Sales of Zaman, the Turkish opposition newspaper that was taken over by the government last week, have reportedly nosedived from 650,000 to 6,000 a day. Journalists say they "feel like captives" at work, with police keeping close tabs on them 24/7.

Turkish authorities took control of Zaman last Friday by appointing new trustees for the Feza Media Group, which owns the paper. Police also raided Zaman's offices to enforce a Turkish court order stating that the media outlet must be brought under government authority. The newspaper's editor-in-chief, Abdulhamit Bilici, was fired soon after. Turkish police didn't hesitate to employ tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of Zaman supporters in Istanbul, protesting what they perceive as a government crackdown on freedom of the press.

Pyongyang has presumably lost a military submarine, US intelligence sources say. The incident comes as a joint South Korea-US military exercise is underway in the region.

The Pentagon has been watching the North Korean search for the vessel ever since it went missing, through satellites, aircraft and vessels, three US military officials said, as cited by CNN.

The sources could not determine whether the submarine has sunk or was adrift, however they believe it had "suffered some type of failure during an exercise."

"About a week ago it went missing and the speculation is that it sank," an unnamed US official told USNI News. "The North Koreans have not made an attempt to indicate there is something wrong or that they require help or some type of assistance," he added.

Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

Seized documents confirm that an activist from the People's Freedom Party (PARNAS), Natalia Pelevine, was involved in foreign foundations that organized the mass riots on the 6th of May 2012. This was reported on the website of the Investigative Committee of Russia (SKR) on Friday, March 11th.

During the investigation into Pelevine, documents were seized on the financing of an oppositional "Committee on May 6th", the American "National Endowment for Democracy" (NED). According to the Investigation Committee, its activity was aimed at discrediting law enforcement bodies that were investigating the case about the mass disorder on Bolotnaya Square on the 6th of May 2012.

"The seized documents confirm the version of events put forward by the investigation about the involvement of foreign anti-Russian centers in the financing of mass riots to attempt a "color revolution" in Russia", — stated the message.

There is an old saying that still remains true to the present day: "when you plot mischief for others, you're preparing trouble for yourself." This saying describes perfectly what has happened to Saudi Arabia and a number of its GCC allies that agreed to support the strategy of predatory pricing on the international oil markets put forward by Riyadh, which has inflicted huge financial damage to the national interests of each of those states. After all, more than 70% of these states' budgets comes from the profits generated by oil exports. Moreover, when money stopped pouring in they found themselves unable to fund social programs or pay "offerings" to the leaders of tribal formations that preserve the stability within those states. Due to 50 years of breathtaking oil profits the population of the GCC states feel little need to work to earn their living, handing over all jobs to guest workers from Asia and the Arab world, mostly immigrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, etc. Work went to those who are willing to perform the most exhausting tasks for salaries that are 5-7 times lower than what local residents are getting, while Arabs are allowed to occupy more respectful positions in the banking, oil and gas sectors. Therefore, the citizens of the GCC found themselves occupying high-ranking positions both in the civil word and in the army.

But then in 2014, Saudi authorities decided it might be possible to try and push Russia out of the European and Asian oil markets by dropping oil prices. The same idea was particularly dear to Washington since the Obama administration wanted to hurt Russia's economy as bad as it possibly could due to Moscow's position regarding Ukraine and Syria, since the illegal sanctions the West was imposing against Russia were not producing their desired results. To a certain degree this plan succeeded, reducing revenue for Russia's budget by nearly half and crippling the economy that had otherwise been on the rise. However, along the way, Riyadh has virtually destroyed the shale oil industry in the United States, perhaps perceived as "collateral damage" for their Western masters. The Al Sauds decided that it has no equals in a position to punish Moscow for its persistent support of the Syrian people and its striving to develop bilateral relations with Iran and even Iraq, the states which could form a Shia arc capable of challenging, even destroying the tyranny of the Saudi regime.

Austria's interior minister signaled its opposition towards a mooted but not yet finalized EU-Turkey refugee deal. The minister says she is "extremely critical" of the agreement, citing the situation with freedom of speech in Turkey. "I am extremely critical. I am seriously wondering whether we are taking ourselves and our values seriously or if we are throwing them overboard," Johanna Mikl-Leitner told ORF public radio on Thursday.

The minister said it was beyond grasping how Ankara ended up at a negotiation table after Turkish forces stormed the headquarters of a daily newspaper Zaman. "I think it's questionable if Turkey takes control of a newspaper critical of the government and then turns up here [in Brussels] three days later and puts a wish list on the table," she said.

Austria was not the only one slamming the EU-Turkey deal. German politicians, as well as several human rights groups opposed the proposed agreement. Speaking with the Rheinische Post, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said on Thursday "we should not make too many concessions to Turkey." Criticizing the prospect of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens, the Bavarian minister recalled the times when Germany abolished visa requirements for Balkan states in 2009. As a result, the amount of asylum applications from these countries "exploded," he said.

On Monday EU leaders and Turkey agreed on a "game-changing" plan in Brussels. Turkey promised to take one Syrian refugee from Greece per every Syrian refugee EU resettles from camps in Turkey. However, Ankara stressed that the agreement was not meant to be retroactive, and, therefore, would "not include the existing refugees on the Greek islands." Turkey is now hosting about 2.7 million Syrian people who have fled the conflict across the border, AFP reports.


In return, Ankara asked for six billion euros ($6.6 billion) worth of funding from the bloc, a visa-free travel to Europe's Schengen zone, and hinted its desire to join the EU. The deal is expected to be finalized on March 17-18 at the next EU summit in Brussels.

Perhaps the only positive thing about the deteriorating social and environmental conditions on our planet is the fact that they tend to drive our 'leaders' to increasingly desperate acts to secure their positions in power. As part of this process, this 'elite' are also given to telling increasingly outrageous and transparent lies. Take the Syria/Turkey/Russia/EU/US refugee debacle that has been raging for over 2 years for example.

For the last 5 years Western powers and their media lackeys have made no bones about the fact that they have been fully supportive of the 'Syrian rebels' in their brutal war against the Syrian people in an effort to overthrow the democratically-elected Assad government. No secret was made either of the fact that various Western governments were directly funding, training and arming these 'rebels' who were then killing Syrian civilians en masse. During that time, it came to light that the vast majority of the 'rebels' are of the crazy-jihadi variety, low-brow foreign mercenaries willing to fight for any cause as long as you pay them enough, or give them enough candy bars and Saudi-supplied amphetamines like captagon.

A good portion of those jihadis came from Libya, where they were well-known to agents of the US, not least to Hillary Clinton, who used them to destroy Libyan society and publicly sodomize and murder Muammar Gaddafi, much to Clinton's delight. What a wonderful prospect for the American people to have such a vile psychopath represent them.

Boy that was quick. Stir up a bit of fear in the media about a disease that is not even proven to be dangerous and what do you get? Several vaccine projects and mutant mosquitoes programmed to mate with Zika-carrying mosquitoes to make them sterile. What could go wrong?

Biotech company Intrexon Corp announced today that its genetically modified mosquito has been deemed safe for the environment in preliminary findings by the FDA.

Reuters reports:

A genetically engineered mosquito being used in the fight against Zika will not have a significant impact on the environment, the maker Intrexon Corp said, citing preliminary findings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Males of the self-limiting strain of the Aedes aegypti mosquito are modified so their offspring die before being able to reproduce, says Intrexon, a U.S. synthetic biology company.

The FDA findings agree with the draft environmental assessment submitted by Oxitec, the UK unit of Intrexon that developed the mosquito.

New documents reveal that the several federal agencies have been operating surveillance flights over the United States since at least 2009.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently received new records related to the U.S. Marshals aerial surveillance program. The EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice shortly after The Wall Street Journal revealed a cell-phone monitoring program operated by the U.S. Marshals Service. The program involved the Marshals using Cessna planes mounted with cell site simulators, also known as "Stingrays" or "dirtboxes".

The EFF describes the Stingray as "a brand name of an IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) Catcher targeted and sold to law enforcement. A Stingray works by masquerading as a cellphone tower - to which your mobile phone sends signals to every 7 to 15 seconds whether you are on a call or not - and tricks your phone into connecting to it."

On Monday 7 March, and the early hours of Tuesday, the EU-Turkey summit took place. The EU gave in to Erdogan's blackmail and accepted his conditions, now a huge flow of money (6 billion Euros, raised from the 3 billions of the previous request) will be sent to the Turkish government in exchange of the promise of not flooding Europe with migrants.

Turkey has a formidable lever in its hands: by controlling the border with Syria it is able to send weapons to terrorists one way and, as a result, receives refugees that then get sent to Greece.

It may sound blasphemous, but the only proper solution would be to intervene militarily in... Turkey, nowhere else. The EU should depose Erdogan with the help of Russian forces (am I being ironic?), but that's never going to happen, since the EU is nothing more that the political arm of NATO.

Is it a coincidence that the EU and NATO both have their headquarters in Brussels and that Turkey is part of NATO? European media use 'human rights' as a smokescreen to cover the real reason for 'humanitarian wars', while ignoring the fascist/terrorist Erdogan regime.

For those who had any remaining doubts, Kansas has officially gone insane, with its Republican dominated legislature now trying to pass a law effectively nullifying the state's Judiciary system:

A committee in the GOP-controlled Senate plans to vote Tuesday on a bill that would make "attempting to usurp the power" of the Legislature or the executive branch grounds for impeachment.

Impeachment has "been a little-used tool" to challenge judges who strike down new legislation, said Republican Sen. Dennis Pyle, a sponsor of the measure. "Maybe it needs to be oiled up a little bit or sharpened a little bit."

Senate Bill 439 is currently set for debate before the state's GOP-stacked Judiciary Committee. If it is approved and signed by Governor Brownback, it will permit impeachment of any Judge who acts contrary to the wishes of the legislature. In other words, any Judge who strikes down or modifies any law the legislature passes, for any reason-- whether the law is blatantly Unconstitutional, violative of existing laws, or otherwise, is thereby subject to impeachment proceedings by the state Legislature. A previous law threatening to cut off all Judicial funding was declared unconstitutional by the state's High Court. The state has been trapped in an economic death grip since Governor Sam Brownback and a feckless cadre of rabidly "conservative" Republican lawmakers controlling a supermajority in both of the state's legislative chambers instituted unprecedented, radical tax cuts to benefit the richest people in the state, while just as radically gutting public services to the state's citizens, most notably in education:

Parent-enraging anecdotes abounded in schools across the state: tales of swelling classroom sizes, teachers forced to fill in for laid-off janitors and nurses, libraries unable to buy new books. One group of parents took the extraordinary step of suing the government, a lawsuit Brownback appealed all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court after a lower court described his actions as "destructive of our children's future." In March [of 2014], the Supreme Court ruled the cuts unconstitutional.