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The things warmongers said about Iraq!

Neil Clark
RT
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:12 UTC
US marines preparing for Iraq invasion
© Reuters / Oleg Popov
U.S. marines walk in full combat gears during a drill for infantry tactics in a stormy Kuwaiti desert on March 13, 2003
Iraq is in turmoil - with ISIS controlling large areas of the country - but the truth is that it's been in turmoil since the illegal 2003 invasion.

2013 was Iraq's bloodiest year since 2008, but as I wrote here members of the elite political class and warmongers in the West weren't interested.

Iraq post-invasion had become the greatest non-news story of the modern era. The people who could not stop talking about Iraq in 2002/3 and telling how much they cared about ordinary Iraqis were strangely silent. Instead they were devoting their energies into propagandizing for another Middle Eastern military 'intervention', this time against Syria.

Now that Iraq is back in the western news headlines again, with calls for 'intervention' to counter ISIS, it's worth bearing in mind what the architects of the Iraq war and the cheerleaders for it said in the lead up and during the invasion about the 'threat' from Saddam's WMDs and how toppling a secular dictator would help the so-called 'war on terror' and bring peace and security to the region.

Do we really want to take these people's advice on what 'we' should do now in Iraq? Up to a million people have been killed since the illegal invasion and as critics predicted at the time, the war led to enormous chaos and instability and boosted radical Islamic extremism. By their own words, let the warmongers be damned.
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Horse

Red Cross claims 'trade secret' as to how it used Hurricane Sandy funds


RT
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 08:37 UTC
Red Cross and hurricane Sandy
© Reuters / Tom Mihalek
ARCHIVE PHOTO: Residents who returned to their homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy line up for a hot meal served from a red Cross vehicle on Samson Avenue in Seaside Heights, New Jersey November 12, 2012.
American Red Cross has been reluctant to make public details over how it raised and spent over $300 million in Hurricane Sandy relief funds. The charity's lawyers say the disclosure would inflict "competitive harm" on the group.

The Red Cross supplied some of the information concerning its Sandy activity to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office has been investigating the issue.

When a New-York based independent non-profit media outlet ProPublica filed a public records request for the same information, the charity's lawyers argued that journalists could only be given a redacted version, as some of the facts mentioned in the report constituted a "trade secret."

If such details were disclosed, "the American Red Cross would suffer competitive harm because its competitors would be able to mimic the American Red Cross's business model for an increased competitive advantage," Gabrielle Levin of the Gibson Dunn law firm wrote in a letter to the attorney general's office.

Disaster Accountability Project, a watchdog that monitors aid groups, found Red Cross' citing trade secret exemption was a strange thing to do.

"Invoking a 'trade secret' exemption is not something you would expect from an organization that purports to be 'transparent and accountable,'" said Ben Smilowitz the group's executive director.

Comment: It sounds like the Red Cross in the US has been ponerized too!

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Dollar

After Cyprus bail-in: Spain to create tax on bank deposits

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge.com
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 07:00 UTC
banks rob deposit holders
It was a little over a year ago, just as the Cyprus deposit confiscation aka "bail in" was taking place, when we asked, rhetorically, if "Spain is preparing for its own deposit levy" when an announcement by Spain's Finance Minister, Montoro, hinted at the imminent arrival of just that.

Specifically we said:
While Spain's economy minister Luis De Guindos proclaimed in the Senate today that bank deposits under EUR100,000 are "sacred"and that "Spanish savers should stay calm," Spain, it would appear, has changed constitutional rules to enable a so-called 'moderate' levy on deposits - as under previous Spanish law this was prohibited. For now, they claim the 'levy' will be "not much higher than 0%" and is mainly aimed at regions in Spain that have "made no effort to collect taxes" based on new revenue expectations.

As El Pais reports, the minister of finance and public administration, Cristobal Montoro, defends the need for such a 'levy' in their constitution on the basis of standardizing taxes across regions (and is preparing a proposal on the amounts to be paid) and although it would appear that while the European Commission could previously argue that such a 'tax' would violate the free movement of capital in Europe, it now leaves the door open to eventually effectively taxing the deposits.

Comment: See: Banks have almost zero cash: Be prepared to lose your savings

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Cow

Ukraine and EU sign free trade zone deal along with Georgia and Moldova


RT
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 05:42 UTC
Ukraine signs eu association agreement
© Georges Gobet/AFP
Ukraine has signed the economic part of the Association agreement with the EU, with Georgia and Moldova also joining the pact, even though big economic risks lie ahead.

The signing of the economic part of the agreement comes after 8 months of violent unrest in Ukraine, which broke out in Kiev and spread across the country in November after then-President Viktor Yanukovich decided to reject the trade agreement in favor of trilateral talks.

The document contains 31 signatures- Ukraine, all 28 EU member states, as well as that of the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. The agreement will only come into force when it is ratified by every national parliament in the EU. It is expected that the ratification process will be complete by this fall.

Georgia and Moldova also signed both political and economic parts of the Association Agreement. Ukraine signed a political part of the agreement in March, shortly after Crimea rejoined Russia.

"By signing the association agreement, Ukraine, like European nation, which shares the same rules of law, stresses its sovereign choice to become a member of the EU Association Agreement in the future," Poroshenko before the signing ceremony. The Ukrainian President sees the trade document as a stepping stone to eventual EU statehood.



Comment: Given what is happening in Ukraine, one shudders at the thought that they share the same rules of law.


Comment: The EU technocrats are happy: Another country to plunder. This is very bad news for Ukraine.

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Piggy Bank

Banks have almost zero cash: Be prepared to lose your savings

Brett Redmayne-Titley
Govtslaves
Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:58 UTC
Just like in 2007, the predictable upcoming financial crash will arrive suddenly overnight and the new day's world economy will be in chaos. At the starting gun of this "run on the banks," you had better be pretty quick.

Your bank has almost zero cash.
lineup at a teller station
© www.thisismoney.co.uk
New Bank Policy: Collapse the limits of withdrawal.
"I'm sorry, Sir. We are unable to cash this check," were the ominous words delivered to me by a fresh faced, none-too-friendly, Wells Fargo Bank manager. He had just kept me waiting ten minutes while in consultation about my transaction. Returning to his cubicle he sat down quickly, now looking at me intently through narrowed eyes.

Three feet away, between us and in front of him, were three forms of my personal identification face up. He gazed down glowering at two checks also before him, written to me by a client and drawn on his bank. Not being a "Well's" customer I expected a shake-down, hence the multiple forms of ID.

The two checks totaled a seemingly paltry sum of almost US$8,000.00. Not expecting this much difficulty I insisted on a reason, to which he replied, "I'm sorry, but the bank does not have sufficient funds on-hand to cash these checks."

Really? Naturally, like the majority of capitalist indoctrinated bank depositors, I assumed that, as is traditional with banks, this one would have lots of cash. Au Contraire.

Comment: As per Ellen Brown, the new rules for keeping the too-big-to-fail banks alive: use creditor funds, including uninsured deposits, to recapitalize failing banks. But isn't that theft? Perhaps, but it's legal theft. By law, when you put your money into a deposit account, your money becomes the property of the bank. You become an unsecured creditor with a claim against the bank. Also at risk are pension funds and public revenues. The FDIC has only about $25 billion in its deposit insurance fund, which is mandated by law to keep a balance equivalent to only 1.15 percent of insured deposits.

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Bomb

Obama seeks $US500m to equip Syrian rebels


MSN NZ
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:02 UTC
Image
© SANA News Agency
US Plane Lands at al-Mafraq airport, Jordan delivering Weapons to Syrian Rebels.
US President Barack Obama has called on Congress to approve $US500 million ($A540 million) to train and equip vetted Syrian rebels battling the forces of strongman President Bashar al-Assad.

Following strong hints by Obama in recent weeks, the White House said it intends to "ramp up US support to the moderate Syrian opposition".


Comment: So, having already trained and armed Syrian rebels like ISIS, who are wreaking havoc in Iraq,Obama wants to send more money and weapons to Syrian rebels, only this time he wants to send it to "moderate" rebels. Which people does this sort of nonsense fool?


It proposed the funding for "vetted elements of the Syrian armed opposition, to help defend the Syrian people, stabilise areas under opposition control, facilitate the provision of essential services, counter terrorist threats and promote conditions for a negotiated settlement".


Comment: And whats more he wants to do it to "defend the Syrian people". He clearly is ignoring the fact that the Syrian people overwhelmingly re-elected President Bashar in an election a few short weeks ago. The Syrian people need protecting from Obama's Syrian rebels, not from their democratically elected president.


The proposal was part of the $US65.8 billion overseas contingency operations request to Congress for fiscal year 2015, which begins on October 1.
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Bomb

US Posturing - Russia gets 'hours' to ease Ukraine crisis


MSN NZ
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 05:18 UTC
Russian grief in Ukraine
© Maysun/ Maysun/Corbi
Relatives mourn a medical worker shot dead by Ukranian troops at a checkpoint near Slavyansk.
The United States has warned Russia it has only "hours" to prove it is helping disarm Ukrainian insurgents, whose tenuous truce with Kiev is due to expire by the weekend.

US Secretary of State John Kerry's ultimatum was delivered a day before Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signs the final chapters of an historic EU accord that nudges his country toward eventual membership and pulls it firmly out of Russia's reach.

The West is scrambling to save a temporary ceasefire and nascent peace talks that pro-Russian separatists, who are now threatening the ex-Soviet state's survival, agreed to at the start of the week.


Comment: The "Pro Russian Separatists" that the western media keep talking about, are in fact Russians, who have only been a part of Ukraine since Khrushchev gave that region, including Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. It is bald propaganda and a blatant attempt to demonize them, to call them pro Russian Separatists.


Poroshenko on Thursday pushed back the expiry of the truce, broken on repeated occasions, but still having succeeded in tempering the worst of the violence in the Russified eastern rustbelt, for a few hours until Friday at 1900 GMT (0500 on Friday AEST).

Comment: The hypocrisy of John Kerry is amazing. He has the gall to call on Russia to force the Russian people living in eastern Ukraine to become "part of a legitimate process", while he supports a regime that seized power in a US backed coup - hardly a legitimate process.

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Light Saber

Russia's Putin to hold talks with Palestine's Abbas


Voice of Russia
Wed, 25 Jun 2014 18:25 UTC
putin abbas

Real diplomacy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the State of Palestine, here on Wednesday. "During the forthcoming meeting, the leaders are to discuss matters aimed at further strengthening bilateral relations, including stepping up cooperation in the trade-and-economic sphere," the Kremlin press service official said.

Special attention is to be devoted to regional and international problems of current concern, specifically prospects for the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process and the situation in the area of the Middle East and North Africa as a whole.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, for his part, pointed out that it is planned to discuss the situation in Syria. He said that while in Moscow the Palestinian leader would meet with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to discuss prospects for the development of trade-and-economic and cultural cooperation between Russia and Palestine.

"Russia's Head of Government and the President of the State of Palestine will discuss matters of current importance concerning bilateral relations, as well as the present state of and prospects for the development of trade-and-economic and cultural cooperation. Humanitarian cooperation is to be discussed with emphasis on the rendering of practical assistance to the Palestinian side in developing state institutions and in solving basic social tasks," the press service official added.
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V

People's Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk to adopt single Constitution


Voice of Russia
Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:20 UTC
Novorussiya troop
© RIA Novosti/Valeriy Melnikov
Self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics will adopt a single Constitution, Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai said on Tuesday.

On May 11, referendums on the status of the regions were held in Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. About 90 percent of the participants voted for the earlier proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics' independence from Kiev.

The DPR and LPR have started forming their own authorities and legislative basis. The Kiev authorities consider these organizations to be terrorist ones.

"Just now, the Supreme Council (a session of the Supreme Council of the Donetsk People's Republic) has voted for the Constitution of Novorossia. In the short run, this document will be voted for in Lugansk," said Boroday.
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Eye 2

Monsters among us: Jimmy Savile's victims were aged five to 75 at Leeds hospital; he 'interfered' with bodies of dead patients

Caroline Davies
Guardian
Thu, 26 Jun 2014 16:27 UTC
Investigators say men, women, boys and girls were among victims, and incidents included three rapes

Jimmy Savile
© Keystone
Jimmy Savile
Jimmy Savile's victims at Leeds general infirmary ranged from five to 75 in age and included men, women, boys and girls, an inquiry has found.

A wide-ranging investigation carried out at 28 NHS trusts found widespread abuse by the serial sexual predator at Broadmoor and Leeds general infirmary, both places where Savile had long associations.

The Department of Health (DoH) apologised on Thursday for the "wholly inadequate procedures" that allowed the former BBC DJ to hold a managerial position at the high-security hospital Broadmoor.

Una O'Brien, permanent secretary at the DoH, described the reports as shocking. She apologised for the inadequate processes that enabled Savile to occupy a managerial role at Broadmoor in 1988.

"The DoH accepts that the procedures in 1988 were wholly inadequate for checking whether Jimmy Savile was a suitable person to be given a managerial role," she said.

At Broadmoor, with which Savile had an association from 1968 for three decades and a managerial role from 1988, there were allegations made by 11 people, six of them patients, two staff and three minors. Two were male. Investigators believe this to be an "underestimate of the true picture". Patients were strongly discouraged from reporting at the time, and carry that legacy now, said the report.

The investigation concluded that at least five, possibly six, had been sexually assaulted, but were unable to speak in detail to the other five.

Savile had keys to the high-security hospital, accommodation and unrestricted access due to his relationship with the medical superintendent who hoped his fame would improve public perception of the hospital. He stopped visiting when a new security system was introduced in 2004.


Comment: Channel 4 News reports:



Comment: "Wholly inadequate procedures" does not even begin to describe it.

What sort of society do we live in, in which a psychopathic, depraved monster is given access to the most vulnerable all because of his celebrity status and connections with power? What does this say about such spheres of power?

If this went on for decades and is only coming to light after the death of Savile, how many more similar monsters are currently free to abuse as much as they like from their positions as members of the elite? If this is the tip of the iceberg, how deep does the institutional corruption go?

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