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The Pentagon goes nuclear on Russia

Pepe Escobar
RT.com
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 19:36 UTC
Missiles
© Reuters/Hamad I Mohammed
We all remember how, in early June, President Putin announced that Russia would deploy more than 40 new ICBMs "able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems."

Oh dear; the Pentagon and their European minions have been freaking out on overdrive ever since.

First was NATO Secretary-General, Norwegian figurehead Jens Stoltenberg, who condemned it as "nuclear saber rattling."

Then there's Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, the head of US Global Air Strike Command - as in the man responsible for US ICBMs and nuclear bombers - at a recent briefing in London; "[They've] annexed a country, changing international borders, raising rhetoric unlike we've heard since the cold war times..."

That set up the stage for the required Nazi parallel; "Some of the actions by Russia recently we haven't seen since the 1930s, when whole countries were annexed and borders were changed by decree."

At His Masters Voice's command, the EU duly extended economic sanctions against Russia.And right on cue, Pentagon supremo Ashton Carter, out of Berlin, declared that NATO must stand up against - what else - "Russian aggression" and "their attempts to re-establish a Soviet-era sphere of influence."

Bets are off on what this huffin' and puffin' is all about. It could be about Russia daring to build a whole country close to so many NATO bases. It could be about a bunch of nutters itching to start a war on European soil to ultimately "liberate" all that precious oil, gas and minerals from Russia and the Central Asian "stans".

Unfortunately, the whole thing is deadly serious.
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Eye 1

GCHQ ruled guilty of illegal spying on human rights groups


RT
Mon, 22 Jun 2015 15:54 UTC
GCHQ
© twitter.com
Her Majesty's Government's Signal Intelligence site, otherwise known as Government Communications Headquarters
Two human rights groups were spied on illegally by British security agency GCHQ, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has ruled after the groups lodged formal complaints.

GCHQ was found guilty of keeping hold of emails for longer than is legally permissible and violated its own internal procedures, the IPT ruled. The IPT, however, ruled that the initial interception of mail from both the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the South African non-profit Legal Resources Centre was legal.

"The tribunal is concerned that steps should be taken to ensure that neither of the breaches of procedure referred to in this determination occurs again," the IPT ruling said. "For the avoidance of doubt, the tribunal makes it clear that it will be making a closed report to the prime minister."


Comment: A closed report? Why not an open report? Now they respect privacy? Of course, it is theirs...


Their case was brought to the tribunal following NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations of mass surveillance practices by US and UK authorities.

Comment: May the evil eye of the borg never be allowed to cast its gaze upon you and assimilate your information! Beware resistance is futile. The IPT ruling in favor of the NGOs may just be an act of throwing scraps to appease the mounting outrage.

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Георгиевская ленточка

Russia trade minister: Sanctions have created favorable conditions for Russian industry


RT
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:24 UTC
Image
© Kremlin
Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov
The sanctions have multiple advantages for Russia, as they motivate companies to turn to domestically produced goods and boost the economy, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told RT.

"I don't want to sound cynical, but since I'm in charge of the real sector of the economy, in charge of the Russian industry, I can say we've actually benefited in more ways than one from sanctions imposed last year," said Manturov at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum (SPIEF), adding that before the sanctions were put into effect Russian companies paid less attention to domestic products.

"...now sanctions provided them [companies and consumers - Ed.] with additional motivation, and they are turning to Russian companies. This generates demand for the Russian industry. So, to me, this was an advantage, in a sense," he added.

Although it became harder to attract funds from Western markets because of the limitations, they, in turn, stimulate Russian banks and the Central Bank to lower interest rates and to provide loans on a competitive basis for Russian companies, Manturov said.
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Stormtrooper

Chechen leader: Nemtsov assassination masterminded by U.S. special services


RT
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:16 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti / Said Tsarnaev
Head of Chechna Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Kadyrov has told reporters that the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov could have been masterminded by US and Ukrainian special services, with the help of Chechen terrorists.

"I hold that the traces of this crime should be looked for not in Chechnya but in Ukraine's State Security Service and further in the United States," Interfax news agency quoted Kadyrov as saying Thursday.

The Chechen leader also said that there were many preconditions, hinting at the possibility that Nemtsov's murder could have been organized by Adam Osmayev, an ethnic Chechen who was heading one of the volunteer units fighting on the side of pro-Kiev forces in the military conflict in southeast Ukraine. Kadyrov added: "Osmayev has been working for Western special services and he knows very well how to get rid of a person who causes problems."

"The organizers of the murder used Nemtsov for their own purposes and then killed him, and now they are seeking to shift the blame on somebody," Kadyrov explained.

Comment: See:

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Bullseye

EU sanctions backlash: Russia considers banning chocolate and flower imports from EU


RT
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:59 UTC
flower fields, russia embargo
© Reuters / Yves Herman
After Monday's extension of EU sanctions, Russia wants to prolong and expand its food embargo. This may include flowers and chocolate, said Russian food watchdog spokesman Aleksey Alekseenko in an interview with Gazeta.ru.

The EU sanctions extension against Russia came into force on Tuesday and will remain until 31 January 2016.

Russia was quick to react to the EU decision Monday with the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordering his chief of staff to ask President Putin for an extension of Russian counter-sanctions.

"Many other countries are willing to supply us flowers, and in this case our industry in the area will begin to slowly recover should there be an embargo. Also, there have been calls for a long time to import flowers from Latin America directly rather than from the Netherlands," Rosselkhoznadzor's Alekseenko said in an interview published Tuesday.

Comment: It appears the enormous pressure the US has brought to bear on the EU will continue to exacerbate their economic woes while aiding Russia in developing it's domestic manufacturing and agricultural sectors.

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Eye 2

Dylann Roof and U.S.-backed neo-Nazis in Kiev: America's white supremacists at home and abroad

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 16:17 UTC
Image

Screenshot from the alleged shooter's first court hearing
Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old killer who shot dead nine African American worshippers in a bible study class, is a self-declared Neo-Nazi white supremacist. Photographs and writings from his social media websites show the young white man revelling in racial hatred and paying homage to the Apartheid regimes of former South Africa and the German Third Reich. Roof foretold in blood-curdling words how he was going to «save the white race» by carrying out his act of mass murder in the African American church in Charleston, South Carolina. In other words, this American Nazi would be right at home in the company of the paramilitary armies that the US-backed Kiev regime has unleashed in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, the American media have played down the facts of the Neo-Nazi and white supremacist «volunteer brigades» that have launched a terror war on the ethnic Russian population since April 2014. As American journalist Robert Parry has extensively pointed out, the US media, led by the so-called newspaper of record, the New York Times, have willfully ignored the reality of the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi paramilitaries. Even though these brigades are an integral part of the Kiev regime's fighting force in east Ukraine and even though these paramilitary foot soldiers and their commanders openly espouse Neo-Nazi slogans, white supremacist views, and Third Reich regalia and insignia - the American, and Western media generally, have declined to report on the grim reality of these Ukrainian regime forces and their criminality against ethnic Russian civilians.

Since the Western-backed Kiev regime launched its so-called «anti-terror operation» on the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, more than 6,000 people have been killed. Most the victims have been innocent civilians, women, and children. Over a million people have been displaced from their homes because of the violence, a violence which has reignited in recent weeks and threatens to sweep away the shaky ceasefire that was brokered in February 2015 by Russia, Germany and France.

Comment: It should be no surprise that we see individuals in the U.S. emulating the very same actions that the U.S. government engages in. Willful murdering of innocent civilians is what the U.S. is supporting in Ukraine and many other countries around the world, so why shouldn't people like Dylann Roof think it's normal to do the same at home?

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Chess

Countermoves: Russian military to order major research to counter 'color revolutions'


RT
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:07 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti / Ekaterina Shtukina
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has told reporters that the military will sponsor a major research of coups conducted through mass protest - so called 'color revolutions' - to prevent the situations that Russia faced in 1991 and 1993.

"Some people say that the military should not be involved in political processes, some say the direct opposite. We will order a study on the phenomenon of color revolutions and the military's role in their prevention," Shoigu told the participants of the Army-2015 political forum Friday.

"We have no right to allow the repetitions of the collapses of 1991 and 1993," he said. "How to do it is another story, but it is clear that we must deal with the situation. We must understand how to prevent this and how to teach the younger generation so that it supported the calm and gradual development of our country."

The minister added that the consequences of color revolutions can be now observed in many Arab nations and also in Serbia. He also said that the Ukrainian crisis that started in 2014 also was "a major tragedy in the row of color revolutions."

Comment: Let's see... Just to maintain its sovereignty and existence as a viable state, Russia has had to respond to Western economic attacks - both overt and covert, military encirclement and encroaching threats, vicious propaganda stemming from false flag murder, and attempts to subvert its will to independence from within via 'color revolution'. It is battling a relentless cold war on multiple fronts - and must be on top of its game at all times so that it can survive. Take heart and a little pleasure though in the fact that none of these attempts by the West have been working very well. But my aren't they persistent in trying!

See: Meet Alexei Navalny: The U.S. State Department's inside man for 'regime change' in Russia

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TV

South Front Crisis News 23 June: Ukrainian Defense Ministry Aid joins DPR militias


South Front
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 15:14 UTC
South Front
An aide to Ukraine's Defense Minister, Aleksandr Kolomiyets, has joined the forces of the Donetsk People's Republic. "I am Aleksandr Kolomiyets, a major-general of the Ukrainian Armed Force, and my latest position was that of a chief military analyst and aide to the Ukrainian defense minister," he told a news conference at the Donetsk News Agency. Many of his former fellow servicemen, too, were prepared to join the republics' militias, he said.


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



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Dollar

Ron Paul: Sino-Russian currency will dethrone dollar


Press TV
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 23:54 UTC
Image
Former US congressman Ron Paul says Washington's increasing pressure on Moscow might force Russia and China to make a new currency to dethrone the US dollar.

In an article published on his website on Sunday, the former presidential candidate explained that President Vladimir Putin would react to the Obama administration's anti-Russia policies.

"Continued economic pressure from the West may very well necessitate a Sino-Russian monetary arrangement that will eventually dethrone the dollar," Paul wrote.

"The end result of this needless bullying by the United States will hasten the one thing Washington fears the most: a world monetary system in which the US has no say and the dollar is relegated to playing second fiddle," he added.
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Quenelle

NATO is the root cause of Europe's migrant crisis

Danielle Ryan
Russia Insider
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:11 UTC
Aleppo, Syria _1
© Reuters/Jalal Al-Mamo
Aleppo, Syria.
The scale of the migrant crisis Europe is facing today cannot be understated. It is truly unprecedented. What is habitually understated, however — and in fact almost completely ignored by mainstream media — are the real roots of the crisis.

The debate around migration into the EU is happening nearly entirely without reference to the causes of the recent influx of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The elephant in the room is NATO and nobody really wants to talk about it.

Hundreds of articles, laden down with numbers and proposals and predictions fail to make any direct link between cause and effect. News anchors sit seemingly baffled, mouths agape, at the apocalyptic-like pictures they are seeing land on their desks, and yet few are willing to draw the appropriate conclusions. But it is such a basic and logical connection that it's hard to believe it is not being made very loudly and very persistently.

Comment: Also see: Why Europe lets people drown

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