Puppet MastersS


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Chile: Students clash with riot police

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Hundreds of people gathered in the plazas of the Chilean capital on Wednesday night, banging pots and pans in support of student demands. The demonstration followed a day of protests and violence. Battles between riot police and small groups of hooded protesters also continued into the night, with water cannons being used to try and disperse them. People of all ages took to the streets, banging metal poles with stones, and saucepans and pots with spoons.

The protests began early on Wednesday and police have so far arrested 102 people and four officers have been injured. The protest, timed ahead of Sunday's presidential primaries, is aimed at demanding wider distribution of Chile's copper wealth. It also calls for reform of the education system that would put the state back in control of the mostly-privatized public universities.

Vader

West war of terror comes out of closet

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The bodies continue to pile up – but there is a never ending supply so no one cares
Western publics sit like deer in the headlights, unable to move despite the illegal night hunter about to shoot them through the head.

But it also could be said we are shooting ourselves in the head.

I use that dramatic analogy because that seems to be exactly what is happening to us. A new generation of terror is being created right before our very eyes using our own tax dollars to do so, and the effort led by those sworn to protect us...people we elected.

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Western supported Syrian rebels taking care of PoWs
Let's review the current Syrian mess and how some very evil people, maybe an evil empire really, saw a way to exploit the situation to launch a new generation of terror not only in the Mid East but the Caucus region and Europe and North Africa.

The devastation that this will bring upon those areas is so certain I can only conclude that it is actually the purpose of the whole effort. The motivation seems a bit hazy as there is no real understandable beneficial motive for the people of these countries...like a real security threat. A war for commercial interests is the only feasible reason.

Bad Guys

U.S. and UK Alliance to occupy Afghanistan indefinitely

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© Shamil Zhumatov/ReutersBritish troops in Helmand. Nato combat forces are due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Senior military sources say Nato will continue to play major role as Afghan forces are unprepared for 2014 withdrawal

International forces will provide logistical advice to the Afghan military up until 2020 after concluding that Afghanistan's national security forces will be unprepared for full operations when Nato combat troops withdraw from the country at the end of 2014.

As David Cameron paid a visit to British troops in Helmand province on Armed Forces Day, senior military sources indicated that Nato would need to play a major role in Afghanistan until the end of the decade.

The prime minister said British forces were reaching the final phase of the 12-year campaign. But senior British military sources said the Afghan forces would need advice on providing close air support, the distribution of food and fuel and on medevac facilities.

British military commanders have been able to make their assessments after Nato handed control of security for the whole of the country to Afghan forces this month. The commanders have concluded that a great deal has been achieved but that Afghan forces will not have built their capacity to full operational levels by the time Nato combat troops leave at the end of 2014.

Red Flag

Fear, panic grip Libyan capital as unknown fighters wage battle in Tripoli

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Residents of Benghazi bury the bodies of the demonstrators that were killed during clashes on June 8.
A tense calm prevailed over Libya's capital Thursday after days of chaos left at least seven people dead -- including a 12-year-old boy.

But it's unclear if the violence is really over -- or even who the warring groups are.

Sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions echoed across Tripoli on Wednesday night, sending waves of confusion and panic as residents weren't sure who was behind the attacks.

Medical sources in Abu Saleem Hospital said two people, including a 12-year-old boy, died Wednesday from injuries sustained in the clashes, the state news agency LANA reported. The hospital also said it was treating a number of injured from the violence.

LANA said it was not clear what groups were involved in Wednesday's fighting. It quoted witnesses as saying the densely populated Abu Saleem area was in a state of "panic and fear" as fighting closed off main roads in the area, including the one leading to the international airport.

Dollar

The crime of alleviating poverty: A local community currency battles the Central Bank of Kenya

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Former Peace Corps volunteer Will Ruddick and several residents of Bangladesh, Kenya, face a potential seven years in prison after developing a cost-effective way to alleviate poverty in Africa's poorest slums. Their solution: a complementary currency issued and backed by the local community. The Central Bank of Kenya has now initiated charges of forgery.

Complementary currencies can help eradicate poverty.

Proving that may be difficult in complex economies, due to the high number of factors influencing outcomes. But in an African slum with little of the national currency available, supplying residents with an alternative currency has a positive effect that is obvious, immediate and incontrovertible.

This was demonstrated when Will Ruddick, an American physicist, economist and former Peace Corps volunteer, introduced a complementary currency into a Kenyan slum called Bangladesh, near the coastal city of Mombasa. Will's local development organization, Koru-Kenya, worked with over one hundred small business owners in Bangladesh, who agreed to give each other the equivalent of 400 shillings (about €3.5 or $4.60) in mutual credit in the form of business vouchers called Bangla-Pesa. Half of the vouchers would be available for spending on each others' products and services, and half would be spent into the community on public projects such as waste collection and health services. Allocation decisions were democratic and transparent, and the new currency was backed entirely by the community's own resources and insured by a system of group guarantors, not by the Kenyan government or a development agency.

The project was launched on May 11, 2013. The immediate effect was an increase in sales of 22%. That meant increasing incomes and purchasing power by 22%. These exchanges were of goods and services that without the additional currency would have been thrown away or gone to waste, not because they were unmarketable but because potential customers did not have the money to buy them. Introducing Bangla-Pesa worked to move the economy forward at full capacity, connecting the community to its own resources when the only things lacking were those slips of paper called "money." A compelling video on the project is here.

War Whore

Michael Hastings and the war on journalism


Arrow Down

Green Party threatens to quit French coalition government after Environment Minister sacked for criticising austerity budget

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Sacked Environment Minister Delphine Batho
France's Green Party (EELV) are "not far from quitting the government" it said Wednesday, in the wake of the abrupt sacking of Environment Minister Delphine Batho.


French President François Hollande's Socialist government faces a fresh headache Wednesday, after it's Green Party (EELV ) junior coalition partner threatened to quit the government following the abrupt sacking of Environment Minister Delphine Batho.

Batho was fired after she dared to criticise a decision to slash the environment ministry's budget by seven percent - cuts that are part of a wider austerity trim that will see the first drop in overall government spending since 1958.

"It's a bad budget," Batho complained to RTL radio on Tuesday. The 40-year-old, a member of the ruling Socialist Party, was immediately summoned by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and given her marching orders. She has been replaced by another Socialist, Philippe Martin.

Dollars

Hypocrisie en France: Tax evasion scandal widens as ex-banker hands in list of 15 'big name' politicians with undeclared bank accounts in Switzerland

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The Hollande govt: 'Do as we say, not as we do'
A former official with Swiss bank Reyl et Cie who claimed he knew of 15 French politicians and "big names" with undeclared bank accounts in Switzerland said Wednesday he had submitted the list to investigators.

Pierre Condamin-Gerbier was a witness before a parliamentary commission investigating former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who resigned in disgrace in March over an undeclared foreign bank account said to contain around 600,000 euros ($770,000).

Cahuzac is now facing charges of tax fraud.

"The list and information were transmitted yesterday to French justice," Condamin-Gerbier, who worked at Reyl et Cie between 2006 and 2010, told the commission.

Handcuffs

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi under house arrest - Al Hayat TV

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Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is reportedly under house arrest after the military ultimatum expired Wednesday, reports Al Hayat TV.

Morsi's spokesman denied the report, according to ABC News, but word of the house arrest provoked cheers in Tahrir Square.

This comes as Egypt's military moved to tighten its control on key institutions before their afternoon ultimatum expired.

The military stationed officers in the newsroom of state television on the banks of the Nile River in central Cairo. Troops were deployed in news-production areas.

Officers from the army's media department moved inside the newsroom and were monitoring output, though not yet interfering, staffers said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the arrangements.

MIB

Former Syrian terrorist: Leader of Al-Nusra terror group is a CIA operative, and so is Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda

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Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, Al Nusra leader, 'Al Qaeda affiliate', and C.I.A. agent.
A former member of al-Qaeda has said the leader of al-Nusra Front, the primary terrorist group in Syria fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is a CIA operative.

"I personally believe that the leader of the Nusra Army who declared his support for Ayman al-Zawahiri, is a CIA operative in the al-Nusra," Sheikh Nabil Naiim, who led an al-Qaeda training camp in Egypt, made the revelation in a recent video testimony.

Addressing the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra militants, Naiim said, "You are fighting the war in Syria on America's behalf."

Naiim, who has renounced violence, also identified al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri as a U.S. double agent.

Comment: Has begun shipping weapons?

Arms flowing to Syrian agitators from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon
World Tribune
Thu, 28 Apr 2011

Syria Terrorists Admit France and US Are Supplying Weapons
Russia Today
Wed, 29 Feb 2012