Puppet MastersS


Attention

First Facebook, now this: Dataminr terminates RT access to Twitter news discovery tool, gives no official reason

RT blocked on Dataminr screenshot
Dataminr, the Twitter-based news-breaking service that supports news agencies around the world, has denied RT service, with immediate effect.

The US digital start-up has yet to provide any official explanation behind the decision, but referred to a "review of how we work with government agencies" during a call in which RT was informed of the service denial.

"Per our November 30, 2016 notice to you, Dataminr is electing not to renew the Renewal Term. As such, your Agreement ended on December 31, 2016," Dataminr's Legal Team said in an email received by RT on Wednesday, after the service was terminated without further explanation.

Attention

British tanks sent through Channel Tunnel to practise for war

UK Challenger 2 tank
© Graeme Main / MOD / Wikipedia
Tanks have been sent through the Channel Tunnel in a secret midnight training operation to prepare for war in Europe.

Five vehicles in total were loaded onto trains, sent through, and then returned to the UK overnight on Wednesday.

Five different types of vehicle were sent in order to ensure that a range of armor could be transported.

A Warrior armored fighting vehicle, a recovery variant of the Warrior, a Challenger 2 main battle tank (MBT), a recovery Challenger, and a reconnaissance vehicle were loaded onto a train at the military's railhead in Wiltshire for the test journey.

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) tweeted a picture of a Challenger being strapped down at around midnight on Wednesday.

Bad Guys

Europe's news media freaks out over Theresa May's Brexit speech

Theresa MAy Brexit speech
© Facuno Arrizabalaga / ReutersBritain's Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote "Brexit speech" in Lancaster House in London, 17 January 2017.
The European press was not exactly pleased with UK Prime Minister Theresa May's big Brexit speech on Tuesday, with some of the continent's largest papers calling her strategy "shameful," "hostile," and "dangerous."

Leading the chorus of criticism was Spain's top newspaper El Pais, which accused the prime minister of embracing a "shameful, xenophobic nationalism," after years as a shy Europhile in David Cameron's government.

The end of free movement for EU citizens under a 'hard Brexit' was dubbed a "legally impossible, morally perverse and politically unfeasible" requirement in an editorial published Wednesday morning.

Comment: Further reading:


Gold Seal

Ben Swann: The only mainstream TV anchor investigating Pizzagate

Ben Swann, Reality Check
© CBS
Proving once again to be arguably the most fearless mainstream journalist in America, Ben Swann delves into the Pizzagate conspiracy. Pizzagate began as a crowdsourced investigation of elite-connected pedophilia after Redditors noticed strange code words being used in the Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks.

Initially, internet sleuths set out researching the Podesta emails to prove a pedophilia connection between convicted sex offender, Jeffery Epstein, and the Clintons. Bill Clinton is known to have traveled on Epstein's private jet, nicknamed the "Lolita Express," without Secret Service protection on numerous occasions - a seemingly suspicious move given Epstein's proclivity for sex with underage girls.

Comment: Further reading: Progressive liberal values: Tony Podesta's creepy taste in art, the creepy people he hangs out with, and Pizzagate


Bad Guys

It's official: FBI, CIA desperately probing for any connection between Russia & Trump

Putin and Trump
© ReutersRussian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
It's official: after months of speculation that the Feds and other US intelligence agencies are probing whether Trump has any connections to the Kremlin, financial or otherwise, this afternoon McClatchy confirmed that indeed, the FBI and five other intelligence and law enforcement agencies have collaborated for months on an investigation into whether Russia's government secretly helped President-elect Donald Trump win the election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump.

The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence.

Comment: Further reading: Putin: 'Maidan' maybe coming to DC this week - Fake news makers 'worse than prostitutes'


Chess

Russia invites Trump administration to Syria talks in Astana

Syria in rubble
© Omar Sanadiki/Reuters
Russia has already invited the United States to take part in the upcoming talks on Syria, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press.

"As I said yesterday, we have already invited [the US]," Lavrov told journalists in Moscow on Thursday. US officials have been invited to the international meeting on the Syrian settlement which will be held in Kazakh capital Astana on Monday, January 23.

"We think it would be the right thing to invite the representatives of the UN and the new US administration to the meeting," Lavrov had said on Wednesday, at a press conference summing up the results of Russian foreign policy in 2016.

Thursday's announcement comes despite recent statements by Iran, which strongly objects to US participation at the Syria talks. "We are opposed to a US presence [in Astana]. We have not invited them [US], and we are against their presence," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was earlier quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.


Russia, however, hopes that the incoming Trump administration will accept the invitation.

"We're counting on the new [US] administration accepting this invitation and being represented by experts on any level they consider possible. It will be the first official contact during which we could begin discussing stepping up the efficiency of fighting terrorism in Syria," Lavrov said on Wednesday.

Bomb

60 killed, over 100 injured as five suicide car bombers detonated explosives at army base in Mali

A view of damage after a suicide car bomb attack on a military camp in Gao, Mali January 18, 2017 in this still image taken from video
© Reuters TV / ReutersA view of damage after a suicide car bomb attack on a military camp in Gao, Mali January 18, 2017 in this still image taken from video
Dozens of people have been killed and scores more wounded as five suicide car bombers detonated explosives at a military base in the city of Gao, northern Mali, according to a government statement cited by local state media.

On Wednesday, at around 9 am local time, a car packed with explosives entered a compound where a meeting of government and pro-government forces was taking place. Minutes later, the five occupants detonated the bomb.

The office of Mali's president late Wednesday put the provisional death toll at 60, with 115 wounded, AP reported. Al Mourabitoun, a militant group affiliated with al Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the blast, the Mauritanian news agency Alakhbar reported.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has declared three days of national mourning in the aftermath of the attack, the worst to hit the Saharan country in years.



The Gao base houses the Joint Operational Mechanism for regional security, through which government forces and local militia coordinate joint patrols of the area. The area around the compound is supposed to be secure, with checkpoints manned by UN, French and Malian troops. The French President François Hollande even toured the base days earlier.

Document

Largest 2017 threat for Sweden is 'lone wolf' Islamist assaults - special security force report

Policeman next to police vehicle
© Emil Langvad / Reuters
Individual attacks performed by radicalized Islamists is considered the biggest threat in Sweden for 2017, according to country's special security force report.

The document was compiled by Nationellt Centrum För Terrorhotbedömning (NCT), a group consisting of staff from Sweden's security police.

The report named Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) the main threat, but notes that terrorist attacks are likely to be carried out by someone inspired by the terrorist groups' actions, rather than orchestrated by an organization.

"The biggest risk we're seeing is the individual player, who has been inspired and perhaps radicalized, almost on their own. In our view, that risk is greater than a major coordinated attack with several actors similar to Paris for example," Mats Sandberg, head of NCT, told Swedish public radio on Wednesday.

Attention

Chatham House warns: Trump's personality will have serious impact on foreign policy

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump
© Shannon Stapleton / ReutersU.S. President-elect Donald Trump
Donald Trump's "brash, thin-skinned" personality is likely to have serious impacts on allies and enemies alike, according to a report by UK think tank Chatham House.

The extensive study, 'America's International Role Under Donald Trump,' speculates on the impact Trump will have on the world when he takes office on Friday.

Its findings include concerns that Trump's "brash, unpredictable, contradictory and thin-skinned" character will affect how he and the US operates in the world.

The authors warn that the Republican's inward-looking views are likely to shape how he deals with, among other things, NATO.

"While he may not reject America's long-standing alliances and associated organizations, such as the US - Japan relationship and NATO, he is likely to offer them significantly less support than did previous presidents," the report suggests.

Comment: See also: Intelligence community is waging open warfare against Trump's foreign policy


Propaganda

Syria: The 'barrel bomb' farce - consign it to the propaganda graveyard

Barrel bomb

"Every time one of these barrels strikes, it is the seismological equivalent of a 7.6 magnitude earthquake, and it happens around 50 times a day. (In Syria)You can't dial 911. You can't dial the fire service. You can't call the local police department. They don't exist." ~ James Le Mesurier, British ex-military trainer of the NATO-state, multi-million-dollar-funded White Helmets, based in Gaziantep, Turkey.


In an interview with CNN in May 2015, this is the claim made by British mercenary trainer of the White Helmets to Dr Sanjay Gupta. Again, in June 2015, Le Mesurier made a similar claim to an audience during a speech at The Performance Theatre, Lisbon entitled very grandly, "Act 1: Witnesses to history in the making".

On the front page of the fraudulently named Syria Civil Defence aka the NATO state sponsored, White Helmets, there is the same claim made by the extensively discredited, Ammar Al Salmo, "leader" of the Syria Civil Defence in Aleppo:

Our Activities
Al Salmo's "evidence" was pivotal to the US alliance claims that, on 21st September 2016, Russian jets had targeted a humanitarian convoy to the west of Aleppo - Urum al Kubra, causing international outcry and almost precipitating a terrifying escalation of the conflict between Russia and the US on Syrian soil. Claims that were universally debunked, as were so many before them. Syricide on Twitter produced a video that demonstrates the grave anomalies in the Al Salmo report, that was used to trigger international outrage against Russia and the Syrian government.


In November 2016, Raed Saleh, president of the White Helmets and "humanitarian" poster boy for the international community supporting the terrorist support group, gave an acceptance speech for the Right Livelihood Award. During this speech, Saleh reinforced the barrel bomb/earthquake imagery and increased the magnitude to a whopping 8:0

The Right Livelihood Award
Here is the segment of the speech in which Saleh presents the barrel bomb case.


Just after the liberation of East Aleppo by the Syrian Arab Army and allies, BBC Radio 4 interviewed James Le Mesurier who trotted out the usual platitudes regarding his band of "selfless humanitarians", described, universally as "Nusra Front civil defence" by Syrian civilians freed from almost five years of Nusra Front-led terrorist and extremist imprisonment, supported by the interventionist alliance of the US, UK, EU, Gulf States, Turkey, Israel, Canada, Jordan & Australia & Co.