Welcome to the strange world of 'unsolvable' refugee crises and back-room deals, a world where Cold War relics arm terrorist proxies, and where innocent refugees are used as pawns in ever more sinister games of cat and mouse. In all it's a world almost too absurd and too horrific to believe, but we'll try to tell it, and understand it, anyways. This is the story of the EU-Turkey Refugee Deal.

Intro

Tensions continue to mount across Europe as the refugee crisis reveals deep cracks in the European Union. In the past month Austria announced the construction of a massive wall along the Brenner Pass, in order to restrict the flow of people moving to Northern Europe. Subsequently Switzerland announced that it would have to respond to Austria's border closure by stationing a battalion of tanks to keep out the inevitable 'migrant onslaught'. Poor Greece is piling up with refugees after Macedonia closed its border - the tension has led to fights erupting between troops and migrants.

In the background EU and Turkish officials would have us all believe that they've been struggling to find a solution to this 'inescapable' crisis. The result was the EU-Turkey refugee deal which recently took effect - the first refugees have been traded like baseball cards.

In an interview with Sputnik Radio a professor from the University of Twente in the Netherlands pointed out a number of obstacles the EU had to overcome before coming to grips with the refugee crisis. Among them is the EU's lack of a central decision-making body that could issue demands which individual member states couldn't push back on. He stated, "What you have in the EU is the lack of a central government. In fact, they decided at one stage that they were going to take refugees and now they are pushing them back and they have a new deal with Turkey. But the refugees are still coming anyway."

In all, the professor makes several valid points. However, due to his selection of facts he misses the big picture, and thereby misleads his audience. Besides political in-fighting in Europe, and whether or not the refugee deal will be 'efficient', the following elements play a larger and much more critical role in the refugee crisis:

1. The EU functions as a mere cheerleader for the interests of the cabal running the USA.
2. Recent US interests have included the decimation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, thus creating a refugee crisis
3. Turkey has played a fundamental role in first collecting, then disbursing refugees into Europe for its own political and financial gain

In the latest in a long series of similar fleeting engagements between the US and Russian militaries, the USS Donald Cook was "aggressively buzzed" last week by two Russian Su-24 jets in the Baltic sea. Reports in the Western press echoed the response of US officials who called the maneuvers of the Russia jets "reckless" and "provocative". John Kerry went as far as to suggest that the Russian jets could have been shot down: "under the rules of engagement that could have been a shoot-down", the US Secretary of State said. For its part, the Pentagon flat-out lied, claiming it was a "simulated attack," even though the Russian aircraft approached "wings clean," without armaments, indicating no aggressive intent.

Readers will remember that the USS Donald Cook was previously buzzed by a Russian Su-24 in the Black Sea exactly two years before this latest incident, on April 12, 2014. At the time, several websites claimed that the Aegis Combat System of the American missile destroyer was completely neutralized by the 'Khibiny' electronic warfare complex on the Russian jet. Since then, the manufacturer of the system, Kret, has denied that the Su-24 was carrying their equipment:

"Nowadays Khibiny is being installed on Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35, so the famous April attack in the Black sea on USS Donald Cook by a Su-24 bomber jet allegedly using Khibiny complex is nothing but a newspaper hoax. The destroyer's buzzing did take place. This EW system can completely neutralise enemy radar, but Khibiny are not installed on Su-24s."

But while last week's 'incident' was very much par for the course in terms of the faltering Russia/NATO relationship in recent years, the response of US officials was very instructive in highlighting what US officials really think about the resurgence of Russia over the past 10 years, and the state of the East/West 'balance of power'.

In October 2001, five people died from anthrax attacks in the U.S. The targets were senators and media personalities. The first letter containing the military-grade bacteria was mailed just a week after 9/11. Originally thought to have been a follow-up to the 9/11 attacks, perpetrated by al-Qaeda with the support of Iraq, the attacks were instrumental in maintaining a climate of terror in the United States, and helped push through the U.S. Patriot Act. But in the course of investigation, that story fell apart. The attacks were later blamed on a lone scientist from Fort Detrick, Bruce Ivins. Rather than a state-sponsored foreign conspiracy, the attacks were written off as a domestic attack by a single lone nut. But is that what really happened?

On this episode of the Truth Perspective, we interviewed Dr. Graeme MacQueen, author of The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy and co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies. In his book, MacQueen shows that neither official narrative stands up to scrutiny, but each had an element of truth. First, the perpetrators of both 9/11 and the anthrax attacks were the same. Second, it was a domestic plot. But the source wasn't al-Qaeda and Iraq; it was U.S.-based.

The 2001 anthrax attacks may be an almost-forgotten aspect of post-9/11 history, but like 9/11 they are still relevant today. They helped facilitate the passage of the draconian Patriot Act and set the template for numerous false-flags in the years since. Several of those attacks have directly targeted legislative bodies with physical intimidation. (See Dr. MacQueen's article: War on Terror or War on Democracy? The Physical Intimidation of Legislatures)

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday at 2 pm Eastern.

Running Time: 01:59:02

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Here's the transcript of the show:

On today's episode of the Health & Wellness Show we followed up on last week's topic with further information about the benefits of smoking tobacco. We also delved into the history of tobacco use as well as some of its religious and anthropological implications and medical applications. As always, Zoya joined us with a Pet Health Segment on natural allergy remedies for pets. Tune in weekly on Fridays on the SOTT Radio Network!

Running Time: 01:29:53

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If you haven't heard of the infamous '28 pages' from the 2002 Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, now's your chance. On April 10, 60 Minutes ran a program on the 28 censored pages, which comprised the entire final chapter of the report. The pages are still classified, but several congressman and senators have been able to read them and are currently pushing for their release. They can't talk about the exact details they contain, but several have made general comments about their contents: they show Saudi financing of several of the 9/11 hijackers, while they were in the U.S. You can watch and read the 60 Minutes report here.

According to former Florida Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the investigation and report, the pages implicate Saudi government officials, rich Saudi citizens, and Saudi charities. Graham also made this provocative statement: "I think it's implausible to believe that 19 people, most of whom didn't speak English, most of whom had never been in the United States before, many didn't have a high school education, could have carried out such a complicated task without some support from within the United States." He's right, in more ways than he intends.

The Western media response to Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk's resignation is laughable. We're supposed to be amazed at the 'revelation' that the Ukrainian government is 'shockingly' corrupt and that Yatz's demise is a 'surprise move', despite the fact that Yatz was the leader of little more than a 'junta' and Yatz himself announced publicly that he was departing over 2 weeks ago. While Victoria Nuland wrings her hands over Ukraine's corruption and the oligarchs and kleptocrats that rule from the shadows, she forgets that 2 years ago it was her and her friends that created the grotesque freak show that is Ukrainian government.

Three very telling things concerning Ukraine have occurred in the last couple of weeks. Number 1 is the broohaha over the Panama Papers and Poroshenko being named. Number 2 is the 'surprising' resignation of Yatsenyuk, and number 3 is the 'shocking' no vote in the Dutch referendum on whether to establish closer tied between the EU and Ukraine. What each one of these events has in common is Ukraine's so-called independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, when the country took a wrong turn down neo-liberalization street and ended up in a economic and cultural hole from which it cannot escape.

With protesters calling for their prime minsters' heads in Iceland and the UK, last week's utterly shocking news that world leaders tend to be a bit corrupt looks like it's a story that's going to run and run. This week Joe and Niall went Behind the Headlines to get the real story of 'the greatest leak ever'.

This show aired from 12 - 1.30pm EST / 4 - 5.30pm UTC / 6 - 7.30pm CET on Sunday 10th April, 2016

Running Time: 01:46:50

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This week we on the Truth Perspective, we discussed the Panama Papers, the progress of the war in Syria, potentially explosive developments in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Dutch referendum on Ukraine's EU Association Agreement, the recent spate of people going on naked rage rampages, and more. Tune in, ask questions, and stay informed!

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday at 2 pm Eastern.

Running Time: 01:51:54

Download: MP3

Is tobacco the life-threatening plant we've all been taught to believe it is? Are there differences between straight tobacco and processed cigarettes? What are the benefits of nicotine, and could there actually be benefits to smoking tobacco? Are there benefits to vaporizing or is it a dangerous trend? On this week's episode of the Health & Wellness Show, we spoke with Gordon Vick, author of the recent SOTT Focus, The epidemic of junk science in tobacco smoking research. We discussed the shoddy state of anti-smoking science, as well as the evidence that smoking has real, beneficial health effects. Zoya joined us with a pet health segment about dog behavior: are there really alpha dog personalities? Tune in weekly on Fridays on the SOTT Radio Network!

Running Time: 01:55:09

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Record heavy spring snowfalls, destructive tornado outbreaks, planes falling out of the sky, catastrophic flooding on every continent, metallic 'sky sounds' heard in diverse locations, multiple meteor fireball sightings, mass animal deaths, sinkholes swallowing moving vehicles... These were just some of the signs of the times in March 2016...