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Convicted Goldman Sachs trader to teach economics

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:46 UTC
Fabrice
© Agence France-Presse
Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre is teaching economics at Chicago University as part of his PhD studies.
Just in case you thought for a second that the sorry discipline we call economics couldn't stoop any further into the gutter of academic idiocy and irrelevance, think again. It's now being reported that ex-Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre (recently convicted on six counts of securities fraud) will be teaching an honors economics class at the "prestigious" University of Chicago.

There's nothing like an esteemed University setting the already culturally accepted example that ethics are for suckers. Stealing, cheating and corruption are the values most exalted in today's world. It doesn't matter how you achieve your wealth, as long as you attain it. After all, it's not as if you'll ever get in trouble for it as long as you work for a "Too Big to Jail" bank.

From the UK's Independent:
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HAL9000

Russian Lukoil halts oil supplies to Ukraine's Odessa refinery

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:52 UTC
Ukraine Odessa refinery
© Unknown
A few days ago we reported that the Ukraine decided to call Russia's "trump card" bluff - that would be everyone else's reliance on Russian gas supplies - when it drastically cut imports of Russian gas by 80% in February, seemingly to demonstrate its energy independence from Puting. Now Russia has decided to take the Ukraine to task, by announcing it has halted oil deliveries to the Ukraine Odessa refinery.

Hopefully the Ukraine, whose foreign currency reserves tumbled from $17.9 billion on February 1 to $15 billion currently, has alternative means of supplying itself with energy from benevolent sources, particularly those who are willing to provide the country with oil in exchange for goodwill.
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Question

Ukraine calls Russia's bluff, slashes Russian gas imports by 80%

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:02 UTC
shot in the foot
© Unknown
Twice in recent years, Russia has suspended gas supplies, or notably raised prices, as the somewhat well-known "trump card" of Russia's oil and gas supply to Ukraine (and Europe for that matter) remains Putin's easiest option for clenching his iron-first against the divided nation. Following a pre-emptive move in November by Ukraine to diversify its energy supply, Russia had reduced the price of gas for the highly indebted Ukraine in December (to entice Ukraine under Russia's wing); but, after recent events, Dmitry Medvedev signaled on Monday that the price could be raised again. However, today we find that Ukraine's state oil and gas company, Naftogaz, has slashed gas imports from Russia's Gazprom by stunning 80% in February as Ukraine tries to show Russia it can't be pushed around... of course, with limited (and more expensive) alternative supplies, we fear this could well shoot them in the foot.

This action is similar to that taken in November (before the EU accession discussion)...
Russia and Ukraine waged two gas wars over prices in the winters of 2006 and 2009 (which lasted 3 weeks) over a claim Ukraine was late in paying.
...

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said that if Gazprom refuses to revise its contract, Ukraine would stop importing gas from Russia. In a step away from energy dependence on Russia, last week Ukraine signed a $10 billion shale gas deal with Chevron.

Ukraine is speeding up its effort to diversify its supply, and has looked at different exporters, fracking, new offshore projects in the Black Sea, as well as new LNG terminals and pipelines to diversify supply. Ukraine imports more than half of its gas from Russia, but under Viktor Yanukovich's leadership, has intentionally scaled down Gazprom imports 40 percent over 'unfair prices'.
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Gold Bar

Here is the FT's gold price manipulation article that was removed

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:39 UTC
Two days ago the FT released a clear, informative and fact-based article, titled simply enough "Gold price rigging fears put investors on alert" in which author Madison Marriage, citing a report by the Fideres consultancy, revealed that global gold prices may have been manipulated on 50 per cent of occasions between January 2010 and December 2013.

To those who hve been following the price action of gold in the past four years, gold manipulation is not only not surprising, but accepted and widely appreciated (because like the Chinese those who buy gold would rather do so at artificially low rather than artificially high fiat prices) and at this point, after every other product has been exposed to be blatantly and maliciously manipulated by the banking estate, it is taken for granted that the central banks' primary fiat alternative, and biggest threat to the monetary status quo, has not avoided a comparable fate.

What is surprising is that where the FT article once was, readers can now find only this:
FT Times gold article removed
© Financial Times
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Treasure Chest

Ukraine's sickness & Europe's cure

Eric Draitser
Boiling Frogs Post
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 09:18 UTC
Image
© Unknown“The specter of profit-seeking financiers with dollar signs in their eyes is all the Ukrainian people can expect”
The situation in Ukraine is evolving by the hour. Right wing ultranationalists and their "liberal" collaborators have taken control of the Rada (Ukrainian parliament) and deposed the democratically elected, though utterly corrupt and incompetent, President Yanukovich.

Former Prime Minister, and convicted criminal, Yulia Tymoshenko has been freed, and is now making common cause with Right Sector, Svoboda, and the other fascist elements, while the opposition's nominal leaders such as Arseny Yatsenyuk and Vitali Klitschko begin to fade into the background.

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin undoubtedly watches with anxiousness. In Washington, Victoria Nuland and the Obama administration rejoice. However, perhaps the most critical development of all is soon to emerge in Europe, as the forces of Western finance capital prepare to welcome Ukraine into the fold. They will come bearing the usual neoliberal gifts: austerity and "economic liberalization."
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Mr. Potato

Winning hearts and minds! Obama threatens Karzai with full US troop withdrawal


Press TV
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:15 UTC
Afghan President Hamid Karzai (R) and US President Barack Obama
© UnknownAfghan President Hamid Karzai (R) and US President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama warns his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that the US will pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan unless Kabul signs a controversial bilateral security deal.

President Obama conveyed the message in a recent phone call to Karzai, who has refused to sign the so-called bilateral security pact.
The latest conversation comes as Obama and Karzai have rarely spoken in recent months.
"President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA (Bilateral Security Agreement), the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning," the White House said in a statement.
"Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014. Furthermore, the longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 US mission will be smaller in scale and ambition," the statement added.

The Afghan president Karzai has delayed signing the pact despite repeated US and NATO warnings.

Comment: Threat or promise? A US withdrawal is what Afghanistan has been hoping for since the start of the US war on Afghanistan in October 2001.

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Pirates

Democracy murdered by protest - Ukraine falls to intrigue and violence

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Oriental Review
Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:59 UTC
Image
© TIMEDmitro Yarosh, the leader of Pravy Sektor, a coalition of ultra-nationalist groups in Ukraine, stands with some of his fighters at the scene of the worst clashes last month between the group’s fighters and police in Kiev.
Who's in charge? Certainly not the bought-and-paid-for-moderates that Washington and the EU hoped to install as the new government of Ukraine. The agreement that the Washington and EU supported opposition concluded with President Yanukovich to end the crisis did not last an hour. Even the former boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko, who was riding high as an opposition leader until a few hours ago has been booed by the rioters and shoved aside. The newly appointed president by what is perhaps an irrelevant parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov, has no support base among those who overthrew the government. As the BBC reports, "like all of the mainstream opposition politicians, Mr. Turchynov is not entirely trusted or respected by the protesters in Kiev's Independence Square."
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Chess

Putin orders 'combat readiness' tests for western, central Russian troops


RT
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:44 UTC
Russian military column
© RIA Novosti / Pavel LisitsynA Russian column of tracked armored vehicles
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an urgent military drill to test the combat readiness of the armed forces across western and central Russia. The drill included troops dealing with mock security and terrorist threats.

The surprise drill tested ground troops, Air Force, airborne troops and aerospace defense, according to Russia's Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu.

Putin ordered to "test combat readiness of troops in dealing with crisis situations that threaten the military security of the country, as well as with antiterrorist, sanitary and epidemiological, or technogenic situations," Shoigu said.

According to the Defense Minister, the drill, which started at 14:00 GMT, will be held from February 26 until March 3 in two stages. The second stage involves an opposing-force exercise with the participation of Russia's Northern and Baltic fleet and bomb strike drills.

Comment: Putin has learned not to trust the Western leaders. The deal that the Ukrainian president made with the opposition and some EU leaders were violated before the ink was dry. The Georgian war in 2008 was also only stopped due to the preparedness of the Russian troops.

The West has since the fall of the Soviet Union grossly violated the agreements that it signed with Gorbachev and has had no respect for Russian strategic interests. So Putin is justified in being on guard.

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Pirates

Flashback New pogroms coming thanks to U.S.? Thousands march to honor Nazi collaborator in Kiev

Nataliya Vasilyeva
Times of Israel
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 08:22 UTC
Image
© AP/Sergei ChuzavkovNew pogroms coming? Ukrainian nationalists carry torches during a rally in downtown Kiev, Ukraine, early January.
Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists encouraged locals to 'destroy' Jews and Poles in the 1940s

About 15,000 people marched through Kiev on Wednesday night to honor Stepan Bandera, glorified by some as a leader of Ukraine's liberation movement and dismissed by others as a Nazi collaborator.

The march was held in Ukraine's capital on what would have been Bandera's 105th birthday, and many of the celebrants carried torches.

Some wore the uniform of a Ukrainian division of the German army during World War II. Others chanted "Ukraine above all!" and "Bandera, come and bring order!"

However, many of Bandera's followers sought to play down his collaboration with the Germans in the fight for Ukraine's independence as the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukraine's foremost nationalist organization in the first half of the 20th century.

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Cult

'Our terrorists': U.S. removes Syria's al-Nusra Front leader from terror list


Press TV
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 07:52 UTC
Syrian militants
© UnknownThis file photo shows several foreign-backed militants in Syria.

The United States has removed the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front militant group in Syria from its blacklist of most wanted terrorist organizations, a report says.

The US Justice Department removed Abu Mohammad al-Julani, head of the al-Nusra Front, the branch of al-Qaeda fighting against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, from its most wanted terrorist list, the report said.

In December 2013, Washington blacklisted the Al-Nusra Front for taking responsibility for most of the terrorist bombings in Syria.

Foreign-sponsored militancy in Syria, which erupted in March 2011, has claimed the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel.

The West has been widely criticized for its double standards when it comes to dealing with terrorist groups.

While al-Qaeda-linked groups have been listed as terrorist entities under sanctions by the United Nations, militants in Syria, including those belonging to al-Nusra Front, have been receiving all forms of support from the West.

Al-Nusra Front has been behind many of the deadly bombings targeting both civilians and government institutions across Syria since the beginning of the violence.

More than 100,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in Syria. The prolonged militancy has also forced millions of Syrians to flee their homes.

Comment: Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda are both Western creations to justify aggressive foreign invasions in the name of fighting terrorism and also serves as convenient mercenary forces to create instability in independent countries, where regime change is desired.

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