Web: Washington DC: FBI Foils Own Terror Plot (Again)

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:11 UTC
FBI Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism
© Getty ImagesFBI Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division Michael J. Heimbach
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has once again proven that the only thing Americans need fear, is their own government, with the latest "terror attack" foiled being one entirely of their own design.

USA Today reports that a suspect had been arrested by the FBI who was "en route to the U.S. Capitol allegedly to detonate a suicide bomb." While initial reports portrayed the incident as a narrowly averted terrorist attack, CBS would report that a "high ranking source told CBS News the man was "never a real threat."" The explosives the would-be bomber carried were provided to him by the FBI during what they described as a "lengthy and extensive operation." The only contact the suspect had with "Al Qaeda" was with FBI officials posing as associates of the elusive, omnipresent, bearded terror conglomerate. The FBI, much like their MI5 counterparts in England, have a propensity for recruiting likely candidates from mosques they covertly run.

This is but the latest in a string of national terror plots carried out from start to finish by the FBI, who has made a business of approaching likely candidates and grooming them to carry out terror attacks. In September 2011, another FBI terror operation targeting the Capitol was "foiled," involving a patsy who believed he was to take part in an assault that would involve multiple gunmen and even a drone bomber provided to him by the FBI.
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Elite Think Tanks, Neuroscience, and Military Mind Wars

Nicholas West
Activist Post
Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:24 UTC
Brain Waves graphic
© Royal Society
The elite UK think-tank, The Royal Society, which has openly admitted to studying how to play God with the climate, has kicked off a new program that reveals another level of control entirely: the human brain.

The Brain Waves project is divided into four modules, each tasked with studying the impact of developments in the field of neuroscience and neurotechnology. The titles of the modules reflect the areas of examination:
  • Module 1: Society and policy
  • Module 2: Implications for education and lifelong learning
  • Module 3: Conflict and security
  • Module 4: Responsibility and the law
The results from these modules have been published, and clearly illustrate how this panel views the lower public masses in light of their status as the elite arbiters of human destiny.
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War Whore

US, Israel invoke fake terror to ratchet up war threats against Iran

Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:47 UTC
car bomb
© Joji Philip Thomas - YfrogAn Indian journalist who witnessed an attack on an Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi on Monday posted this image online.
Both Washington and Israel have seized upon a string of abortive bomb plots in India, Georgia and Thailand to escalate war threats against Iran.

In India, an unknown individual on a motorcycle attached a bomb to a car in which the wife of an Israeli diplomat was riding in Delhi on February 13. The woman and the car's driver were lightly injured. On the same day in Tbilisi, Georgia, a bomb was discovered attached to an Israeli embassy vehicle and defused.

And in Bangkok, Thailand, three individuals identified as Iranians were arrested after a bizarre incident Tuesday in which explosives detonated inside their apartment and one of them blew off his own legs with a homemade grenade.

The three incidents, in which there were no fatalities, were immediately labeled by the Israeli government as terrorist attacks organized by Tehran that, in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demonstrated why all nations must draw "red lines against Iranian aggression."
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Star of David

Assassinating Iranian Scientists:The Original Sin

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Counterpunch
Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:33 UTC
Iranian scientists car bomb
© CBS News 2010Car carrying Iranian nuclear scientist bombed
To avoid restating the obvious, or repeating what others have already established, I take these facts as givens: that the main perpetrator of the assassination of Iranian scientists has been the Israeli spy agency Mossad, assisted by various covert operations agencies of the United States and its allies; that the claim of Iran's possessing or pursuing a nuclear arms program is false; and that, therefore, the assertion that Iran poses an "existential" threat to Israel is, likewise, a fiction designed to justify plans of war and regime change in that country.

I would also like to make it clear at the outset that while the imperial powers of the West and their allies, including the Iranian expats collaborating with them, certainly pursue their own nefarious objectives in hunting for regime change in Iran, the focus of this essay is primarily on Israel, and its motives for trying to overthrow the Iranian government.
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V

Occupy Draws Strength From the Powerless

Chris Hedges
Truth Dig
Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:43 UTC
Image
© AP / Evan VucciAn Occupy demonstrator sprawls beside a police car in Urbandale, Iowa, during a protest last December outside Republican presidential campaign offices in the Des Moines suburb.
There is a recipe for breaking popular movements. I watched it play out over five years in the war in El Salvador. I now see these familiar patterns in the assault against the Occupy movement. It goes like this. Physically eradicate the insurgents' logistical base of operations to disrupt communication and organization. Dry up financial and material support. Create rival organizations - the group Stand for Oakland seems to be one of these attempts - to discredit and purge the rebel leadership. Infiltrate the movement to foster internal divisions and rivalries, a tactic carried out consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, by an anonymous West Coast group known as OLAASM - Occupy Los Angeles Anti Social Media. Provoke the movement - or front groups acting in the name of the movement - to carry out actions such as vandalism and physical confrontations with the police that alienate the wider populace from the insurgency. Invent atrocities and repugnant acts supposedly carried out by the movement and plant these stories in the media. Finally, offer up a political alternative. In the war in El Salvador it was Jose Napoleon Duarte. For the Occupy movement it is someone like Van Jones. And use this "reformist" to co-opt the language of the movement and promise to promote the movement's core aims through the electoral process.
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Radar

U.S. to Cut Funds for Water Testing at Beaches

Tony Barboza
Los Angeles Times
Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:55 UTC
A sample of ocean water is collected
© Irfan Khan, Los Angeles TimesA sample of ocean water is collected at Dana Point Harbor for testing.
The EPA plans to cut $10 million in grants it gives annually. Water quality advocates worry that swimmers and surfers will be at even greater risk of illness.

Health testing at beaches in California and across the nation is at risk of being cut under a plan to eliminate federal funds for monitoring whether the water is too contaminated to swim in.

Citing the "difficult financial climate," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in its budget request this week that it would do away with $10 million in grants it gives each year to state and local agencies in coastal and Great Lakes states to test for tainted water.

"While beach monitoring continues to be important to protect human health and especially sensitive individuals," the EPA said in an emailed statement, "states and local governments now have the technical expertise and procedures to continue beach monitoring without federal support."

But state and local officials have struggled to pay for health testing along California's busy coastline in recent years, and water quality advocates worry that swimmers and surfers will be at even greater risk of getting sick if the federal funds evaporate.
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Bad Guys

Syria: End of Game in the Middle East

Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire net
Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
Although the armed clashes are not completely over in the beleaguered district of Homs and that the Syrian and Lebanese authorities have yet to inform public opinion of their recent actions, Thierry Meyssan appeared Monday night on the leading Russian television channel to make an initial assessment of the operations, providing first-hand information which he is sharing with the readers of Voltaire Network.

For eleven months, the Western powers and the Gulf States have lead a campaign to destabilize Syria. Several thousand mercenaries infiltrated the country. Recruited by agencies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar within the Sunni extremist community, they came to overthrow the "Alawite usurper" Bashar al-Assad and impose a Wahhabi-inspired dictatorship. They have at their disposal some of the most sophisticated military equipment, including night vision systems, communication centers, and robots for urban warfare. Supported secretly by the NATO powers, they also have access to vital military information, including satellite images of Syrian troop movements, and telephone interceptions.

This has been falsely portrayed to the Western public as a political revolution crushed in blood by a ruthless dictatorship. Of course, this lie has not been universally accepted. Russia, China and the Latin American and Caribbean member states of ALBA repudiate it. They each have a historical background that allows them to readily grasp what is at stake. The Russians are thinking of Chechnya, the Chinese of Xinjiang, and the Latin Americans of Cuba and Nicaragua. In all these cases, beyond ideological or religious appearances, the methods of destabilization by the CIA were the same.

Comment: Meyssan have to put some good words for Russia at the end of the article.

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