Puppet MastersS


Padlock

Morocco bans judges' protest, riot police close streets in capital‏

Zakia Abdennebi
Chicago Tribune
Sat, 08 Feb 2014 09:27 UTC
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© AFPMoroccan magistrates make victory signs during a sit-in outside the Court of Cassation in Rabat on October 6, 2012 to demand an end to corruption in the judicial system. The government banned a similarly planned sit-in scheduled today.
Moroccan authorities banned a sit-in on Saturday by hundreds of judges who want greater independence for the judiciary, deploying dozens of riot police to central Rabat and closing off streets around the Justice Ministry.

Nearly three years after protests inspired by the Arab Spring prompted King Mohamed to undertake limited reforms and propelled an Islamist party to power, his government is now re-asserting its authority in what rights groups describe as a step backwards.

Since independence in 1956, Morocco's justice system has been seen by critics as largely under the control of the North African country's powerful monarchy.

The reforms introduced by the king in 2011 did award the judiciary more autonomy, but the opposition says it is still not fully independent.
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Chess

The Anglo-American axis: Losing Ukraine, losing Europe

Umberto Pascali
Global Research
Sun, 09 Feb 2014 02:49 UTC
What is it that really "scared the hell" out of the Anglo-Americans?

Could Ukraine become an area of cooperation between Russia and Europe? Could European countries break free?
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Concerning Ukraine, it now appears that the fury shown by the Anglo-Americans (that seems really too excessive and reckless even considering recent standards) is due not simply to the danger of losing Ukraine, but to the danger of losing Europe.

This issue was brought to the forefront in a speech given by the Russian president Vladimir Putin in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Dec 2:
"The events in Ukraine, they remind me less of a revolution than of a pogrom. And strange as it is, this all has little to do with Ukraine-EU relations... As I already said, everything that is happening is not directly related to cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union..." http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/636
Trilateral Agreement

I have the impression that Putin is not just aiming at "taking back" Ukraine from the West. Actually he intends to use the Ukraine issue in a very subtle way to establish a trilateral agreement - EU (or at least part of it), Ukraine, Russia.

Comment: See also:
US regime-change operation in Ukraine exposed in leaked diplomatic phone call
Propaganda exposed: Fake images in Ukraine
US will give US tax-payer's money to Ukraine if Kiev makes necessary reforms - Nuland
"F**k The EU" - U.S. State department blasts Europe; revealed as alleged mastermind behind Ukraine unrest

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Binoculars

New drone technology "equivalent to the capabilities of 100 Predator drones"


Police State USA
Sat, 08 Feb 2014 19:39 UTC
Predator Drones_3
© NOVAThe ARGUS drone system paints a mosaic image from dozens of cameras.
To understand the extent to which the federal government has the ability to spy on us, we must attempt to understand the technologies it has at its disposal. Through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Department has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on one particular project alone. Known as ARGUS, it is a surveillance platform with the capability to maintain continuous 24/7 surveillance, day or night; able to track multiple moving targets miles apart in high definition without refocusing the camera; and with a resolution so astounding that it can detect objects as small as a cellular phone from several miles in the sky. It quite literally provides ubiquitous surveillance over a whole city from one drone.

"This is the next generation of surveillance," said Yiannis Antonaides, an engineer for BAE Systems who led the design of the project. "It is important for the public to know that some of these capabilities exist."

The Government's All-Seeing Eye

ARGUS stands for Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance. Its alternative designation is Wide Area Persistent Stare (WAPS). The project integrates many sophisticated technologies into a formidable surveillance system, combining images from 368 independent into a single mosaic image. The result is a video with a combined resolution of reportedly 1.8 gigapixels.

The massive collection of data is equivalent to having 100 Predator Drones hover over a medium-sized city at once.
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Bad Guys

The truth about the criminal bloodbath in Iraq can't be 'countered' indefinitely

John Pilger
The Guardian
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 11:30 UTC
A baby in a Baghdad hospital
© Joseph Barrak/AFP/Getty ImagesA baby in a Baghdad hospital in July 2003. 'Half a million Iraqi infants died as a result of sanctions, according to Unicef.
The media cover-up has been a weapon in the crimes of western states since the first world war. But a reckoning is coming for those paid to keep the record straight

The BBC's Today programme is enjoying high ratings, and the Mail and Telegraph are, as usual, attacking the corporation as leftwing. Last month a single edition of the Radio 4 show was edited by the artist and musician PJ Harvey. What happened was illuminating.

Harvey's guests caused panic from the moment she proposed the likes of Mark Curtis, a historian rarely heard on the BBC who chronicles the crimes of the British state; the lawyer Phil Shiner and the Guardian journalist Ian Cobain, who reveal how the British kidnap and torture; the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange; and myself.

There were weeks of absurd negotiation at Broadcasting House about ways of "countering" us and whether or not we could be allowed to speak without interruption from Today's establishment choristers. What this brief insurrection demonstrated was the fear of a reckoning. The crimes of western states like Britain have made accessories of those in the media who suppress or minimise the carnage.

The Faustian pacts that contrived a world war a century ago resonate today across the Middle East and Asia, from Syria to Japan. Then, as now, cover-up was the principal weapon. In 1917 David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, declared: "If people knew the truth, the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know and can't know."

On Harvey's Today programme I referred to a poll conducted by ComRes last year that asked people in Britain how many Iraqis had been killed as a result of the 2003 invasion. A majority said that fewer than 10,000 had been killed: a figure so shockingly low it was a profanity.
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MIB

Nairobi Westgate Mall massacre 'mastermind' was given cash, weapons and training by CIA and MI6 - Also served as regional recruiter for 'War on Terror' fodder

Wills Robinson
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 04 Nov 2014 15:03 UTC
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Danish spy Morten Storm - who just happened to convert to Islam - was recruited by MI6 and the CIA and served as an Al Qaeda recruitment officer in Africa for Western intelligence. He was also very probably one of the regional handlers for the Nairobi Mall Massacre in November 2013.
  • Morten Storm was an informant for intelligence agencies for five years
  • Met Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, or Ikirma, in Nairobi in 2008
  • At the time, the Somali terrorist was only a messenger in Al-Shabab
  • Storm believes CIA gave him the resources to become a mastermind
  • Ikrima is also believed to have lived in London for six to 12 months
The CIA inadvertently gave a terrorist leader the finances and credibility he needed to mastermind a major attack, claims a former spy.


Comment: "Inadvertently"! Wink, wink! ;)


Intelligence officer Morten Storm from Denmark was asked by the CIA to build a relationship with the head of militant group Al-Shabab, the group behind September's attack, and handed over money and equipment on behalf of Western intelligence agencies to cultivate the group's trust.

In 2008 he started to forge close contacts with the leader Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, also known as Ikirma, in a bid to uncover information on potential targets and planned attacks.
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Gold Coins

U.S. mint gold-coin sales jump 63% in January; silver triples

Debarati Roy
Bloomberg
Sat, 01 Feb 2014 15:04 UTC
american eagles
Sales of gold coins by the U.S. Mint rose 63 percent in January to the highest since April as futures rebounded.

The volume climbed to 91,500 ounces from 56,000 ounces in December, while sales of silver coins almost tripled to 4.78 million ounces, the highest in a year, mint data showed yesterday.

In January, gold futures rose 3.1 percent, snapping a four-month slump, as a rout in emerging-market currencies increased demand for the metal as a haven. Mints from the U.S., the world's biggest, to Australia boosted sales with Austria's Muenze Oesterreich AG operation running 24 hours a day to meet a surge in demand.
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War Whore

U.S. Government, world class liars


Brasscheck TV
Sun, 01 Sep 2013 10:03 UTC

I doubt anyone has forgotten, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded.

In the modern era, war is invariably justified by official lying.

Hitler did it. Lyndon Johnson did it. Richard Nixon did it. Ronald Reagan did it. George Bush Sr. did it. Bill Clinton did it. George Bush Jr. did it.

And now Barack "Bushbama" Obama is doing the very same thing.

What is war?

It's an act of psychopaathic mass violence coordinated by governments funded with stolen tax dollars waged primarily against civilians for the purposes of stealing resources, enriching arms makers, creating terror and justifying oppression at home and abroad.

See more here.
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Chess

Iran says warships headed close to 'US borders'


Associated Press
Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:06 UTC
Iranian warships
© ReutersDec. 8, 2012: One of two Iranian navy warships arrives to dock at Port Sudan in the Red Sea state
Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time, a senior Iranian naval commander said Saturday.

The commander of Iran's Northern Navy Fleet, Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, said the vessels have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Comment: What a concept! Evil Iran is moving around their warships for a training mission!

Obviously it is the U.S. that carried and distributed most of its army all over the globe AND close to the Iranian borders, oceans and continents away from where they belong, but let's scratch that and forget all we know about America's imperial wars, just to create a headline that makes Iran sound threatening and evil once again!

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Airplane Paper

Obama on IRS Scandal: "Not Even A Smidgen Of Corruption" - His nose is growing

Ian Schwartz
Real Clear Politics
Sun, 02 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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© WND
Bill O'Reilly: Okay. So you don't recall seeing [Douglas] Shulman, because what some people are saying is that the IRS was used at a local level in Cincinnati, maybe other places to go after --

President Obama: Absolutely wrong.

O'Reilly: How do you know that because we still don't know what happened?

Obama: Bill, we do -- that's not what happened. Folks have again had multiple hearings on this. These kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them. Obama --

O'Reilly: Obama aren't there some unanswered questions?

Obama: Bill, when you look at the stuff, there have been multiple hearings on it. What happened here was that you've got a 501(c)4 law people think is confusing. The folks did not know how to implement because it basically says --

O'Reilly: So you're saying there was no corruption there at all.

Obama: That's not what I'm saying.

O'Reilly: I want to know what you're saying. You're the leader of the country.

Obama: Absolutely.

O'Reilly: You're saying no corruption, none?

Obama: There was some bone-headed decisions.

O'Reilly: Bone-headed decisions. Obama no mass corruption?

Obama: Not even mass corruption. Not even a smidgeon of corruption.
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USA

Study: U.S. regime has killed 20-30 million people since World War Two

James A. Lucas
CounterCurrents.org
Tue, 24 Apr 2007 06:35 UTC
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Introduction

After the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by an accelerated "war on terrorism."

But we must continue our efforts to develop understanding and compassion in the world. Hopefully, this article will assist in doing that by addressing the question "How many September 11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?" This theme is developed in this report which contains an estimated numbers of such deaths in 37 nations as well as brief explanations of why the U.S. is considered culpable.

The causes of wars are complex. In some instances nations other than the U.S. may have been responsible for more deaths, but if the involvement of our nation appeared to have been a necessary cause of a war or conflict it was considered responsible for the deaths in it. In other words they probably would not have taken place if the U.S. had not used the heavy hand of its power. The military and economic power of the United States was crucial.

Comment: Note that this report was published 7 years ago - many more people have been killed and injured since then. Note also that figures for the Second Iraq War were incomplete at the time of publishing. The death toll has since reached somewhere between 1 and 2 million people killed.

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