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P5+1 meetings in Vienna over Iran's 'nukes' - Much ado about nothing

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 17:06 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Pool / Shamil Zhumatov
Top officials from the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China, Russia and Iran take part in talks on Iran's nuclear programme in the Kazakh city of Almaty on February 27, 2013
Today, Thursday 20 November, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is set to arrive in Vienna for talks regarding Iran's nuclear program. A year ago, in Geneva, the P5+1 group (comprising Russia, the U.S., UK, France, China, and Germany) resolved to reach a temporary agreement that would guarantee Iran's peaceful intentions by November 24th this year, and, Iran hopes, lead to the lifting of sanctions. Representatives of each country met in Vienna on Tuesday to, in theory, put the final touches to the deal, with a final round of talks planned for the 23rd.

But there are mixed messages and intentions coming from all sides. U.S. State Department Spokesman Jeff Rathke said Washington is willing to suspend the existing sanctions on Iran if a nuclear deal is reached, then terminate them entirely if Iran lives up to its commitments. (Iran, in contrast, wants the sanctions cancelled outright as soon as the deal is signed.) But any agreement reached may leave Obama in a pickle.

Taking the lead in a US Senate threat to block any Iranian nuclear agreement are Senators Robert Menendez (Dem.) and Mark Kirk (Rep.) who are demanding that Iran must totally dismantle its nuclear program in order for the U.S. to even consider reversing sanctions. Last December the two 'hard-ass' senators introduced a bill that called for increasing sanctions on Iran rather than lifting the existing ones.
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Post-It Note

White House memo protects Ebola contractors from law suits

Chris Carrington
The Daily Sheeple
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 13:01 UTC
white house

A White House memo dated November 13 has effectively removed the threat of law suits and any form of civil claim from federal contractors who bring Ebola back to the United States from West Africa. So, if a contractor cuts corners, uses inferior equipment or one of their staff arrives home carrying Ebola they cannot be held accountable for it's spread within the United States.

From CNS News:
In other words, if a Company A employee contracts Ebola while working in West Africa, brings the disease back to the United States, is not quarantined and ends up infecting members of the general public, Company A is protected from any damages arising from lawsuits by these secondary victims.

Comment: Does the government know something we don't?

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Sherlock

Ex-NSA analyst describes the depths of NSA surveillance as "Stasi on steroids"

Lars Schall
consortiumnews.com
Wed, 12 Nov 2014 21:07 UTC
Image
The complexity of the National Security Agency's spying programs has made some of its ex-technical experts the most dangerous critics since they are among the few who understand the potential totalitarian risks involved, as ex-NSA analyst William Binney showed in an interview with journalist Lars Schall.

William Binney, who spent 36 years in the National Security Agency rising to become the NSA's technical director for intelligence, has emerged as one of the most knowledgeable critics of excesses in the NSA's spying programs, some of which he says managed to both violate the U.S. Constitution and prove inefficient in tracking terrorists.

Binney has been described as one of the best analysts in NSA's history combining expertise in intelligence analysis, traffic analysis, systems analysis, knowledge management and mathematics (including set theory, number theory and probability). He resigned in October 2001 and has since criticized the NSA's massive monitoring programs. After leaving the NSA, he co-founded Entity Mapping, LLC, a private intelligence agency, together with fellow NSA whistleblower J. Kirk Wiebe.
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Laptop

Don't trust the FCC to regulate the internet -- they'll only screw it up

Eric Blair
Activist Post
Wed, 19 Nov 2014 16:26 UTC
net neutrality
The principle of net neutrality is easy to understand and support; to treat the delivery all data equally. This has been the status quo. Works great. Few oppose that, but supporting the principle of net neutrality is not the same thing as supporting the government's plan to enforce that principle.

The alleged problem that the government claims needs fixing is that Internet service providers (ISPs) want to charge different rates to websites for different levels of data usage, often referred to as fast lanes. Simply put, ISPs want the opposite of net neutrality and the corporate-run FCC supports this plan.

Comment: Classic problem >reaction >solution: create a false problem that concerns your constituents who beg for your assistance thereby allowing you to sell a solution you would have never been able to get away with before.

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Star

Russia ready to supply electric power to Ukraine but 'There is a question of price, a question of payments'


ITAR-TASS
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 18:31 UTC
russia Ukraine electricity
© ITAR-TASS/Grigory Sysoyev
Russia ready to supply electric power to Ukraine
Ukraine is considering starting buying Russian electric power, but a final decision has not been made yet
Russia is ready to supply electric power to Ukraine, but payments for supplies are at question, Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov told reporters on Thursday."There is a question of price, a question of payments. We are ready to supply gas, electric power and coal, if there is such necessity. The relationship between the sides is a point," he said.


Comment: Spoken like a good capitalist. Any intelligent businessman would be wary of selling to a customer with such a dodgy credit record.

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Network

NSA chief: Chinese cyber attacks could shut U.S. infrastructure

Patricia Zengerle
Reuters
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 12:28 UTC
Cyber Attacks
© Inconnu
China and "probably one or two" other countries have the ability to invade and possibly shut down computer systems of U.S. power utilities, aviation networks and financial companies, Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency, said on Thursday.

Testifying to the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on cyber threats, Rogers said digital attackers have been able to penetrate such systems and perform "reconnaissance" missions to determine how the networks are put together.

"What concerns us is that access, that capability can be used by nation-states, groups or individuals to take down that capability," he said.

Rogers said China was one of the countries with that capability, but that there were others.

"There's probably one or two others," he said, declining to elaborate in a public setting.
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Chess

Hungary vows commitment to Russia: GazProm's South Stream gas pipeline project will go forward


ITAR-TASS
Wed, 19 Nov 2014 17:38 UTC
Two senior Hungarian officials, one at home and the other on a foreign trip, have expressed their country's firm commitment to Russia's ambitious gas pipeline project to bring natural gas to Europe via a southern route bypassing restive and unreliable Ukraine.
Russia hungary south stream
© Associated Press/Mikhail Metzel
Hungary wants to resume negotiations on the South Stream pipeline
Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Sijjarto, currently in Moscow on a visit said Budapest hoped Russia and the European Union would resume talks on the project, stalled since last autumn due EU objections.

"We do hope that the negotiations will resume and proceed fast," Sijjarto said after talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday. "South Stream serves the purpose of diversifying gas supplies to Europe. We are for South Stream's full compliance with the EU requirements."

Earlier in the day, Hungary's energy affairs state secretary, Andras Aradszki, stated in Budapest that his country was firm in its intention to start laying its stretch of the South Stream gas pipeline despite European and US opposition, because it saw the project as the sole fuel supply option available at this point.

Comment: Hungary, other former East-bloc members such as Bulgaria and even some EU countries are becoming acutely aware of the dangers of being drawn into the Empire's web. Striking out for energy independence is a major step in avoiding the trap.

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Airplane

Dutch government refuses to reveal details of secret pact into MH17 crash probe


RT
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:24 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev
Emergencies Ministry members walk at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash, MH17, near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014.
The Dutch government has refused to reveal details of a secret pact between members of the Joint Investigation Team examining the downed Flight MH17. If the participants, including Ukraine, don't want information to be released, it will be kept secret.

The respected Dutch publication Elsevier made a request to the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) agreement, along with 16 other documents. The JIT consists of four countries - the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine - who are carrying out an investigation into the MH17 disaster, but not Malaysia. Malaysian Airlines, who operated the flight, has been criticized for flying through a war zone.

Part of the agreement between the four countries and the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, ensures that all these parties have the right to secrecy. This means that if any of the countries involved believe that some of the evidence may be damaging to them, they have the right to keep this secret.

"Of course [it is] an incredible situation: how can Ukraine, one of the two suspected parties, ever be offered such an agreement?" Dutch citizen Jan Fluitketel wrote in the newspaper Malaysia Today.

Comment: SOTT Exclusive: Ex-Russian intel officer - 'U.S. lying about MH17, using ISIS to destabilize Russia'

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Quenelle

Putin: The West's support of Russophobia in Ukraine will lead to catastrophe


RT
Mon, 17 Nov 2014 18:25 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti / Michael Klimentyev
Russian President Vladimir Putin answers questions of ARD channel's representative Hubert Seipel during an interview to the channel
The West should not wait for Russia to solve the Ukraine crisis, but should instead try to influence the extreme policies of its "clients" in Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Hubert Seipel of the German channel ARD ahead of the G20 summit.

Hubert Seipel: Good afternoon, Mr President. You are the only Russian President who has ever given a speech at the Bundestag. This happened in 2001. Your speech was a success. You spoke about relations between Russia and Germany, building Europe in cooperation with Russia, but you also gave a warning. You said that the Cold War ideas had to be eradicated. You also noted that we share the same values, yet we do not trust each other. Why were you being a little pessimistic back then?

Vladimir Putin: First of all, I gave no warnings or admonitions and I was not being pessimistic. I was just trying to analyse the preceding period in the development of the situation in the world and in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I also took the liberty of predicting the situation based on different development scenarios.

Naturally, it reflected the situation as we see it, through the prism, as diplomats would put it, from Russia's point of view, but still, I think it was a rather objective analysis.

I reiterate: there was no pessimism whatsoever. None. On the contrary, I was trying to make my speech sound optimistic. I assumed that having acknowledged all the problems of the past, we must move towards a much more comfortable and mutually advantageous relationship-building process in the future.

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Star of David

Israel shows its hand: How the Israel lobby helped protect the neo-Nazis of Ukraine

Max Blumenthal
AlterNet
Tue, 18 Nov 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Radio Free Europe
Somewhere in the chambers of the Israel lobby they could have been overheard saying, "Well, as long as these neo-Nazi groups are setting the stage for us, who gives a flying fig what they think or what they're saying?"

Rep. John Conyers wanted to block U.S. funding to neo-Nazis in Ukraine. But the ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center refused to help.

AlterNet has learned that an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have forbidden US assistance, training and weapons to neo-Nazis and other extremists in Ukraine was kept out of the final bill by the Republican-led House Rules Committee. Introduced by Democratic Representative John Conyers, the amendment was intended to help tamp down on violent confrontations between Ukrainian forces and Russian separatists. (Full text of the amendment embedded at the end of this article).

A USA Today/Pew poll conducted in April while the NDAA was being debated found that Americans opposed by more than 2 to 1 providing the Ukrainian government with arms or other forms of military assistance.

If passed, Conyers' amendment would have explicitly barred those found to have offered "praise or glorification of Nazism or its collaborators, including through the use of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, or other similar symbols" from receiving any form of support from the US Department of Defense.

Comment: Yet another reminder of just how powerful the Israel lobby in the U.S. is; that they're not supporting such an obviously sensible amendment as Conyer proposed could actually prevent it from getting passed. But far more than this, these facts further reveal just how incredibly ambitious and ruthless the psychopathic cabal in Israel is in its quest for geopolitical power.

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