Puppet MastersS


Handcuffs

Beijing to begin disciplining firms in effort to curb 'massive capital flight'


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:38 UTC
Mao Zedong Tiananmen Square China Beijing
© Kim Kyung-Hoon / ReutersParamilitary solders stand guard at Tiananmen Square where the portrait of late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong is seen
China's customs administration announced on Tuesday it will punish companies for reporting false business data. The warning comes as Beijing attempts to curb a massive capital flight.

According to the statement, companies considered "discredited" may be subject to more stringent inspections when applying for government tax rebates, or see an impact on their import or export quotas. Company representatives may be restricted from traveling abroad.

The General Administration of Customs said that only when discredited firms pay a high economic price they "won't dare to be dishonest."
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Eye 1

Nunes under pressure to recuse self from Russia investigation over White House visit


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:38 UTC
Devin Nunes
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersU.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA)
Democrats are calling for the House Intelligence Committee chair to step down after he confirmed meeting with a source on the grounds of the White House before announcing new evidence of "incidental" surveillance on the Trump transition team.

On Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-California) announced that the intelligence community "incidentally" intercepted information on President Donald Trump's transition team.

Nunes is leading the House panel's investigation into whether there was Russian interference in the 2016 election, and by extension, any possible collusion with the Trump team during that time.
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Bad Guys

HRW: Saudi self-investigation not sufficient, UN should probe deadly refugee boat attack


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:09 UTC
Swift boat UAE yemen
© Emirates News AgencyWreckage of the US-supplied 'UAE' vessel destroyed in a 'Houthi' ballistic missile attack off the Red Sea coast of Yemen in early October 2016.
Human Rights Watch has expressed doubts that a Saudi-led investigation into the alleged coalition strike on a refugee boat earlier this month will result in an impartial investigation.

Several dozen people were killed when a boat carrying Somali refugees off the coast of Yemen was fired on from a helicopter on March 16. Women and children were among the victims when the vessel was hit near the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the International Organisation for Migration said earlier of the incident, which was condemned by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) over the weekend.

While all parties to the conflict denied involvement in the attack, HRW pinned the blame for the strike on the Saudi Arabia-led coalition.

"Only the Saudi-led coalition has military aircraft. The Houthi-Saleh forces do not. Somalia, which supports the coalition, called on the coalition to investigate," the HRW statement said, calling on the UN to investigate the deadly boat attack.
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Rocket

Moscow: US ABM shield in Europe may lead to sudden nuclear attack on Russia


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 08:20 UTC
US Patriot surface-to-air missile battery
© Peter Andrews / ReutersUS Patriot surface-to-air missile battery at an army base in Morag, Poland May 26, 2010
The US' ABM sites in Europe and on warships patrolling Russia's borders are creating the potential for America to launch an overwhelming surprise nuclear strike on Russia, the Russian general staff said.

"The presence of American ABM sites in Europe and ABM-capable ships in the seas and oceans close to Russia's territory creates a powerful clandestine potential for delivering a surprise nuclear missile strike against Russia," Viktor Poznikhir, deputy head of operations of the Russian general staff, told a disarmament conference in Geneva.

The Conference on Disarmament being held in Switzerland over five days this week is an international forum focusing on global security and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with the participation of 65 member states.

The US' global antiballistic missile system is provoking a new arms race, Russia's top brass has warned, adding that the US system, which includes sites in Alaska, Romania, and Poland, compromises Russia's nuclear deterrence capabilities.

Comment: For more on this see: Putin gives grave warning to Romania and Poland against installing NATO's ABM missiles, "no one is listening"

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Bad Guys

Pentagon: US won't alter rules of engagement in Mosul 'just because of civilian deaths'


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:09 UTC
Pentagon
© Flickr/ Rudi Riet
The Pentagon said it will not alter the rules of engagement in the war against Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq as the US-led coalition faces allegations of killing dozens of civilians in one of their airstrikes on Mosul.

US forces are not planning to change the way they conduct airstrikes despite the battle for Mosul entering more densely populated areas in the Western part of the city, the spokesman of the US Central Command, Colonel John Thomas, told reporters.

"General Votel is not looking into changing the way we operate other than to say our processes are good and we want to make sure we live by those processes," Thomas said, referring to the General Joseph Votel who heads US Central Command, as cited by Reuters.

Comment: For more on the atrocity that is the US bombing of Mosul, see: Operation Mosul: A Medieval Massacre
In the battle for Aleppo, Russia and Syria established humanitarian corridors - without aid from the UN or other countries. Great care was taken to avoid civilian casualties, why liberating the city entirely took so long.

Moscow ceased aerial operations in October 2016 to protect civilians, long before the battle for Aleppo was won in late December.

The West and supportive media disgracefully portrayed a heroic Leningrad-type liberation as naked aggression.

They're largely silent on the rape and destruction of Mosul. What's reported falsely portrays liberation. Nothing about US terror-bombing mass murder. An orchestrated coverup of reality continues.

No help was provided for desperate city civilians, tapped in harm's way. In months of fighting, likely thousands were massacred, countless others injured, hundreds of thousands displaced - by indiscriminate US terror-bombing and ground artillery fire.

Western media are complicit by silence with rare exceptions. On March 23, London's Independent cited local media sources, saying Thursday airstrikes on Mosul caused "230" civilian deaths.


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Bad Guys

Is the world catching on to Western-backed Saudi Arabia's crimes?

Catherine Shakdam
RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:09 UTC
Yemen famine bombing starvation children
© Mohamed al-Sayaghi / Reuters
Yemen has entered the third year of a conflict that has claimed well over 10,000 people, saw millions of civilians displaced, and endangered the lives of countless communities across the country.

For all intents and purposes Yemen has been decimated by a military onslaught of gargantuan proportion - one of the poorest nations on the planet versus an alliance of several superpowers. Western capitals have bought themselves several dark chapters in the history books ... how they will be remembered, and one may hope judged, will very much depend on how they proceed moving forward.

There are still crimes the world will not stomach without offering resistance. Resistance as it were, is what has animated Yemen for the past two years, and pushed a nation on the brink, to manifest a movement that saw the bending of the might of imperialism.

Comment: Further reading: 2.2mn Yemeni children 'teeter between life & death' thanks to Western-backed Saudi intervention

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Star of David

ISIS avoids Israel but vows to destroy Iran for 'protecting Jews'

Matthew Allen
Russia Insider
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 15:09 UTC
Israel_ISIS
In a new video, Islamic State cites Tehran's "tolerance" for Jews as the reason for all-out war on Iran. What?

We don't even know what to type.

In a Farsi-language video released on Monday, the Islamic State vowed to destroy Iran because ... it "tolerates" Jews.
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Stock Up

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner reportedly emerging as White House powerbrokers

ALI VITALI and CORKY SIEMASZKO
NBC News
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 08:29 UTC
ivanka trump jared kushner
© Martin H. Simon / Redux PicturesJared Kushner, counselor to President Donald J. Trump, waits for a news conference with the president in the East Room of the White House on March 17, 2017
The speculation began almost immediately after Donald Trump was elected: Who would have the ear of the famously unpredictable 45th president?

For a time it appeared that White House adviser Steve Bannon, memorably depicted as the Grim Reaper on "Saturday Night Live," was the power behind the throne. Another trusted aide, Kellyanne Conway, was also said to be an influential member of Trump's inner circle. And then there were Vice President Mike Pence, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller — all skilled and ambitious political animals vying for the boss' attention.

But two months into Trump's presidency, it's becoming clear that blood and family have trumped ambition on Pennsylvania Avenue with First Daughter Ivanka Trump emerging as a powerbroker in her own right, along with her husband Jared Kushner.

"Ivanka Trump is all powerful," a source familiar with the inner workings of the White House told NBC News.
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Eye 2

David Rockefeller's gruesome legacy

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 26 Mar 2017 14:59 UTC
David Rockefeller
The death of David Rockefeller, the de facto Patriarch of the American establishment, at age 101, is being greeted by establishment media with praise for his alleged philanthropy. I would like to contribute to a more honest picture of the person.

The Rockefeller American Century

In 1939, along with his four brothers - Nelson, John D. III, Laurance and Winthrop - David Rockefeller and their Rockefeller Foundation financed the top secret War & Peace Studies at the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the most influential private US foreign policy think-tank which also was controlled by the Rockefellers. A collection of American academics gathered even before outbreak of World War II to plan a postwar world empire, what Time-Life insider Henry Luce later called The American Century. They made a blueprint for taking over a global empire from the bankrupt British, but carefully decided to call it not an empire. Rather they called it "spreading democracy, freedom, the American way of free enterprise."

Comment: For more on David Rockefeller's legacy: Puppet Master: The Unauthorized Biography of David Rockefeller

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Star of David

Oil interest heats up maritime dispute between Israel and Lebanon


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 14:47 UTC
Israeli soldiers
© Amir Cohen / Reuters
A long-running dispute between Israel and Lebanon over a maritime border in the Mediterranean Sea has reached boiling point as both sides want to secure multibillion-dollar energy investments from the oil and gas rich area.

Lebanese politicians have reacted with anger over a bill in the Israeli parliament that would seek to establish the country's sovereignty over the territory.
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