Puppet MastersS


Magic Wand

Germany Told to Act to Save Europe

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© Agence France-PressePolish foreign minister Radek Sikorski: 'I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity'
Germany is the only country in Europe that can act to save the eurozone and the wider European Union from "a crisis of apocalyptic proportions", the Polish foreign minister warned on Monday in a passionate call for more drastic action to prevent the collapse of the European monetary union.

The extraordinary appeal by Radoslaw Sikorski, delivered in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate in the German capital, came as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on European leaders to provide "credible and large enough firepower" to halt the sell-off in the eurozone sovereign debt market, or risk a severe recession.

The OECD's comments came as the organisation slashed its half-yearly forecasts for growth in the world's richest countries, warning that economic activity in Europe would grind to a near-halt.

Yet their calls were met by a stubborn insistence in Berlin that only EU treaty change to forge a "stability union" in the eurozone would revive confidence in the markets.

Dollar

Anonymous and Team Poison start Op Robin Hood

Steal from the banks, give to the 99 per cent

Hackers Team Poison have joined forces with Anonymous to launch Operation Robin Hood, an assault on banks that should see funds channeled back to the disenfranchised 99 per cent.

"We have watched our brothers and sisters being refused their hard earned money by the banks on top of being beaten and brutalized by officers during peaceful demonstrations. Congratulations banks, you have gotten our attention," says a message jointly signed by Team Poison and Anonymous.

"Banks have stolen millions from [their] customers as well as lacked the security to protect them. We give you Operation Robin Hood."


Nuke

Mystery Explosion Rocks Iran City

A large explosion has been reported in the Iranian city of Isfahan as the regime issued conflicting reports apparently designed to deny any suggestions of a sabotage attack on its nuclear facilities.

Nuclear Plant
© Associated PressIran's uranium processing site just outside the city of Isfahan.
Officials gave varying accounts of a "huge explosion" in the ancient city, which hosts one of Iran's main facilities for refining uranium in its nuclear programme.

While some sources told news agencies there had been a blast on military facilities, others said there had been a fireball at a petrol station.

Residents of the city were independently telling relatives and friends overseas that the city had been shaken by a massive blast in the early afternoon.

Security experts speculated Iran had suffered another blow to its programme to build nuclear-capable missiles.

Isfahan is home to Iran's largest facility for research and development of ballistic missiles. Multiple reports said the blast did not emanate from the nuclear facility.

Chess

Evangelicals Flocking Toward Newt Gingrich

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© Stephen Voss / Redux

Newt Gingrich
How the religious right is learning to love the adulterous, thrice-married former speaker.

Like many evangelicals in Iowa, Steve Deace, an influential conservative radio host, is wrestling with the possibility that Newt Gingrich may be the most viable standard bearer for family-values voters in the next election. It's a conundrum, he says, that many others are also grappling with. "Maybe the guy in the race that would make the best president is on his third marriage," he says. "How do we reconcile that?"
One senses him trying. "I see a lot of parallels between King David and Newt Gingrich, two extraordinary men gifted by God, whose lives include very high highs and very low lows," Deace says. David, after all, committed adultery with the ravishing Bathsheba, then had her husband killed, among other transgressions. The Bible makes room for complicated, morally compromised heroes. Now Christian conservatives, desperate for an alternative to Mitt Romney, are learning to do so as well.

"Under normal circumstances, Gingrich would have some real problems with the social-conservative community," says Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. "But these aren't normal circumstances."
Newt Gingrich

Rocket

U.S. Declares Cold War With China

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© Unknown
Last week, President Barack Obama was in Asia to declare a cold war with China. Hopefully the U.S.-China cold war won't be like the one fought with the Soviet Union that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation and cost trillions of dollars over 60 years.

The crux of the conflict is China's attempt to assert its sovereignty over the South China Sea, a resource-rich conduit for roughly $5 trillion in annual global trade, of which $1.2 trillion is American, which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared last year a matter of "national interest."

Beijing's assertive behavior in the South China Sea precipitated calls from Asian allies for the U.S. to deepen its involvement to be a strong counterweight. Those calls led to the formulation of Obama's new Asia strategy, which administration officials admit changes America's "military posture toward China" into something like the former East-West cold war. The first shots of the new war were heard last week.

USA

Best of the Web: Media lies are pretext for another 'humanitarian war': Protest in Syria - Who Counts the Dead?

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Shadow game
According to numerous reports from the Western media, human rights organisation, as well as the UN, countless peaceful civilians have been killed by the Syrian forces since the beginning of the unrest in the country in mid March. But where do the numbers come from?

Many media reports on the alleged deadly repression by the Syrian government fail to mention the sources of their information, which are very often referred to solely as "human rights groups" or "activists":
"Rights groups said Sunday that troops cracking down on pro-democracy protesters killed eight people in northern Idlib province and four more in central areas near Hama. (Syrian Forces Kill 12 as ICRC Head Visits Damascus, Voice of America, September 4, 2011.)
These protests are an unprecedented challenge to President Bashar al-Assad - and his family, which has ruled the country for more than 40 years. The cost has been high: at least 200 dead, according to human rights groups, and many cyber activists have been jailed. (Deborah Amos, Syrian Activist In Hiding Presses Mission From Abroad, NPR, April 22, 2011.)
At least 75 people have been killed today in Syria during mass protests, local human rights activists told Amnesty International [...]

Thirty were killed in the southern town of Izzra', 22 in Damascus, 18 in the Homs area and the rest in other towns and villages, activists said [...] (Scores killed in Syria as 'Great Friday' protests are attacked, Amnesty International, April 22, 2011.)

Gear

Nato Braces for Reprisals After Deadly Air Strike on Pakistan Border Post

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© Michael Reynolds/EPAAdmiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, says the ISI uses Afghan insurgents as proxies.
Concerns the ISI intelligence agency could use its suspected influence over insurgent groups to launch reprisal attacks

Nato forces in Afghanistan are bracing for possible reprisals from Pakistani-backed insurgents following the coalition air strike along the border that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Senior officers from the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), were scrambling to resume contacts with their Pakistani counterparts in the hopes of setting up a joint investigation into the incident.

But Pakistani officers severed communications and Islamabad cut Isaf's two supply routes running through Pakistan.

It also gave the US two weeks to vacate the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, which has been used to launch American drone aircraft.

One Isaf source voiced concern that the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, could go much further and use its suspected influence over insurgent groups in the tribal areas along the Afghan border to launch reprisal attacks on Nato. "This will come back at us, and at a time and a place of their [the ISI's] choosing," the source predicted. In September the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said the ISI was using insurgent groups such as the Haqqani network to wage a "proxy war" in Afghanistan.

Bad Guys

US: Congress to Vote on EXPLICITLY Creating a Police State

pepper spray, police
© Louise Macabitas
If You Thought Police Brutality Was Bad ... Wait Until You See What Congress Wants to Do Next Week

The police brutality against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and elsewhere is bad enough.

But next week, Congress will vote on explicitly creating a police state.

The ACLU's Washington legislative office explains:

Beaker

Corporations Are Patenting Human Genes and Tissues -- Here's Why That's Terrifying

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© n/a
A medical ethicist explains the dark implications of corporate medical patents and the nightmarish scenario of our medical-industrial complex.

Do you think that granting corporations the rights of people in the Citizens United case is disturbing? Then contemplate the fact that corporations have been patenting human genes and tissues at alarming rates -- in the last 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone.

As the Occupy movement fights against the unmitigated influence of corporations on our lives, author and medical ethicist Harriet Washington's new book, Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself--And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future, is a timely wakeup call to protect the very essence of human life from the medical-industrial complex.

In a recent phone interview with AlterNet, Washington discussed the dark implications of corporate medical patents, how we find ourselves in this nightmarish scenario and what needs to be done to stop medical research profits from trumping human health. Washington is also the author of Medical Apartheid, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has been a fellow in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School, a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University and a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

War Whore

SOTT Focus: Wake Up and Smell the Hypocrisy, Mrs Clinton

Clinton
© unknown
Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of those politicians who really makes my flesh crawl. In fact, whenever I hear or see her speak, hairs really do stand up on the back of my neck. She seems to cause a reaction in me similar to the reaction 'fingers scraping a blackboard' brings to sensitive ears.

Nearly all politicians are scheming, lying parasites that wallow in their cosy, smug little club of elite buddies, nodding, shaking hands, signing bits of paper that will result in the deaths of thousands then turn and smile to cameras telling us plebs that 'it's for the greater good' or 'God told them to' and all sorts of tripe. But Hilary ... AARRGGHH - there is just something soo false and contrived about how she delivers her political spin to the masses that gets my goat up.

As U.S. Secretary of State she has been rather busy of late dictating to the media which of the few remaining sovereign nations on the big blue marble are due for some much needed 'intervention' so that they can come to enjoy some beautiful American-style democracy. The kind of democracy that has turned a once great nation into a dwindling empire on its last legs.

Having 'successfully' brought 'humanitarian aid' to Libya - by destroying its infrastructure, murdering countless civilians and injuring thousands, while lining the pockets of military and defence contractors, I wonder how long it will be before we hear Hillary chuckling with psychopathic glee over the murder of YA'E'L (Yet another 'Evil' Leader') - This time in Syria? Iran? Pakistan? Maybe all three at the same time?