Puppet MastersS


Sherlock

Syria military police chief defects to rebels

Peter Beaumont
Guardian
Wed, 26 Dec 2012 10:12 UTC
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© Screengrab: YouTubeSyrian General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal, head of the military police, making a statement about his defection.
Major General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal says army has 'committed massacres against an unarmed population'

The head of Syria's military police has defected from the army and declared allegiance to the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Major General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal was shown making a statement confirming his defection in a video broadcast on al-Arabiya TV late on Tuesday, saying he was joining "the people's revolution".

The defection came as a delegation of Syrian officials headed to Moscow on Wednesday to discuss proposals for ending the conflict following talks with the UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in Damascus this week.

Wearing his uniform with a red insignia on the shoulder, Shalal spoke from a desk in a room in an undisclosed location. Some rebel sources said he had fled to Turkey. It was not clear when Shalal changed sides.

"The army has destroyed cities and villages and has committed massacres against an unarmed population that took to the streets to demand freedom," he said. "Long live free Syria."
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War Whore

Suicide bomber targets Nato base in Afghanistan

Emma Graham-Harrison
Guardian
Wed, 26 Dec 2012 10:06 UTC
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© Mohammad Rasool Adil/AFP/Getty ImagesAfghan police carry the body of a civilian into a hospital morgue after the suicide attack in Khost province.
A suicide bomber driving a minibus full of explosives has attacked a base in eastern Afghanistan used by Nato troops and CIA operatives, killing three Afghan civilians and a security guard and injuring at least seven others.

The attacker struck when his vehicle was detained at a checkpoint a short distance from the east gate of the base in Khost province, also known to locals as "the old airport", the deputy provincial governor Abdul Waheed Patan told the Guardian.

"The security people stopped the bus at the checkpoint, but he kept going for a few more metres then detonated the explosives," Patan said by phone from Khost. "Two drivers who bring passengers from town to the area near the base, one civilian passerby and one security guard were killed."

The provincial police chief, General Abdul Qayoum Bakaizoi, confirmed the attack had happened at around 8am near one of two main gates to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman.

The attack came almost exactly three years after a much more devastating suicide bomber hit US intelligence officers operating out of FOB Chapman. A Jordanian doctor and militant posing as a double agent, he killed the station chief and six other CIA employees as well as a Jordanian intelligence official.
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Bizarro Earth

Gaza's children haunted by nightmare of war


The Real News Network
Sat, 22 Dec 2012 06:28 UTC
A recent UNICEF report indicates that the vast majority of Gaza's children are struggling to cope with war trauma and PTSD. TRNN correspondent Jihan Hafiz reports from the most densely-populated and most routinely terrorised place on Earth.

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Bulb

UK's largest food bank says government ministers lack empathy with the poor


Press TV
Tue, 25 Dec 2012 06:07 UTC
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"Haha, feeding the poor because they're hungry, that's funny!"
Britain's largest organizer of food banks, the Trussell Trust, has accused British ministers particularly Chancellor George Osborne of lacking "empathy" with the poor.

The charity's executive chairman Chris Mould condemned the UK government's austerity policies and urged Osborne to put himself "in other people's shoes".

He also said that if cabinet ministers had a "deeper understanding" of the causes of poverty, "they would choose to nuance their policy differently".

The Trussell Trust, which runs a network of 270 food banks across the UK, announced earlier that it expects to feed 15,000 Britons over the Christmas fortnight alone, almost double the number of people who turned to the organization last Christmas.

Harsh benefit cuts and low wages have added weight to the uneasiness of the lives of many low to middle income families in Britain.

Comment: More People Ask: Are Politicians Psychopaths?

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Stock Up

Fiscal Cliff: Let's call their bluff

Ellen Brown
Common Dreams
Sun, 23 Dec 2012 05:44 UTC
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"Fiscal cliff" is the US code word for "austerity measures"
The "fiscal cliff" has all the earmarks of a false flag operation, full of sound and fury, intended to extort concessions from opponents. Neil Irwin of the Washington Post calls it "a self-induced austerity crisis." David Weidner in the Wall Street Journal calls it simply theater, designed to pressure politicians into a budget deal:
The cliff is really just a trumped-up annual budget discussion. . . . The most likely outcome is a combination of tax increases, spending cuts and kicking the can down the road.
Yet the media coverage has been "panic-inducing, falling somewhere between that given to an approaching hurricane and an alien invasion." In the summer of 2011, this sort of media hype succeeded in causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plunge nearly 2000 points. But this time the market is generally ignoring the cliff, either confident a deal will be reached or not caring.

The goal of the exercise seems to be to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, something a radical group of conservatives has worked for decades to achieve. But with the recent Democratic victories, demands for "fiscal responsibility" may just result in higher taxes for the rich, without gutting the entitlements.
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Vader

Best of the Web: End of the world? Oliver Stone on Obama's empire, Big Brother's creepiest toys

Abby Martin, 'Breaking the Set'
Russia Today, US Edition
Fri, 21 Dec 2012 05:37 UTC
Abby Martin Breaks the Set on the End of the World', ínterviews Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick about their documentary series, the Untold History of the United States, and looks at the Top 5 Surveillance Toys of Big Brother in 2012.

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Star of David

Israel violated Lebanese sovereignty 3,477 times in 2012


Press TV
Wed, 26 Dec 2012 04:50 UTC

Israel has violated Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity over 3,000 times in 2012 in blatant violation of UN Security Council resolution, Press TV reports.

In the year 2012, Israel has approximately violated Lebanon's sovereignty 3,400 times through air, water and ground.

The UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which brokered a ceasefire in the war of aggression Israel launched against Lebanon in 2006, calls on Israel to respect Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The most frequent breaches of Israel are overflights by Israeli war planes and drones to Lebanese skies.

Following Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon, the total number of violations exceeded 20,000, which is an average of more than nine violations per day.
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Stormtrooper

U.S. deploying troops to 35 African countries


Russian Times
Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:19 UTC
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© Reuters/Luc GnagoU.S. Marines arrive with equipment at the United States embassy in Monrovia, Liberia.
The United States Army will be deploying troops to nearly three-dozen African nations in the coming year.

Soldiers based out of Fort Riley, Kansas' 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division will begin training in March 2013 in order to prepare for a project that will send troops to as many as 35 African nations, the Associated Press reports.

Citing a growing threat from extremist groups, including those with ties to al-Qaeda, the Department of Defense is hoping to install American soldiers overseas in order to prepare local troops there for any future crises as tensions escalate.

Earlier this month, DoD sources with insider knowledge told the Washington Post that US troops will soon be en route to the nation of Mali in order to thwart the emerging threat of Islamic extremists, including al-Qaeda aligned insurgents. With the latest news from the Pentagon, though, Mali will be just one of many African nations hosting US troops in the coming year.

Comment: In Africa's 52 countries, the United States is helping governments in 35. That's nearly 70% of Africa.

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Bad Guys

Four more years of war

Stephen Lendman
Activist Post
Mon, 24 Dec 2012 18:37 UTC
war statue of liberty graphic lrg
Expect Obama to prioritize advancing America's imperium. He did aggressively in term one. New wars are planned. Current ones won't end. Proxy ones continue. So does increasing America's global military footprint.

Fiscal cliff hype is about greater force-fed austerity to free up more funds for America's war machine. Waging them isn't cheap. Profiteers depend on wasteful spending to boost bottom line performance.

It pays to have friends in high places. They assure all the billions wanted. Social America is being sacrificed to provide them.

Over the next decade, trillions of dollars will shift from peoples needs to war making, generous corporate handouts, tax breaks for the rich, and hardened homeland repression against nonbelievers.

At the same time, deficits will keep rising exponentially. Hype about urgently cutting them is fake. Post-9/11 has been the worst of times. Expect more of the same on steroids ahead.

Conditions today are the most perilous in world history. Global war is possible. The threat is real and ominous. Open discussion is suppressed. Media scoundrels won't touch it.

Nor do they explain Project Censored's top Censored 2013 story: "Signs of an Emerging Police State." It began pre-9/11, accelerated under Bush, then Obama exceeded his extremism.
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Chess

EU likely to step up pressure on Israel in 2013, Foreign Ministry report says

Barak Ravid
Haaretz
Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:11 UTC
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© Associated PressLuxembourg's FM Jean Asselborn, French FM Laurent Fabius and German FM Guido Westerwelle in Luxembourg on Monday Oct. 15, 2012.
Report states that the EU has become disenchanted with the diplomatic process in its traditional format - direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians - because they doubt its ability to lead to a solution.

The European Union will step up efforts to pressure Israel and the Palestinians into an agreement in 2013, an internal Foreign Ministry document predicts.

The report, which was compiled following last month's UN vote to recognize Palestine as a nonmember observer state and subsequent European protests over Israel's approval of new construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, states that the Europeans may try to promote the establishment of an actual Palestinian state independent of negotiations with Israel.

Foreign Ministry officials this week began discussing an evaluation to be presented to the new government after the January 22 election. The feeling in the ministry is that Israel's status has deteriorated badly over the past four years, particularly in the European Union. Ministry officials attribute the decline to the lack of progress in the peace process and Israel's response to the Palestinians' UN bid, particularly the wave of settlement construction.
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