Puppet MastersS


Nuke

Iran resumes talks with world powers over its nuclear program

iran talks
Closed-door talks resumed Monday between Iran and world powers on implementing a landmark deal to rein in Tehran's controversial nuclear programme in exchange for easing sanctions.

European Union foreign policy spokesman Michael Mann told AFP that the Geneva meeting began at 8:30 am (0730 GMT) but that no further details would be available immediately.

Technical experts from Iran and the EU-chaired "P5+1″ group - comprising the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany - also held a session two weeks ago in Geneva amid efforts to fine-tune a deal reached by their foreign ministers in the Swiss city on November 24.

Cut

France approves Francois Hollande's 75% 'millionaires tax'

hollande
Mr Hollande with a rather grimm look on his face
Constitutional council says super tax on salaries above €1 million is legal

France's constitutional council has given President Francois Hollande the green light to introduce a 75 per cent tax rate taking aim at the super rich.

Under the new plan, which the French council found constitutional, companies will have to pay 50 per cent tax on all salaries exceeding one million euros, or the equivalent of approximately £833, 000.

Including social contributions, the rate will effectively stand at 75 per cent, although the total amount will be capped at 5 per cent of a company's turnover.

Comment: Before you start liking the guy, remember that his past behavior shows that he doesn't have much regard for truth and justice:

François Hollande: Always a zionist
François Hollande wants to sponsor Islamic emirates
True colours shining through: François Hollande bypasses international law, calls on al-Qaeda-in-Syria to form provisional government
François Hollande pledges to fight until Islamist rebels in Mali are wiped out


War Whore

Private talks between Blair, Brown and Bush on Iraq war to be published... by the end of 2014

bush and blair
Birds of a feather...
The Government is working to declassify more than 100 secret documents detailing discussions that took place between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. The Independent understands that, in an unprecedented move, a cache of notes from Mr Blair to Mr Bush, records of telephone conversations and meetings, as well as up to 200 minutes of cabinet-level discussions are to be published in the new year.

The release of the documents, which is likely to be in the next few months, will clear the way for Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry to publish its long-awaited report into Britain's involvement in the conflict.

Comment: Keep in mind that we are talking about a war that has caused the lives of a million and a half people and we are still counting.


Laptop

NSA 'hacking unit' infiltrates computers around the world

hacker
© Getty ImagesDer Spiegel reported that TAO's areas of operation range from counter-terrorism to cyber attacks.
A top-secret National Security Agency hacking unit infiltrates computers around the world and breaks into the toughest data targets, according to internal documents quoted in a magazine report on Sunday.

Details of how the division, known as Tailored Access Operations (TAO), steals data and inserts invisible "back door" spying devices into computer systems were published by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

The magazine portrayed TAO as an elite team of hackers specialising in gaining undetected access to intelligence targets that have proved the toughest to penetrate through other spying techniques, and described its overall mission as "getting the ungettable". The report quoted an official saying that the unit's operations have obtained "some of the most significant intelligence our country has ever seen".

Gold Coins

Flashback Germany owes Greece €162 billion in WWII reparations

great famine greece
© WikiGreat Famine: Collecting the dead in the streets of Athens, winter 1941–1942
Greek government allegedly has finally collected all leads, evidence and legal arguments regarding the reparations from World War I and II Germany should pay in debts. A Finance Ministry committee assigned to investigate the matter got together the total amount of 162 billion euro in outstanding World War II debts Germany ought to pay back to Greece.
Newspaper To Vima claims to have seen the findings and reports that the experts found that Germany should pay Greece 108 billion euros for damage to infrastructure and 54 billion euros for a loan that the Nazi occupation forces obliged Greece to take in order to pay Berlin during the war.The reparations are equivalent to about 80 percent of Greek gross domestic product.
According to To Vima, the research concluded on March 8th 2013 after two and a half months of investigation. The material collected consists of WWI and WWII compensations sought by individuals as well as of war reparations that were not paid.

Comment: We get more information about the investigation findings from another report from that time:

An Interesting Discussion in Times of Crisis


The debt of Germany to Greece since the Second World War comes back to the news occasionally, accompanied by a cloud of false historians' reports and wishful thinking, which usually creates more confusion than it provides information. The economic situation that has arisen in Greece as a part of the global financial crisis contributed to the problems' coming back to the surface, now gaining a very critical economic and political significance. Furthermore, the attitude of the German government concerning the strict terms for giving loans to Greece makes the whole discussion much more susceptible to a dispassionate approach.

The recent decision of The Hague Court narrowed the scope of the requirements of Greece in terms of war reparations, leaving open only the scope of the claim for a compensation for the compulsory loan which was concluded between Greece and the Occupation Authorities exactly 70 years ago, on 14 March 1942. The attempts of the Greek State to claim the money occasionally encounters obstacles such as allegations of legal and political nature.

In order to clarify the facts of this case, Nicos Poulantzas Institute (NPI) organized an event in Athens, on 8 March. The subject was analyzed in a multidimensional way, by the historian Michalis Liberatos, the Professor of International Law Antonis Bredimas and Manolis Glezos, prominent figure of the Greek Resistance. The discussion was coordinated by Sissy Velisariou, Professor of English Literature and Vice president of NPI.

Michalis Liberatos presented the historical context and described the procedures that led to the conclusion of the loan. The Occupation Authorities, due to the Greek Resistance, had to keep in the country three times more soldiers than they had originally planned. This caused an extreme rise of the occupation expenses. In order to preserve the occupation army, Nazis started a seizure of all food supplies as well as of the precious metals. 100 kg of gold and 25 kg of silver were taken from the island of Crete alone. In 1941, the amount of money given from Greece to the Nazis was 1 billion Mark and it doubled in the next year. To get over some legal problems that were limiting the potential for exploitation of conquered countries, the financial assistance from Greece to Germany was transformed into a compulsory loan, the amount of which was 2.5 times the budget of the country. Mussolini said that the Germans took from the Greeks even their shoelaces and the prime minister and fellow of the Nazis General Tsolakoglou, went so far as to threaten that he would resign if things didn't change.

Antonis Bredimas informed the audience about the legal characteristics of the subject, presenting the arguments that German governments support in order to avoid paying the compensation for the loan, since both the Italian and Bulgarian state have paid back to Greece their part. The first argument is that Greece has informally resigned from this right in 1958, through a secret agreement between the Prime Minister of Greece, Konstantinos Karamanlis and the German Kanzler, Konrad Adenauer. Prof Bredimas denied the existence of such an agreement since it was never proved, and added that secret agreements of this kind are not accepted by the international law. The second argument was that Germany has already paid for the loan. What is true though is that the compensation paid was just for the Nazi crimes against the Jews and Roma of Greece. In 1960, the Greek Ambassador clearly stated that the country still asks for the rest of the compensation. The third argument is that the debt was barred, since more than 70 years have passed since the agreement for the loan was signed. Prof Bredimas stressed, though, that no such procedure can take place, concerning one state's debt to another. The last argument is that Germany has been funding Greece for many years, through the EU subsidies. But even the European Commission has declared that this money has nothing to do with the debt.

Finally, Manolis Glezos talked in his intervention about the ethical dimension of the issue. He stressed the fact that the time when Greece was obligated to provide the loan to the Occupation Authorities, becoming a lender for the first time in its history, was exactly when 400 people were dying every day due to starvation. He revealed that when the current Prime Minister, Loukas Papademos, was the director of the Bank of Greece, he had asked him to provide some clues about the Occupation loan, and he refused, saying that in order to do so he needed to get a directive by the government. Now, that Loukas Papademos is the Prime Minister, he doesn't seem willing to give the directive to hand over the crucial evidence on the issue. Manolis Glezos also referred to the attempts by the party of Die LINKE in order to inform people in Germany on the issue and promote the Greek demands.


Laptop

NSA diverted computers and laptops from shipping facilities to install spywar

nsa2
Der Spiegel reported on Sunday that the NSA's "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO) has been diverting desktops and laptops shipped to U.S. consumers and installing spyware on them.

According to the report, the process, which TAO calls "interdiction," involves intercepting packages on their way from manufacturers like Dell, Cisco, and Seagate, and installing bugs or spyware on them at a "secret workshop."

The packages are then reintroduced into the delivery pipeline and arrive at their destination without the consumer ever realizing their machine has been compromised.

Hourglass

Fidel Castro: Mandela is dead, why hide the truth about the apartheid?

Mandela and Castro
© Chris Kotze/Reuters
Maybe the empire thought that we would not honor our word when, during days of uncertainty in the past century, we affirmed that even if the USSR were to disappear Cuba would continue struggling. World War II broke out on September 1, 1939 when Nazi-fascist troops invaded Poland and struck like a lightning over the heroic people of the USSR, who contributed 27 million lives to preserve mankind from that brutal massacre that ended the lives of 50 million persons.

War, on the other hand, is the only venture that the human race throughout history has failed to avoid, leading Einstein to say that he did not know how World War III would be like but most certainly the fourth would be fought with sticks and stones.

Comment:

America's Conquest of Africa: The Roles of France and Israel
The unspoken alliance: Israel's secret relationship with apartheid South Africa


Bad Guys

Beirut murder: Dirty tricks get dirtier

No gun sign in Beirut
© UnknownA "no gun" sign is plastered over a traffic sign in the trendy neighborhood of Gemmayze in the Lebanese capital Beirut on December 22, 2012.

The latest deadly attack in Lebanon's capital Beirut is yet another desperate attempt to destabilize not only that country, but the entire Middle East to precipitate all-out sectarian war.


The murder of senior Lebanese Sunni political figure, Mohamad Shatah, on Friday in a massive bomb blast that hit his motorcade as it drove through downtown Beirut was aimed at implicating the Shia Hezbollah and closely allied Syrian and Iranian governments.

Syria's government of President Bashar al-Assad, along with Hezbollah and Iran, swiftly condemned the assassination of Shatah, who was formerly Lebanon's finance minister between 2008 and 2011.

But the condemnations didn't stop anti-Syria politicians within Lebanon and various Western media outlets from pointing the finger.

"Anti-Assad ex-minister killed in Beirut bomb," was the headline carried by Reuters and Britain's Daily Telegraph, among others.

This contrived innuendo betrays who the real perpetrators are.

Bomb

Update: [Saudi-funded] terrorists detonate second bomb in Volgograd, 10 killed so far

Image
© Reuters / Sergei KarpovMembers of the emergency services work at the site of a bomb blast on a trolleybus in Volgograd December 30, 2013.
At least 10 people have been killed in a trolley bus blast in Volgograd, emergency services report, only a day after a suicide bombing ripped through the city's railway station, killing 17.

Monday, December 30

06:25 GMT: Burns and multiple traumas have been sustained by the victims of the trolley blast. Moscow is standing by to receive more wounded, if the need arises, health ministry spokeswoman Veronika Skvortsova told RIA Novosti.

06:18 GMT: FSB director, Aleksandr Botnikov, has been ordered by the President to fly to the scene, RIA Novosti reports.

06:20 GMT: The situation is being handled effectively - no shortage in medicine has been reported and efforts by emergency services are proving to be quite effective.

06:16 GMT: The number of fatalities varies from at least 10 to 15 at this point, as official sources differ on the matter.

06:13 GMT: Ministry of Health spokesperson said a child has been badly injured and is in critical condition.

06:06 GMT: The Emergencies Ministry has strongly tightened security in Volgograd. Teams of psychologists and other doctors are also being dispatched to the scene of the blast, the ministry reported. Their plane is to leave Moscow at 10:30AM local time.

06:00 GMT: "We are terrified. Everyone disembarked from buses and trams to walk on foot. I live 200 meters away from that place, I was just passing it on my way to work," Sergey Stukalov, an eyewitness, told RIA Novosti.

Sergey also said that the blast occurred on the No.15 trolley route, connecting a suburb to Volgograd's downtown area.

Comment: On the eve of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, it looks like Saudi Prince Bandar 'Bush' wasn't bluffing when he told Putin he would 'unleash Chechen terrorists' if Russia maintained its support of President Bashar al-Assad against the Saudi-funded foreign terrorists in Syria.

Saudi snake, Prince Bandar, tried first to bribe Russia to drop its support of Syria, then threatened to unleash Chechen terrorists at 2014 Winter Olympics

Syrian rebels and local residents testify that Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, supplied chemical weapons to 'al-Qaeda-linked group'


Evil Rays

Propaganda: A deadly mix in Benghazi

A boyish-looking American diplomat was meeting for the first time with the Islamist leaders of eastern Libya's most formidable militias.

It was Sept. 9, 2012. Gathered on folding chairs in a banquet hall by the Mediterranean, the Libyans warned of rising threats against Americans from extremists in Benghazi. One militia leader, with a long beard and mismatched military fatigues, mentioned time in exile in Afghanistan. An American guard discreetly touched his gun.

"Since Benghazi isn't safe, it is better for you to leave now," Mohamed al-Gharabi, the leader of the Rafallah al-Sehati Brigade, later recalled telling the Americans. "I specifically told the Americans myself that we hoped that they would leave Benghazi as soon as possible."

Yet as the militiamen snacked on Twinkie-style cakes with their American guests, they also gushed about their gratitude for President Obama's support in their uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. They emphasized that they wanted to build a partnership with the United States, especially in the form of more investment. They specifically asked for Benghazi outlets of McDonald's and KFC.