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Europe backpedaling on U.S. aggressive agenda towards Russia?

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 02:38 UTC
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It's long overdue but better late than never that Europe might just be back-pedalling on America's aggressive agenda towards Russia. The business-like visit to Moscow this week by Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggests that Europe can come to its senses to seek a diplomatic resolution of the escalating tensions over the Ukraine crisis - tensions that could spark a wider continental war, or worse.

Steinmeier met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in which the pair stressed the need to find a political end to the violence in Ukraine. The German diplomat - the first high-level European envoy to Moscow in several months - also talked about normalising relations between his country and Russia and of finding a way to rescind the economic sanctions that Brussels has imposed on Moscow over recent months.

EU ministers in Brussels balked at imposing a fourth round of sanctions earlier this week, showing a growing division over the policy among European governments.

Interestingly, Steinmeier said his visit to the Russian capital was following up on positive discussions held last weekend with President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Australia. The German foreign minister said the task now was to prevent a new spiral of violence in Ukraine.

Given that Germany is the European Union's largest economy, we can fairly say that Berlin's political attitude is going to hold sway for the rest of the bloc.

Meanwhile, the contrast with the European attitude, as seen this week through Steinmeier, could not be sharper in Washington.
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Folder

Russia at a glance: Sitrep on latest developments

Patrick Armstrong
Russia Insider
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 01:58 UTC
RUSSIA ISOLATED?

sad obama
Not at APEC - here's the thousand word photo. And not at G20 either - BRICS had a happy meeting. The West and its tame media is seriously deluding itself with this Russia is isolated stuff.

NEW NWO

Russia bought 55 tonnes of gold in the last quarter. What's that mean? here's a theory. (Ukraine's gold, on the other hand, is almost all gone.) Meanwhile, an arms sale to China. Sberbank offers Yuans. Another huge gas deal. Increasing military cooperation. India-China. New financial instruments. Petrodollar. Russia-Pakistan. It marches. Who thought Ukraine would be so important?

Comment: A handy collection of links! Be sure to check out Armstrong's blog here.

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Black Cat

No surprise: U.S. used Al-Qaeda in Yemen to blackmail government


Sputnik
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 22:45 UTC
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© AP Photo/ Hani Mohammed
The United States used the presence of al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist cells in Yemen to blackmail the government in Sanaa, Yemeni president's adviser Saleh Samad told RIA Novosti Friday.

"Political vacuum in the country at the time when the government was being formed prevented authorities from taking drastic measures and declaring war on terror. The United States used al-Qaeda to blackmail the Yemeni government and impose its diktat authority," the adviser said.


Comment: Psychopaths thrive in chaos, and use it to impose their demented aims.

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Snakes in Suits

US VP Biden sent to Kiev for client regime 'attaboy'


BBC
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 22:53 UTC
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How touching, kissing with their noses.
US Vice-President Joe Biden has warned Russia faces "rising costs and greater isolation" if it fails to respect the September peace deal in Ukraine.


Comment: Putin clearly sees Washington's game plan. As far as isolation goes, good luck with that.


Mr Biden, on a visit to Ukraine where he met President Petro Poroshenko, called on Russia to withdraw its military forces from Ukraine.


Comment: What military forces? Show us the proof.


Ukrainians are marking a year since the start of the uprising which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Amid celebrations, they paid tribute to those killed over the winter in Kiev.


Comment: Poroshenko was booed at the celebrations.


Comment: Washington plays Russian roulette.
attaboy

noun: Military in origin, an official recognition or commendation for good work that is recorded in one's personnel file, specifically one that is a positive influence in a subsequent pay raise or promotion.


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Eye 1

Bill that would limit NSA spying on phone calls blocked by Senate

Patrick Martin
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 22:58 UTC
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The US Senate blocked action Tuesday on a bill that would have imposed only minor limitations on a National Security Agency program that collects records of the phone calls of every American. The vote was 58 to 42 to take up the measure for consideration, with supporters falling two votes short of the 60 required to force action.

The vote was nearly by party lines in the outgoing lame duck Senate, with 52 Democrats, two independents who generally vote with the Democrats and four Republicans supporting consideration of the bill. The 41 Republican opponents were joined by one Democrat, Bill Nelson of Florida.

The effect of the vote is to delay consideration of any legislation on NSA spying until the next session of Congress, when Republicans will be in the majority and will control key committees like Intelligence and Judiciary, which originate and write legislation.

The defeated measure, drafted by the outgoing chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, would have placed very slight restrictions on the NSA program that collects metadata on virtually ever phone call placed in or through US telecommunications companies or the Internet.

The bill had the support of the Obama administration, demonstrating that the military-intelligence apparatus, which dictates policy on such issues, was quite content with the toothless legislation from Leahy. The main purpose of the bill was to give the impression that Obama and the Democrats are responding to the widespread public outrage over government spying sparked by last year's revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, while actually doing nothing to restrict snooping by the intelligence agency.
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Eye 1

CIA wants to erase thousands of its own incriminating emails - not yours, of course

Michael Isikoff
Yahoo News
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 22:03 UTC
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© J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Proposal draws bipartisan fire from Congress, but agency officials say the criticism is overblown

A CIA plan to erase tens of thousands of its internal emails - including those sent by virtually all covert and counterterrorism officers after they leave the agency - is drawing fire from Senate Intelligence Committee members concerned that it would wipe out key records of some of the agency's most controversial operations.

The agency proposal, which has been tentatively approved by the National Archives, "could allow for the destruction of crucial documentary evidence regarding the CIA's activities," Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and ranking minority member Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., wrote in a letter to Margaret Hawkins, the director of records and management services at the archives.

But agency officials quickly shot back, calling the committee's concerns grossly overblown and ill informed. They insist their proposal is completely in keeping with - and in some cases goes beyond - the email retention policies of other government agencies. "What we've proposed is a totally normal process," one agency official told Yahoo News.

The source of the controversy may be that the CIA, given its secret mission and rich history of clandestine operations, is not a normal agency. And its proposal to destroy internal emails comes amid mounting tensions between the CIA and its Senate oversight panel, stoked by continued bickering over an upcoming committee report - relying heavily on years-old internal CIA emails - that is sharply critical of the agency's use of waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against al-Qaida suspects in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

In this case, however, Chambliss - a conservative Republican who has sided with the CIA on the interrogation issue - joined with Feinstein in questioning the agency's proposed new email policy, which would allow for the destruction of email messages sent by all but a relatively small number of senior agency officials.
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Star of David

Sexual abuse against Palestinian child detainees reported


International Middle East Media Center
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 21:48 UTC
At least 600 Palestinian children were arrested in Jerusalem since last June. Of these children, nearly 40% were reportedly exposed to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities, according to a report by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC).
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Ma'an archive image.
The PCC says that the daily arrest campaigns constitute a collective punishment against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

Attorney with the PCC, Mufeed al-Haj, said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including but not limited to night and predawn raids on family homes, physical and sexual abuse.

According to WAFA, Al-Haj added that, under the applicable laws, minors undergoing investigation should be accompanied by their parents, yet Israeli authorities pay no respect to these laws in many cases.

Forces often ignore laws and arrest Palestinians without even having warrants.

Since last June, Israel has arrested hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, most during predawn and night raids on their family houses.
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Attention

Russia invades Ukraine, again, and again, and yet again ... using Saddam's WMDs

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Wed, 19 Nov 2014 12:54 UTC
psaki
Russia reinforced what Western and Ukrainian officials described as a stealth invasion on Wednesday [August 27], sending armored troops across the border as it expanded the conflict to a new section of Ukrainian territory. The latest incursion, which Ukraine's military said included five armored personnel carriers, was at least the third movement of troops and weapons from Russia across the southeast part of the border this week.
None of the photos accompanying this New York Times story online showed any of these Russian troops or armored vehicles. The story continued:
The Obama administration ... has asserted over the past week that the Russians had moved artillery, air-defense systems and armor to help the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. 'These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway', Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said. At the department's daily briefing in Washington, Ms. Psaki also criticized what she called the Russian government's 'unwillingness to tell the truth' that its military had sent soldiers as deep as 30 miles inside Ukraine territory.
Thirty miles inside Ukraine territory and not a single satellite photo, not a camera anywhere around, not even a one-minute video to show for it. "Ms. Psaki apparently [sic] was referring to videos of captured Russian soldiers, distributed by the Ukrainian government." The Times apparently forgot to inform its readers where they could see these videos.

Comment: How many times has Russia invaded Ukraine, according to Kiev and the U.S.? Here's just a selection of 'actual', possible, and imminent invasions:

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USA

Obama issues executive order on immigration reform


RT
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:45 UTC
U.S. President Barack Obama
© Reuters/Jason Reed
Poster child of the U.S. Empire
President Barack Obama announced an executive order on immigration reform Thursday, which he will sign on Friday. The actions will affect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants in the US, many of whom are the parents or spouses of legal residents.


Comment: This isn't the first time he has attempted this.


Obama announced his plan for unilateral action on immigration via a prime-time address from the White House. He will sign the executive order during a rally in Las Vegas on Friday. Because the plan will not be passed by Congress, it could also be easily reversed by a new president after Obama's term runs out in just over two years.

The president called his actions "a commonsense middle ground approach," as he continued to push Congress to pass a comprehensive bill reforming the country's immigration system. Under the terms of his order, undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for five years or more, and are parents of American citizens or lawful residents, will be subjected to criminal and national security background checks. Once these are completed, they can pay taxes and defer deportation for three years at a time.

The US will also increase security at the borders and focus deportation efforts on criminals and potential security threats rather than families.

"Mass amnesty would be unfair. Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character," Obama said in his remarks. "If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. If you're a criminal, you'll be deported. If you plan to enter the US illegally, your chances of getting caught and sent back just went up."


Comment: Deporting undesirables: Obama has deported a record 2 million people from the U.S., two-thirds of them for 'minor infractions'


Comment: "A common purpose - a higher purpose" for whom? American exceptionalism to create wars and chaos in other countries? Certainly not a common purpose to improve the life for the average Joe.

See this article for more on the immigration issue: Xenophobia in action: U.S. Center for Immigration Studies wants people to think immigration is a problem based on the number of non-English speaking residents.

CIS, and other racist groups of their likes, can blame "foreigners" all they want for the troubles that face America today, but they are looking in the wrong direction. As Charlie Reese wrote recently:
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.


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Clock

Psychopathic Israel: Relentlessly brutalizing millions of Palestinians for decades

Stephen Lendman
RINF
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:58 UTC
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© RINF
Israeli policy is longstanding. Reflecting anti-Palestinian state terror. Institutionalized racism writ large. Vicious repression.

Brutalizing Muslims for not being Jews. Enforcing militarized occupation harshness. Denying Palestinians rights everyone deserves.

According to Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) director Jeff Halper:
"...(T)he 'Zionist answer' to the downward cycle of senseless violence in which Jerusalem finds itself" includes:

"house demolitions, mass arrests, revoking the 'residency' of native-born Jerusalemites, closing Palestinian neighborhoods with concrete blocks, arming Israeli Jewish vigilantes and cheap shots at the last person who believes in a two-state solution, Abu Mazen (Abbas)."

"Everything, that is, except an end to occupation and a just political solution."

"This is what happens when a powerful country forgoes any effort to address the grievances of a people under its control and descends into raw oppression."
Netanyahu lied. He's a serial liar. Everything he says lacks credibility. Big Lies substitute. Claiming Israel locked in "the grip of a terrorist onslaught."

Palestinians face brutalizing Israeli state terror. Police state barbarism writ large. Provoking justifiable Palestinian anger.

Inciting violence. Able to boil over uncontrollably any time. Perhaps into a third intifada. Or pretext for Israeli all-out war on millions of Palestinians.

Comment: The pro-Israel propaganda is unrelenting in the face of abhorrent suffering in Gaza and no one is doing anything about it. There is a connection between our cosmic environment and the actions of human beings. If humanity doesn't take a stand against such evil, the Universe will.

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