Puppet MastersS


Che Guevara

Venezuela's FM: "We are not going to lower our tone before any empire"

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Elias Jaua
© UnknownVenezuela’s Foreign Minister Elias Jaua

Venezuela's foreign minister has slammed US Secretary of State John Kerry for meddling in the internal affairs of the country.


Speaking at a ceremony to honor late President Hugo Chavez in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on Friday, Elias Jaua said, "We denounce you as an assassin of the Venezuelan people, Mr. Kerry. We are not going to lower our tone before any empire, until you order your lackeys in Venezuela to stop the violence against the people."

"...You encourage the protests in Venezuela and we are going to denounce that in every part of the world."

"You who are so hurt that we speak out, as you said to me in Guatemala, 'You all need to lower your tone.' We will not lower our tone," the Venezuelan foreign minister added.


Comment: So John Kerry has the gall to tell others to lower the tone, while all he does is stoking fires around the world with his rhetoric and support of illegitimate insurrections. In true imperial style, he wants everybody to bow to him and the empire.


Satellite

Fascist censorship: Attempt to jam Russian satellites carried out from Western Ukraine

Satellites
© Reuters / Michaela Rehle
An attempted radio-electronic attack on Russian television satellites from the territory of Western Ukraine has been recorded by the Ministry of Communications. It comes days after Ukraine blocked Russian TV channels, a move criticized by the OSCE.

The ministry noted that "people who make such decisions" to attack Russian satellites that retransmit TV signals, "should think about the consequences," Ria reports. The ministry did not share any details of the attack.

Earlier this week, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticized Kiev's "repressive" move to halt the broadcasting of Russian TV channels after the Ukrainian media watchdog claimed that shutting down TV stations ensured "national security and sovereignty" of Ukraine.

"Banning programming without a legal basis is a form of censorship; national security concerns should not be used at the expense of media freedom," OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović said.

More than half of Ukraine's population speaks Russian regularly and one third say it's their native tongue. In Crimea over 90 percent of the population uses Russian on an everyday basis.

Light Saber

Grief and outrage in Turkey against police brutality and corrupt government

Elvan funeral
© Ahmet Sik/Nar/ReduxMourners gather at the funeral of Berkin Elvan
On Tuesday, a fifteen-year-old Turkish Alevi named Berkin Elvan died, sparking the country's largest anti-government protests since last summer, when a sit-in to save Istanbul's Gezi Park grew into nationwide clashes. Nine months ago, at the height of the Gezi protests, Elvan went out to buy a loaf of bread in his neighborhood, Okmeydani, and was struck on the head with a tear-gas canister. Like many neighborhoods in the city, Okmeydani had been the site of violent daytime clashes between police and protesters, even as families carried on with their normal lives.Elvan fell into a coma, and Okmeydani hospital, where he was treated, quickly turned into a site of vigil and protest. His wide smile and mop of black hair became a symbol of police brutality, while his depleting body weight, for the protesters, was like a ticking clock charting the government's inaction. Even the loaf of white bread he had been sent out to buy took on a totemic significance. When Elvan died, after two hundred and sixty-nine days in a coma, weighing just over thirty pounds, protesters hoisted loaves above their heads like torches.

Much has changed in Turkey since Gezi, which represented an unprecedented challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (A.K. Party). The brutality of the riot police - whose excessive use of tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds was applauded by Erdoğan - exposed a corroding democracy, while the protests themselves revealed the Turkish public's dwindling patience. Erdoğan stayed in power, but the development of Gezi Park, which had sparked the demonstrations, was halted. In December, a corruption investigation that targeted government officials and influential businessmen seemed to signal a bitter rivalry between Erdoğan and his former ally, the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whose followers within Turkey are said to have significant influence within the police and judiciary, and number some five million worldwide.

Light Saber

Ukraine: Talks between Kerry and Lavrov end - Kerry obviously didn't have mojo

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© AFP
An eleventh-hour U.S. effort to resolve the growing confrontation with Russia over Ukraine failed Friday, and Moscow shipped more troops and armor into the flash-point Crimea region ahead of a planned vote on breaking away from Ukraine and rejoining Russia.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry warned against a "backdoor annexation" by Russia of the strategic Black Sea peninsula. But Kerry conceded that six hours of talks here with Russia's top diplomat neither stopped Sunday's vote nor opened a new diplomatic path for Moscow to step back from the Cold War-tinged standoff.

Laptop

Edward Snowden: the ghost at the Pulitzer Prizes feast

Edward Snowden
© GettyEdward Snowden addresses the SXSW media conference.
Next month, the trustees who oversee America's most distinguished journalistic award could face their toughest decision in at least four decades.

The issue before the Pulitzer Prize Board: Does it honor reporting by The Washington Post and The Guardian based on stolen government documents that are arguably detrimental to the national security of the United States, and which were provided by a man who many see as a traitor? Or, does it pass over what is widely viewed as the single most significant story of the year - if not the decade - for the sake of playing it safe?

The politically charged debate surrounding the National Security Agency's widespread domestic surveillance program, and the man who revealed it, Edward Snowden, is certain to prompt intense discussion for the 19-member Board as it gathers to decide this year's winners, according to past Board members, veteran journalists and media watchdogs. The debate echoes the historic decision in 1972, when the Board honored The New York Times for its reporting on Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers, they said.

"This is an institutional question for them," said Robert Kaiser, the veteran Washington Post journalist and a previous Pulitzer Prize finalist. "This is a very good argument to have, and there are members of that Board who are going to raise these questions and want to talk about them."

The risks are manifold, and there is no easy answer: Honoring the NSA reporting - particularly in the coveted category of Public Service - would inevitably be perceived as a political act, with the Pulitzer committee invoking its prestige on behalf of one side in a bitter national argument. In effect, it would be a rebuttal to prominent establishment voices in both parties who say that Snowden's revelations, and the decision by journalists to publish them, were the exact opposite of a public service. President Barack Obama has said that Snowden's leaks "could impact our operations in ways that we may not fully understand for years to come." Former Vice President Dick Cheney has called him "a traitor." Snowden, who is living in Russia, is facing three felony charges in a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department.

Yet to pass on the NSA story would be to risk giving the appearance of timidity, siding with the government over the journalists who are trying to hold it accountable and ignoring the most significant disclosure of state secrets in recent memory. It would also look like a willful decision to deny the obvious: No other event has had as dramatic an impact on national and international debates over state surveillance and individual privacy. Last December, in a move that Snowden later described as vindication, a federal district judge ruled that the NSA surveillance Snowden exposed most likely violates the Constitution. Another judge later found the surveillance lawful.

"The stories that came out of this completely changed the agenda on the discussion on privacy and the NSA," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. "There's an enormous public good in that, and it's yet to be proven at all that somehow did great damage to national security."

Vader

Congress fed up with presidents taking action without legal oversight

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Judge Andrew Napolitano said Thursday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that while the number of executive orders President Obama has issued may not outnumber those of his predecessors, the types of actions he has pursued are cause for concern.

"The president of the United States said to 11 million illegal immigrants, 'Hey, do A, B, C, D, and E, and I won't deport you,'" Judge Napolitano, Fox News' senior judicial analyst, said. "Where'd he get A, B, C, D, and E from? He made it up. So instead of enforcing the law, he's telling 11 million people how to avoid obeying the law."

Napolitano said Congress is fed up with presidents taking action without the legislative branch. He said the charge this week from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that the CIA was spying on Senate staffers may cause lawmakers to demand more control.

"The dramatic change on enough is enough with the spying will cause the Congress, I believe, to begin to take back power it has been ceding to presidents since the New Deal," he said.

War Whore

U.S. drone strike kills 4 in Yemen

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A US drone strike in northeast Yemen has killed four suspected Al-Qaeda members, a tribal source said on Tuesday.

Two missiles struck two vehicles late Monday in the Wadi Abida area, east of Sanaa, killing the occupants "who were all Al-Qaeda members," the source said.

Obad Mubarak al-Shabwani and Jaafar al-Shabwani, "both local chiefs of Al-Qaeda," were among the passengers, he said.

The United States military operates all drones flying over Yemen in support of Sanaa's campaign against Al-Qaeda and has killed dozens of militants in a sharply intensified campaign in the past year.

Drone strikes have triggered criticism from rights activists, who say they have claimed the lives of many innocent civilians.

Star of David

Obama throws another half billion dollars towards Israel's missile defense program

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© Nati Shohat/Flash90President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inspect an Iron Dome missile defense battery at Ben Gurion Airport on March 20, 2013.
Defense Department says agreement signed last week brings 'meaningful co-production opportunities' for US industry

The United States and Israel signed an agreement last week to "continue support of the production of the Iron Dome weapon system," according to a statement over the weekend from the Missile Defense Agency of the US Department of Defense.

"The Iron Dome system is capable of intercepting and destroying short-range rockets, and mortar and artillery shells, and is an invaluable component of Israeli missile defense," the statement reads. "During Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, Iron Dome was credited with saving countless Israeli lives, and was called a 'game-changer' by many Israeli policy-makers."

The agreement, concluded last Wednesday, "ensures continued US funding for procurement of Iron Dome systems and interceptors, and provides for significant co-production opportunities for US industry. Under the terms of the agreement, $429 million will be transferred immediately to Israel to support Iron Dome procurement."

The statement cites the "strategic value" of the agreement for both Israel and the US. "Israel will obtain valuable resources to contribute to its defense and US industry will receive meaningful co-production opportunities for Iron Dome components," it reads.

Eye 2

Using some fictional pretext, Israeli airstrike kills 3 Palestinians in southern Gaza

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© MaanImages/File
An Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, an official said.

Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra told Ma'an that three Palestinian resistance fighters were killed by the airstrike in southeast Khan Younis near the Sufa crossing.

Al-Qidra identified the victims as Ismail Abu Judah, 23, Shahir Abu Shanab, 24, and 33-year-old Abd al-Shafi Muammar.

The bodies were taken to the European Hospital in Khan Younis, al-Qidra said.

Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, said in a statement that the victims were militants affiliated to the group.

Pistol

U.S.-funded jihadists execute at least 22 people in Syria

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© REUTERS/Hamid KhatibFree Syrian Army fighters stand at a former base used by fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), after the ISIL withdrew from the town of Azaz, near the Syrian-Turkish border, March 11, 2014.
Jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant "executed" at least 22 people, including 12 rebels, in the north of the country Tuesday, a monitoring group said.

"ISIL members executed at least 22 persons with firearms or knives, after taking control of Shuyukh outside the town of Jarabulus" in Aleppoprovince, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

Among those killed were "at least 12 armed rebels," he said.

ISIL seized Jarabulus, near the northern border with Turkey, from the rebels last month.

At the beginning of January, a number of rebel groups joined an offensive against ISIL, accusing it of atrocities against people from their own ranks and among civilians.

At least 3,300 persons have been killed in that fighting, according to the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on activists and other sources inside Syria.

ISIL is accused of kidnapping scores of people, among them rival rebels, activists, foreign journalists and humanitarian workers.