French Socialist primary – hiding 5 years of betrayal

by Ramin Mazaheri

The French Socialist Party has the first round of their political primary on January 22nd, and as a longtime news correspondent in Paris I thought it incumbent on me to make a fun prediction.

The fun, if you couldn’t tell, has already started: the incumbent, Francois Hollande, is not even running for re-election.

Russia, EU and NATO SITREP January 11th, 2017 by Scott Humor

In the first ten days of the new year we see the conflicts from 2016 getting worse.

Russian bloggers wish the Westerners a Happy New Year and… a happy Russophobia in 2017:

An interesting essay by Sergey Vasiliev reflects the general mood. The following is a boiled-down version.

An offer “Die!” is the only consistent offer that “civilized” Europe has ever formulated for its Eastern neighbor.

It was formed in the period of the Ecumenical councils of the Church and was consecrated by all the bishops of the Vatican, and then by their followers including Luther, Marx,  Engels, Goebbels and Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis .

Shadow play: the New Great Game in Eurasia

by Pepe Escobar for the Asia Times

So right in the heart of Bali, spellbound after a serious conversation with a dukun – a spiritual master – it struck me: this should be the new Yalta, the perfect setting for a Trump-Xi-Putin summit setting the parameters ahead in the ever-evolving New Great Game in Eurasia.

Balinese culture makes no distinction between the secular and the supernatural – sekala and niskala. Sekala is what our senses may discern. Niskala is what cannot be sensed directly and can only be “suggested”. Massive geopolitical shifts ahead could not be more shrouded by niskala.

Russian ‘Cyberattacking’ – When the Most Flagrant Lie Becomes the Truth

by Peter Koenig

Russian ‘Hacking’ and tilting the American elections in favor of Donald Trump’s is one of the most flagrant lies the White House has thrown around the world. Yet, Mr. Obama is desperate to make the American people and the word believe it did actually happen. As Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, said some 70 years ago, and many before and after him, “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth”.

The real significance of the ODNI report on “Russia’s election election interfering”

I have to confess that my first reaction was to simply ignore this report as an irrelevant load of nonsense.  Then I listed to a Ukrainian blogger, Anatoli Sharii, making fun of this report for over 10 minutes.  Listening to him my first reaction was “can’t be – Sharii is in overkill mode”.  But then Sharii began quoting the report at length and I simply could not believe my eyes (I reading the original English text which Sharii had translated into Russian): every word Sharii said was true.  That’s when I decided to download this document and read it.  Here it is embedded for you to read.  Please do read the full text.  It is absolutely amazing:

Before we go into the details, I also recommend that you go through the following two examples of how the US corporate media “helpfully” provided their readers with a “guide” to better understand/interpret this report:

Brief on International Diplomacy January 2017, by Scott Humor

Russia

In the first week of January the US Embassy in Russia began refusing to continue issuing visas citing some unidentified problems with plumbing. Moscow water authorities claim that they didn’t receive any complaints from the Embassy.

It is unclear when the US Embassy will resume its work.

Lagos Trader Tortures Nine-year-old Boy For Stealing (photos)

The police have arrested a woman, identified only as Bassey, for allegedly inserting a stick of broom dipped in pepper into the private parts of a nine-year-old boy, identified as Promise, in the Ebute-Meta area of Lagos State.

PUNCH Metro learnt that Bassey had accused the victim, who was her nephew, of stealing N2,000.