© Stratfor 2011
naval update per Stratfor
naval update per Stratfor
Puppet Masters
One look at the most recent naval update maps shows that in addition to global insolvency (courtesy of the broke European dominoes and a potentially technically broke US), a UK on the verge of a parliamentary scandal courtesy of a media baron whose empire is crumbling, and not to mention yet another downward inflection point in the global economic slowdown courtesy of the end of QE2 and no replacement yet, market watchers may have to start factoring in geopolitical risk yet again. While the fact that Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, and now Turkey, are ever more increasingly on edge is apparently something Mr. Market has managed to internalize, when it comes to geopolitics everyone stops to listen when renewed Iran-Israel rumblings reappear. Which may just be the case.
© David Clow
Farms across the Great Plains are in the path of a monster: the Keystone XL pipeline.
Farms across the Great Plains are in the path of a monster: the Keystone XL pipeline.
Old farmFarms across the Great Plains are in the path of a monster: the Keystone XL pipeline.Photo: David ClowThe other morning I took a call, like so many other calls I've taken over the last four years, from another Dakota farmer wondering how his land may be affected by the Keystone XL pipeline. He had a notice of condemnation and interrogatories from TransCanada in hand, and I wish I'd had better news for him. He's in the path of a monster. Keystone XL will be a 36-inch-diameter pipeline, carrying nine times the volume of the Silvertip line that just vomited 1,000 barrels of crude into the Yellowstone River. It will cross some of the most isolated places in the high plains, cutting through the ecologically fragile Nebraska Sandhills and the irreplaceable Ogallala aquifer.
Keystone XL won't carry "light, sweet" crude, which floats on top of water and can be mopped up with absorbent booms. Bitumen - a tarlike substance mined from the Alberta tar sands, chemically diluted, and heated to improve flow - will travel at high pressure across Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to Gulf Coast refineries. If and when it leaks into water bodies, this product will sink. To judge the risk of that happening, it helps to know that the first piece of the Keystone system, TransCanada's Keystone I pipeline that crosses the eastern Dakotas, has sprung a dozen leaks in its first year of operation.
New York- State attorneys general are negotiating to give major banks wide immunity over irregularities in handling foreclosures, even as evidence has emerged that banks are continuing to file questionable documents.
A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks.
State and federal officials declined to say if any form of immunity from criminal prosecution also is under discussion. The banks involved in the talks are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial.
© Wired
The father of the University of Central Florida student who was arrested by the FBI said his son had no intention of committing a criminal act. He says his son was only trying to point out a flaw in the system.
Alerts are genuine - until scareware scum get on board
Google is issuing warnings to people whose computers are infected with a type of malware that manipulates search requests.
A strain of rogue anti-virus software also includes a search hijacker component. The hijacker is designed to further enrich scammers by redirecting users of compromised machines through various dodgy pay-per-click affiliate sites instead of genuine search engines.
Instead of going straight to Google, surfers on compromised machines are sent via proxies. The traffic generated from malware-infected machines has an unique signature that has allowed Google to return warnings to victims using these machines.
The malware is programmed to ping a specific Google internet address from compromised machines. Google came across this when it took a server associated with this address offline during routine maintenance.
Google is issuing warnings to people whose computers are infected with a type of malware that manipulates search requests.
A strain of rogue anti-virus software also includes a search hijacker component. The hijacker is designed to further enrich scammers by redirecting users of compromised machines through various dodgy pay-per-click affiliate sites instead of genuine search engines.
Instead of going straight to Google, surfers on compromised machines are sent via proxies. The traffic generated from malware-infected machines has an unique signature that has allowed Google to return warnings to victims using these machines.
The malware is programmed to ping a specific Google internet address from compromised machines. Google came across this when it took a server associated with this address offline during routine maintenance.
Secretive figure tells our man release is coming
The promised dump of its emails from News International by hacktivist group LulzSec failed to materialise on Tuesday. However a prominent affiliate of the group told El Reg that the release had only been delayed, rather than postponed.
The UK end of the Murdoch media empire was hacked on Monday night, so that surfers visiting The Sun's website were redirected towards a spoof story on the fictitious suicide of Rupert Murdoch. The hack involved exploiting weaknesses on a retired site, running Solaris, set up by NI at the time NI was building a paywall for The Times.
This pwnage was then used in a stepping stone attack that ultimately allowed the hackers to gain root on a server that gave them the ability to add a redirection script to the "breaking news" element of The Sun's website.
The promised dump of its emails from News International by hacktivist group LulzSec failed to materialise on Tuesday. However a prominent affiliate of the group told El Reg that the release had only been delayed, rather than postponed.
The UK end of the Murdoch media empire was hacked on Monday night, so that surfers visiting The Sun's website were redirected towards a spoof story on the fictitious suicide of Rupert Murdoch. The hack involved exploiting weaknesses on a retired site, running Solaris, set up by NI at the time NI was building a paywall for The Times.
This pwnage was then used in a stepping stone attack that ultimately allowed the hackers to gain root on a server that gave them the ability to add a redirection script to the "breaking news" element of The Sun's website.
© unknown
Peaceful protesters and bystanders were beaten, pepper sprayed, shot with rubber bullets, detained without counsel, denied food and water for hours, and crammed into overcrowded cells - handcuffed the whole time. (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com)
In true Orwellian fashion, masked rioters were allowed free reign to go on a destructive rampage while peaceful protesters were beaten, rounded up and denied any semblance of their civil rights.
The scene was Toronto, Canada's largest city, and the event was the G20 Summit held June 26-27, 2010. The event - for which security cost in the vicinity of $1 billion - led to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. It was an exercise in crushing dissent, and it left the impression that those in power are only willing to support free speech until people most need to exercise it.
While police were allowing the masked Black Bloc rioters to destroy anything they wanted, they weren't shy about beating and arresting peaceful protestors. In fact, they arrested many who weren't even protesting, but who were just trying to walk down the street. One journalist, despite identifying himself, was punched several times in the face by a riot officer. A reporter for The Guardian was held by two officers while a third punched him in the stomach and when he was on the ground, elbowed him in the back of the head.
© Unknown
Arnon Milchan in the center
Arnon Milchan in the center
New biography outs Israeli producer as man who purchased components for Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Could one of Hollywood's greatest Israeli producers have been a Mossad agent? In a new biography called Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, authors Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman claim that the producer took part in secret Mossad operations.
According to the book, Milchan supervised accounts and financed "the essential needs of Israel intelligence operations outside the country." Those "essential needs" include purchasing components for Israel's nuclear arsenal.
© unknown
Ayalon
Ayalon
In a press briefing on Monday, Mr Ayalon urged the international community to stand behind Israel and reject the Palestinian effort, instead persuading the Palestinian leadership to return to direct negotiations with Israel.
''The issue here is the basic route which the Palestinians opt for,'' Mr Ayalon said. ''Are they opting for negotiations, are they opting for co-operation, are they opting for normalisation of relations ... or do they want to go for this unilateral route of confrontation and conflict? ...''
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Mr Ayalon, who over the past six months has travelled throughout Europe and South America to weaken the Palestinian effort, said it would be another low moment for the UN if a clear majority voted to recognise a Palestinian state.
Comment: We have to consider that the information about a war against Iran comes from an "ex-CIA" source. So it makes this information highly suspicious. But we have to consider the movement of those war ships too. All in all, a well-organized strategy of communication and intimidation seems to be taking place.