Puppet Masters
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
Pro-Europe demonstrators protest during a "March for Europe" against the Brexit vote result earlier in the year, in London, Britain, September 3, 2016.
Pro-Europe demonstrators protest during a "March for Europe" against the Brexit vote result earlier in the year, in London, Britain, September 3, 2016.
The document calls on the government to hold a re-vote, citing the Leave campaign's failure to win more than 60 percent of the ballots and noting that turnout was below 75 percent.
Parliament is obliged to debate any petition that garners more than 100,000 signatures.
The e-petition was launched in May, before the June 23 referendum, ironically by a Leave supporter who was worried Britons would vote to Remain by a narrow margin and low turnout.
Comment: It's been quite a summer of back-pedalling!
The reason it never made any sense for the British elite to have held this referendum in the first place is because 'Brexit' was meant to be a bluff to 'give Germany and France something to think about'.
The idiots-in-charge underestimated the strength of anti-EU/Europe feeling in the (mainly English) population (which their right-wing media has been stoking since forever). They probably did anticipate that a majority of voters would vote 'Leave', but failed to rig the vote sufficiently and swing the result over to 'Remain'.
That's why Cameron resigned; he had so much egg on his face.
In any event, as we see above, that same elite is now working to either 'have another vote', indefinitely protract the implementation of 'Brexit', or simply never enact it.
See also: Pro-EU demonstrations held across UK
© AP Photo/Johnson Lai
"We have our own opinion regarding this: first of all, we are staying away because we believe that interference of any non-regional power in the dispute will be bad for the settlement of this problem," the Russian president told a news conference devoted the G20 decisions.
Comment: Sending a jab at the US no doubt: Pepe Escobar: U.S. 'spoiling for a fight' as Beijing & Manila discuss South China Sea
At the same time, Putin expressed solidarity with China.
"We are solidarizing with and supporting China's stance on the problem - the non-recognition of the court ruling (the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague".
© Ismail Coskun, IHA via AP
"As for surprises, we have the foreign ministries and special services working to this end, so that we could have less surprises," the Russian president said at a news conference after the Group of Twenty (G20) summit. According to him, Moscow "understood what was going on, where the things were coming - as the movement and objective are visible.
"The problems Turkey was facing over the Syrian events were also visible," the Russian leader said.
"We see all this very well and generally speaking, this comes as no surprise to us," Putin said.
© Lean Daval Jr / Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
Duterte said before flying to Laos that he is a leader of a sovereign country and is answerable only to the Filipino people. He was answering a reporter's question about how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings to Obama. More than 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.
In his typical foul-mouthed style, Duterte responded: "I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum," he said, using the Tagalog phrase for son of a bitch.
Duterte has earlier cursed the pope and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Comment: Duterte may be 'foul-mouthed', but a foul-mouthed man who speaks the truth is still better than a mealy-mouthed, 'politically correct' salesman who covers over truth with nice-sounding lies. Just look at what Obama says above about the drug trade, as if he is completely unaware that the CIA basically runs it! We would be very interested in hearing the context Duterte mentions spelled out in detail. Deaths like those being reported on in the Philippines are not a new phenomenon - they were happening before Duterte even became president. So what's the real story here?
© Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
Athens has reportedly managed to implement only two out of 15 reforms previously agreed with its international creditors. Moreover, the country has slowed down the privatization process of its public assets.
Under the terms of the bailout deal signed in 2015, the international lenders including the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the eurozone were to provide €86 billion in aid by 2018 in return for ultra-unpopular austerity measures in the country.
© Sputnik
Daesh forces in Iraq welcome a new battlefield commander to their ranks who is all too familiar to US military and intelligence officials - American trained former Special Forces colonel Gulmurod Khalimov from Tajikstan received the promotion within the terrorist organization after defecting last year.
Comment: Let's be clear here (because the State Dept won't be): the guy was probably recruited in the hope that he would 'defect'.
What a strange term to use, 'defect'. If one fights under the banner of 'Islamic terror', one has apparently 'defected' from America/The West to 'the other side'.
So what does that make Russia?!
See also: Made in America: State Dept. offers $3 million for Daesh leader trained in US
© Photo by AFP
The Yemeni news agency SABA said Saudi fighter jets dropped cluster bombs on several areas in the district of Baqem in the northern province of Sa'ada on Sunday.
The attacks came in defiance of international laws, which prohibit the use of such weapons.
The United Nations (UN)'s human rights office has recently called for an independent international investigation of cases of human rights violations in the Saudi war on Yemen, confirming the use of banned cluster bombs by Saudi Arabia against Yemen's residential areas.
© Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The NSO Group is one of a number of companies that sell surveillance tools that can capture all the activity on a smartphone, like a user's location and personal contacts. These tools can even turn the phone into a secret recording device.
Since its founding six years ago, the NSO Group has kept a low profile. But last month, security researchers caught its spyware trying to gain access to the iPhone of a human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates. They also discovered a second target, a Mexican journalist who wrote about corruption in the Mexican government.
Hillary collects $2700 per question from a child, $10K for family photo while hobnobbing with the 1%
If you want to find Hillary, perhaps Justin Timberlake can point the way...
Comment: See also: Turkey claims over 60 miles of Turkish-Syrian border retaken from Daesh. RT reports on the reestablishment of the east Aleppo siege: Al-Nusra's leader isn't happy: