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Bullseye

Netanyahu wants a peace process - but only if it's doomed to fail

Jonathan Cook
The View From Nazareth
Sun, 05 Jun 2016 00:00 UTC
netanyahu
In a familiar muddying of the waters, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past week talking up peace while fiercely criticising Friday's summit in France - the only diplomatic initiative on the horizon.

As foreign ministers from 29 nations arrived for a one-day meeting in Paris, Netanyahu dusted off the tired argument that any sign of diplomatic support for Palestinians would encourage from them "extreme demands".

France hopes the meeting will serve as a prelude to launching a peace process later in the year. French president Francois Hollande said he hoped to achieve a "peace [that] will be solid, sustainable and under international supervision".

With astounding chutzpah, Israeli official Dore Gold compared the summit to the "height of colonialism" a century ago, when Britain and France carved up the Middle East between them. He conveniently overlooked the fact that it was the same British colonialism that promised a Jewish "homeland" in place of the native Palestinian population.

Earlier, Netanyahu and his new defence minister, the far-right Avigdor Lieberman, had publicly committed themselves to an "unceasing search for a path to peace".

Comment: It is now abundantly clear that as long as Netanyahu - and most of what now comprises of the Israeli government, military and intelligence agencies remain intact as they currently are - there will be no viable 'peace process' engaged with the Palestinians. Worse than that, everyone knows that Israel will continue its course of slow-motion ethnic cleansing of those living in Gaza and the West Bank.

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Gold Bar

What do they know? Former Fed president: "All my very rich friends are hoarding cash"

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 10 Jun 2016 14:58 UTC
cash
© Reuters
There were numerous interesting, informative and mostly bearish speakers during the latest Strategic Investment Conference held at the end of May. Among them were Lacy Hunt, David Rosenberg, Neil Howe, Jim Grant, Mark Yusko, Gary Shilling, and JohnMauldin (readers can watch video interviews with these speakers on Mauldin Economics' Youtube channel and their full presentations can be found at the following page) all of whom painted a very pessimistic picture for the stock market but, as Tony Sagami points out, the most alarming comment came from Richard Fisher.

Fisher was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) from 2005 to 2015. He was one of, perhaps the only, skeptic on the Fed board going into the great financial crisis, warning on numerous occasions about the upcoming crash only to be ignored by his wiser peers and certainly Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. He was also ignored in the post-Lehman era by both Bernanke and Janet Yellen.

Comment: Even more important than cash, stocking up on the practicalities of life and acquiring self-reliant skills would be a smart move.

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Star of David

Israel wants to annex 60% of West Bank, expel 4% of Palestinian population


RT
Fri, 10 Jun 2016 14:48 UTC
Uri Ariel
© Ronen Zvulun / Reuters
Israeli Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel
Israeli officials are willing to expel Palestinians out of the so-called Area C of the West Bank - four percent of the Palestinian population - and annex it to Israel, a move that will stir up new tensions, Dr. Saad Nimer from Birzeit University told RT.

The Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel has proposed annexing a large part of the West Bank and expelling some 300,000 Palestinians living there.

The minister dismissed the local population, saying annexation would be simple as "there are no Arabs at all" there. But according to a UN report, there are about 300,000 Palestinians living in Area C.

The land in question falls under full Israeli control according to the 1995 Second Oslo Accord. It compromises 60 percent of the West Bank.

Comment: Further reading: Common sense: France warns Israel that ban on Palestinians will only escalate the violence

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Star of David

Common sense: France warns Israel that ban on Palestinians will only escalate the violence


Sputnik
Sat, 11 Jun 2016 14:38 UTC
tel aviv attack
© AP Photo/ Sebastian Scheiner
The recent Israeli ban on Palestinian access to family, work and other resources within Israeli territory may increase an already volatile situation, France Foreign Minister warned.

According to French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Israel's heavy-handed reaction to a terrorist attack at a popular café in Tel Aviv will likely increase violence, rather than calm tensions.

Following the deadly attack on a café located at Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, Israel has frozen 83,000 Palestinian entry permits during the holy month of Ramadan, starting July 6, coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot on July 12, "due to security concerns." Palestinians have been prohibited to take part in prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque at Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Israeli military has deployed hundreds of troops, effectively sealing off the West Bank.

Comment: Israel's approach to Palestinians is like a parent punching their child; the child then begins to cry, so the parent continues to punch the child in order to get it to stop crying. Then whenever someone points out that the child will never stop crying if the parent continues to pummel it, the parent calls that person delusional, and continues to beat the child. It's not necessarily that the parent lacks common sense; they just enjoy beating up children. Israel thrives on violence. If it were to stop, Israel would have to acknowledge that it is living on stolen land, that it is responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide, that it is an Apartheid state, and that it is a constitutionally criminal state.

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Bad Guys

Quagmire: U.S. refuses to negotiate, plans to expand airstrikes on resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, war will go on for decades


Moon of Alabama
Fri, 10 Jun 2016 21:19 UTC
drone
© Josh Smith / Reuters
When Obama came into office he promised to end the hopeless war in Afghanistan. Immediately the Pentagon ambushed him with requests for a "surge" with some additional 40,000 troops. Under pressure Obama agreed to a lower number and set an 18-month limit for their deployment. Those troops occupied some meaningless areas in Afghanistan and when they were withdrawn those areas fell back to Taliban rule. Currently the U.S. has some 10,000 troops and more than 20,000 "contractors" in Afghanistan. There are additional troops from NATO allies. Since 2014 these troops are restricted in their tasks to fighting Al-Qaeda and are not supposed to support Afghan government troops.

But the idea of turning the war over to local troops without losing to the Taliban failed. Afghan troops are giving ground especially in the south and have a high attrition rate. It is obviously that without change the whole south would fall to the Taliban by end of the year. This would hardly matter to anyone but the people living there, many of whom have no problem with their Taliban brethren.

Comment: A Trump presidency will only cement the already-existing Idiocracy that is the U.S. empire. More from RT:
Both the current top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, and his predecessor, Gen. John Campbell, who was replaced in March, have advocated for increases in US troop numbers in discussions with Defense Secretary Ash Carter, according to AP.
...
"The bottom line is too much has been wasted in Afghanistan. Too much money was spent in too small a country with too little oversight," the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, John Sopko, told Reuters earlier Thursday.

"And if the security situation continues to deteriorate, even areas where money was spent wisely and gains were made, could be jeopardized," Sopko added.


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War Whore

IEP report found only 10 nations around the world are not at war

Claire Bernish
Anti-Media
Fri, 10 Jun 2016 03:06 UTC
war is bad
A troubling report by the Institute for Economics and Peace found a mere ten nations on the planet are not at war and completely free from conflict. According to the Global Peace Index 2016, only Botswana, Chile, Costa Rica, Japan, Mauritius, Panama, Qatar, Switzerland, Uruguay and Vietnam are free from conflict. Iceland tops the list of most peaceful countries in the world, followed by Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Portugal, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, and Slovenia — while the United States ranked far lower, at 103. Palestine, placed in the index of 163 nations for the first time this year, ranked 148th.

War-torn Syria placed at the bottom of the list, lower than only South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Central African Republic, Ukraine, Sudan, and Libya.

"The index gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society; the extent of domestic or international conflict; and the degree of militarisation," the report states.

Though 81 countries improved their level of peace according to those criteria, those gains were muddied by deteriorating peace in 79 other nations. In the last decade, "the average country score deteriorated by 2.44 per cent with 77 countries improving while 85 countries deteriorated, highlighting the global complexities of peace and its uneven distribution."
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No Entry

WW3 is an INFORMATION war! Post-Kirchner Argentinian regime blocks RT and TeleSUR


RT
Sat, 11 Jun 2016 13:01 UTC
Macri argentina

Argentinian president Macri with US president Obama in Washington, DC in May
The Argentinian state media authority has decided to suspend the nationwide broadcast of RT Spanish. In 2014, RT became the first foreign TV channel to be shown on national television in Argentina.

According to an official notification from the national RTA SE media body, the suspension will come into force in 60 days. The channel will be excluded from free transmission, but will still remain in paid TV packages.


Comment: This is the typically sneaky way in which the oligarchs censor, sanction or ban anything they don't like, while pretending they 'respect freedom of expression'.


The media governing body expressed its "gratitude" for a fruitful cooperation and the contribution of RT Spanish to the national satellite and digital broadcasts in a letter signed by RTA's Maria Eugenia Martinez, who emphasized that current notification of suspension "does not prevent the conclusion of other future partnerships."


Comment: Russia stabbed in the back with a smile, of course!


On June 7, a similar letter was sent to the pan-Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network TeleSUR TV, notifying that its broadcasting in Argentina would be suspended within 15 days. TeleSUR President Patricia Villegas denounced the move as "censorship"on the part of the right-wing Argentine president Mauricio Macri and his government.


Comment: That's absolutely what it is! TeleSUR is funded by the states of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. Together with this latest propaganda missile fired against Russia, the Argentinian regime is targeting, on behalf of the Western Borg, the media from countries whose leadership broadcast (substantially) the Truth signal.


Both letters cited the "need to renew the program listings" of Argentina's Experimental System of Digital Terrestrial Television and Satellite Television Systems as the reason for suspensions.

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Bad Guys

EU proves its slavery to Washington: 6 more months of anti-Russian sanctions

Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
Sat, 11 Jun 2016 12:17 UTC
Despite the majority of Europeans and their ELECTED leaders opposing it, Brussels continues to implement Washington DC and NATO's foreign policy objectives.
European Union
Brussels is exhibiting zombie-like characteristics when it comes to the issue of Russian sanctions, as it nudges a teetering European economy towards the next crisis.

While actual European citizens and their elected leaders (not in Brussels) grow tired and continue to suffer economically from the EU's seemingly endless regime of anti-Russian sanctions, globalist technocrats from the Brussels super-star chamber remain loyal to the US State Department and NATO party line by executing a policy of "isolation and containment" for Russia.

EU rolling sanctions are against Russia's financial services sector, energy and defense-related industries, and also against named individuals within Moscow's establishment. Russia has retaliated with reciprocal measures, blocking many major European imports, including agricultural products, from entering the Russian markets. In Germany, luxury brands like BMW have taken a major hit in export sales as a result of being denied trade with Russia.

Comment: It's too bad the EU continues to play this game of financial 'suicide bombing' against Russia. Perhaps it would even be understandable if it was negatively impacting the Russian economy, and advancing the EU elite's war against Russia. But, truth be told, Russia simply doesn't need them. Anti-Russian sanctions have only helped diversify and strengthen the Russian economy, which is now moving out of recession. The fact of the matter is that it is purely self-destructive, and the people of Europe are seeing their livelihoods sacrificed for nothing but pipe dreams and lies.

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Eye 2

Just another political heist: The AP leak that determined a Killary 'victory'

Kevin Henderson
The Duran
Sat, 11 Jun 2016 12:25 UTC
hillary rape case
AP's announcement of Hillary Clinton's victory on the eve of the California primary contradicts the whole essence of democracy.

On June 6th, 2016, a modern political heist was viewed by thousands of Americans on the Internet in real time.

The moment I saw the AP's "breaking story", via a Zero Hedge post, I had a sinking feeling in my heart, the kind I get watching burning skyscrapers crumble into their footprints. A crime of the political season was taking place. In a few minutes, the MSN spin machine would wash the dirt away and declare the crime "official." I wrote the following notes the night of June 7th, unable to find the Californian primary results that were supposed to matter. California is, of course the primary where, years ago, Bobby Kennedy pulled off a surprising win and was then shot to death. California has had special primary baggage ever since (indeed, Clinton made a strange reference to Kennedy in a previous campaign), and was perhaps the perfect place for the DNC and willing assistants at AP and other media allies to pull a full blown heist in under twenty minutes.

Whoever did this timed the act to make California's vote moot before the day of the primary. According to the newswires, this was an astonishing success.

Comment: American politics is a circus, but the performers themselves still take the whole thing very seriously. They'll spend billions, and commit the most brazen acts, in order to gain even just the illusion of power that lies in the hands of the POTUS. For snakes like Killary it is yet another way to feed the addiction that is their bloated, blood-drenched egos. And, for those that know they can control her, it'll be yet another way to line their pockets with the money of the average American while advancing their undeniably psychopathic agendas.

Further reading:

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War Whore

U.S. House bill would turn Veterans Health Administration to nonprofit corporation

Eric Katz
Government Executive
Tue, 07 Jun 2016 11:59 UTC
Dept of VA in Sacramento
© AP
A member of the House Republican leadership on Tuesday released draft legislation to completely overhaul the way veterans receive health care, in part by turning the Veterans Affairs Department's health care component into a government-chartered nonprofit corporation.

The Caring for our Heroes in the 21st Century Act, introduced by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, would create the Veterans Accountable Care Organization to manage the VA's brick and mortar health care facilities. It also would launch the Veterans Health Insurance Program to manage VHA's insurance programs, creating two separate entities to handle VA's payer and provider functions.

The bill, which she introduced as a "discussion draft," would seek to expand choice for veterans by creating a "premium support" model to receive care from non-VA sources. Critics contend that premium support is a voucher system that cuts benefits and leaves veterans on their own to receive care.


Comment: In other words, veterans would have to pay a premium to receive care outside the VA system or suffer and die within the system. The psychopathic U.S. kills innocents for profits and now they will bilk their those forced to be the empire's bullies. How is that 'caring for our heroes'?


The measure also would create significant changes for the 330,000 employees of the Veterans Health Administration. The new government corporation would have "more latitude to reward high performers, fire poor performers and monitor the quality of overall veteran health care delivery," an individual briefed on the bill told Government Executive.

Comment: See also:

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