Puppet MastersS


Dollars

BRICS countries are a couple of days from development bank deal to rival IMF, WB


RT
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 00:41 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti
The emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are a couple of days from agreeing the $10 billion BRICS development bank, as well as a $100 billion currency pool. It could challenge global lenders like the IMF and World Bank.

The bank will be called the New Development Bank, and will provide finance for infrastructure projects. Its creation will meet the needs of emerging and poorer economies according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

In a speech Wednesday he confirmed the funding would be divided equally, Russia will contribute $2 billion in initial capital for the BRICS bank over seven years.

The bank will start with $10 billion in cash and $40 billion in guarantees. The $50 billion will be eventually built up to $100 billion.

The bank will be able to start lending in 2016, the minister says.

The final decisions concerning the creation of the bank are expected to be made by the BRICS leaders at a summit in Brazil on 15-16 July.
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Bandaid

$11k fine for West Virginia company that poisoned water for 300k people


RT
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 18:11 UTC
Elk River
© AFP Photo / Getty Images / Tom HindmanThe banks of the Elk River, where Kanawha County emergency services eventually determined the chemical had seeped through a secondary containment barrier, is seen on January 10, 2014 in Charleston, West Virginia.

The company responsible for spilling enough toxic chemicals into West Virginia's Elk River to spoil drinking water for 300,000 people for days has been fined $11,000 by a federal agency for two workplace safety violations related to the incident.

The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Heath Administration (OSHA) fined Freedom Industries $7,000 for improperly operating storage tanks of the crude MCHM chemical behind a diked wall that was not liquid tight, according to the Charleston Gazette.

OSHA also fined Freedom Industries $4,000 for not having standard railings on an elevated platform at their Elk River facility.

Inspectors said both citations, issued on July 3, were "serious," meaning the hazards posed to workers could cause accident or illness that would likely result in death or serious physical damage.

About 10,000 gallons of the coal-cleaning chemical MCHM - a moniker for 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol - leaked on January 9 from one of Freedom Industries' holding tanks through a diked wall into the Elk River.

State authorities, quickly inundated with complaints of stomach pains, rashes, and other maladies, instituted a "do not use" order. Residents were told to avoid drinking, cooking with, or bathing in the water - even if they boiled it or used filtration devices.

Some 300,000 people in nine counties were told not to drink the water for up to 10 days, while officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised pregnant women to consider a different water source beyond that point. Federal officials finally gave the water a complete bill of health nearly a month later.
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Bad Guys

Economy and market lies getting thicker

John Rubino
DollarCollapse.com
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
Image

For the average person trying to decide how to feel about the economy, the single biggest data point is the stock market. When share prices are rising, the implicit message is that finance professionals - who, after all, dedicate their lives to understanding such things and should therefore know what's happening - have decided that life is good and getting better.

So the rest of us relax and go shopping. Known as the "wealth effect," this tendency of asset prices to affect consumer behavior is now a key policy goal of the US and pretty much every other major government.

But what if it's all a gigantic, multi-trillion-dollar con? That's the conclusion a growing number of analysts are reaching as they dig into the reality behind the recent record highs in US equity prices.

Comment: More from Gordon T Long:



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Igloo

Co-founder of Greenpeace: 'I fear global cooling'

Marc Morano
Climatedepot.com
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 17:13 UTC
Image
© Cfact.org
Moore: 'President Obama seems to say it is sufficient to say the 'science is settled'. It is hollow statement with no content.

On Kids: 'Change the way our kids are being taught about this subject because if we don't there will be a whole generation of people who are just blindly following this climate hysteria.'

Ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, warned "I fear a global cooling," during his keynote address to the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Moore, who left Greenpeace in 1986 because he felt it had become too radical, is the author of "Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist." (Watch climate conference live here)

Moore noted that a cooling would adversely impact agriculture, and said: "Let's hope for a little warming as opposed to a little cooling. I would rather it got a little warmer." (Watch Moore video here at the Heartland Institute event)

Moore noted that "the U.S. is currently been cooling" and noted that there has been "no global warming for nearly 18 years." He also mocked the notion that "everything is due to global warming."

"If it warms two degrees, hopefully more in Canada in the North...maybe it would be a good thing if it did," Moore explained.

Comment: To understand what is going on with the climate change here on the big blue marble, read the Comet and Catastrophe Series on SOTT.

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Pirates

Sick bastards: Israeli government destroyed the homes of Palestinian murder suspects

William Saletan
Slate
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 17:59 UTC
Palestinian protesters
© Ammar Awad/ReutersPalestinian protesters clash with Israeli soldiers after Friday prayers in the Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud July 4, 2014.
The government of Israel says it will treat the July 2 abduction and murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian boy, the same way it treats terrorism against Jews. The killers "will face the full weight of the law," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Sunday. "We do not differentiate between the terrorists."

To this, Muhammad's parents have issued a simple challenge: Prove it. Demolish the homes of the Jews who murdered him.

Demolition played a central role in the drama leading up to Khdeir's death. According to Israeli officials, two West Bank Arabs, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha, kidnapped and murdered three Jewish boys on June 12. Israeli authorities haven't found Qawasmen or Aisha, much less tried them. Nevertheless, on June 30, Israeli soldiers destroyed the suspects' homes in Hebron. They broke windows, wrecked furniture, smashed sinks and toilets, and trashed kids' bedrooms. Then they used explosives to blow out the ceilings and walls.

Twenty people were living in Aisha's house. At Qawasmeh's house, all the men had been arrested, so the only people still there were women and children.

Why did Israel destroy the homes of these children? Officially, the rationale is to "disincentivize" future terrorism. Unofficially, it's ramped-up retribution. Israeli courts have accepted the government's authority to do it, on the grounds that anyone considering violence "should know that his criminal acts will not only hurt him, but are apt to cause great suffering to his family."


Comment: Israel's idea of justice sounds more like that of the mafia or a street gang. Collective punishment? Seriously?


Nine years ago, after hundreds of demolitions, Israel suspended this practice, conceding it had failed as a deterrent. Now, in the wake of the June 12 kidnappings, the practice has resumed. Qawasheh and Aisha aren't the only targets. Last week, Israel's high court approved the pre-trial demolition of another Arab suspect's home, citing deterrence as the basis. The Israeli military is considering whether to destroy dozens of other West Bank homes, including those belonging to leaders of Hamas.

Comment: Can you imagine if U.S. cops (who are barbaric enough) went around destroying murder suspects' homes? Not even convicted murderers -- suspects. This is the face of Israel: exemplar of pathocracy.

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No Entry

Vials of smallpox vials found in unsecured lab near Washington, DC - FBI investigating


RT
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 17:17 UTC
smallpox
© Reuters / Edward Echwalu
The FBI is investigating several vials of smallpox that were found in an unused laboratory storage room on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken the vials for testing.

Only July 1, employees found the box of vials when they were cleaning out the storage room in preparation to move the lab, which has been operated by the Food and Drug Administration since 1972, over to the FDA's main campus in nearby Silver Spring.

The six freeze-dried vials were labeled as containing variola, which the CDC says is "the severe and most common form of smallpox." Another 10 vials were also found, but the labels on them were unclear as to what they contained, Dr. Steven Monroe, who directs the CDC's division of high consequence pathogens and pathology, told ABC News.

No one knows how long the smallpox has been in the storage area, which is kept at 5 degrees Celsius. But the boxes they were stored in may date back to the 1950s, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

On Monday, the CDC arrived at the NIH campus to remove the specimens to their high-containment facility in Atlanta, where overnight testing in the Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) Lab confirmed the presence of smallpox. The Georgia-based agency is currently performing additional testing to discover whether the materials inside the vials are viable. This testing could take up to two weeks, the CDC said in a statement.

Comment: Mysterious smallpox vials, missing chemical weapons in Iraq... Is something in the works? Remember this:

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Popcorn

Surprise! New jihadist group takes credit for Israeli teens' killings

Elhanan Miller
Times of Israel
Thu, 03 Jul 2014 17:06 UTC
ISIL
© photo credit: APDemonstrators chant in support of al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as they wave al-Qaeda flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul.
A new Palestinian jihadist group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIL) has claimed responsibility for the killing of three Israeli teenagers last month in the West Bank, as well as other recent deadly attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

In a statement posted on jihadi websites Tuesday, the Supporters of the Islamic State in Bayt al-Maqdis said it was behind the capture and killing of "the three soldiers" in Hebron (actually, it was in the nearby Etzion bloc), sniper attacks in Hebron and Tarqumia, and missile launches from Gaza into Israel a month and a half ago.

The actions were carried out in honor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed "caliph" of the Islamic State, the reincarnation of the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) declared last month, the statement said.

Comment: This is beyond ridiculous propaganda, and is good for nothing except to encourage the paranoia and confusion of the population.

First, let's put things in perspective and consider that in the age of the Internet anyone can claim any crime after the fact, create an imaginary army of jihadists and give it any name they want. Indeed, ever since the attacks of 9-11, 'previously unknown' terrorist groups are a dime a dozen, popping up across the world and usually claiming some sort of obscure affiliation to 'al Qaeda'. The only difference with this one is that 'al Qaeda' is sooo last year, so the affiliation is with the brand new bad kid in the neighbourhood: ISIS.

Second, if Hamas has denied they were behind the murder of the three Israeli teenagers, and even the Israeli media give more credit to the supposed ISIS franchise in Palestine, then why is the Israeli government insisting on blaming Hamas without any evidence whatsoever? Well, the answer to that question is pretty obvious. Just read the latest news.

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Beaker

ISIS gains control of Iraqi chemical weapons depot


RT
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 16:53 UTC
chemical weapons
© AFPUndated file picture shows Chemical 500-pound aerial bombs filled with chemical warfare agents awaiting destruction by UNSCOM inspectors in charge of disarming Iraq at Muthanna south east of Iraq.
The Iraqi government has informed the United Nations that it has lost control of a former chemical weapons depot to Islamist insurgents affiliated with ISIS, or IS, and cannot carry out its obligations to destroy what's stored in the compound.

In a letter penned by Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim, it was revealed that "armed terrorist groups" took over the Muthanna complex on June 11. Located north of Baghdad, the facility was the main center for chemical weapons production prior to the 1991 Gulf War, and is still home to 2,500 rockets containing the lethal nerve agent sarin.

According to the Associated Press, the compound is now in the hands of the Islamic State extremist group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In the letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Alhakim said that Iraqi officials witnessed the intruders looting some of the equipment before the surveillance system was taken offline.

As RT reported previously, ISIS' rapid gains through northern and western Iraq - the militants also control portions of Syria - have led it to shed part of its name and declare the territory under its control to be a new Islamic state, or caliphate. The group is primarily composed of radical Sunni Muslims, and has won support among those in Iraq disgruntled with the exclusive nature of Iraq's Shia-dominated central government.

Comment: 'Missing' or 'stolen' chemical weapons? Sounds like a false flag in the making, perhaps a pandemic to be blamed on evil terrorists?

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Eye 1

U.S. military has spent millions researching how to manipulate people through social media

Ben Quinn and James Ball
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Jul 2014 16:49 UTC
Image
© Stan Honda/AFP/GettyDarpa defended the funding, including to study activists on social networks and Lady Gaga's influence, as essential to US interests.
- Defense Department spent millions to research social networks
- Studies focused on Occupy and Middle East protests
- Projects also analysed memes, celebrities and disinformation
The activities of users of Twitter and other social media services were recorded and analysed as part of a major project funded by the US military, in a program that covers ground similar to Facebook's controversial experiment into how to control emotions by manipulating news feeds.

Research funded directly or indirectly by the US Department of Defense's military research department, known as Darpa, has involved users of some of the internet's largest destinations, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Kickstarter, for studies of social connections and how messages spread.

While some elements of the multi-million dollar project might raise a wry smile - research has included analysis of the tweets of celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, in an attempt to understand influence on Twitter - others have resulted in the buildup of massive datasets of tweets and additional types social media posts.

Several of the DoD-funded studies went further than merely monitoring what users were communicating on their own, instead messaging unwitting participants in order to track and study how they responded.
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Nuke

Russia will have radar-evading nukes by 2016 (officially, that is)


Defense One
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 16:36 UTC
russian missile
© Dmitry Lovetsky/AP A 'Tochka' missile launch travels during a rehearsal for the Victory Day parade on May 5, 2014.
Russia on Friday said it plans to finish modernizing its nuclear-capable missile forces within several years, ITAR-Tass reports.

"By 2016, the share of new missile systems will reach nearly 60 percent, and by 2021 their share will increase to 98 percent," said Col. Igor Yegorov, a defense ministry spokesman for Russia's Strategic Missile Forces. The project would replace Russia's active-duty, nuclear-ready missiles left over from the Cold War.

Yegorov said the upgrades would include systems designed to circumvent missile-defense technology employed by other countries, as well as improvements to their "troop- and weapon-command systems [and] combat equipment."

The spokesman added that Russia is moving this year to deliver RS-24 Yars strategic missiles to the country's Novosibirsk, Tagil and Kozelsk missile units.

"At this stage, operations for their acceptance and commissioning are underway," Yegorov told ITAR-Tass in an interview.

"The work for the creation of new infrastructure of positioning areas of missile regiments continues, it will ensure better conditions for the use of armaments and training of the alert forces," he added.

Comment: In other words, they probably already have such capabilities. Russia's subtle way of saying, "Don't even try it."

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