A Japanese company with some offices in California was hacked. Several terrabytes of data were copied off its internal networks and some of it was put on file sharing sites. One of the items copied was a film produced in Canada that depicts as comedy the terror act of killing of a current head of state. The U.S. State Department applauded that movie scene. But there were tons of other data like social security numbers, payroll data, and internal emails stolen all of which that might have been the real target of the hackers.

The tools to hack the company are well known and in the public domain. The company, Sony, had lousy internal network security and had been hacked before. The hackers probably had some inside knowledge. They used servers in Bolivia, China and South Korea to infiltrate. There is zero public evidence in the known that the hack was state sponsored.

But the U.S. is claiming that the event is a "national security matter". Who's national security? Japan's? Canada's? Why? A private Japanese entertainment(!) company left the doors open and had some equipment vandalized and some of its private property stolen. Why, again, is that of U.S. "national interest"? Why would the U.S. even consider some "proportional response"?


The White House is anonymously accusing the state of North Korea of having done the hack. It provides no evidence to support that claim and the government of North Korea denied any involvement. The FBI and Sony say they have no evidence for such a claim.

Still the New York Times editors eat it all up:

North Korean hackers, seeking revenge for the movie, stole millions of documents, including emails, health records and financial information that they dished out to the world.

The coordinated manipulation of global energy prices, a NATO build-up in Eastern Europe, and the rekindling of terrorism in Russia's southern Caucasus region all appear to be ever-increasing crescendos toward a much larger event - a "Russian Maidan."

The necessary components of a successful Western bid to overthrow the Russian political order include a political front protesting in Russia's major cities, as well as a full-spectrum economic war to put pressure on Russia's population, increasing dissent as well as swelling the ranks of staged protests Wall Street and Washington put in Russian streets. Another necessary component includes armed components to act under cover of "peaceful protesters" to escalate street demonstrations, prevent security forces from restoring order, and to carry out the actual physical overthrow of these security forces.

These elements could all be seen in neighboring Ukraine - a nation in which America and NATO's incessant meddling is a matter of long-standing public record. The Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, "US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev," that (emphasis added):

...while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.

That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.

But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.

The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.

Not only has Ukraine suffered because of this admitted US-backed political destabilization over the years, but as revealed by the Guardian and other sources, all of Eastern Europe has fallen prey to this brand of foreign-backed subversion, manipulation, and regime change. Considering this documented fact, the prospect of Wall Street and Washington trying likewise in Russia itself is not only possible, it has already been tried before, with likely attempts in the future only inevitable.

Over the past month, attacks on both oil and the Rouble have created economic turmoil around the world, and especially in the economies of Russia and the European Union. And despite the fact that the United States has chosen Ukraine as ground zero for instigating pressure against Russia and the Russian currency, one superpower has sat on the sidelines until today when on Dec. 17, China stepped forward and offered full aid and assurances to Russia in their ongoing proxy war with Washington.

Until yesterday, Russia was believed to be isolated and under immense economic pressures from both the U.S. and Europe over what has been labeled 'aggressions against Ukraine'. However, the underlying truth is that Ukraine has little or nothing to do with the war on the Rouble and on the Russian economy, and the U.S. is simply using the Eurasian country as a scapegoat for Putin's chess moves against the petro-dollar and America's hegemony over the global reserve currency.

Russia could fall back on its 150 billion yuan (HK$189.8 billion) currency swap agreement with China if the rouble continues to plunge.

If the swap deal is activated for this purpose, it would mark the first time China is called upon to use its currency to bail out another currency in crisis. The deal was signed by the two central banks in October, when Premier Li Keqiang visited Russia.

"Russia badly needs liquidity support and the swap line could be an ideal tool," said Bank of Communications chief economist Lian Ping.

The swap allows the central banks to directly buy yuan and rouble in the two currencies, rather than via the US dollar.

Two bankers close to the People's Bank of China said it was meant to reduce the role of the US dollar if China and Russia need to help each other overcome a liquidity squeeze. - South China Morning Post

Most of the sanctions placed upon Russia oil companies and investment banks stem primarily from several ground-breaking agreements the Eurasian state has made this year to facilitate the selling of oil and other products in currencies other than the dollar.

The US strategy of economic sanctions against Russia is designed to create a "permanent war zone" in that region and cause chaos in the Russian economy, a geopolitical analyst in Europe says.

"When we are looking at the strategy of the US towards Russia, it is to force Russia to capitulate," said Joaquin Flores, director of the Center for Syncretic Studies in Belgrade, Serbia.

"Ultimately, one thing they would like to do is to create a permanent war zone or a permanent area of armed conflict right in its historical sphere of influence," Flores told Press TV on Friday.

The US is also looking to "create chaos within its economic system which is aimed at getting different elements of the elites in economic power circles in Russia to turn against the government and to side with the US interest," he indicated.

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama signed a new Russian sanctions bill into law over the crisis in Ukraine.

Ties between United States and Russia have deteriorated over the crisis in Ukraine. The US and its allies accuse Moscow of sending troops into eastern Ukraine in support of the pro-Russian forces. Russia, however, denies the accusation.

Tensions between Washington and Moscow began to escalate in April after the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea seceded from Ukraine and reunited with the Russian Federation following a referendum a month earlier.

It's true that events in Russia over the past few weeks have been disturbing to watch. If one has read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins or The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, the Anglo-American empire's economic warfare against Russia is easy to spot. Economic warfare is, after all, so much cheaper and 'cleaner' than overt war with boots on the ground.

The fundamentals just don't do justice to the shock involved in the ruble's plummet from 33 to 80 rubles to the dollar within a few days. Outside forces have been at play in order to undermine the Russian economy and the support for Putin, because ultimately, the Empire of chaos has 'regime change' in Russia firmly in its sights with a new wave of takeovers of Russian resources and privatizations similar to the Yeltsin era, where Atlanticist ideology ruled supreme in the Kremlin.

With Putin at the helm, Russia has been too good at navigating the twists and turns of the US' coup in Ukraine, and avoided being dragged into an open confrontation with the Ukrainian regime, despite the best efforts of the US State Dept, Pentagon and CIA. When the manipulated drop in oil price failed to produce the desired 'check mate', the attack on the ruble was launched. As the ruble tumbled, it was easy to spot those who gleefully followed events. One of those was David Cameron, the US puppet in the UK:

The combined effect produced by Western sanctions and low oil prices proves that there's no place for Russia in the international financial system, believes British prime minister David Cameron, urging for more pressure on Moscow.

"We should stand up very firmly against the Russian aggression that's taking place," Cameron said before the Parliament on Wednesday.

Being a mere pawn of the global pathocracy, what else are we to expect from Cameron than an extra kick in the guts as the Russian bear was seemingly lying on the ground. But is Russia really not fit to be part of the international financial system, and is it 'the end of Russia'?

The world is still hell-bent for hydrocarbon-based energy. Russia is one of the world's largest producer of energy. Russia has recently announced that in the future she will no longer trade energy in US dollars, but in rubles and currencies of the trading partners. In fact, this rule will apply to all trading. Russia and China are detaching their economies from that of the western financial system. To confirm this decision, in July 2014 Russia's Gazprom concluded a 400 billion gas deal with China, and in November this year they signed an additional slightly smaller contract - all to be denominated in rubles and renminbi.

The remaining BRICS - Brazil, India and South Africa - plus the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan and considered for membership since September 2014 are also India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia, with Turkey also waiting in the wings - will also trade in their local currencies, detached from the dollar-based western casino scheme. A host of other nations increasingly weary of the decay of the western financial system which they are locked into are just waiting for a new monetary scheme to emerge. So far their governments may have been afraid of the emperor's wrath - but gradually they are seeing the light. They are sensing the sham and weakness behind Obama's boisterous noise. They don't want to be sucked into the black hole, when the casino goes down the drain.

To punish Russia for Ukraine, Obama is about to sign into law major new sanctions against Russia, following Congress's unanimous passing of a recent motion to this effect. - That is what the MSM would like you to believe. It is amazing that ten months after the Washington instigated Maidan slaughter and coup where a Washington selected Nazi Government was put in place, the MSM still lies high about the origins of this government and the massacres it is committing in the eastern Ukraine Donbass area.

Congress's unanimity - what Congress and what unanimity? - Out of 425 lawmakers, only 3 were present for the vote. The others may have already taken off for their year-end recess, or simply were 'ashamed' or rather afraid to object to the bill. As a matter of fact, of the three who were present to vote, two at first objected. Only after a bit of arm-twisting and what not, they were willing to say yes. This is how the 'unanimous' vote came to be, as trumpeted by the MSM - unanimous by three votes! The public at large is duped again into believing what is not.

Two attempted terrorist attacks on the Crimean Prosecutor's Office have recently been prevented by members of the local People's Guard. So-called 'prosecutie' Natalia Poklonskaya has also had previous threats.

Two members of the guard prevented a couple of terrorist attacks that could have led to multiple casualties at Poklonskaya's office, Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported Friday.

"Several months ago, our guys found a bag with explosives at... the Crimean Prosecutor's Office and in November it was an envelope with a blasting agent, sent via mail and addressed to the prosecutor," Sergey Turchanenko, the commander of the People's Militia told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Bulgaria is ready to issue all the necessary permits for the construction of the South Stream pipeline, according to Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. He said it will up to Gazprom whether the pipeline is built or not.


Borisov said he has the full support and understanding of the European Union and that Bulgaria is not in the wrong and should not suffer financial consequences for stopping the project, the Bulgarian news agency BGNES reports.

On December 17th, Bloomberg News bannered "Putin's Secret Gamble on Reserves Backfires Into Currency Crisis" and reported that,

"As President Putin exulted at the Winter Olympics in Sochi 10 months ago, aides assured him Russia was rich enough to withstand the financial repercussions from a possible incursion into Ukraine, according to two officials involved in the talks. That conclusion now looks like a grave miscalculation. Russia has driven interest rates to punishing levels and spent at least $87 billion, or 17 percent, of its foreign-exchange reserves trying to prevent a collapse in the ruble from spiraling into a panic. So far, nothing has worked."

The team of three Bloomberg news reporters write there that, "Putin now confronts the nation's most serious economic crisis since 1998," and that the reason is "Putin's pride." They say that, "When rising crude prices were firing the economy, Russia's swelling reserves became a symbol of economic might and a point of pride for Putin."

This pride by Putin, they assert, came to the fore when he discussed in February with his advisors the following question: "Could Russia afford the economic blowback from taking over Crimea?"

As Britain's Pakistani community mourns the massacre of 132 children in Tuesday's school siege, a British doctor with links to the Taliban is being investigated by Pakistan's intelligence service, suspected of involvement in the attack.

Former NHS surgeon Mirza Tariq Ali fled the UK last year. He is reported to have become a senior Pakistani Taliban commander after his attempts to join Islamic State in Syria were hindered.