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John Kerry is sabotaging Syria ceasefire before it even takes place

Mark Nicholas
Russia Insider
Wed, 24 Feb 2016 18:48 UTC
Kerry headline

That's Western 'nation-building' and international law for you
John Kerry is an incredible motivator! He has just told Syrian jihadi-controlled rebellion that all it has to do is sabotage the upcoming ceasefire he has agreed to with Moscow and he will reward them with a mini-state carved out from Syria. What better incentive to abide by the deal and cease hostilities could he possibly give them?
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has said he will move towards a plan B that could involve a partition of Syria if a planned ceasefire due to start in the next few days does not materialize, or if a genuine shift to a transitional government does not take place in the coming months.
Oh yes, you may have thought that "partition" is a bad word, but that's only true when the Russians do it. When Americans partition a foreign country (Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Sudan) that is actually a good thing.

Comment: The schizophrenia of American foreign policy just keeps getting more obvious. Every reasonable statement or decision that comes out of American leadership is almost always contradicted by its total opposite within hours or days. It's almost as if these 'good' policies (Minsk, Syria) are necessary concessions to Russian leadership, but American petulance provokes efforts to undermine those very policies...

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Arrow Down

Wash, rinse, repeat: The subprime auto loan meltdown is here

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Wed, 24 Feb 2016 19:55 UTC
Predatory capitalism
Uh oh - here we go again. Do you remember the subprime mortgage meltdown during the last financial crisis? Well, now a similar thing is happening with auto loans. The auto industry has been doing better than many other areas of the economy in recent years, but this "mini-boom" was fueled in large part by customers with subprime credit. According to Equifax, an astounding 23.5 percent of all new auto loans were made to subprime borrowers in 2015. At this point, there is a total of somewhere around $200 billion in subprime auto loans floating around out there, and many of these loans have been "repackaged" and sold to investors. I know - all of this sounds a little too close for comfort to what happened with subprime mortgages the last time around. We never seem to learn from our mistakes, and a lot of investors are going to end up paying the price.

Everything would be fine if the number of subprime borrowers not making their payments was extremely low. And that was true for a while, but now delinquency rates and default rates are rising to levels that we haven't seen since the last recession. The following comes from Time Magazine...
People, especially those with shaky credit, are having a tougher time than usual making their car payments.

According to Bloomberg, almost 5% of subprime car loans that were bundled into securities and sold to investors are delinquent, and the default rate is even higher than that. (Depending on who's counting, delinquency is up to three or four months behind in payments; default is what happens after that). At just over 12% in January, the default rate jumped one entire percentage point in just a month. Both delinquency and default rates are now the highest they've been since 2010, when the ripple effects of the recession still weighed heavily on many Americans' finances.

Comment: Nothing was learned from the 2008 crisis in part caused by the subprime mortgages in mortgage backed securities because the system is working just fine for the moneyed elite. The system of capitalism implemented in the United States is predatory in nature and is now nearly completely geared toward transferring as much money and power into the hands of the few. The new subprime auto loan problem is just one example of how this system works. Ultimately it seems this predatory capitalistic system will implode under the weight of its own corruption due to its attempt to enslave as many people in debt and the never ending greed that destroys any semblance of a functioning economy.

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Bulb

Assad advisor: Daesh defeat would be easy if Turkey and Saudi Arabia didn't support it


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 18:29 UTC
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban
© Reuters
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, media and political advisor to the Syrian presidency.
Money and resources flowing to Islamic State from regional players make it more difficult to fight terrorism, an adviser to Syria's president told RT, adding that the political dialogue has also been thwarted by opposition groups backed by foreign states.

"For five years they [Syrian opposition] have not been able to have a dialogue, because each party of this opposition belongs to a different country and is paid by different countries. They are not an opposition that have a political party in Syria and that have grown from the Syrian people. This is the only opposition in the world that are agents of foreign countries against their own country," Bashar Assad's political adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, said in an interview with RT.

Direct talks between the opposition and the government will be held "whenever the opposition is able to get together and be at the table," she said, adding that while the government is ready for dialogue, their opponents have so far failed to even agree on their own delegation.


Comment: Further reading:

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Attention

Iraqi militia seize ISIS chemical weapons stockpile in Ramadi


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:42 UTC
ISIS chemical weapons
© Mohamad Bayoush / Reuters
Iraqi militia fighters have captured two locations with vast deposits of highly toxic agents used by Islamic State terrorists to arm mortar shells and rockets, potentially for use against civilian targets.

A sweep of the industrial area of the city of Ramadi in central Iraq, which a short while ago was controlled by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISISL) militants, brought more evidence that the terror group is waging chemical warfare on Iraqi militia and civilians.

Officers of the volunteer corps discovered two warehouses with stockpiles of plastic canisters containing Vinyltrichlorosilane (designated as "Corrosive" UN 1305), a caustic chemical capable of causing serious injury.
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Newspaper

Sanity prevails? Turkish court rules rights of detained Cumhuriyet editors were violated, release expected


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:24 UTC
Can Dundar
© Murad Sezer / Reuters
Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper.
Turkey's constitutional court has ruled that the rights of two prominent editors from independent Cumhuriyet newspaper were violated when they were arrested. Their release is expected imminently, the newspaper's acting editor-in-chief told Reuters.

"The constitutional court has ruled that there is a rights violation. An immediate appeal will be made...We are expecting their release," said Tahir Ozyurt, the newspaper's acting editor-in-chief.

Comment: Erdogan will not be happy. His grip on power may be on the decline.

Will the military comply? Turkey's former intelligence head concerned with Erdogan's Syria policies

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Ambulance

Swedish teen rescued from ISIS by Kurdish soldiers in Iraq


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:02 UTC
ISIS
© Rodi Said / Reuters
A 16-year-old girl from Sweden was rescued from Islamic State by Kurdish special forces in northern Iraq, the Kurdish Autonomous Region's Security Council has said. The teenager travelled from Sweden to Syria in 2015 and then crossed the border into Iraq, according to the statement. The girl from the Swedish town of Boras made the trip after being "misled by a member" of Islamic State (IS, Daesh, formerly ISIS/ISIL), it added.

According to the council, she was rescued by troops from the Kurdish counterterrorism department not far from the city of Mosul on February 17.

"The Kurdistan Region Security Council was called upon by Swedish authorities and members of her family to assist in locating and rescuing her from ISIL," the statement stressed.
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Snakes in Suits

US officials trying to sabotage ceasefire agreement on Syria


ITAR-TASS
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 16:56 UTC
Syrians at a market in Damascus, Syria
© EPA/YOUSSEF BADAWI
The United State tried to interpret the statement on cessation of military actions in Syria in a directly opposite manner, Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.

"We were confused when we heard first responses from Washington to the document. To be honest, we did not expect some officials to interpret this agreement in such a diametrically opposite way," Zakharova said. "Several officials in fact tried to cast doubt on the agreement signed by the presidents of Russia and United States," she added.

The diplomat added that this was a sabotage attempt. "The positive thing is that it was the first wave that we managed to break," she noted.
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Beaker

Stirring the Propaganda Pot: US intel director Clapper claims Syria 'has not declared' all chemical weapons


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 16:42 UTC
Chemical protective gear
© AFP 2016/ JM LOPEZ
In 2013, a massive chemical weapons attack was carried out in the Syrian suburb of Ghouta which killed more than 1,300 civilians. Both the Syrian government and the militant factions that oppose it blamed one another for the attack.

"We assess that Syria has not declared all the elements of its chemical weapons program to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)," Clapper stated. "Despite the creation of a specialized team and months of work by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to address gaps and inconsistencies in Syria's declaration, numerous issues remain unresolved."

Comment: Trotting out the chemical weapon gambit again as if preparing for excuses to implement 'Plan B' in Syria.

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Eye 2

Warmonger Breedlove: NATO ready to 'fight and win if necessary' against Russia


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 16:29 UTC
Philip Breedlove
© REUTERS/ Jonathan Ernst
Russia has repeatedly warned that NATO's attempts to expand on its borders, as well as more recently amass troops and equipment, constitute provocative acts that are contrary to previous agreements and can undermine regional and global stability.

"To counter Russia, EUCOM, working with allies and partners, is deterring Russia now and preparing to fight and win if necessary," Breedlove said.

Comment: This windbag Breedhate Breedlove just won't stop with the anti-Russia rhetoric:

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Snakes in Suits

Turkey claims it's not bound by Syria ceasefire, cites 'security threats'

Matthew Allen
Russia Insider
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 16:00 UTC
Davutoglu
Ankara reserves the right to break the ceasefire deal if it feels its security is "threatened".

However well-intentioned the looming ceasefire in Syria may be, it appears that some of the warring parties just aren't interested in peace.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced on Thursday that Ankara would not be bound by the Syrian ceasefire plan if its security was threatened, and would take "necessary measures" against Syrian Kurds which continue to be shelled, illegally, by Turkish forces from across the border. According to Davutoglu, "If threats arise against our national security from any of the sides, this ceasefire will not place its obligations on us. In such a case Turkey will ask no one permission and will do what needs to be done."
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