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Best of the Web: The last month in Russia: Nemtsov cover story? EU/U.S. split? Crimea and more

Patrick Armstrong
Russia: Other Points of View
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 16:30 UTC
breedlove poroshenko
A Split at Last?

Many of us have been wondering how much longer Europe will harm and abase itself in Washington's service. Has the crack finally opened? You must read this: Der Spiegel, quoting the German Chancellery, is saying that NATO and Washington are lying. "German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time." "The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as 'dangerous propaganda'." "No wonder, then, that people in Berlin have the impression that important power brokers in Washington are working against the Europeans". The EU foreign policy chief says the EU will not allow itself to be dragged into confrontation with Moscow. Rather late but welcome nevertheless. Perhaps this explains why Washington took its first step to de-escalate by postponing sending troops to Ukraine. In Washington's war against Russia, it's Europe that is paying and, should fighting spread out of Ukraine, it is where it will be fought.


Comment: See: Germany slams NATO's Breedlove for his dangerous lies - Breedlove still convinced he's right about everything


More De-escalation?

Zbigniew Brzezinski ("without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire") now says Washington should assure Moscow that Ukraine will never be in NATO. Of course NATO and the EU are already pretty tightly joined (more tightly than people realise) but that's something.
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Eye 2

Best of the Web: Fanning the flames: Israel and Western powers continue supplying IS with weapons


FARS News Agency
Mon, 09 Mar 2015 16:21 UTC
Image
A senior Iraqi legislator lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, and said he is in possession of irrefutable intelligence documents showing that ISIL is receiving arms aids from Israel as well as a number western and Arab countries.

"We have intelligence which shows Israel and some major western and regional states have supplied weapons to ISIL," Al-Qad news website quoted member of the Iraqi parliament's Security and Defense Committee Abbas al-Khazali as saying on Monday.

Meantime, the Iraqi legislator stressed that his country needs more weapons to fight the ISIL, and said Baghdad is willing to purchase weapons from East European countries, Russia and China.

Comment: It is really getting obvious what the 'coalition' is up to and are not even bothering to hide it. Fanning the fuel for war to unknown ends.

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Newspaper

Moscow launches criminal case against Fox News analyst who called for killing Russians


Sputnik
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 00:23 UTC
Lou Dobbs, Robert Scales
© Fox Business Channel
Russia's Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case against Robert Scales, a retired US major general and a Fox News military analyst, who said in a live broadcast that the only way for the US to turn the tide in Ukraine is to start killing Russians.

The criminal case is launched under an article on "Public calls for unleashing an aggressive war through the mass media", according to a statement on the official website of the committee.

The investigators believe that such statements "break not only the norms of the Russian legislation but Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, which prohibits any war propaganda and any instigation of discrimination, enmity or violence."

Maj. Gen. Robert Scales had been invited to the Lou Dobbs Tonight program on Tuesday to comment mostly on the fight between Iraqi forces and the Islamic State near the city of Tikrit.

Comment: Will this have any effect on the relentless war propaganda against Russia? Time will tell.
Push for war continues: Fox News military analyst suggests "killing Russians" to turn the tide in Ukraine

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Question

Russia is outraged over attempts to frame Syria's government for chemicals use

Moustafa
Electronic Resistance
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 00:00 UTC
chlorine gas
© www.unmultimedia.orgCompelling confirmation? Or not. Whose fingerprints are on these canisters? OPCW inspectors take inventory.
Moscow, SANA-Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia is outraged over Western attempts to frame the Syrian government for using chemical weapons in Syria.

"Statements by Western officials and commentaries in foreign newspapers had emerged blaming, uncorroborated, the Syrian government for incidents involving the use of chlorine gas in Syria," said the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

"They claim that the UN latest resolution 2209 amounts to be a warning to the Syrian government that punitive measures are likely in the future under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which is an irksome matter," the statement added.

Comment: Deflection. The West can lead this horse to water, but fortunately, some horses are particular about what they drink! At least 1,400 people were gassed to death in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013, and spates of new allegations have taken place since then. Reflection. Logic points away from the Syrian government and apparently, with new information, the jury is still out.

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USA

US Southern Command General says IS recruits could enter America via Caribbean countries and S. America


RT
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 14:13 UTC
Marine Gen Kelly
© c-span.orgMarine Gen Kelly
A top American general says that 100 would-be militants have already left small Caribbean countries to fight with Islamic State extremists in Syria - and could potentially get across the US border when they return home.

Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, chief of the US Southern Command, made the remarks at a Pentagon briefing with reporters on Thursday. He said that small Caribbean nations - such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname - as well as Venezuela are concerned about the militants returning home to conduct terror operations because they don't have the ability to deal with the problem.


Comment: Is there any place safe from IS extremists? Of course not. The US government needs to keep reminding us of why we need them.

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Wall Street

US disapproves UK joining Beijing's World Bank


Sputnik
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 13:59 UTC
Image
© REUTERS/ Takaki Yajima
After pressuring Australia into passing up the opportunity last year, the White House expressed its disapproval of the UK's application to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a rival for Washington-based financial institutions.

The US government has expressed disapproval of the UK's decision to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [AIIB]; it is the first member of the G7 to apply to join the organization, which will be formally established by the end of 2015 and have its headquarters in Beijing.

"As the first major Western country to apply to become a prospective member of the AIIB, the UK will join discussions later this month with other founding members to agree the Bank's prospective Articles of Agreement, setting out the governance and accountability arrangements that underpin the AIIB's operating practices," said the UK Treasury in a statement on Wednesday.
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Arrow Up

The West's plan to drop Russia from SWIFT hilariously backfires

Simon Black
Sovereign Man
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 07:33 UTC
Putin Giggling
© onrgaia's/Photobucket
If Vladimir Putin is remotely capable of laughter (the jury is out on that one...) then he's probably doing so right now.

Russia is once again Arch-Enemy of the United States. It's like living through a really bad James Bond movie, complete with cartoonish villains.

And for the last several months, the US government has been doing everything it can to torpedo the Russian economy, as well as Vladimir Putin's standing within his own country.

The economic nuclear option is to kick Russia out of the international banking system. And the US government has been vociferously pushing for this.

Specifically, the US government wants to kick Russia out of SWIFT, short for the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.

That's a mouthful. But SWIFT is an important component in the global banking system because it lays the foundation for banks to communicate and transfer funds with one another.

It's a network protocol of sorts. Whenever a bank in Pakistan does business with a bank in Portugal, the funds will clear through the SWIFT network.

According to the SWIFT itself, they link over 9,000 financial institutions worldwide in over 200 countries, which transact 15 million times per day.

Bottom line, being part of SWIFT is critical to conducting business with the rest of the world. And if Russia gets kicked out of SWIFT, it would be a disaster.
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Dollar

IMF Ukraine $17.5B bailout links to "reform" and impoverishment of the Ukrainian population

Eric Zuesse
Global Research
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 00:00 UTC
IMF horse
© twitter.com
Ukraine will receive total loans of 40 billion dollars from international tax money. For this purpose, Ukraine will carry out "reforms" especially such demands as that the social system be dismantled and privatization [selloff of government assets in order to repay the loans] be performed. The Kiev government is very pleased with the 'help'. A native of the US, Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko wants to buy weapons with the money. European banks are relieved because Kiev, for the time being, is able to meet its debt service.

Angela Merkel and IMF chief Christine Lagarde rejoiced in Berlin on Wednesday, because, in their view, Ukraine is on the right track.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has fully approved its new loan package of 17.5 billion for Ukraine. This approval from the IMF Board of the four-year loan program was announced in Berlin on Wednesday by the IMF's head Christine Lagarde. She said that the loan will help to stabilize the economic situation in Ukraine as quickly as possible. At the same time Ukraine will launch far-reaching reforms to restore robust growth and improve the living conditions of the population, she promises.

"Ukraine has fulfilled all conditions for this loan program, "Lagarde said in Berlin after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the heads of other global financial and economic organizations. The newly approved plan will pay Ukraine ten billion dollars in the first year.

Comment: They've raped. They've pillaged. And now they are all aplunder! Let's see what Putin does with this.

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Telephone

Concerned Hawaii residents discuss Trans Pacific Partnership


bigislandvideonews.com
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 04:49 UTC
HILO - A community forum was held in Hilo Wednesday night on the subject of the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty involving twelve countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region currently in negotiations. This week, those negotiations are reportedly being conducted, behind closed doors, at the posh Waikoloa resorts. It was a great opportunity for those opposed to the TPP to speak out.
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© bigislandvideonews.comJuliet Begley, Americans for Democratic Action, Hawaii Island
Jim Albertini of the Malu 'Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action helped organize the forum.

Comment: WikiLeaks: Updated Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that would strip governments of the power to regulate transnational corporate activities, is another dirty corporate tactic to dominate the world:

Under Cover of Darkness, an International Corporate Coup Is Underway
With the direct participation of 600 corporations and shocking levels of secrecy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is rushing to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Branded as a trade agreement (yawn) by its corporate proponents, TPP largely has evaded public and congressional scrutiny since negotiations were launched in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration.

But trade is the least of it. Only two of TPP's 26 chapters actually have to do with trade. The rest is about new enforceable corporate rights and privileges and constraints on government regulation. This includes new extensions of price-raising drug patent monopolies, corporate rights to attack government drug formulary pricing plans, safeguards to facilitate job offshoring and new corporate controls over natural resources.

Also included are severe limits on government regulation of financial services, zoning and land use, product and food safety, energy and other essential services, tobacco, and more. The copyright chapter poses many of the threats to Internet freedom of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was stalled in Congress under intense public pressure.

The proposed pact is so invasive of domestic policy space that it would even limit how governments can spend tax dollars. Buy America and other Buy Local procurement preferences used to reinvest our tax dollars in the American economy would be banned and sweat-free, human rights or environmental conditions on government contracts would be subject to challenge in closed-door foreign tribunals.


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Eye 1

Ex-DEA agent claims he was told by superiors to avoid drug busts in wealthy neighborhoods


Sputnik
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 20:47 UTC
Image
© Flickr/ U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Rob Simpson.
It's all about the race.That's what a former special agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency says in explosive new comments about how the US is handling the so-called "war on drugs" and why wealthier people are treated differently than the poor and working class.

"We were jumping on guys in the middle of the night, all of that. Swooping down on folks all across the country, using these sorts of attack tactics that we went out on, that you would use in Vietnam, or some kind of war-torn zone. And there wasn't very many black guys in my position," says Matthew Fogg in an interview with Brave New Films for a documentary about racial disparities in drug enforcement.

"So when I would go into the war room, where we were setting up all of our drug and gun and addiction task force determining what cities we were going to hit, I would notice that most of the time it always appeared to be urban areas."

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