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The Swiss bank leaks

Bill Whitaker
CBS News
Sun, 08 Feb 2015 18:15 UTC
Hervé Falciani
© CBS News
Hervé Falciani
The following script is from "The Swiss Leaks" which aired on Feb. 8, 2015. Bill Whitaker is the correspondent. Ira Rosen and Habiba Nosheen, producers.

This story was reported in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The largest and most damaging Swiss bank heist in history doesn't involve stolen money but stolen computer files with more than 100,000 names tied to Swiss bank accounts at HSBC, the second largest commercial bank in the world.

A 37-year-old computer security specialist named Hervé Falciani stole the huge cache of data in 2007 and gave it to the French government. It's now being used to go after tax cheats all over the world. 60 Minutes, working with a group called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, obtained the leaked files. They show the bank did business with a collection of international outlaws: tax dodgers, arms dealers and drug smugglers -- offering a rare glimpse into the highly secretive world of Swiss banking.

Comment: One can only hope these revelations and more like it will help people become more aware of the pathology running this world we live in.

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Bomb

Donetsk explosion, Kiev economy tanking

The Saker
The Vineyard of the Saker
Mon, 09 Feb 2015 18:17 UTC
1) The explosion in Donetsk

Russian TV has just shown footage of the crater left by the explosion and it is absolutely huge. See for yourself:

Donetsk explosion crater

Russian TV screenshot of the massive blast crater in Donetsk

The crater is about 10m (30 ft) deep. It is located on the territory of a chemical factory, but it did not hit any of the main buildings. Whether there was any building at the actual location of the explosion is impossible to tell: the earth is black, all the trees scorched and there is nothing left at all. DNR experts estimate the blast as being the equivalent of 1 ton of TNT. The sound of the explosion was heard 50km away. From the shape of the crater, it does not appear to be a fuel-air explosive (FAE), but 1 ton of equivalent TNT is way bigger than the 500kg HE warhead the Tochka-U can carry. This leads me to believe that the Ukrainians might have used a new weapon or, at least, a modified one. All we know for sure is that it was not a nuclear device. Also, it makes me wonder what in the world they were trying to hit - maybe the chemicals factory, but if that it the case, then they missed by 1000m or so. At this point, I honestly don't know. I also want to remind everybody that the junta has used White Phosphorus again against its own population:

Comment: Some more news-bites from the past day or so:

  • After giving Poroshenko a chance to show some common sense in Munich (and after Poroshenko refused to do so), the NAF has sealed the Debaltsevo cauldron, according to Semen Semenchenko, head of Kiev's Donbas Battalion.
  • As more and more Ukrainians and EU leaders are calling for a ceasefire and federalization, Oleg Tsarev predicts that mega-oligarch Kolomoisky, also jumping on the peace bandwagon, will have a change of opinion and support Novorossia.


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Bizarro Earth

What is a conspiracy theory? What is the truth?

Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Thu, 05 Feb 2015 17:47 UTC
Image

War is peace
Obama is on a hot war footing. Western civilization is allegedly "threatened by the Islamic State".

The "Global War on Terrorism" is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor.

We have a "Responsibility to Protect". Humanitarian warfare is the solution.

Evil folks are lurking. 'Take 'em out", said George W. Bush.

The Western media is beating the drums of war. Obama's military agenda is supported by a vast propaganda apparatus.

One of the main objectives of war propaganda is to "fabricate an enemy". As the political legitimacy of the Obama Administration falters, doubts regarding the existence of this "outside enemy", namely Al Qaeda and its network of (CIA sponsored) affiliates must be dispelled.

The purpose is to tacitly instill, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people's inner consciousness, the notion that Muslims constitute a threat to the security of the Western World.

Comment: "Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".~ George Orwell

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act".~ George Orwell

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Eye 2

Islamists aren't the only religious terrorists: Meet some famous killers for Christ

David Ferguson
Raw Story
Sun, 08 Feb 2015 17:52 UTC
Eric Rudolph
© Wikipedia.org
Eric Rudolph
President Barack Obama raised hackles on the Christian right this week during his address to the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast.

In the wake of the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris by Islamic extremists and the atrocities committed on video by ISIS, Obama urged Christians not to get too complacent in their view of Islam as a violent religion and Christianity as a peaceful one.

"Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," said the president. "Slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

Conservatives greeted this assertion with their usual unflappable calm and equanimity, which is to say, of course, that they pretty much all started screaming and soiling themselves at once.

But because we're so nice here at the Raw Story Historic Corrections Desk, we thought we'd share some examples of Christian extremist violence for the edification of our right-leaning friends who seem to believe that it's nothing but Christmas trees and Easter lilies on their side of the church as opposed to IEDs and lynching ropes.

Let's begin, shall we?

Comment: Many extreme religious followers perform similar atrocious acts in the name of God. Pathology is ever present in some of these groups. Awareness is the key to help stop it. Governments are also involved with these religious extremists to create chaos and then come back as saviors for the people. It's an age old 'game'.

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Headphones

Foreign mercenaries fighting for Kiev? DPR intercepts conversations in English, Polish, French and Flemish


Sputnik
Mon, 09 Feb 2015 17:55 UTC
ukraine troops
© AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
Pro-independence fighters say there might be some foreign mercenaries among the pro-Ukrainian combatants who have been encircled near the city of Debaltseve between Donetsk and Luhansk.

"We have intercepted the talks in four different languages," Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) deputy of defense Edward Basurin told the journalists on Monday. "Those are English, Polish, French and some Flemish."

"At the same time, we do not have in [our] possession any personal belongings which could serve as proof," he added. "As soon as we get any we will show them to you."

Edward Basurin has previously said that the Ukrainian forces try to destroy any proof that there are international mercenaries fighting for the Ukrainian troops. However the DPR fighters have already got some indirect confirmation of the involvement of foreign fighters. On January 23, a representative of the pro-independence commanders said that they have discovered communication equipment and phonecards which are not being used in Ukraine.

Comment: This isn't the first time the suggestion has been made the foreign mercenaries are fighting for Kiev: In case readers may have missed the memo: Russians fighting for the DPR/LPR are bad, but Brits, Americans, Poles, and others fighting for Kiev are just fine.

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Compass

Russia's voice heard in new Yalta peace conference to avoid WWIII

Anton Kulikov
Pravda.ru
Thu, 05 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC
Image
© UPI Photo
World Leaders at the Yalta Conference, 1945: Soviet leader Josef Stalin, American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill seated together during the Yalta Conference, 1945. Behind them stand their respective foreign ministers Molotov, Stettinius and Eden. Decisions made at this conference influenced the rebuilding of Europe after WWII. They were held on the grounds of Livadio Palace in Yalta, Crimea. Standing behind are Lord Leathers, Anthony Eden, Edward Settinius, Alexander Cadogan, V.M. Molotov, and Averill Harriman. Photo taken February 9, 1945
International scientific conference "Yalta-1945. Past, Present, Future" takes place in the Livadia Palace in the Crimea. Seventy years ago, the palace was the venue for the meeting of the leaders of the USSR, the US and the UK, during which the foundations for the postwar world order were laid. Now experts gathered in the palace to discuss the need for "a new Yalta."

The conference was organized by the Civil Society Development Foundation, the Historical Perspective Foundation and the International Association of Peace Foundations. Politicians and scientists from Russia, European countries and Ukraine take part in the conference.

Russian President Putin did not take a direct part in the work of the conference. However, Putin prepared a special address to conference participants, in which he stressed out the inadmissibility of the dissemination of ideas of Nazism. Presidential envoy in the Crimean Federal District, Oleg Belavintsev, read Putin's message to the participants of the Yalta Conference.

Comment: The Western world and Eurasia is at the brink of a new and all-out full-fledged World War. Given the on-going actions, rhetoric and propaganda coming from the U.S. there appears to be no turning back from what seems like inevitable disaster with Ukraine as the flashpoint. While the leaders of Europe are now scrambling to avert this, some, like Russian President Vladimir Putin and analysts world-wide are stating what is now plain to see: a destructive and horrible force of aggression, akin to Nazism, is now evident beyond all doubt. But how to contain it, ameliorate it, and prevent it from taking the course it is presently on? A seemingly impossible task that is now being undertaken by those sane enough to know where all this is going. And what of us - the 'observers'? We can, at the very least, acknowledge the burden, heroism and responsibility that President Putin has taken upon himself and share the truth of this struggle with all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.

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Attention

The dirtiest secret of the War on Terror

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik News
Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:07 UTC
911
© AP Photo/William Kratzke
Out of the bowels of a US maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaui, currently serving a life sentence, providentially has shed light on what amounts to the dirtiest secret of the "war on terror".

In over 100 pages of testimony, filed in a federal court in New York earlier this week, Moussaui drops several House of Saud-related bombs. Not least that among leading al-Qaeda donors prior to 9/11 we find former Saudi intel chief Prince Turki al-Faisal (also a former great buddy of Osama bin Laden); notorious former ambassador to the US and failed sponsor of hardcore jihadis in Syria, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush; darling of Western markets (and Rupert Murdoch) Prince al-Waleed bin Talal; and a who's who of Saudi Arabia's top Wahhabi clerics.

None of this is any novelty for those among us who since Afghanistan in the 1980s have been following the extraordinarily murky adventures of Wahhabi-sponsored/derived jihadism.

The information is even more relevant when compared to an upcoming book by Michael Springmann - the former head of the US visa section in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In Visas for al-Qaeda: CIA Handouts that Rocked the World, Springmann essentially details how, "during the 1980s, the CIA recruited and trained Muslim operatives to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Later, the CIA would move those operatives from Afghanistan to the Balkans, and then to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, traveling on illegal US visas. These US-backed and trained fighters would morph into an organization that is synonymous with jihadist terrorism: al-Qaeda."
"The political purpose of these revelations, from Washington's point of view, is to put pressure on the House of Saud to keep pumping their oil surplus. The recent rebound in oil is causing some hysteria in Washington, because it may be linked to the Saudis having second thoughts about their oil price war against, most of all, Russia."
Well, in the beginning there was not even an "organization". By the mid-1980s, "al-Qaeda" was only a database in a computer linked to the communications department of the secretariat of the Islamic Conference. At the time, when Osama bin Laden was nothing but a proxy US agent operating in Peshawar, al-Qaeda's intranet was a good communication system for fighters to exchange code messages. "al-Qaeda" was neither a terrorist organization - an Islamist army - nor personal property of Osama bin Laden.
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Attention

A day of reckoning for the euro has arrived - 26 trillion in currency derivatives at risk

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Sun, 08 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC
Yanis Varoufakis
This is the month when the future of the eurozone will be decided. This week, Greek leaders will meet with European officials to discuss what comes next for Greece. The new prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, has already stated that he will not accept an extension of the current bailout. Officials from other eurozone countries have already said that they expect Greece to fully honor the terms of the current agreement. So basically we are watching a giant game of financial "chicken" play out over in Europe, and a showdown is looming. Adding to the drama is the fact that the Greek government is rapidly running out of money. According to the Wall Street Journal, Greece is "on course to run out of money within weeks if it doesn't gain access to additional funds, effectively daring Germany and its other European creditors to let it fail and stumble out of the euro." We have witnessed other moments of crisis for Greece before, but things are very different this time because the new Greek government is being run by radical leftists that based their entire campaign on ending the austerity that has been imposed on Greece by the rest of Europe. If they buckle under the demands of the European financial lords, their credibility will be gone and Syriza will essentially be finished in Greek politics. But if they don't compromise, Greece could be forced to leave the eurozone and we could potentially be facing the equivalent of "financial armageddon" in Europe. If nobody flinches, the eurozone will fall to pieces, the euro will collapse and trillions upon trillions of dollars in derivatives will be in jeopardy.

According to the Bank for International Settlements, 26.45 trillion dollars in currency derivatives are directly tied to the value of the euro.

Let that number sink in for a moment.

To give you some perspective, keep in mind that the U.S. government spends a total of less than 4 trillion dollars a year.

The entire U.S. national debt is just a bit above 18 trillion dollars.

So 26 trillion dollars is an amount of money that is almost unimaginable. And of course those are just the derivatives that are directly tied to the euro. Overall, the total global derivatives bubble is more than 700 trillion dollars in size.

Comment: And so the stand-off continues. Everyone contemplating the possible ramifications of this stalemate is holding their breath. Add in the stand-off between Russia and the US over the Ukraine, economic warfare being waged against Russia by the West via sanctions and financial-commodity attacks, and a wild winter around the world, and you have a world that may look very different in a short period of time.

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Arrow Down

Iraq's children: Ever expendable - From Madeleine Albright to Tony Blair and "Save the Children"

Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research
Sun, 08 Feb 2015 22:02 UTC
"It's a hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it. " (Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the UN, on the "embargo related" deaths of half a million Iraqi children, 12thMay 1996.)
"The most traumatized child population on earth." (Professor Magne Raundalen, Centre for Crisis Studies, Bergen, Norway, February 1992.)
Blair
© www.informationclearinghouse.info
Tony Blair was, mind-stretchingly, presented with Save the Children's Global Legacy Award, on 19th November 2014. His acceptance speech included that his: "... sense is that amidst all the challenges, and all the misery and deprivation that we seek to conquer and vanquish, there is something hopeful ... something to be thankful for."

Ironically, just two months earlier (15th August 2014) Save the Children released a Report (1) on the on the trauma amongst Iraq's children in Northern Iraq alone, after eleven years of a Bush-Blair driven illegal invasion and ongoing resultant conflict. Iraq's children, it was clear, had no hope and nothing "to be thankful for."

Yet Blair was lauded by an organization that claims: "We envision a future in which no child will die from preventable causes and where every child has nutritious food and clean water."

Without Blair's claims of fantasy WMDs with which Iraq could wreak annihilation in "45 minutes", a lie quoted by General Colin Powell at the United Nations exactly twelve years ago, 5th February 2003, for the children of Iraq a genocidal "preventable cause" might have been avoided.
"Nutritious food and clean water", had, of course, been deliberately destroyed on US Central Command's order to bomb all water facilities in Iraq in 1991. Food was poisoned by the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons, contaminating all fauna and flora. DU's "half-life" is 4.5 Billion years. And it is not "depleted."
The contamination nightmare was compounded in orders of magnitude by the further use of DU weapons in 2003, used again by the UK under Blair's government. (2)

Befoulment of air, water and food for infinity condemns future generations of unborn, newborn and developing children in Iraq and the region to a poisoned legacy of cancers and deformities for generations to come. War crimes unequalled in history.
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War Whore

Kiev 'unable' to provide copies of 'Russian soldier' passports


Sputnik
Sun, 08 Feb 2015 21:27 UTC
poroshenko twitter
Kiev has failed to provide Moscow with copies of documents, allegedly belonging to Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine, a Russian foreign ministry official told RIA Novosti on Sunday.

Addressing the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko showed off covers of Russian passports and military IDs, claiming they prove "Russian presence" in the conflict-torn East Ukraine.

Moscow then asked Kiev to provide copies of the documents on Saturday evening, as "document covers like the ones shown yesterday can easily be bought on the street market," Viktor Sorokin, head of the Second CIS Department at Russia's foreign ministry, said.

"Currently, there is no real evidence, the Ukrainian side failed to provide copies of these documents," Sorokin said.

Comment: Watch out, Netanyahu! Poroshenko is fast approaching your Twitter meme ridicule status!

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