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Wikileaks docs show NSA conducted economic espionage on France


RT
Mon, 29 Jun 2015 18:46 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Jim Urquhart
A National Security Agency (NSA) data gathering facility is seen in Bluffdale, about 25 miles (40 km) south of Salt Lake City
Washington has been leading a policy of economic espionage against France for more than a decade by intercepting communications of the Finance minister and all corporate contracts valued at more than $200 million, according to a new WikiLeaks report.

The revelations come in line with the ongoing publications of top secret documents from the US surveillance operations against France, dubbed by the whistleblowing site "Espionnage Élysée."

The Monday publications consist of seven top secret documents which detail the American National Security Agency's (NSA) economic espionage operations against Paris.

According to the WikiLeaks report, "NSA has been tasked with obtaining intelligence on all aspects of the French economy, from government policy, diplomacy, banking and participation in international bodies to infrastructural development, business practices and trade activities."

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Play

South Front Crisis News 30 June: 75,000 Kiev militants in Donbass


South Front
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 18:22 UTC
south front
Kiev has a grouping of 75,000 servicemen in the conflict zone in Donbass, head of Lugansk People's Republic Igor Plotnitsky told a briefing at LuganskInformCenter on Monday. Yesterday, the defence ministry of the Donetsk People's Republic reported that it registered the redeployment of tanks and Ukrainian troops to the town of Maryinka from Kurahovo. Ukrainian artillery positions of eight self-propelled artillery weapons found in the outskirt of the town of Ostroye. In Maryinka, protected artillery positions of these weapons were registered too.


Comment: Foreign Policy Diary: The New War of Transnistria:



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Star of David

Israel admits it is assisting Syrian rebels in overthrowing Assad

Raphael Ahren
Times of Israel
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 17:58 UTC
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© Diana Hananshvili/Defense Ministry
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon attends an IDF exercise on May 7, 2015
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Monday that Israel has been providing aid to Syrian rebels, thus keeping the Druze in Syria out of immediate danger. Israeli officials have previously balked at confirming on the record that the country has been helping forces that are fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.

During a briefing with Israel's diplomatic correspondents at the IDF's headquarters in Tel Aviv, Ya'alon said that Israel's ongoing humanitarian assistance to Syrian rebel fighters, a source of growing conflict between Israel and its own Druze population, safeguards the minority population in Syria.

"We've assisted them under two conditions," Ya'alon said of the Israeli medical aid to the Syrian rebels, some of whom are presumably fighting with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. "That they don't get too close to the border, and that they don't touch the Druze."


Comment: It's highly likely that Israel is providing more than medical assistance to the Syrian rebels.


The Druze on Israel's side of the Golan, Ya'alon charged, acted "irresponsibly" last week by attacking an Israeli ambulance carrying wounded Syrian rebel fighters. One person was killed and another wounded during what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed a "lynching." The person in the Israeli ambulance was not affiliated with the al-Nusra Front, and his death would provoke calls for revenge, Ya'alon asserted.
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Megaphone

Argentine newspaper: Putin behind the renaissance of Russia's influence


Sputnik
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 17:54 UTC
Image
© Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov
President Vladimir Putin helped to restore Russia, as well as the former influence of the Kremlin amid the European crisis, Argentinian newspaper Infobae wrote.

According to prominent Argentinian analyst and author Mariano Caucino, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, for many years Russia seemed to have lost its privileged position as a global player.

However, Russia's geographical location, stockpile of nuclear arms and veto rights in the UN Security Council, as well as Moscow's political, historical and energy influence point to the fact that the country is a world power.

The newspaper rhetorically asks who Vladimir Putin is: a hero who restored the superiority of Russia after the collapse of the USSR and national humiliation in the 1990s, or an "evil power" as Western media usually presents the Russian leader.
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Vader

Remember why they need us: UK police stage mock terror attack in London streets

Matt Chorley
Daily Mail
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:23 UTC
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Armed police, the military, SAS and spies are staging a mock 'marauding terrorist attack' on the streets of London today to test how emergency services deal with a deadly atrocity in the wake of the ISIS killings in Tunisia.

In the biggest exercise of its kind ever staged, Operation Strong Tower is a 'noisy and visible' practice run for more than 1,000 Met police, armed forces, transport workers and Whitehall officials.

In extraordinary scenes, volunteers posing as members of the public have been see with bloody wounds and fake severed limbs being lifted on stretchers by the emergency services.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Maxine de Brunner says the Met has never before put on an exercise of this magnitude and it was designed to be 'very realistic'.


Comment: The UK government is sure taking the opportunity to ramp up the fear factor in the populace and increase the population's desire for security:


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Arrow Down

Report: Israel killed, injured more civilians with explosive weapons than any other state

Rania Khalek
Electronic Intifada
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:33 UTC
damaged mosque gaza
© Mohammed Asad APA images
Damage caused by Israeli explosives remains visible in this mosque and many other buildings in Gaza.
Israel killed and injured more civilians with explosive weapons than any other state in the world in 2014 due to its military assault on Gaza. This is according to a new report by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), an organization that tracks the global impact of explosive weapons on civilians.

The report defines explosive weapons as "munitions such as air-dropped bombs, mortars, improvised explosive devices and artillery shells" which cause "deaths, injuries and damage by projecting explosive blast, heat and often fragmentation around a point of detonation."

While both state and non-state groups contributed to civilian casualties in 2014, states were responsible for 28 percent of civilian injuries and deaths, a sharp 17 percent rise from the previous year. This was due in large part to Israel's military assault on Gaza, which accounted for 44 percent of all explosive violence in 2014.

Comment: While Israel and its apologists continue to claim they do not deliberately target the civilian population, the facts speak otherwise:

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Star of David

Israel to fully encircle itself with completion of fortified fence


RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:34 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Juan Medina
The Security Cabinet of Israel has approved construction of new sections of the fortified fence on its border with Jordan. When finished, it will fence Israel off from the outside world completely.

The cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to finalize fortification of the national borders with constructing a barrier on the remaining parts of the frontier.

The 30km border fence running north of the port of Eilat in the southern part of the Red Sea is supposed to prevent African migrants and "armed jihadi infiltrators" from entering Israel via Jordan, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu stressed that the fence will be constructed exclusively on Israeli territory, "without in any way harming the sovereignty or national interests of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan."


Comment: As if Netanyahu cares at all about harming the sovereignty of anyone. Puh-leeze!

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Hardhat

Who needs the West? China begins construction of gas pipeline to Russia


RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:14 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Sergei Karpukhin
China has officially started construction of its section of the eastern gas pipeline route known as the Power of Siberia that'll deliver up to 38 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually.

The welding of the first joint on the pipeline was part of the opening ceremony in China Monday. It was held near the Chinese city of Heihe of the northern Heilongjiang province bordering Russia. The pipeline will stretch as far as Shanghai.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took part via a video link. He called the pipeline the world's biggest infrastructure project.

The Vice Premier of the State Council of China Zhang Gaoli also took part in the ceremony via video link. He said that such large-scale projects are a good foundation for promoting a strategic partnership between the two countries and for social and economic progress.

The Power of Siberia gas pipeline is due to become fully operational in 2018 and will link with the Chinese gas infrastructure already in place, according to government papers.

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Yoda

Strengthening alliance: China to build joint Chinese-Russian dairy farm


RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:09 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti / Vitaly Timkiv
China has started to build a joint Chinese-Russian livestock agricultural complex. A hundred thousand cows are planned to be bred in a project costing one billion Yuan.

The farm is being set up in the Chinese city of Mudanjiang with production supplied to the Russian market, Zhang Chuntszyao, chairman of the Association of Applied Economics of the Heilongjiang Province told Interfax on Monday.

China's Zhongding Dairy Farming and Russia's Severny Bur are participating in the project. Feed for the cattle will be grown on 100,000 hectares of land in China and Russia.

Earlier this month, China's Huae Sinban Company inked an agreement to lease 115,000 hectares of land in Russia's Transbaikal region for agriculture. The company is expected to invest some $450 million into the project over the next 50 years. The deal has caused much discussion in Russia over its legacy and necessity. Huae Sinban plans to lease up to 200,000 hectares in Russia should the first stage of the project in 2015-2018 prove to be a success.

Last week Russia prolonged its ban on imports of various foods from the EU, US, Australia, Norway and Canada, including milk and milk products, till August 2016. This was in reaction to the EU extending its economic sanctions against Russia for another six months and against Crimea for another year.
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Network

The West moves East: China to invest in reviving EU economy

Chen Yue
English CCTV
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:54 UTC
Image
© Xinhua/Yao Dawei
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech during the European Union (EU)-China Business Summit in Brussels, Belgium, June 29, 2015. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker also attended the summit.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said here Monday that China is considering to kick start a China-EU investment platform to support Europe's economic revival.

Addressing the opening ceremony of an European Union(EU)-China business summit, the visiting Chinese premier said his country is willing to interface with the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI), a 315 billion-euro investment plan initiated by President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker for resuscitating Europe's economy and in particular building large infrastructure.

Seeing the China-EU relationship as one of the most important, stable and constructive relationships in the world, Li proposed to combine China's comparative advantages in production capacity and equipment manufacturing with the advanced technology of European economies.

He called on the two sides to join hands in exploring third-party markets with cooperation in priority areas such as equipment manufacturing.

China and the EU should carry out more advanced financial cooperation in a bid to meet the demand of industrial investments, said Li.

China, he added, will expand its purchase of bonds issued by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and improve the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) system.
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