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Russia withdraws request for carrier battle group to refuel in Spain amid NATO hypocrisy


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:31 UTC
Russian Admiral Kuznetsov heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser
© Sergey Eshenko / SputnikRussian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov
Russia has withdrawn a request for its aircraft carrier group to be refueled at the Spanish autonomous port of Ceuta, as the ships have already passed Gibraltar, a Russian Embassy source told RIA Novosti. Earlier, top NATO & EU officials expressed anger at reports of Spain's decision to allow the stopover.

"We confirm that the request has been withdrawn," an official of the Russian Embassy in Spain told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

Earlier, Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that the naval group led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov had already passed through the Strait of Gibraltar heading to the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

"The Russian Embassy in Madrid has just informed us that it is withdrawing the request for permission for stopovers for these ships and these stopovers have therefore been cancelled," Spain's Foreign Ministry later said, quoted by Reuters.

Comment: So Russia just relieved Spain's NATO predicament in a graceful manner.

Update: Carrier battle group never planned to call at Spanish port - Russian Defense Ministry
Moscow has dismissed media reports about how the Russian aircraft carrier group planned a refueling stop at the Spanish autonomous port of Ceuta, with the Defense Ministry saying that such a port call was never scheduled.

"Russian Defense Ministry has filed no requests to the Spanish authorities concerning the refueling stop of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov at the Ceuta port," the ministry's spokesman, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, told journalists.

He also stressed that "Russian aircraft carrier group is fully supplied with material stocks for the mission pursuit in the off-shore maritime zone in autonomous mode."

At the same time, Konashenkov admitted that the ministry considered a possibility of specific vessels from the group calling at the Ceuta port upon consultation with the Spanish side.

"Today, the Spanish authorities told [Russian Defense Ministry] that Russian vessels' call at the Ceuta port is inappropriate due to the pressure on Spain exerted by the US and NATO," Konashenkov said, adding that "this situation in no way affects the mission plan of the naval group."

Earlier on Wednesday there were reports, citing embassy sources, that Russia withdrew a request for its aircraft carrier group to be refueled at the Ceuta port after top NATO and EU officials expressed anger at Spain's reported decision to allow the stopover.

The Russian embassy in Spain says that its statement was misinterpreted. There were "most diverse media interpretations of the Russian embassy's statement... concerning the Russian naval group in the Mediterranean," Vasily Nioradze, a spokesman of the Russian embassy in Madrid, told RT, adding that "in fact, Russian mission informed the Spanish side that Russian vessels would not stop at the Ceuta port as the plans have changed."

"It was just a routine procedure of mutual information-sharing," he stressed.


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Vader

Big Brother: Encryption no bar to giving govt data, Apple told Democrats

Sam Varghese
ITwire.com
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 22:15 UTC
Apple Spy 1
© The Intercept.comApple are happy to take your money AND give your data to the government
A senior Apple official reassured the chairman of the Clinton presidential campaign that the tech giant would co-operate with the US government when it came to handing over "meta-data or any of a number of other very useful categories of data", as "strong encryption does not eliminate Apple's ability to give law enforcement" such data.

Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice-president for environment, policy and social initiatives, sent an email to John Podesta on 20 December 2015, thanking him for "the principled and nuanced stance the Secretary took last night on encryption and the tech sector. Leadership at Apple certainly noticed and I am sure that is true throughout the Valley".
From:lisa_jackson@apple.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2015-12-20 17:26
Subject: Last night

Hi John, I wanted to reach out to say thanks for the principled and nuanced stance the Secretary took last night on encryption and the tech sector. Leadership at Apple certainly noticed and I am sure that is true though out the Valley.

Please know that Apple will continue its work with law enforcement. We share law enforcement's concerns about the threat to citizens and we work closely with authorities to comply with legal requests for data that have helped solve complex crimes. Thousands of times every month, we give governments information about Apple customers and devices, in response to warrants and other forms of legal process. We have a team that responds to those requests 24 hours a day. Strong encryption does not eliminate Apple's ability to give law enforcement meta-data or any of a number of other very useful categories of data.

Tonight, Tim and Apple will be featured on "60 Minutes." We expect encryption and taxes to be covered. In previews, Tim reacts strongly to the EU tax investigation of Apple and other American companies. We will amplify encryption messaging tomorrow when we publicly release our comments on the draft UK Investigatory Powers bill.

Best wishes to you and your family and the HRC family for a peaceful and joyous holiday season and a prosperous and bright 2016.

Lisa
Her comments about handing over data to the government are in marked contrast to the strong pro-customer statement on encryption made by Apple chief executive Tim Cook earlier this year when the FBI demanded that Apple hand over data on an Apple iPhone 5C belonging to one of the two people who participated in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

Jackson was referring to comments made by Hillary Clinton during the third debate between candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Comment: Here we go again, rampant hypocrisy, this time from Apple. Just like Killary, Apple has a public and a private position. The public position for the gullible sleeping consumer "we care about your privacy, hence our encryption" The other for the government "don't worry we can give you whatever you want." And you would never have known if not for the WikiLeaks emails.

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Snakes in Suits

What's wrong with the planet? Saudi Arabia to be reelected to UN Human Rights Council


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 21:49 UTC
Saudi-led air strikes in the northwestern city of Saada
© Naif Rahma / Reuters
As the death toll in Yemen surpasses 10,000, Saudi Arabia, one of the principal parties in the conflict, is poised to be reelected to the UN human rights body. Saudi airstrikes are responsible for the majority of the nearly 4,000 civilian deaths in Yemen.

A secret ballot vote at the UN General Assembly on Friday will select the 14 members of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), or a third of its 47 members. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, China, and Japan are running for the four seats from the Asia-Pacific region, and are all expected to secure seats.

Riyadh's term at the UNHRC would be the third in a row, and its presence at the body has been increasingly puzzling to human rights groups, given its record of twisting arms at the UN to hush up its rights abuses.

Comment: Once again it seems to be all about the money Saudi Arabia brings to the UN, kind of like 'hush money'.

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Dollars

Flashback Funny Money: Hillary Clinton's Cattle Futures Trading 'Unusual'

John M. Broder & Sara Fritz
Los Angeles Times
Thu, 31 Mar 1994 21:37 UTC
hillary clinton
'Magic trick!'
Washington — The White House has portrayed the commodities market trading that netted First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton almost $100,000 in a two-year period as a case of an ordinary small investor who took her chances and came up a winner with shrewd judgment and a little guidance from an experienced friend.

But experts and officials in the volatile futures trading industry said Wednesday that what she did would be highly unusual for the average small investor to pull off successfully. And many commodities trading firms would never have allowed such an investor to try it.

For one thing, the experts said, her activities involved exposure to possible losses in the unpredictable market for farm commodities futures that substantially exceeded the available capital--losses that potentially could have been greater than her family's net worth if the market had turned sharply against her.

Comment: She may have had an 'in' with people setting cattle prices.

As for collateral, the Clintons were in the business of collecting secrets and trading political favors (also known as blackmailing). They never had any problem getting rich with other people's money.

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Hourglass

The Meaning of Trump

Gilad Atzmon
gilad.co.uk
Fri, 21 Oct 2016 21:32 UTC
Trump rally
Clinton can't draw crowds this large
The question regarding the meaning of Trump is unlike questions concerning the person of Trump or what the Republican candidates stands for.

The meaning of Trump is that, pretty much, half of the American people say enough is enough. Half of the American people are expressing a total fatigue of the system and their ruling elite.

In the last few weeks we learned that Trump left behind a score of offended women. He was disrespectful and grossly misbehaved, allegedly. This may tell us something about who Trump is; yet the fact that all those embarrassing revelations had zero impact on Trump's popularity suggests that we are dealing with a force of nature. No one else in modern politics would have survived a fraction of such bad publicity. Trump may be a horrid and disrespectful human being, and yet, he appears to be invincible.
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Info

UN vote calling for end to Cuban embargo adopted with US and Israel abstaining


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 21:23 UTC
U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro
© Carlos Barria / Reuters
The US government abstained from the UN vote on a resolution calling for an end to the US economic embargo against Cuba, for the first time in 24 years.

The 193-member General Assembly adopted the resolution with 191 votes in favor on Wednesday. The only other abstention, besides the US, was Israel. The vote is non-binding but it can have political weight.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez described the abstention as a "positive step for the future of improving relations between the United States and Cuba," according to Reuters.
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Stop

Protest against Bahraini king's visit to Downing Street squashed by police


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 21:10 UTC
Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
The Kingdom of Bahrain's authoritarian ruler King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa visited British Prime Minister Theresa May at Downing Street on Wednesday, despite outcry from human rights and anti-arms trade groups.

The Gulf regime is a close ally of both the UK and Saudi Arabia, as well as being a major UK arms customer, and is currently bearing much of the cost for building the Royal Navy's new Mina Salman naval base.

Human rights groups have highlighted widespread abuses committed by Bahraini government forces against pro-democracy activists during the 2011 Arab Spring.

Comment: More on UK's close relationship with Bahrain:

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Piggy Bank

Drop in the bucket: Failed weapons systems cost Pentagon $58 billion over two decades


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:37 UTC
The Pentagon building in Washington, DC
© Agence France-Presse
The Pentagon loves to throw good money after bad ‒ to the tune of nearly $60 billion on failed big-ticket weapons systems over the last two decades, according to a new internal Department of Defense review.

From the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) that focused on fighting the last war to its RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopters that never quite got off the ground, between 1997 and October 2016, the Pentagon invested $58 billion on weapons technology it never received. That doesn't include the boondoggle that is the F-35 jet, which was finally declared "ready for combat" at the beginning of August.

The FCS ($20 billion) and the Comanche ($9.8 billion) are just two of 23 major weapons programs that were canceled before they were finished, and together the two Army projects made up more than 50 percent of the "sunk costs" outlined in the Pentagon's annual internal acquisitions performance review. The 224-page report by Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall was published earlier this week.

Comment: And this is only the costs we are told about. But then again it pales in comparison to the 'missing' money: Mainstream media silent as Pentagon announces $6.5 TRILLION in unaccountable expenditures

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Handcuffs

Snake in a suit: International prosecutor charges Kosovo president's ally of leading crime ring


Radio Free Europe
Tue, 25 Oct 2016 20:50 UTC
Azem Syla
Azem Syla is a former member of parliament and prominent politician in President Hashim Thaci's (pictured) ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK).
An international prosecutor has charged an ally of Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci with leading a crime ring responsible for a multimillion-dollar land scam and money laundering.

The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) made the charges against Azem Syla and 38 associates on October 25.
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Bad Guys

NATO Vassals Eager to Poke the Bear in Black Sea


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:12 UTC
Black Sea Nato
© Daniel Mihailescu / AFP
US, Turkey and Poland are among the NATO member states which confirmed their readiness to dispatch naval units to the Black Sea in 2017, boosting the alliance's presence in the region, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg noted "progress" in in strengthening NATO's presence in the Black Sea Region in his statement after the meeting of the block's defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday.

"With a Romania-led multinational framework brigade on land and we're working on measures in the air and at sea," he said.

According to the secretary General, several member-states "indicated their willingness to contribute to our presence in the Black Sea region on land, at sea and in the air, including Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey and the US."

"Other allies are also looking into how they can contribute," he added.


Comment: Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the US have no business in provoking tensions with Russia in the Black Sea. Of the countries listed, only Turkey has shores on the Black Sea. Interestingly, Bulgaria isn't listed. Perhaps they learned their lesson in botching their involvement in Russia's Nord Stream project. Zing!

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