Welcome to Sott.net
Wed, 29 Sep 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Eye 1

'ID cards by the backdoor': UK govt contracted IT firm that is 'openly plotting' to turn vaccine passports into national ID card, privacy groups warns


RT
Mon, 21 Jun 2021 10:35 UTC
vaccine passport ID
© REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The British government has been accused of aiming to covertly implement a national ID programme, after it partnered with a company that has advocated turning vaccine passports into a multi-purpose document.

Entrust, an IT firm that bills itself as a "global leader in identities, payments, and data protection," was awarded a contract by the Department of Health and Social Care last month to work on the UK's Covid-19 vaccine certificate system. The company was given £250,000 ($346,000) to provide cloud-computing services for the government's Covid-status certification scheme, iNews reported. The contract is due to expire in March 2022, but the government has the option of extending it for an additional year.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated last month that proof of vaccination will be "necessary" for international travel, and in recent weeks reports have emerged claiming that the UK government may require the document of people attending sporting events or other large gatherings.

Comment: Throughout this manufactured crisis the NHS has been used and is actively participating in actions that will ultimately contribute to its own downfall:

      Read More...
Dominoes

Rallies in Peru over 'contested' election, despite observers recording no evidence of voter fraud


Reuters
Sun, 20 Jun 2021 13:44 UTC
Keiko Fujimori
© REUTERS/Gerardo Marin
Peru's presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori gestures to supporters in Lima, Peru June 19, 2021. REUTERS/Gerardo Marin
Supporters of socialist Pedro Castillo and conservative Keiko Fujimori took to the streets by the thousands in Peru on Saturday, as tensions rose over the result of the June 6 presidential election.

Castillo was leading the official count while Fujimori sought to get votes annulled, although pollster Ipsos Peru said it had done a statistical analysis of the ballots and found no evidence of abnormal voting patterns that would have benefited one candidate over the other.

"We are not going to allow them to ignore the popular will, to ignore the electoral result. We are going to defend democracy," Veronika Mendoza, former leftist presidential candidate, said at the Castillo support rally.

Comment: It remains to be seen whether there's reason to doubt the election results, but, since neither national nor international observers recorded any evidence of voting fraud, and clearly he's not the favorite of big business, one wonders whether there's a reason the establishment might want to keep left-wing Castillo from power:

      Read More...
Target

Biden's buffoonish war on extremism

James Bovard
The Amerian Conservative
Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:01 UTC
Guy w proud boy shirt
© Robert P. Alvarez/shutterstock
Proud Boy in a crowd
The Biden administration revealed on Tuesday that guys who can't get laid may be terrorist threats due to "involuntary celibate-violent extremism." That revelation is part of a new crackdown that identifies legions of potential "domestic terrorists" that the feds can castigate and investigate. But there is no reason to expect Biden administration anti-terrorism and anti-extremism efforts to be less of a farce and menace than similar post-9/11 campaigns.

Since the French Revolution, politicians have defined terrorism to stigmatize their opponents, a precedent followed by the Biden administration's National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. The report labels the January 6 clash at the Capitol as a "domestic terrorism" incident but fails to mention it spurred a mushroom cloud of increasingly far-fetched official accusations. Capitol Police acting Chief Yogananda Pittman told Congress that January 6 was "a terrorist attack by tens of thousands of insurrectionists." Less than a thousand protestors entered the Capitol that day but apparently any Trump supporter who hustled down the Mall towards the Capitol became the legal equivalent of Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately, this "seen walking in the same zip code" standard for guilt could be the prototype for Biden era domestic terrorist prosecutions.

Comment: We are not in '1984'. We are well into 1985.

      Read More...
Stock Down

We are now at the beginning of what will be a historic collapse

Alasdair Macleod
King World News
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
Man umbrella storm
© Kings World News
It's all coming to a disastrous end and the world faces a very dark future
Alasdair Macleod: Yesterday, the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] released its June statement which only served to remind us that its members are powerless in the face of inflationary conditions. They refuse to accept the price consequences of monetary inflation, still clinging on to an increasingly untenable hope that price rises are "transitory".

The fact of the matter is that the world is now awash with excess money, the two greatest inflationists being the Fed and the Bank of England. In the US, the Fed's $120bn monthly QE continues to goose financial asset values, while the US Government has spent a further trillion into circulation from its general account at the Fed. This tidal wave of money threatened money market funds totalling over $4 trillion with negative rates, thereby "breaking the buck", which is why the Fed has increased its outstanding reverse repos to $721bn.

Interest rates will have to increase far earlier than the Fed admits to stop foreigners dumping dollars, not just for commodities which have nearly doubled since March 2020, but for other currencies as well.

Welcome to the everything bubble, whipped up by American and British neo-Keynesian policy makers who are now increasingly cornered by their own monetary fallacies.

Comment: If the above logic is correct - or even close - the time to spend for value is now.

      Read More...
Arrow Down

Iran's low voter turnout spells trouble for the future of the Islamic Republic

Scott Ritter
RT
Sun, 20 Jun 2021 15:17 UTC
Iranian voting
© AFP
Iranian national votes in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, on June 18, 2021.
While an overwhelming percentage of voters chose the conservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi, the fact that less than 50% of the eligible voters participated underscores a growing lack of support for "religious democracy" in Iran.

The 2021 Iranian Presidential election may go down in history as the event that broke the back of Iran's tumultuous 40-year experiment with "religious democracy," where the legitimacy of autocratic religious rule is validated by the will of the people as expressed through the vehicle of voter participation.

It is not the result of the election that causes concern - the overwhelming victory of Ebrahim Raisi, the conservative former head of the judiciary, came as a surprise to no one, especially after the Guardian Council, Iran's constitutional body that, among other tasks, vets candidates for elected office, purged the list of potential contenders for Iran's executive, removing several would-be candidates, including the former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, who could have challenged Raisi at the polls.

The failure of the two-term presidency of Hassan Rouhani, considered to be a moderate reformer, to better the daily lives of Iranians virtually guaranteed that Iran would put a conservative in office. Rather, it was the historically low turnout - with only 28.9 million out of 59 million eligible voters casting their ballots, with 3.7 million of these voiding their ballots, allegedly in protest over the intervention of the Guardian Council. This marks the first time in Iran's history that voter turnout dropped below the 50% level.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Gold Bar

Basel III and gold - Central bankers locking the fire exits

Ross Norman
Zero Hedge
Wed, 02 Jun 2021 07:10 UTC
door locked
© iStock/KJN
"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail," said Mark Twain. So it is that pundits have interpreted forthcoming Basel III rules as simply an opportunity to bash bullion banks and to assert that gold prices are going to the moon. Again ... yawn.

Imagine for a moment that your cash at bank became "allocated" ... that is to say your bank holds it in physical form and it moves from account to account to reflect every single transaction you make, instead of the current book entry system that allows debits and credits to be offset, cleared and settled overnight through a central agency that used to be called BACS. Yes, chaos would ensue ... but assuming banks could manage, costs would rise dramatically, and that would be passed on to you. Madness you might think ... why would regulators introduce something so retrograde and inefficient ... herein lies the story behind the proposed Basel III changes and gold ...

Comment: The government serves itself, not us. Whatever the 'formula' becomes, it will be the child of the beast they created and, left with no choice, we will 'pay the price'.

      Read More...
Bullseye

Taliban says they are committed to Afghanistan peace talks

Joseph Choi
The Hill
Sun, 20 Jun 2021 08:29 UTC
Abdul Ghani Baradar
© Getty Images
Taliban cofounder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
The Taliban on Sunday said they are committed to peace talks, and want a "genuine Islamic system" in Afghanistan.
Reuters reports Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in a statement said:
"We understand that the world and Afghans have queries and questions about the form of the system to be established following withdrawal of foreign troops. A genuine Islamic system is the best means for solution of all issues of the Afghans. Our very participation in the negotiations and its support on our part indicates openly that we believe in resolving issues through (mutual) understanding."
This statement comes as progress on talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government have slowed amid rising violence brought on by foreign forces withdrawing from the country, Reuters notes. Officials have said the Taliban has not yet submitted a peace proposal upon which talks could be started.

According to Reuters, Baradar said in his statement that women and minorities would be protected under the proposed system, and diplomats and NGOs would be permitted to work securely. Baradar said "facilities would be provided" for women to be educated and to work.
"We take it on ourselves as a commitment to accommodate all rights of citizens of our country, whether they are male or female, in the light of the rules of the glorious religion of Islam and the noble traditions of the Afghan society."
      Read More...
Question

What does Ibrahim Raisi's victory as President of Iran mean to the US and Iran's allies?

Elijah J Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Sun, 20 Jun 2021 18:35 UTC
Sayyed Ibrahim Raisi president iran

Sayyed Ibrahim Raisi, then caretaker of AQR, offers Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the highest honorary title of AQR, July 21, 2018, Mashhad, Iran
Sayyed Ibrahim Raisi's victory in the Iranian presidential elections was not a surprise, but the polls and their results are very significant and send domestic, regional and international messages.

The number of voters is powerfully expressive: Raisi won 17.926.345 million votes out of the 28 million who voted in the elections, regardless of the Corona pandemic that continues to threaten all countries and cause a reduction of the participation in elections. It is noteworthy that the second place went to the hardliner, former IRGC - Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohsen Rezaei, who won 3.4 million votes. The third place went to former central bank governor Abdel Nasser Hemmati, who represented the weight of the reformists, reaching only 2.4 million votes. Conservative lawmaker Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi ended up with more than one million votes.

Comment:

      Read More...
Bullseye

Ted Cruz: Critical Race Theory 'is every bit as racist as the klansmen in white sheets'

Caroline Downey
National Review
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 19:03 UTC
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx)
© Jim Lo Scalzo /Pool via Reuters
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) questions former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, who is President Joe Biden’s choice to lead the U.S. Agency for International Development, at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 23, 2021.
During the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Conference on Friday, Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz slammed critical race theory (CRT) as an ideology comparably racist to that espoused by the Ku Klux Klan.

"Let me tell you right now, critical race theory is bigoted, it is a lie, and it is every bit as racist as the Klansmen in white sheets," Cruz declared.

In his speech, Cruz talked about how a reporter asked him to definite CRT, to which he explained the doctrine's Marxist roots and problematic implications.

Comment: Where's the lie?

See also:

      Read More...
Pirates

There is More to BlackRock Than You Might Imagine

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
blackrock
A virtually unregulated investment firm today exercises more political and financial influence than the Federal Reserve and most governments on this planet. The firm, BlackRock Inc., the world's largest asset manager, invests a staggering $9 trillion in client funds worldwide, a sum more than double the annual GDP of the Federal Republic of Germany. This colossus sits atop the pyramid of world corporate ownership, including in China most recently. Since 1988 the company has put itself in a position to de facto control the Federal Reserve, most Wall Street mega-banks, including Goldman Sachs, the Davos World Economic Forum Great Reset, the Biden Administration and, if left unchecked, the economic future of our world. BlackRock is the epitome of what Mussolini called Corporatism, where an unelected corporate elite dictates top down to the population.

How the world's largest "shadow bank" exercises this enormous power over the world ought to concern us. BlackRock since Larry Fink founded it in 1988 has managed to assemble unique financial software and assets that no other entity has. BlackRock's Aladdin risk-management system, a software tool that can track and analyze trading, monitors more than $18 trillion in assets for 200 financial firms including the Federal Reserve and European central banks. He who "monitors" also knows, we can imagine. BlackRock has been called a financial "Swiss Army Knife — institutional investor, money manager, private equity firm, and global government partner rolled into one." Yet mainstream media treats the company as just another Wall Street financial firm.

There is a seamless interface that ties the UN Agenda 2030 with the Davos World Economic Forum Great Reset and the nascent economic policies of the Biden Administration. That interface is BlackRock.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts