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Russia reveals security proposals to West

Jonny Tickle
RT
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 12:01 UTC
Ryabkov
© cfr.orgRussian Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov
With relations between Russia and the US-led NATO bloc at an all-time low, Moscow has handed the West proposals for security guarantees that it says it hopes will help end the current crisis and start to normalize relations.

The draft documents, which were given to US Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried on Wednesday and revealed to the public on Friday, include a request for a wide range of guarantees from both NATO and Washington that Moscow claims are aimed at boosting the security of all parties involved.

The suggestions come amid ever-increasing tensions between Russia and the US. The state of relations between Moscow and Washington has deteriorated over the past decade, beginning with disagreements over the intervention in Libya in 2011 and later exacerbated by crises in Syria and Ukraine. Since then, the sides have traded economic sanctions, diplomatic expulsions, and bolshy rhetoric. This has also bled over to Moscow's relationship with NATO, which Washington controls. Earlier this year Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the relationship between Moscow and the bloc as non-existent.

The latest proposals also come a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin held a virtual summit with his American counterpart Joe Biden, where he revealed that Moscow is interested in getting firm legal guarantees from its Western partners.

What is Russia proposing?

Comment: And, Washington has reportedly responded:
The US "will not compromise" on NATO expansion, the White House reiterated on Friday, following proposals from Russia outlining how it believes Moscow and the West can deescalate ongoing tensions in the east of Europe.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told journalists onboard Air Force One on Friday when asked about the Russian documents:
"We have seen the Russian proposals. We are discussing them with our European allies and partners."
She added that the US won't accept the idea of stopping NATO expansion in Europe, despite what Russia wants.
"We will not compromise the key principles on which European security is built, including that all countries have the right to decide their own future and form policy free from outside interference."

Does that negate US interference as well?


Moscow sees the expansion of NATO towards its border as a critical threat to its national security, based on the bloc's confrontational stance toward Russia.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, said that the potential dialog should include the alliance's concerns and Ukraine's point of view.


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Arrow Down

The organizations walking back vaccination requirements to avoid losing workers

Cassidy Morrison
Washington Examiner
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 07:00 UTC
shadow people refuse
© Modern Healthcare/KJN
A range of businesses and institutions have begun scaling back vaccination requirements as the Biden administration's mandates get tied up in court, retrenching out of fear of losing members and employees who refuse to comply.

Amtrak earlier this week backed off a mandate that would have given roughly 17,000 employees until Jan. 4 to get vaccinated or be forced to go on unpaid leave. Fewer than 500 employees have refused to get vaccinated, according to a companywide memo from CEO William J. Flynn. The loss of that many workers was expected to cause service cuts next month, an official warned lawmakers last week. The company chose to "reevaluate our policy" after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a nationwide stay of the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for companies with at least 100 employees. To date, about 97% of Amtrak's workforce is either vaccinated or has obtained some kind of exemption.

The Los Angeles Unified School District will postpone enforcement of its student vaccine mandate from next month to next fall, a decision that came after district officials realized roughly 28,000 students would not comply and therefore would be barred from entering schools. The district's mandate previously required all students 12 and older to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 10. Students 5 to 11, while authorized to get vaccinated with the Pfizer shots, are not required to do so. The decision to halt enforcement means that those thousands of students will not be made to use the city's virtual learning platform City of Angels, which buckled under the weight of some 16,000 new users.
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X

Facebook bans 7 'surveillance for hire' entities that snooped on 50K users in over 100 countries

Vishwam Sankaran
Independent
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 00:00 UTC
Meta sign
© Getty ImagesMeta has called for international oversight to establish transparency and KYC standards for the surveillance-for-hire global market.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it has banned seven "surveillance-for-hire" entities that targeted nearly 50,000 people in over 100 countries.

These "cyber mercenaries", the company noted, snooped indiscriminately on journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition and human rights activists, while claiming that their services only targetted criminals and terrorists.

These entities, part of the global surveillance-for-hire industry, provide intrusive software and snooping services to any customer, targeting people across the internet to collect intelligence, manipulate them into revealing information, and compromise their devices and accounts, Meta said in its report following a months-long investigation.

Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Facebook, tweeted:
"We're enforcing against 7 entities we identified as systemically using fake accounts to target people across our platform and the broader internet, as well as sending malware and taking other steps to spy on their targets."
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Footprints

103 Marines already separated for refusing COVID-19 vaccine

Philip Athey
Marine Corps Times
Thu, 16 Dec 2021 02:11 UTC
US Marines flag
© US Marine Corp
As of Thursday, a total of 103 Marines have been separated from the Corps for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the Marine Corps confirmed. The active duty Marine force had until Nov. 28 to be vaccinated or apply for an exemption. All who failed to meet that timeline will be administratively separated from the Marine Corps, according to a previously published administrative message.

Currently 95% of the active duty Marine Corps is partially or fully vaccinated and the Corps has approved 1,007 exemptions to the vaccine, Maj. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps spokesman, told Marine Corps Times in an email.

Marines discharged solely for refusing the vaccine will receive either an honorable or general discharge, according to provisions in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed Congress on Wednesday and is awaiting President Joe Biden's signature.

All approved exemptions have either been medical or administrative exemptions.

A total of 3,144 Marines have applied for religious exemptions. As of Thursday, 2,863 have been processed and none have been approved, Stenger said in the email.

Comment: In the face of extreme coercion, those who exercised their right to refuse proved their bravery.
Maj. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps spokesperson, said in an emailed statement that the service members were separated with the "vaccine refusal" discharge code. The move comes after the U.S. Air Force discharged 27 people for refusing to receive the vaccine.


Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered mandatory COVID vaccines for all U.S. military personnel in late August, ABC News reported. Members of the Marines had until Nov. 28 to get the shots, according to The Associated Press. Reserve members are facing a Dec. 28 deadline.

A spokesperson for the Marines said Thursday that 95% of its active-duty force of 182,500 members had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, the lowest percentage among the military services, ABC News reported. Stenger said while 94% are fully vaccinated, 84% of reservists are at least partially vaccinated and 81% are fully vaccinated.

The Marines have approved 1,007 medical and administrative exemptions and are still processing 2,863 of the 3,144 requests made for a religious exemption, told Marine Corps Times in an email.

According to the latest numbers provided by the Air Force and the Navy, 7,365 airmen and 5,472 sailors are unvaccinated. Those figures include personnel who have either refused the vaccine outright or are awaiting the processing of requests for administrative, medical, or religious exemptions.


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Jet3

RAF war plane in 'unprecedented' engagement over Syria


RT
Thu, 16 Dec 2021 17:19 UTC
RAF Typhoon
© Reuters/Phil NobleRAF Typhoon
The Royal Air Force has shot down what it says was a "terrorist drone" over southern Syria. The encounter marked the first air-to-air missile engagement of the UK's operation against Islamic State in Syria.

An RAF Typhoon fighter shot down the drone on Tuesday near the Al-Tanf coalition airbase in southern Syria. A press release from the British Ministry of Defence described the drone as "small," and said that a Typhoon pilot brought it down with an Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM).

The engagement was described as "unprecedented" by the ministry, as it marked the first operational air-to-air engagement conducted by an RAF Typhoon, and also the first RAF air-to-air missile firing during Operation SHADER - the codename given to the UK's military campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists in Syria.

Primarily an air campaign, Operation SHADER has been underway since 2014 and has also seen British special forces deployed to Syria and neighboring countries.

The Ministry of Defence did not say which group was responsible for launching the drone, merely stating that it was "hostile" and presented a "terrorist threat."
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Eye 1

Fauci goes full 1984, wants Covid 'mandate' to be rebranded as 'requirement'


RT
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 20:07 UTC
fauci
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque 18
White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he can get more Americans to comply with vaccine mandates if they're rebranded as "requirements."

Asked by CNBC whether coronavirus vaccine mandates are "counterproductive," and might make Americans more hesitant to take future vaccines, Fauci said on Friday that dropping the word "mandate" seems to make people more willing to get jabbed.

"Mandates - that's a radioactive word," he said. "'Requirements,' people seem to respond better to that. They work."


Comment: The vast majority of people are not going to respond well to being forced to inject an experimental substance into their bodies, regardless of how many focus groups say that "requirement" has less of a negative connotation as "mandate."


Fauci then praised companies like United Airlines for requiring or mandating employees to get vaccinated, and boasted that the federal government's vaccine mandate has led to a 97% vaccination rate among employees.
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Question

Reports say Russia to ban new cryptocurrency purchases


RT
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 19:33 UTC
Bitcoin
© CC0 / Pexels
The Central Bank of Russia wants to ban cryptocurrencies in the country, Reuters has reported, citing sources close to the regulator.

The regulator reportedly sees the rise in the number of crypto transactions as a risk to the country's financial stability.

Digital assets have legal status in Russia but they cannot be used as a means of payment, as the government believes they could be used in money laundering or to finance terrorism.

Comment:

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Stock Down

Turkish lira freefall accelerates despite central bank intervention

Caitlin Ostroff and Jared Malsin
Biz Journal
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 19:00 UTC
bank rates turkey lira fall depreciation
© Sedat Suna/ShutterstockTurkish citizens monitor interest and exchange rates on the Turkish lira
Turkey's central bank intervened to arrest the plunge in the country's currency, which lost as much as 8% of its value against the dollar on Friday in an ongoing crisis that is straining the country's financial system.

The crash followed another decision by the central bank on Thursday to cut interest rates under pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who favors lower rates as a part of a vision to grow the Turkish economy. Mainstream economists have urged the government to raise interest rates to control Turkey's rising inflation, which reached more than 21% last month, according to official statistics.

Comment: A harbinger of what is coming to the US? Even being the world's reserve currency will not protect the dollar from reality forever.

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Black Magic

Donors to disgraced Lincoln Project now bankrolling RINO Liz Cheney

Tristan Justice
The Federalist
Tue, 14 Dec 2021 18:15 UTC
Liz Cheney
© European Press Association/Michael ReynoldsWyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney
Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney raked in almost $55,000 from the same donors who fund the Lincoln Project, according to a Federalist analysis of public finance records.

After cementing a perpetual feud with former President Donald Trump and Republican voters as a hallmark of her legacy in the lower chamber, Cheney's goals now seem indistinguishable from those of the super PAC cloaking Democrat attacks as Republican. The shared donor base makes that clear.

According to receipts dated in August by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway, a "top donor" to the Lincoln Project, gave Cheney and related campaign committees $21,600.

Billionaire John Pritzker, who has given at least $100,000 to the Lincoln Project, according to Forbes, also gave Cheney $21,600.

Comment: A match made in hell.

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Arrow Up

Motive for the plandemic

Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics
Fri, 17 Dec 2021 17:53 UTC
The End Goal
© Armstrong Eonomics
While everyone argues over vaccines and who created COVID, all of these debates and questions dominate 99% of the online agenda. There is something SERIOUSLY mining and that simply the end goal and what is the motive. Some try to claim that there are dark forces hidden behind the images of Gates and Schwab. Some claim that Schwab is just a marketing man. What they fail to understand is the MOTIVE and why are politicians jumping at the chance to lock people down?

If any fund manager ran his business the way that all governments, they would be thrown in prison for 20 year+. They continually borrow today to pay the last bondholder. There is no intention whatsoever of ever paying off the debts. The end game is that this scheme is coming to an end. The negative interest rates in Europe have wiped out the bondholders, pension funds, and kept governments on life-support since 2014. There is ABSOLUTELY no way out of this mess other than what I submitted in meetings and when I saw they were more inclined to take Schwab's ideas, I did the Solution Conference in 2015.

The MOTIVE is to default on all government debts and to hide their failure, Schwab is presenting this as you will own nothing and be happy because governments will erase all debt. Pension will be replaced by Guaranteed Basic Income.
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