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US State Department orders diplomats out of Lebanon


Press TV
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:39 UTC
Department of state
© Unknown
The US State Department on Friday ordered non- emergency embassy staff in the Lebanese capital Beirut to leave the country amid security concerns due to a possible US-led military strike on neighboring Syria.

The State Department warned Americans to avoid all travel to Lebanon due to what it described as the high risk of violence around Lebanon's border with Syria.

"The potential in Lebanon for a spontaneous upsurge in violence remains," the department said.

"The ongoing conflict in Syria has also resulted in numerous security incidents between the border regions between Lebanon and Syria and coincides with an increasing number of security incidents around the country."

The department also cautioned that "the ability of US government personnel to reach travelers or provide emergency services may be severely limited."
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Gold Bar

Counterfeit gold bars discovered in New York City

Vignesh Ramachandran
NBCNews.com
Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:31 UTC
counterfeit gold bars
© Pascal Lauener / Reuters
Sophisticated counterfeit manufacturers purchase real gold bars like these, hollow them out and fill them with cheaper tungsten.
Jewelry merchants in New York City are finding out they have to be more careful that they're not inadvertently buying fake gold.

The issue of counterfeit gold is re-emerging after a reputable merchant in Manhattan discovered he'd bought $100,000 worth of fake gold bars, WNYW reported.

When merchant Ibrahim Fadl drilled into several of the gold bars he'd bought from a regular source, he discovered they were actually filled with gray tungsten.

Whoever is making the fake gold bars seems to be running a complex operation.

"I can't imagine how they cut the bar clean, and cut, and took everything inside out and left the shell to fit the tungsten in," Fadl told NY1 News.
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Propaganda

Why is the BBC banging the war drum in Syria? Just look who runs it!


Scriptonite Daily
Tue, 03 Sep 2013 09:37 UTC
who runs bbc
The BBC flagship news programmes, news channel, online news service and radio news outlets have spent several days in constant hysteria about the probability of a second vote on Syria, after parliament rejected military intervention last week. Why is the BBC obsessively attempting to answer a question only they are asking? A look at the interests and characters running the organisation help explain their seemingly rabid hunger for war.

Who Runs the BBC?

The BBC Trust is responsible for granting licenses to all BBC outlets and stations, managing value for money on license fee payments and 'the direction of BBC editorial and creative output'. The Trust consists of 12 Trustees and is headed by Lord Patten.
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Penis Pump

Saudis' big push to equip rebels before airstrikes

Hugh Tomlinson
The Times
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 07:30 UTC
Syrian refugees
© Galiya Gubaeva/UNHCR
Refugees are pouring over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan

The CIA is supervising fresh weapons consignments from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to Syria's rebels to help them to capitalise on a US bombing offensive that could start next week.

Free Syrian Army co-ordinators in the Gulf say they are in urgent talks with Arab states to secure fresh shipments of anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles and conventional small arms. With American air cover, the rebels are intent on taking advantage of the first period of air superiority they have had during the 30-month conflict.

One Syrian opposition representative said: "We are talking to our Arab allies and working on the Syrian border to get this done. This is a one-off opportunity and we have to make it count."

Security sources in the Gulf confirmed the Saudi plans, which are being co-ordinated with Qatar, Turkey and Jordan and overseen by the CIA.

Comment: The autocratic and medieval great democratic kingdom of Saudi Arabia spreading death and destruction freedom and democracy to Syria along with its allies, the CIA, al-qaeda, al-nusra and a plethora of mercenary groups.

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Pumpkin

Putin is a tosser, says outspoken Tory MP in a tissy

Philippe Naughton, and Francis Elliott
The Times
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 07:07 UTC
Putin and Cameron
© Grigory Dukor/Reuters
Vladimir Putin welcomes David Cameron to the St Petersburg summit


A Tory MP was sticking to his guns today after calling President Putin a "tosser" during the G20 summit.

Henry Smith, the outspoken MP for Crawley, made the spectacularly undiplomatic comment on Twitter after reports that Mr Putin's spokesman had called Britain "just a small island" to which nobody paid any attention.

"Putin really is a tosser," he wrote.

Asked to defend the remark by his local newspaper, the Crawley News, Mr Smith explained that he had been constrained by Twitter's 140-character limit -- even though he actually had 115 characters left unused.

"Trying to get a serious point across in 140 characters is always a bit of a challenge," he said, "but I really think there is a serious point here, that the Putin regime in Russia breaches human rights in its own country and it is prolonging he suffering of the Syrian people by refusing to act.

"The way he is insulting our country at the G20 summit is unacceptable. He is just this absurd character who is responsible for some serious breaches of human rights.


Comment: Putin's crime is demanding evidence, so instead of looking a fool because no evidence is there, then better attack the person and resort to name calling.


Comment: And not to forget: A nation steep in war crimes and built on pillage from colonial rape and plunder. Something that only benefited the British aristocracy as the general population were kept the working poor.

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Stormtrooper

75,000 troops needed to secure chemical weapons if Damascus falls


RT
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 05:58 UTC
US troops
© Reuters/Hugh Gentry
The potential of strategic US strikes in Syria has sparked fears Damascus' chemical weapons could fall into the wrong hands if the government is toppled. A recent congressional report says 75,000 troops would be needed to safeguard the WMD caches.

The Congressional Research Center (CRS) report, issued just one day before the alleged August 21 chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, was compiled with the aim of "responding to possible scenarios involving the use, change of hands, or loss of control of Syrian chemical weapons."

It states that Syria's chemical weapon stockpiles, which a French intelligence report recently estimated at over 1,000 tons, have been secured by Syrian special forces.

"Due to the urgency of preventing access to these weapons by unauthorized groups, including terrorists, the United States government has been preparing for scenarios to secure the weapons in the event of the Assad regime's loss of control," the document reads

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 7, 2012, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned the ouster of Assad would present a scenario "100 times worse than what we dealt with in Libya."
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Vader

Dogs of war versus the emerging caravan

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 05:27 UTC
Dogs of war
© Unknown
The dogs of war bark and the emerging-powers caravan ... keeps on trucking. That's the Group of 20 meeting in St Petersburg in a nutshell. Count on the indispensable (bombing) nation - via US President Barack "Red Line" Obama - to disrupt a summit whose original agenda was to tackle the immense problems afflicting the global economy.

Economy is for suckers. Get me to my Tomahawk on time. The Obama doctrine - Yes We Scan, Yes We Drone - reached a new low with its Yes We Bomb "solution" to the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, Syria, presenting world public opinion in the run-up towards the G-20 with the illusionist spectacle of a "debate" in the US Senate about the merits of a new bout of humanitarian bombing.
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Airplane Paper

Obama's war continues: US drone kills 6 militants in Pakistan


AP
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 04:58 UTC
US drone program
© AP
A Predator B unmanned aircraft taxis at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, in November 2011.
Peshawar: Pakistan intelligence officials say a pair of missiles launched by a US drone hit a militant hideout near the Afghan border and killed six suspected militants.

The officials say the missile hit a sprawling compound after midnight Thursday near the border town of Ghulam Khan in the North Waziristan tribal region.

They say the identity and nationality of the slain men was not immediately known.

The officials spoke on Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

North Waziristan is a tribal region home to a mix of Pakistani, Afghan and al-Qaida-linked foreign militants.

The US drone program has caused extreme tension between Pakistan and the United States. Washington says it needs to use the unmanned aircraft because Pakistan refuses to engage fighters militarily.

Comment: The US undeclared war on Pakistan continues unhindered against civilians suspected militants.

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Bullseye

Indian PM: Any action in Syria should be within UN framework

Manmohan Singh
The Times of India
Fri, 06 Sep 2013 04:36 UTC
BRICS leaders at G20 Summit
© Sergei Karpukhin / reuters
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (left) talks to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Jacob Zuma as they pose for a picture after a BRICS leaders' meeting at the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
St Petersburg: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that whatever action is required in Syria should be under the UN framework, amid growing pressure on US President Barack Obama from his Russian counterpart and other world leaders not to attack the Arab country.

The Syrian issue dominated a long dinner meeting of G20 leaders including Obama on Thursday night hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of the first day's deliberations during which Singh made an intervention.

Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that it was also the Prime Minister's view that the world community should wait for the report of the UN inspectors on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The Prime Minister also told his fellow G20 leaders that India condemns the use of chemical weapons whether in Syria or anywhere in the world, Ahluwalia, who was present at the dinner meeting, told reporters here.

Singh also told the leaders that one needs to be certain what has happened in Syria even if there is some probability of use of chemical weapons.
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Dollars

Watchdog: Fannie, Freddie Mask Billions in Losses


FoxBusiness
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 04:29 UTC
fannie-freddie
© AP Photos
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are masking billions of dollars losses because of the level of delinquent home loans they carry, a federal watchdog said in an internal report, and it said the companies should be required immediately to recognize the costs of some bad mortgages.

The report, written by the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency and reviewed by Reuters, said the FHFA's timeframe for mortgage finance companies Fannie and Freddie to have up to two years to recognize the cost of mortgages delinquent at least 180 days was "inordinately long."

The change in the accounting treatment of these delinquent loans potentially could require Fannie and Freddie, which have rebounded to enormous profitability in the past two years as the housing market recovered, to "charge off billions of additional dollars related to loans," the inspector general's report stated.

The FHFA, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said the two are on track to implement the new standards within the next two years, and in a letter sent to the inspector general said it views the potential losses "to be reasonable."
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