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US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Petro Poroshenko against inciting any new hostilities after the Ukrainian president vowed to win back Donetsk Airport. Kerry was in Sochi for high level talks with President Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov.
This was the first visit by a senior US official to Russia since the Ukrainian crisis broke out in 2014. Kerry has realized the need to "break down some of the mistrust on both sides."
© Inconnu
A handful of banks will likely resolve forex-rigging investigations by the U.S. Justice Department as soon as this week: JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) Citigroup (C.N), British banks Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) and Barclays (BARC.L) and Swiss bank UBS (UBSG.VX).
It would be unprecedented for parent companies or main banking units, rather than smaller subsidiaries, of so many major banks, to plead guilty to criminal charges in a coordinated action, the people said.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, declined comment. Spokespeople for Citi, JPMorgan, RBS, UBS, and Barclays all declined to comment.
If parent companies of U.S.-based JPMorgan and Citigroup plead guilty, it would be the first time in decades that a major American financial institution has done so. Last year, when Swiss bank Credit Suisse AG (CSGN.VX) pleaded guilty in the United States to helping wealthy Americans evade taxes, it became largest institution in over 20 years to plead to criminal wrongdoing. It was soon followed by French banking giant BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA).
Comment: As we've seen time and again, reprimanding a major bank with fines and not jail time does nothing to stop them from rigging markets or gambling with derivatives. In fact quite the opposite has happened: it's sent the message that these banks can pretty much do whatever they want without fear of any real recourse. But why go after the main banking institutions now knowing what it will do to the economy? Is the government trying to quell some of the anger against Wall Street by making it seem like the major banks are being 'held accountable', while also slowly eroding the US economy?
© REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL/FILES
The two sides have been negotiating since 2011 over the so-called "umbrella agreement" that would protect personal data exchanged between police and judicial authorities in the course of investigations, as well as between companies and law enforcement authorities.
However, talks have been hampered by the lack of a right for EU citizens not resident in the United States to go to U.S. courts if they believe their data has been misused. U.S. citizens enjoy such rights in the EU.
The EU has repeatedly insisted that until such a "right to judicial redress" is enshrined in law, the agreement cannot be signed.
Comment: Perhaps this whole charade about "protecting personal data" isn't really about protecting the people, but streamlining the data-sharing process for governments and companies to restrict personal freedom and rig markets.
© Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
President Obama made the scathing comments in an exclusive interview with the Ashraq Al-Awsat newspaper, his first ever with an Arab publication.
"Iran clearly engages in dangerous and destabilizing behavior in different countries across the region. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism," he told the newspaper, as cited by AlArabiya.
Comment: Geopolitics are looking more like a bunch of kids arguing in a sand box.
© Russia InsiderGreek Prime Minister meets with Vladimir Putin
On Monday Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak offered the invitation via phone to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. According to the news via Greece's Syriza party website, the Greek prime minister thanked Storchak, adding Greece is "very interested" in the offer. In a move some suggest is meant to counter US and EU pressure on Greece, Athens is becoming a more and more coveted prize, especially where the Turkey-Greece gas pipeline is concerned. The statement from Syriza read:
"The Prime Minister thanked Storchak and said he was pleasantly surprised by the invitation for Greece to be the sixth member of the BRICS Development Bank. Tsipras said Greece is interested in the offer, and promised to thoroughly examine it. He will have a chance to discuss the invitation with the other BRICS leaders during the 2015 International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg."
Comment: Hopefully Putin's banking system, the NDB will be the opposite of what the western banksters are doing nowadays.
As for the the US-based IMF and the World Bank, Jefferson is quoted as saying:
If the American people ever allow the banks to control theissuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation,the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children will wakeup homeless on the continent their fathers occupied.A similar wakeup call is attributed to Jackson, who told Congressin 1829:
If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.
Hyon Yong Chol, who headed the isolated nuclear-capable country's military, was charged with treason, including disobeying Kim and falling asleep during an event at which North Korea's young leader was present, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed in a closed-door meeting with the spy agency on Wednesday.
His execution was watched by hundreds of people, according to NIS intelligence shared with lawmakers.
Comment: If this is true, wow! What a way to go for napping. Or this could just be propaganda against North Korea.
© RIA Novosti / Vitaliy AnkovThe large anti-submarine ship Admiral Panteleyev in the Gold Horn Bay.
"Our Chinese colleagues have emphasized that we have similar positions on the problem of challenges and threats. They noted the necessity of reconstruction of the current world order, moving away from double standards and strengthening of equal and mutually profitable relations between all countries in the world," General Anatoly Antonov said after talks between Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and the deputy chairman of China's Central Military Council General, Fan Changlong.
Antonov said that the two military officials agreed that Russia and China will conduct naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and Sea of Japan in the nearest future. He noted that last year's exercises in the East China Sea yielded "practical results," as did the ground training of Russia and China forces within the framework of the 'Pace Mission 2014' exercises in northern China.
Comment: Also see:
© Reuters / Ritchie B. TongoAn aerial photo taken though a glass window of a Philippine military plane shows the alleged on-going land reclamation by China on mischief reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, Philippines, May 11, 2015.
"We are considering how to demonstrate freedom of navigation in an area that is critical to world trade," a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. They added that any options would have to be approved by Washington.
According to the official, the US Defense Secretary Ash Carter has requested options that include sending ships and aircraft within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of reefs in the Spratly Islands. Sending ships and aircraft near the artificial islands appears to be in line with the so-called US military "Freedom of Navigation" operations.
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney and RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson appear together at a House of Commons committee last week. Has the minister directed the RCMP to pursue hate crimes against BDS advocates? (The Canadian Press)
Such a move could target a range of civil society organizations, from the United Church of Canada and the Canadian Quakers to campus protest groups and labour unions.
Comment: Not to mention average Canadians are sick of the grandstanding in Ottawa that only shows love for war criminals and disdain for anyone pointing it out.
If carried out, it would be a remarkably aggressive tactic, and another measure of the Conservative government's lockstep support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While the federal government certainly has the authority to assign priorities, such as pursuing certain types of hate speech, to the RCMP, any resulting prosecution would require an assent from a provincial attorney general.
Early attempts in the wake of the post-2001 US forces' presence in Afghanistan met with mixed success. Now it appears that Washington is frantically trying a repeat, even calling the ageing US Ambassador Richard M. Miles out of retirement to head a new try at a Color Revolution.
There seems to be a sense of urgency to Washington's new focus on Central Asia. Russia is hardly buckling under from US and EU financial sanctions; rather she is looking more vibrant than ever, making strategic economic and military deals seemingly everywhere. And Russia's Eurasian neighbor, The Peoples' Republic of China, is laying plans to build energy pipelines and high speed rail links with Russia across Eurasia.
Washington appears now to be responding.
The problem with the Washington neoconservatives is that they aren't very creative, in fact, in terms of understanding the larger consequences of their specific actions, they are rather stupid. And their shenanigens have become very well-known, not only in Moscow, but also in Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and other Central Asian republics formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Comment: Washington has, once again, woken up too late to the realities around it.
Comment: US can't afford to have Poroshenko unleashed. It seems Kerry is in Sochi to get a pulse on Russia and on how they might respond to US aggression in the world.