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In wake of South Carolina crash, US, UK and Israeli military ground entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets


RT
Thu, 11 Oct 2018 14:33 UTC
A U.S.Marine Corps F-35B
© Reuters (file photo)A U.S.Marine Corps F-35B
The entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets has been grounded to inspect the aircraft for suspected faulty fuel tubes, the US military said. The decision comes in the wake of a Marine Corps' F-35B crash in South Carolina last month.

The grounding order affects all variants of the advanced fighter jets, including the Air Force's F-35A and the Navy's F-35C. The engines of the aircraft will be checked for suspected faulty tubes and replacements made where necessary.

The military say that the inspection process is expected to take up to 48 hours.

The decision comes amid the investigation into the September 28 crash, which happened after the F-35B's take-off from an air station in Beaufort.
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Cowboy Hat

Putin to Khabib on UFC brawl: 'When someone provokes us from outside, there can be hell to pay'


RT
Wed, 10 Oct 2018 14:43 UTC
Khabib Nurmagomedov Vladimir Putin
© Harry How / Getty Images / Alexey Druzhinin / Sputnik
Russian President Vladimir Putin says "anyone could have acted" in the same way as Khabib Nurmagomedov did when the fighter confronted members of Conor McGregor's team after defeating the Irishman at UFC 229.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Putin congratulated Dagestani fighter Nurmagomedov on his "worthy and convincing" submission win over McGregor in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Touching on the ugly scenes that followed the fight - when Nurmagomedov leapt over the cage to confront McGregor team member Dillon Danis, apparently after being goaded - Putin said that while it was best to keep emotions in check, "anyone could have jumped [from the cage] in the same way."

"If we are attacked from the outside, not only you, we could all jump in such a way... there could be hell to pay," Putin told Khabib and his father, Abdulmanap, at a meeting on the sidelines of the 'Russia - Country of Sports' forum in the city of Ulyanovsk.

"But it's better not to reach that stage," Putin added, prompting smiles from Khabib and his father, as the pair nodded in agreement.
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Arrow Down

World stock markets plunge as Trump lambasts Federal Reserve's 'crazy' US rate hikes

Martin Farrer, Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden
The Guradian
Thu, 11 Oct 2018 01:56 UTC
stock markets tumble
Europe suffers heavy losses and sell-off drags FTSE 100 into a correction

A jittery, volatile week on global financial markets has burst into a frenzy of selling, triggered by heavy losses on Wall Street and comments by Donald Trump describing US interest rate rises as "crazy".

Europe suffered heavy losses in morning trading on Thursday. The Stoxx 600 index, which tracks the biggest shares in the region, tumbled by 1.6% to its lowest level since the start of February 2017. The MSCI world stock index hit an eight-month low.

The sell-off has dragged the FTSE 100 index into a correction - the blue-chip index has now lost more than 10% of its value since May, when it traded at an all-time high of 7,903. The FTSE was down 128 points on Thursday morning, sliding 1.8% to 7,017.39.

Asian markets were also in the red. The Nikkei index in Tokyo lost 4%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 3.8% and the Shanghai market tumbled 5.2%.

Comment: See:

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Vader

Russian Defense Ministry posts video of Daesh terrorists seizing chlorine gas from rival jihadists Nusra Front


Sputnik
Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00 UTC
daesh theft chlorine gas
According to kp.ru website, the attackers took two barrels with chlorine after killing four militants and two members of the White Helmets organization.
According to the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation, Daesh terrorists have attacked militants from Nusra Front and have seized at least two barrels with chlorine gas.

In a video posted online by the Russian Defense Ministry, a group of terrorists can be seen seizing canisters of chlorine from rival jihadists and moving them to the south of Syria's Aleppo province.

"Late on October 9 a group of Daesh-linked terrorists attacked the headquarters of Hayat Tahrir ash-Sham terrorist organization (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) near Al-Latmana village," the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria says in captions attached to the video.

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Moon

Brett Kavanaugh lied about Bush-era torture - But Washington's political class couldn't give a hoot

Patrice de Bergeracpas
The Greanville Post
Tue, 09 Oct 2018 00:00 UTC
Brett Kavanaugh torture
The Torture Memos, sometimes called the Bybee Memo or 8/1/02 Interrogation Opinion, was a term originally applying to a set of three legal memoranda drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the president on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques: mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and water boarding, and stated that such acts widely regarded as torture might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
The above is from Wikipedia, and reaffirms what was being conducted deep inside the White House and Justice Department in the aftermath of 9/11. Interesting, because guess who worked in that White House as Associate White House Counsel from 2001 to 2003? Oh goodness, none other than Brett Kavanaugh! At his hearing for judgeship at the DC Court of Appeals in 2006 Brett answered more than once that he had NO knowledge of any such memos and protocols created by John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Alberto Gonzales, to name but just a few inside that administration. I guess that when it came to legal matters, like attempting to circumvent the Geneva Accords and semi legally legitimatize torture of detainees, an Associate White House Legal Counsel (duh, a lawyer) would NOT be privy to the plans. Anybody wish to buy my bridge in Brooklyn?

Comment: See also: MSM uses the Kavanaugh sex scandal to distract from the real reason he shouldn't be appointed

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Hammer

GAO audit finds "nearly all" of the Pentagon's expensive new toys are embarrassingly easy to hack

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Wed, 10 Oct 2018 08:02 UTC
dod weapons systems 1
The Pentagon's next-gen weapons systems currently under development by the Department of Defense (DoD) are woefully vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to a Tuesday report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

GAO testers "playing the role of adversary" discovered "mission critical cyber vulnerabilities in nearly all weapon systems that were under development."

"Using relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part to basic issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications," said GAO officials.
In one case, it took a two-person test team just one hour to gain initial access to a weapon system and one day to gain full control of the system they were testing.

Some programs fared better than others. For example, one assessment found that the weapon system satisfactorily prevented unauthorized access by remote users, but not insiders and near-siders. Once they gained initial access, test teams were often able to move throughout a system, escalating their privileges until they had taken full or partial control of a system.

In one case, the test team took control of the operators' terminals. They could see, in real-time, what the operators were seeing on their screens and could manipulate the system. They were able to disrupt the system and observe how the operators responded.

Another test team reported that they caused a pop-up message to appear on users' terminals instructing them to insert two quarters to continue operating.

Multiple test teams reported that they were able to copy, change, or delete system data including one team that downloaded 100 gigabytes, approximately 142 compact discs, of data.

Comment: Who needs Russian hackers when you've got weak cybersecurity to begin with?

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Eye 1

Top FBI lawyer testifies Rosenstein 'seriously considered' secretly wiring Trump

Sara Carter
saraacarter.com
Thu, 11 Oct 2018 11:15 UTC
Rod Rosenstein
Former FBI General Counsel James Baker told lawmakers last week that based on conversations with senior FBI officials, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was "seriously" considering secretly recording President Trump's conversations. Rosenstein also discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment on the president in an effort to remove him from office for being unfit. This, according to sources with direct knowledge of Baker's deposition.

Baker said he met with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former FBI attorney Lisa Page shortly after their meeting with Rosenstein in May, 2017. He told lawmakers that McCabe, Page and Rosenstein had discussed the possibility of secretly recording President Trump. Baker, who was the top lawyer for the FBI and a close confidant of Comey, noted that he was not in the meeting with Rosenstein. A source with direct knowledge of the testimony claims Baker testified that "Andy McCabe, Lisa Page took seriously what Rosenstein had said, and when they returned to the office, the three of them discussed the possibility of secretly recording Trump."

Baker told lawmakers during his deposition last Wednesday, that he told Page and McCabe that "he didn't think it was unethical' to secretly record the president.

Comment: Fox News reports more on the testimony:
Former FBI General Counsel James A. Baker told congressional investigators during a closed-door deposition last week that then-FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page came to Baker "contemporaneously" after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. Baker said Page and McCabe relayed details of the meeting where Rosenstein made the comments.

Though he wasn't personally in that meeting, Baker told congressional investigators he took McCabe and Page's account "seriously," the sources said. Further, Baker told congressional investigators he suspected "Rosenstein was coordinating with two people in the administration to invoke the 25th Amendment," a source said.

Baker, whose testimony was described as deliberate and sober, added he had not done a legal analysis and was unsure whether it was "unethical or illegal," the source added.

The testimony would appear at odds with other accounts of those explosive discussions.

The New York Times first reported the details of the alleged discussions between Rosenstein and senior FBI officials in May 2017, one day before Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the Russia investigation. After the allegations surfaced, Fox News reported on Sept. 22, based on a source who was in the meeting, that Rosenstein's "wire" comments were viewed as "sarcastic." Rosenstein also released a statement saying, "I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false."


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Stock Down

US stocks suffer worst loss in 8 months amid rising interest rates, tech hit hardest


RT
Wed, 10 Oct 2018 20:13 UTC
Traders
© Reuters / Brendan McDermidTraders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, October 10, 2018
US stock exchanges recorded biggest losses in 8 months as rising interest rates made investors flee risky stocks. The S&P, Dow Jones and Nasdaq plunged between 3 and 4 percent. Technology shares were among the worst affected.

The S&P 500 fell almost 92 points, or just over 3 percent, the biggest daily loss since February this year. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 315.97 points, or 4.08 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 831 points, or 3.15 percent.

Rising interest rates by the Federal Reserve drove US Treasury yields to 7-year highs, while Hurricane Michael's landfall in Florida stoked fears of impact on energy companies, according to market analysts. Technology stocks dropped 3 percent, with Netflix, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet leading the way. The energy sector was close behind with a 2.9 percent loss, as oil extraction in the Gulf of Mexico shutting down due to the hurricane.


Comment: "King, we're protecting you": Saudi Arabia tells Trump no more oil


Comment: Meanwhile in Russia, which, in recent years, has endured relentless attacks on its economy by the West, has just been upgraded by the IMF: Russian economy recovers despite Western sanctions

See also: And for more on the matter, check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Atlantic Trade War? How Trump Breaking Iran Deal Could Dismantle US Empire

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Blackbox

Bellingcat authenticity and Skripal poisoning case under question by independent journalists


RT
Wed, 10 Oct 2018 16:32 UTC
Bellingcat
© Reuters / Simon Dawson
Bellingcat, the 'investigative' website in the news after claiming to have identified the Skripal poisoning suspects, has received mostly uncritical coverage from the media - but some independent journalists are raising questions.

The website, which bills itself as the "home of online investigations" and claims it uses "open-source" techniques to look into a "variety of subjects," has become somewhat of a media star since it was founded by Eliot Higgins in 2014.

However, praise for Bellingcat has been particularly loud since it claimed to have "conclusively" established the true identities of two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, which British authorities say are linked to the Salisbury poisonings of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia back in March.

When Bellingcat revealed the identities of the men (one in late September, the other following two weeks later in October), British media for the most part accepted the results of the 'citizen journalism' investigation at face value - but not everyone is as dazzled by the cyber-sleuths.

Comment: More on Bellingcat:

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Arrow Down

Jack Ma: US will 'suffer more' if it keeps trying to start Cold War with China


RT
Thu, 11 Oct 2018 07:59 UTC
Jack Ma
© Reuters / Amir CohenJack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba
Alibaba's executive chairman Jack Ma has warned that the US will "suffer more" if it continues its efforts to launch a Cold War against China in an attempt to neutralize the growth of the country's economy.

Speaking via video to the South China Morning Post's China Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Ma said he believed the US would fare worse in any dispute between the two countries. Despite the warning, however, Ma said he remained positive because "as entrepreneurs, if you are not optimistic [you shouldn't be] entrepreneurs."

The Alibaba co-founder told the conference he didn't understand the logic behind US tariffs imposed on China by President Donald Trump's administration, and said that the US had benefited from its trade relationship with China, referring to the fact that outsourcing jobs to China had caused the US Gross Domestic Product to grow.

Comment: See also:

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