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David Cameron's public school cronyism dominating Downing Street

Rowena Mason
The Guardian
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 11:01 UTC
Image
© David Jones/PA
Lady Warsi's mock newspaper poster is unlikely to be happy reading in Downing Street.
A senior Conservative minister has held up a sign suggesting there needs to be an end to the "Eton mess" at the heart of Downing Street, in a reference to the public school backgrounds of David Cameron and many of his top advisers.

In a gift to Labour and Ukip, Lady Warsi, a former chairman of the Conservative party, appeared on ITV's Agenda programme holding up a mocked up newspaper headline reading "Number 10 takes Eton Mess off the agenda".

The fake front page is meant to be a light-hearted feature within the programme, but is likely to infuriate No 10 days after Michael Gove, the education secretary, attacked the "preposterous" number of Etonians in the prime minister's inner circle.

Warsi told the programme: "Michael was making an incredibly serious point that it can't be right that the 7% of kids who go to independent school end up at the top tables, not just of politics, but banking and law and every other profession, and that what Michael wants to create is a first class, world class state system which means that in future years you will have more pupils from state schools, people like me, around the cabinet table, and in that I fully support Michael Gove."
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Alarm Clock

Fear mongering ramps up after Ukrainian officer killed in confrontation outside base in Simferopol

Kim Sengupta
The Independent
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 10:46 UTC
Image
© EPA/Jakub Kaminski
A man shows his shirt with the Russian emblem as he celebrates the results of the Crimean referendum at the Lenin Square in Simferopol.
Fears were growing that widespread violence would erupt in the aftermath of Russia's annexation of Crimea, as former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of growing regional tensions.

Clinton called Russia's move to annex Crimea "illegal" and "a violation of international law" and said that other countries near Russia could also face aggression if President Vladimir Putin is allowed to get away with his actions in Ukraine.

"If he's allowed to get away with that, I think you'll see a lot of other countries either directly facing Russian aggression or suborned with their political systems so that they are so intimidated that in effect they are transformed into vassals, not sovereign democracies," Clinton said at an event hosted by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal at the Palais des Congres.

She argued for sanctions against Russia and increased financial and technical support for a democratic government in Kiev.

It came as a Ukrainian officer was killed in a confrontation in Simferopol, just hours after the Russian president delivered an incendiary speech justifying Moscow's reclamation of the former Ukrainian territory.
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War Whore

Election time: Turkey shoots down Syrian jet


Voice of Russia
Sun, 23 Mar 2014 10:43 UTC
Syrian plane shot down
© AFP
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday congratulated the military for downing a Syrian warplane near its border and warned of a "heavy" response if its airspace was violated.

"Our response from now will be heavy if you violate our airspace," Erdogan said during an election rally, referring to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

"I congratulate the chief of general staff, the armed forces and those honourable pilots... I congratulate our air forces," said the premier.

Syria on Sunday accused its northern neighbour of "flagrant aggression" after Turkish forces shot down the warplane as it bombarded rebels near the border.

Turkish media reported that the army warned two Syrian jets approaching the border to turn away, but scrambled its F-16 jets when one refused to abide by the warning.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the plane was striking the northern province of Latakia when it was hit, catching fire and crashing in Syrian territory.

Turkish warplanes last year downed a Syrian helicopter, which Ankara said was detected two kilometres inside Turkish airspace.

Turkey toughened its rules of engagement after the downing of one of its fighter jets by the Syrian air force in June 2012, to say that any military approach of the Turkish border from Syria would be considered a threat.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday his country's armed forces had shot down a Syrian jet after it violated Turkish airspace, confirming media reports.

"A Syrian plane violated our airspace. Our F-16s took off and hit this plane. Why? because if you violate my airspace, our slap after this will be hard," he told a rally of his supporters in northwest Turkey ahead of March 30 local elections.
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Cardboard Box

Germans intercept condom-packaged cocaine headed to the Vatican


Associated Press
Sun, 23 Mar 2014 07:59 UTC
Vatican
© Fitsnews

The drug haul was unremarkable, but the destination raised eyebrows.

German weekly, Bild am Sonntag, reported Sunday that customs officials intercepted a cocaine shipment destined for the Vatican in January.

Officers at Leipzig airport found 12 ounces of the drug packed into 14 condoms inside a shipment of cushions coming from South America.

The paper says the package was simply addressed to the Vatican postal office, meaning any of the Catholic mini-state's 800 residents could have picked it up.

Citing a German customs report, the paper adds that a sting operation arranged with Vatican police didn't lure a possible recipient. The drugs would have a street value of several tens of thousands of euros (dollars).

Neither German customs nor the Vatican could be immediately reached for comment.
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Megaphone

'Colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing': UN rapporteur on Palestine blasts Israel


RT
Sat, 22 Mar 2014 10:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Ammar Awad
A Palestinian man reacts as he sits atop rubble after his home was demolished in Jabel Mukaber, a village in the suburbs of East Jerusalem
The UN Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestine accused Israeli authorities of conducting colonialist policies that constitute forms of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Speaking at a news conference at the UN European headquarters in Geneva on Friday, the UN Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestine, Richard Falk, accused Israel of pushing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and creating unbearable conditions for the minority to force them to immigrate.

Falk, an ethnic Jewish expert in international law and professor emeritus at Princeton University, told journalists that Israeli policies have "unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing."

In the present situation where talks between Israel and Palestinian authority remain in deadlock, the acceleration of Israeli settlement construction in the occupied territories is causing Palestinians to lose their faith that a state of their own could ever be created.
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Gingerbread

Famous last words: Putin has 'lost Ukraine for good' says Tymoshenko


AFP
Fri, 21 Mar 2014 08:08 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo/Peter Muhly
Yulia Tymoshenko addresses the media during a press conference at the European People's Party Congress at the Dublin Convention Centre in Dublin on March 6, 2014
Russian president Vladimir Putin has "lost Ukraine for good" with his move to annex Crimea, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Friday in her first live television appearance since returning to the country.

Tymoshenko, who spent three years in jail on what she said were politically motivated charges before being freed last month, appealed to fellow Ukrainians to be ready to fight in the event of a Russian invasion.

"Putin has lost Ukraine forever after declaring war on us," said the leader of the 2004 pro-Western Orange Revolution as she appeared on a live talk show in her trademark blonde plaits.
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USA

Ukraine: "It's What They Do For A Living"

William Blum
Anti-Empire Report
Sat, 08 Mar 2014 09:05 UTC
Image

I invited the North Atlantic Council to visit Kiev and hold a meeting there,” newly-installed Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk said when he met with NATO Secretary General EU officials. “We believe that it will strengthen our cooperation.”
When it gets complicated and confusing, when you're overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory ... try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.

The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it's what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court ... all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or irony.

And who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate's hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn't imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)
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Dollar

Dem. Lawmakers question lack of prosecutions for mortgage fraud

Aruna Viswanatha
The Raw Story
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 13:58 UTC
Image
© Reuters
Three Democratic lawmakers asked to discuss with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder the Department of Justice's allegedly uneven efforts to prosecute mortgage fraud, according to a letter dated Monday.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and representatives Elijah Cummings and Maxine Waters are seeking an audience with Holder over a new watchdog report that said the FBI ranked mortgage fraud as a low threat after the height of the financial crisis, even though the Justice Department had said investigating that crime would be a top priority.

"This report calls into question the Department's commitment to investigate and prosecute crimes such as predatory lending, loan modification scams, and abusive mortgage servicing practices," the three lawmakers wrote of the report released last week by the Justice Department's inspector general.

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Brick Wall

The US quietly expands their Cold War "shield"

Manlio Dinucci
Voltaire Network
Sun, 23 Mar 2014 06:49 UTC
Eastern Europe
© Unknown

Washington is making hay of its defeat in Ukraine: it is getting the Europeans to cut themselves off economically from Russia and is already imposing on them the expansion of its missile coverage. While the Western media focus on NATO's narrative of events (the so-called "military annexation" of Crimea), the Alliance is noiselessly deploying its imperial apparatus.

Vice President Joe Biden's flash visit to Poland and Estonia to ensure that, in the face of "Russia's shameless incursion" in Ukraine - a country determined to build "a government for the people" (guaranteed by the neo-Nazis [1] brought to power by the "new Gladio" coup [2] ) - the United States reiterates its unwavering commitment to comply with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on "collective defense." As Ukraine is now a de facto, but not official, member of NATO, there is always "non-Article 5," urging members to "execute evolving missions not described under Article 5," which was promoted by the Italian government of Massimo D'Alema during the NATO war on Yugoslavia in 1999, and later also applied to the wars on Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.
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Stormtrooper

Cosmetic make-over: U.S. and EU call on Ukrainian neo-Nazis to ditch swastika


Voltaire Network
Sun, 23 Mar 2014 06:28 UTC
Neo-Nazis in Ukraine
© Unknown
The European Union and the United States, which have supported and funded for years all neo-Nazi groups and other radical extremist factions in Eastern Europe, have given the order to these new fascists never use to brandish the swastika, associated with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, in their marches or other demonstrations.

Indeed, it would be a more discreet way to be seen in public, but an even better way to avoid compromising the U.S. and the European Union because of the secret alliance that binds them to these groups (intelligence operatives and subversive infiltration within the New Gladio).

Thus, the Western mainstream press can present them today as fighters for democracy in the face of the "Russian invasion". However their methods, ideology and actions are a continuation of the same Nazi practices that took place in 1933-1939.

In Kiev, the police arrived at the City Hall after receiving word that unidentified persons had broken into the municipal offices. But they were caught in an ambush by dozens of masked men protected by helmets, who started beating them up.

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