Stephen Lendman

On December 4, parliamentary elections were held to fill 450 State Duma seats, Russia's Federal Assembly lower house.

With nearly all votes counted, RIA Novosti said Medvedev/Putin's United Russia party won 238 seats, falling slightly below a majority with 49.67% of the vote.

It added that it's "a far cry from the commanding two-thirds constitutional majority the party held in the State Duma for the past four years" based on tabulated results so far.

United Russia is the nation's dominant party. In December 2001, it was founded by merging the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties.

Vladimir Putin served as acting President after Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999. From May 7, 2000 - May 7, 2008, he was President. Dmitry Medvedev succeeded him. Putin now serves as Prime Minister. He's United Russia 2012 presidential candidate. On March 4, presidential elections will be held.

After a decade in power, it's common for incumbent parties to lose strength. Nonetheless, despite likely coalition agreements on some issues, United Russia remains dominant. Moreover, Putin's heavily favored to win in 2012.

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Stephen Lendman

Partnering with America has a price. Pakistan has paid dearly. Post-9/11, it has been harmed economically, politically, and strategically. Has its military now had enough and want out? More on that below.

At issue is the latest incident involving NATO forces killing 24 Pakistani soldiers and injuring 13 others in two remote posts along Afghanistan's border.

Army spokesman General Athar Abbas called the attack "unprovoked and indiscriminate. There was no reason for it. Map references of all our border posts have been passed to NATO a number of time."

General Ishfaq Nadeem called them unprovoked blatant aggression, adding that attacking border checkposts deliberately violates coordination procedures.

Internal calls for investigating these type incidents usually follow. Not this time, except, of course, by NATO to whitewash its responsibility.

Abbas said NATO strikes killed 72 Pakistani troops since 2009. Another 250 were injured. Calling them accidental doesn't wash. Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) denied NATO's claim about responding to live fire on Pakistan's side of the border.

NATO's attack lasted two hours. Senior officers in Peshawar regional headquarters and GHQ Rawalpindi were informed when it started. They immediately asked NATO to stop, saying army troops were targeted. The request was denied.

Following the attack, rage gripped Pakistan. Thousands protested outside Washington's Karachi consulate. People shouted "Down with America." Effigies of Obama were burned. So were US flags.

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Paul Craig Roberts

November 23, 2011: The day before the Thanksgiving holiday brought three extraordinary news items. One was the report on the Republican presidential campaign debate. One was the Russian President’s statement about his country’s response to Washington’s missile bases surrounding his country. And one was the failure of a German government bond auction.

As the presstitute media will not inform us of what any of this means, let me try.

With the exception of Ron Paul, the only candidate in either party qualified to be the president of the US, the rest of the Republican candidates are even worst than Obama, a president who had the country behind him but sold out the American people to the special interests.

No newly elected president in memory, neither John F. Kennedy nor Ronald Reagan, had the extraordinary response to his election as Barack Obama. A record-breaking number of people braved the cold to witness his swearing in ceremony. The mall was filled for miles distant from the Capitol with Americans who could not see the ceremony except as televised on giant screens.

Obama had convinced the electorate that he would end the wars, stop the violation of law by the US government, end the regime of illegal torture, close the torture prison of Guantanamo, and attend to the real needs of the American people rather than stuff the pockets of the military/security complex with taxpayers’ money.

Once in office, Obama renewed and extended the Bush/Cheney/neoconservative wars.

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Stephen Lendman

Previous articles said US intelligence assessments through March 2011 (the latest one) found no evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons development.

During his December 1, 1997 - November 30, 2009 tenure as IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei concurred. He carefully avoided anti-Iranian rhetoric and baseless charges.

As a result, Washington and Western allies replaced him with Yukiya Amano, known to be more amenable to their interests. Six ballots and heavy pressure eliminated South Africa's Abdul Samad Minty.

Under his tenure since December 1, 2009, IAEA became a Western tool, providing conjecture, dubious intelligence, and fabricated allegations about an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite no evidence proving one, Amano's report claims otherwise.

On November 8, New York Times writers David Sanger and William Broad headlined, "UN Finds Signs of Work by Iran Toward Nuclear Device," saying:

"United Nations weapons inspectors released a trove of new evidence Tuesday that they say makes a 'credible' case that 'Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device,' and that the project may still be under way."

Based on forged, otherwise suspect, long ago discredited, discounted, or nonexistent documents, IAEA's report lacks credibility. Moreover, nothing new was revealed. Material from 2004 and earlier was manipulated to look current. It's not!

Based on identical information, US intelligence and ElBaradei produced completely opposite conclusions. Now they're politicized, fraudulently hyped, and regurgitated by major media liars, political Washington, Israeli hard-liners, and supportive Western leaders. Obama so far said nothing.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said:

"We're going to study it. We are not prepared to speak about any next steps at this point."

Haaretz headlined, "IAEA report: Iran working to produce a nuclear bomb," saying:

Documents released show "a series of tests, acquisition of material, and technology that suggests Iran has continuously worked to produce a nuclear weapon since 2003." [IAEA said] "The agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

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Stephen Lendman

On September 24, Russia's Vladimir Putin announced he'll run again for president in 2012 after serving eight years as Dmitry Medvedev's Prime Minister.

[Suddenly] America's media have better memories than elephants. In November 2007, they recall Putin on National Unity Day telling military cadets and youth groups that while:

"an overwhelming majority of people in the world," are friendly toward Russia, some "keep saying to this day that our nation should be split. Some believe that we are too lucky to possess so much natural wealth, which they say must be divided."

In a thinly veiled reference to America, he added,

"(t)hese people have lost their mind. (They) would like to build a unipolar world and rule over all mankind. Nothing of this kind has ever occurred in our planet's history, and I don't think it will ever happen."

On August 1, 2011 Reuters headlined, "Putin says US is "parasite" on global economy," saying:

Putin accused America "of living beyond its means 'like a parasite' on the global economy and said dollar dominance was a threat to the financial markets."

If America is in "systemic malfunction," he added, it affects everyone. Indeed so, and Putin is outspoken saying it.

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Stephen Lendman

On July 14, Mossad-connected DEBKAfile headlined, "The Libyan War ends. Obama makes Moscow peace broker. NATO halts strikes," saying "Bar the shouting, the war in Libya ended Thursday morning, July 14, when (Obama) called Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to hand Moscow the lead role in negotiations with (Gaddafi to end) the conflict - provided only that the Libyan ruler steps down in favor of a transitional administration."

More about Obama's demand below. For now, America's Libya terror bombing continues unabated, despite a White House July 13 Office of the Press Secretary release, saying Obama thanked "Russia's efforts to mediate a political solution in Libya, emphasizing that (Washington) is prepared to support negotiations that lead to a democratic transition....as long as (Gaddafi) steps aside."

In fact, Obama spurns democratic values abroad and at home, intolerable notions he won't accept, nor peace, waging multiple imperial wars with no letup. In Libya, moreover, at issue isn't Gaddafi, it's colonizing another country, controlling its resources, plundering its wealth, and exploiting its people, the same US aim always.

On July 15, Washington and about 30 European and Middle East countries illegally recognized insurgent leaders as Libya's legitimate government - the so-called Transitional National Council (TNC). Meeting in Istanbul (without China and Russia), the Libya Contact Group issued a statement, saying "Henceforth, and until an interim authority is in place, participants agreed to deal with the (TNC) as the legitimate government authority in Libya."

It added that Gaddafi no longer had legitimacy and must leave Libya with his family.

Explaining what's clearly illegitimate, Secretary of State Clinton said:

"We still have to work through various legal issues (in order words, avoid them entirely), but we expect this step on recognition will enable the TNC to access additional sources of funding," including $30 billion of up to $150 billion of Libya's stolen wealth, besides its rich oil, gas, and water resources worth many multiples more.

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Stephen Lendman

In 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved, everything changed but stayed the same. As a result, today's stakes are far greater, presenting much larger threats to world peace.

In America, neocons are still dominant. Obama is more belligerent than Bush, waging four wars and various proxy ones. The Israeli Lobby, Christian Right, and other extremist elements drive them. Conflict is preferred over diplomacy.

Congressional majorities support Washington's imperial agenda, including global militarization against potential challengers and America's main rivals - China and Russia, encircling them belligerently with bases and strategic weapons. It's a policy fraught with danger.

NATO has 28 member states, including 10 former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact countries. Prospective new candidates include Georgia, Ukraine, and potentially others later to more tightly encircle Russia and China.

At the same time, the Middle East and parts of Eurasia have been increasingly militarized with a network of US bases from Qatar to Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond - a clear breach of GHW Bush's promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that paved the way for unifying Germany in 1990 and dissolving the Soviet Union.

Washington's promises, of course, aren't worth the paper they're written on, a hard lesson many nations later learn painfully.

Moreover, the Pentagon has an expanding network of 1,000 or more global bases, including secret and shared ones for greater control. In fact, at a time no nation threatens America, trillions of dollars are spent anyway for what military planners call "full spectrum dominance" over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.

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Rick Rozoff
Stop NATO

On January 27 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took the most decisive step yet toward the implementation of the decades-old project first proposed by the Ronald Reagan administration for a Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars.

In what will be the culmination of five years of extensive planning by the U.S. and NATO to construct an impenetrable interceptor missile shield to cover the European continent, the military bloc announced on the above date that it had handed over the first-ever theater ballistic missile defence capability to NATO military commanders at the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in the German city of Uedem, which occurred “after NATO technicians computer-tested a software system linking anti-missile equipment from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States.” [1]

Italian Air Force Brigadier General Alessandro Pera, head of the NATO Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) Programme Office, delivered the plan to NATO Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero while the second day of a NATO Military Committee meeting at the Atlantic Alliance headquarters in Brussels with chiefs of defense staff and other military representatives from 66 countries was underway.

Those also present in Germany included U.S. Air Force Major General Mark Ramsay, deputy chief of staff for Operations and Intelligence at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (NATO’s main European command) and other military and civilian authorities from the Alliance and Germany. General Mark Welsh III, commander of Allied Air Command Ramstein, paid his first visit to the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre to coincide with the capability demonstration of the ALTBMD program. Brigadier General Pera “handed over a symbolic key to the operational user of the capability,” represented by Major General Ramsay. [2]

This year the Pentagon will begin its announced ten-year Phased Adaptive Approach (sometimes with a comma between the first two words) project to deploy medium- and intermediate-range interceptor missiles on ships in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean Sea, which will be followed by the stationing of no fewer than 48 advanced Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors in Eastern Europe: 24 each in Romania and Poland.

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F. William Engdahl

● President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti.
● A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal ‘pact with the Devil.’
● Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless.

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.

Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the world’s most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one another—the intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some 3 to 6 miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.

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Yvonne Ridley
Kabul Press

Sergey Lavrov (Серге́й Лавро́в), Foreign Minister of Russia and Hillary
Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States

I wonder if Hillary Clinton really believes in the pompous invective that shoots from her lips with the rapidity of machine gun fire.

We had a classic example of it just the other day when she let rip in her grating, robotic monotones over a Moscow court’s decision to jail an oil tycoon.

To be fair to Clinton, she was not alone. There was a whole gaggle of disapproving foreign ministers who poured forth their ridiculous brand of Western arrogance which has poisoned the international atmosphere for far too long.

The US Secretary of State said Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s conviction raised "serious questions about selective prosecution and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations". Although Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, 54, were found guilty of theft and money laundering by a Moscow court, critics like Clinton say the trial constitutes revenge for the tycoon’s questioning of a state monopoly on oil pipelines and propping up political parties that oppose the Kremlin.

Clinton’s censure was echoed by politicians in Britain and Germany, and Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, urged Moscow to "respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law".

Now while it may appear to be quite touching to see all these Western leaders express their outrage over a trial involving the one-time richest and most powerful man in Russia’s oil and gas industry, you have to ask where were these moral guardians when other unjust legal decisions were being made in US courts, for example?

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