Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Will SWIFT ban on Iran strangle Spain?


RT
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:50 UTC
With the upcoming EU electronic banking transactions ban on Iran, the Islamic Republic might face a crude economic pinch. However, in an attempt to pressure Tehran, technocrats in Brussels might actually be leading Spain to the scaffold.


­SWIFT, the world's biggest electronic banking system, is preparing to cut off Iranian financial firms, including the country's Central Bank, blacklisted by the EU. The move is part of the European plan to impose an embargo on Iranian oil this summer over Tehran's nuclear program.

The EU and US are hoping to force Iran to the negotiating table by targeting its oil revenues.
But the measure is expected to backfire on average Europeans, particularly in Spain, which imports over 1.5 million barrels of oil from Iran daily.
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Bad Guys

Iran Takes 'Urgent Steps' As Saturday Cut-Off Looms


NewsMax
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:39 UTC
Iranian flag
© Reuters
The sanctions vice is tightening on Iran, cutting it out of key global financial networks, but Tehran is taking urgent steps to withstand the pressure over a nuclear program the West suspects is intended to produce bombs.

The SWIFT system, which handles most cross-border payments, said in Brussels on Thursday it would disconnect Iranian institutions blacklisted by sanctions from its messaging system on Saturday at 1600 GMT, after a European Union order and pressure from the United States.

Money exchange houses in the Gulf said they were ceasing dealing in the risky Iranian rial, in another blow to Tehran's trading channels.

Meanwhile, Reuters shipping data showed that vessels carrying at least 360,000 tons of grain are lined up to unload in Iran, in a sign Tehran is stockpiling huge amounts of food to blunt the impact of tougher Western sanctions.
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Attention

Why Republicans Aren't Mentioning the Real Cause of Rising Prices at the Gas Pump

Robert Reich
Information Clearing House
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:31 UTC
Gas Prices
© GraphicsHunt.com
Gas prices continue to rise, which is finally giving Republicans an issue. Mitt Romney is demanding the President open up more domestic drilling; the super PAC behind Rick Santorum just released a new ad in Louisiana blasting the President on gas prices; and the GOP is attacking the White House on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

But the rise in gas prices has almost nothing to do with energy policy. It has everything to do with America's continuing failure to adequately regulate Wall Street. But don't hold your breath waiting for Republicans to tell the truth.

As I've noted before, oil supplies aren't being squeezed. Over 80 percent of America's energy needs are now being satisfied by domestic supplies. In fact, we're starting to become an energy exporter. Demand for oil isn't rising in any event. Demand is down in the U.S. compared to last year at this time, and global demand is still moderate given the economic slowdowns in Europe and China.

But Wall Street is betting on higher oil prices in the future - and that betting is causing prices to rise. The Street is laying odds that unrest in Syria will spill over into other countries or that tensions with Iran will affect the Persian Gulf, and that global demand will pick up as American consumers bounce back to life.

These bets are pushing up oil prices because Wall Street firms and other big financial players now dominate oil trading.

Financial speculators historically accounted for about 30 percent of oil contracts, producers and end users for about 70 percent. But today speculators account for 64 percent of all contracts.
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Bad Guys

Top Iran official calls for cooperation from West in return for 'transparency'

CNN Wire Staff
CNN
Sat, 17 Mar 2012 12:59 UTC
Geneva, Switzerland -- Iran says it wants more clarity from the IAEA before it allows inspectors into the Parchin military complex south of Tehran, one of Iran's most influential officials said Wednesday.

Iran denies it conducted any nuclear experiments there, even though it is suspected of having tested explosives for a nuclear device in the early 2000s. High-level diplomats told CNN's Christiane Amanpour it's believed Iran abruptly stopped any work toward weaponizing its nuclear program after 2003. But weapons inspectors want to make sure.

"If the Western community is asking us for more transparency, then we should expect more cooperation," said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a member of a powerful political clan in Iran and an adviser to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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Eye 1

Best of the Web: The Madness of Western Civilization

Saman Mohammadi
The Excavator
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:54 UTC
SOTT psychopaths rule our world
© SOTT.net
It turns out that the propagandist behind the KONY 2012 campaign is a raving lunatic. But what about the propagandists behind the OSAMA 2001 campaign that brainwashed the planet into thinking that Osama Bin Laden did the 9/11 attacks? Aren't they also raving lunatics like Jason Russell of the KONY 2012 fraud?

Anyone who has seriously studied the psychopathy of the state terrorists and totalitarian propagandists who did the 9/11 attacks knows that they are total nutcases. They are capable of orchestrating mass murder on a large scale, all the while presenting a straight face to the public as if they're not completely insane war criminals.

In the immediate hours and days after the September 11 attacks, propagandist chiefs Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, all appeared on television to put out their twisted narrative that Islamic extremists were responsible for the tragedy, without providing any evidence for their assertions.

The videos that are linked above are of Wolfowitz on PBS, Netanyahu on NBC, and Barak on BBC. Every interview is worth watching. If you are interested in human psychology, history, cultural anthropology, sociology, and media studies, then you will find greater value in this archival footage.
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Light Sabers

Afghan leader blasts U.S. over shootings probe


USA Today
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:48 UTC
Hamid Karzai
© Ahmad Jamshid, APAfghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday listens to a family member of Afghan civilians who were killed Sunday by a U.S. soldier.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Warning he's at the "end of the rope" over civilian casualties, Afghanistan's president angrily accused the U.S. on Friday of not sharing information about how an American soldier allegedly shot and killed 16 Afghans in two villages.

The incident has reverberated through the already complicated relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan, endangering talks over a long-term relationship after most U.S. and NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

In an emotional meeting with relatives of the shooting victims, Karzai said the villagers' accounts of the massacre were widely different from the scenario depicted by U.S. military officials. The relatives and villagers insisted that it was impossible for one gunmen to kill nine children, four men and three women in three houses of two villages near a U.S. combat outpost in southern Afghanistan.

Karzai pointed to one of the villagers from Panjwai district of Kandahar province and said:

"In his family, in four rooms people were killed - children and women were killed - and then they were all brought together in one room and then set on fire. That, one man cannot do."
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Bad Guys

J.P. Morgan Chase's Ugly Family Secrets Revealed

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:39 UTC
Image
© Spencer Platt / Getty ImagsPeople exit a Chase branch at the company's Manhattan headquarters.
In a story that should be getting lots of attention, American Banker has released an excellent and disturbing exposé of J.P. Morgan Chase's credit card services division, relying on multiple current and former Chase employees. One of them, Linda Almonte, is a whistleblower whom I've known since last September; I'm working on a recount of her story for my next book.

One of the things we were promised by the lawmakers who passed the Dodd-Frank reform bill a few years back is that this would be a new era for whistleblowers who come forward to tell the world about problems in our financial infrastructure. This story now looms as a test case for that proposition. American Banker reporter Jeff Horwitz did an outstanding job in this story detailing the sweeping irregularities in-house at Chase, but his very thoroughness means the news may have ramifications for Linda, which is why I'm urging people to pay attention to this story in the upcoming weeks.
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Stormtrooper

Up to 20 US troops executed Afghanistan massacre


Afghan News
Sat, 17 Mar 2012 06:31 UTC
Image
Members of the Afghan investigation team
KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday's killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.

The probing delegation includes lawmakers Hamidzai Lali, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Shakiba Hashimi, Syed Mohammad Akhund and Bismillah Afghanmal, all representing Kandahar province at the Wolesi Jirga and Abdul Latif Padram, a lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province, Mirbat Mangal, Khost province, Muhammad Sarwar Usmani, Farah province.

The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.

Hamizai Lali told Pajhwok Afghan News their investigation showed there were 15 to 20 American soldiers, who executed the brutal killings.

"We closely examined the site of the incident, talked to the families who lost their beloved ones, the injured people and tribal elders," he said.

He added the attack lasted one hour involving two groups of American soldiers in the middle of the night on Sunday.
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Bomb

Coordinated car bomb attacks in Damascus hit government buildings, many killed and injured


SANA
Sat, 17 Mar 2012 04:32 UTC
Image
© SANA
Two terrorist attacks targeted Damascus Saturday morning as Preliminary Indications Point to 2 booby-trapped Cars Attack.

The two terrorist attacks targeted two crowded places in the capital: Customs Square, and the zone linking Baghdad Street to al-Qasaa' Quarter.

Scores of civilians and security personnel were martyred in the two terrorist attacks targeted the Criminal Police Force Headquarters and the Air Security Directorate.

Comment: On a weekend when millions of Syrians have come out in support of President Assad's government, two massive boob-trapped car bomb explosions go off at government buildings. Think about who benefits...

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Bad Guys

Pentagon Says it Has No Records of bin Laden Death


CTV News
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:53 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press/Anjum NaveedPakistani youngsters play cricket near the compound of Osama bin Laden, which is being demolished by authorities in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012.
US, Washington - The hunt for Osama bin Laden took nearly a decade. It could take even longer to uncover U.S. government emails, planning reports, photographs and more that would shed light on how an elite team of U.S. Navy Seals killed the world's most wanted terrorist.

Ten months after that electrifying covert mission, an administration that has pledged to be the most transparent in American history is refusing to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. openness in government law, that would provide insights into how bin Laden died, how the U.S. verified his identity and how it decided to bury him at sea, as well as photographs taken during and after the May 2011 raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Government officials have discussed details of the mission openly in speeches, interviews and television appearances, but the administration will not disclose records that would confirm their narrative of that fateful night. The Obama administration has not even disclosed where all the documents might be stored.

Requests for bin Laden materials were among the most significant filed last year under the open records law, which compels the government to turn over copies of federal records for free or at little cost. Anyone who seeks information under the FOIA generally is supposed to get it unless disclosure would harm national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making. The law has been the focus of extra attention since Sunday, the start of Sunshine Week, when American news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.
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