Puppet Masters
Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen swore in Alexander Schallenberg, currently the foreign minister, as chancellor. Career diplomat Michael Linhart became the country's new foreign minister, Austrian news agency APA reported.
Mr Kurz, 35, announced on Saturday that he would step aside to defuse a political crisis triggered by prosecutors' announcement that he is one of the targets of an investigation into suspected bribery and breach of trust. The conservative Mr Kurz's junior coalition partners, the Greens, had demanded his replacement. Mr Kurz denies any wrongdoing.
Mr Kurz and his close associates are accused of trying to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly media reports, financed with public money.
Mr Kurz became the leader of his Austrian People's Party and then chancellor in 2017.

Moderna chairman Noubar Afeyan, whose estimated net worth is $3.7 billion, is ranked 212 on the Forbes' 400 list in 2021.
Moderna co-founder and chairman Noubar Afeyan along with fellow co-founder and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Robert Langer both made the list, with estimated net worths of $3.7 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively.
Timothy Springer, a Harvard Medical School professor and early Moderna investor, also debuted on the list with a net worth of $4.4 billion, according to Forbes.
Since Moderna became the second company to win an emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, more than 152.3 million doses have been administered, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The company has previously said it expects to make at least $19.2 billion in sales of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Moderna's successful development of the vaccine propelled it out of the world of biotech startup obscurity and landed huge gains for shareholders.
The stock has fallen off its peak in recent weeks, but it's still up more than 189 percent since Jan. 1, and over 300 percent higher compared with a year ago.
Since its initial public offering at $22 per share in 2018, the company's stock is up more than 1,200 percent. It was last seen trading at $297.50 a share.
Comment: It's a tough job putting self-interest above public health (all in the name of public health), but somebody's gotta do it.

Humanoid robot Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, paints on a plastic plate in Hong Kong, China
"We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it's already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion," Nicolas Chaillan told the Financial Times in his first interview since his shock resignation last month.
Chaillan, who was the first chief software officer for the US Air Force and oversaw the Pentagon's efforts to boost cybersecurity over the past three years, announced his resignation in September in protest against the sluggish pace of technological progress in the American military.
Comment: China has indeed been busy in the AI field, with the apparent goal of turning over many tasks to AI. One wonders though, if relinquishing that much control will not bite them in the end? There would have been no lack of warnings.
- China looking for ways to employ Artificial Intelligence to help shape its foreign policy
- China developing 'pre-crime' artificial intelligence to catch suspects before they do the crime
- Artificial intelligence to take over half of all jobs in next decade, says China's top techie
- Founder of Alibaba Jack Ma warns about dangers of artificial intelligence
- Elon Musk says 'With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon'
- Stephen Hawking warns of possible dire threat to mankind from artificial intelligence
- Facebook shuts down experiment after AI bots talk to each other in code
Sure, if Bojo had just been addressing a meeting of the Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet or, worse, the Green Party, or, worst of all, the World Economic Forum I could understand the enthusiasm.
But a meeting of the supposed 'Conservative' party of the United Kingdom? Really?? I'd say there was more conservatism in Stalin's right testicle than there was in the farrago of eco-socialistic, globalist bilge spouted by the utterly useless Johnson.
Comment: Boris is just broadcasting his bona fides to the real elite, in the possibility he'll be included in the (hoped for) division of the spoils.
'Empire 2.0 fantasy': Boris Johnson pens G7 article on post-Covid world, draws flak for 'hypocrisy' and 'undermining democracy'

A French military helicopter over the Nigerien town Madama, which serves as a 'forward operating base' [terror recruitment site] for the French, Niger and Chad armies
Mali has evidence that French forces present in its territory with a mission to counter terrorist groups have been instead "training" militants, the transitional government's prime minister told Russia's RIA news agency on Friday. According to the Malian official, France now controls an enclave in Kidal, with Mali having no access there.
Comment: See the eastern pockets of Syria for another current example of a Western country's military 'jointly occupying' resource-rich MENA countries with ISIS and assorted Islamic terrorist proxy forces.
"They have militant groups there, who have been trained by French officers. We have evidence of that. There is an expression in our language, saying that when you are looking for a needle in your room and someone, said to be helping you in the search, is standing on that needle, you will never find it. So this is the situation happening now in Mali, and we don't want to bear with it," Maiga said.
Comment: That's your 'colonialism' right there. Not 'China invading Taiwan', or 'Russia invading Crimea'.
And the French government knows it, recently telling the Russian FM to 'butt out of OUR country [Mali]...'
The US, UK, Israel and France have been doing the same thing throughout the 'War on Terror' - they're SPREADING terrorism to justify military intervention and occupation... BY THEM.
The GPPP controls global finance and the world's economy. It sets world, national and local policy (via global governance) and then promotes those policies using the mainstream media (MSM) corporations who are also "partners" within the GPPP.
Often those policies are devised by the think-tanks before being adopted by governments, who are also GPPP partners. Government is the process of transforming GPPP global governance into hard policy, legislation and law.
Under our current model of Westphalian national sovereignty, the government of one nation cannot make legislation or law in another. However, through global governance, the GPPP create policy initiatives at the global level which then cascade down to people in every nation. This typically occurs via an intermediary policy distributor, such as the IMF or IPCC, and national government then enact the recommended policies.
The policy trajectory is set internationally by the authorised definition of problems and their prescribed solutions. Once the GPPP enforce the consensus internationally, the policy framework is set. The GPPP stakeholder partners then collaborate to ensure the desired policies are developed, implemented and enforced. This is the oft quoted "international rules based system."
In this way the GPPP control many nations at once without having to resort to legislation. This has the added advantage of making any legal challenge to the decisions made by the most senior partners in the GPPP (it is an authoritarian hierarchy) extremely difficult.

Until a few weeks ago he was in charge of the day-to-day security of President Ashraf Ghani (pictured), who — as head of state — was the personification, in theory at least, of the West's efforts to secure a democratic, pluralistic Afghanistan
He is surrounded by large, white bags of rice, plastic buckets, dusty kettles, empty bird cages, power tools, broken machinery and other items of bric-a-brac to be found in the cellar of a modest Afghan home in a shabby neighbourhood. Such as this one.
Brigadier General Piraz Ata Sharifi is a huge man. Perhaps 20st: moon-faced and shaven-headed. In other words, he's distinctive.
Comment: It's unsurprising that a significant number of Afghans were eager to be rid Ghani and his ilk and were instead willing to take their chances with the Taliban:
- As America's attempt to Westernise Afghanistan by force fails, Kabul may now find its place in Russian & Chinese-dominated Eurasia
- Pepe Escobar: How Russia-China are stage-managing the Taliban
- Ousted Afghan President Ghani fled Kabul in cars stuffed with CASH - Russian Embassy
- 'Safer than before': Russian Embassy in Kabul sees no reason to evacuate as Taliban takes over security - ambassador
NATO is developing new forms of warfare to wage a "battle for the brain," as the military alliance put it.
The US-led NATO military cartel has tested novel modes of hybrid warfare against its self-declared adversaries, including economic warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare, and psychological warfare.
Now, NATO is spinning out an entirely new kind of combat it has branded cognitive warfare. Described as the "weaponization of brain sciences," the new method involves "hacking the individual" by exploiting "the vulnerabilities of the human brain" in order to implement more sophisticated "social engineering."
Until recently, NATO had divided war into five different operational domains: air, land, sea, space, and cyber. But with its development of cognitive warfare strategies, the military alliance is discussing a new, sixth level: the "human domain."
A 2020 NATO-sponsored study of this new form of warfare clearly explained:"While actions taken in the five domains are executed in order to have an effect on the human domain, cognitive warfare's objective is to make everyone a weapon." The report stressed:
"The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century. Humans are the contested domain. Future conflicts will likely occur amongst the people digitally first and physically thereafter in proximity to hubs of political and economic power."
Comment: Literally a 'Mind Blower'. Consider how useful the COVID 'authoritarian followers experiment' and global 'vaccine protocol' has become!
Anchor George Stephanopoulos said,
"We all dodged a bullet this week. Senator McConnell has warned President Biden that Republicans won't help next time on the debt limit. I want to read part of his letter to President Biden. Quote:'I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement. Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claim they lack to address the debt ceiling through stand-alone reconciliation and all the tools to do it.'What are the consequences if he keeps his word?"
His decision to lead the charge to dismiss the speaker of the country's parliament on Thursday is clear evidence of this. Zelensky's "Servant of the People" Party pushed out Dmitry Razumkov in a move that the top MP branded as illegal over disagreements about the country's new law targeting oligarchs and banning them from political activity.
The decision highlights an increasingly heavy-handed style in Kiev and touches on conflicts over policies that hurt democracy and the rule of law. Last but not least, it shows Zelensky's disturbing intolerance of any disagreement, even from former close associates within his own party.
Comment: Destruction looks reasonable through the lens of paranoia.











Comment: See also:
Austrian prosecutors target Kurz in bribery investigation