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Russia to pass law forbidding foreigners from owning more than 20% of any media outlet


RT
Fri, 26 Sep 2014 04:22 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti / Ramil Sitdikov
An employee at the cutting room of the Ostankino TV Center
The Russian Duma has passed the final reading of a law forbidding holders of foreign passports from controlling or owning more than 20 percent of any media outlet. The law, proposed just ten days ago, will extensively affect Russia's publishing sector.

"The freedom of the press is guaranteed by our Constitution, and won't be affected," said Mikhail Margelov, one of the 430 deputies who voted to support the law, with only two voting against.

"The law is designed to protect our national interests, to safeguard the sovereignty of our media, and our country."

"The information war against Russia has its own laws, and has forced our hand," said Vadim Dengin, one of the authors of the new legislation, which was proposed by the three minority parties in the Russian parliament.

If, as expected, the law ratified by the upper chamber of the Russian parliament and Vladimir Putin, it will come into force in January 2016, though existing foreign-owned companies will have until 2017 to re-organize their ownership structure. Media that violate the law can be shut down, although not without a court order.
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Dollars

Fracking company in UK offers citizens bribes for right to frack on their property


RT
Mon, 29 Sep 2014 04:04 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Ben Stansall
Demonstrators carry placards as they gather for an anti-fracking protest in London
Activists accuse fracking firm Ineos of taking a "bribes and bulldozers" approach to shale gas exploration in the UK, as it offers affected landlords and communities a 6 percent future profit share.

In a bid to replicate the industry's progress in the US, where the sharing of shale gas profits is commonplace, Ratcliffe hopes to incentivize landowners and residents to agree to fracking in their neighbourhoods.

"We think this is a game changer for Britain," Ratcliffe said in a company statement. "Giving 6 percent of the revenues to those living above our shale gas operations will give them a real stake in the success of the venture and encourage the development of the whole shale gas industry".

His offer would amount to £375 million for residents in an exploration area over the lifetime of the project, divided between £250 million for homeowners and landowners directly above the wells and £125 million for nearby communities.

Ineos calculates that each of the 200 wells in an exploration area would generate £1.3 million for home and land owners and £600,000 for the community.

The offer to locals is more generous than the 1 percent figure the industry has already committed to.

Landowners, environmental groups and a stricter planning system have delayed the fracking agenda in the UK.

Comment: UK residents may wish to take a minute and think about the consequences of fracking before taking the Faustian deal:

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Eye 2

Spreading Freedom: U.S. airstrikes in Syria bomb grain silos killing civilians and destroying food


RT
Mon, 29 Sep 2014 03:46 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Sami Ali
Syrians check a damaged house, reportedly hit by US-led coalition air strikes, in the village of Kfar Derian in the western Aleppo province on September 23, 2014
US-led coalition airstrikes destroyed grain silos and other targets in parts of northern and eastern Syria dominated by Islamic State, killing civilians while only wounding ISIS fighters, according to an organization monitoring war in Syria.

The overnight bombings hit mills and grain storage facilities in Manbij, a militant-held town in northern Syria. Coalition forces possibly mistook the structures for Islamic State holdings, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday.

The US military responded to the claims later Monday morning, according to Reuters, saying that Islamic State vehicles were adjacent to the grain storage facility, and that there is no evidence of civilian casualties.


The United States and Arab allies have conducted airstrikes against Islamic State and other jihadist groups in Syria since last week, and in Iraq since last month. The stated goal of the coalition's bombing campaign is to cripple Islamic State operations, including bases, combat forces, and supply lines. Islamic State, an Al-Qaeda splinter group that reportedly has as many as 30,000 fighters in the region, has come to control large areas of Syria and northern Iraq since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. The group is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
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Che Guevara

Indian PM Modi's US Visit: India as center of BRICS countries threatens US global hegemony


RT
Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:25 UTC
Narendra Modi
© AFP Photo / Don Emmert
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India speaks to supporters during a community reception September 28, 2014 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Washington's hegemonic position is being threatened by a new global movement that is fast becoming reality, with the BRICS group being a very important component of creating a truly multipolar world, Don DeBar, of CPR News, told RT.

On Sept. 26, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the US for his first official visit after a nine-year visa ban over allegations that he failed to stop anti-Muslim rioting when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. In 2005, he was denied entry to the US under a 1998 law barring entry to foreigners who have committed "particularly severe violations of religious freedom."

As part of his five-day trip, Modi addressed the UN General Assembly. He will also meet with the CEOs of 17 multinationals, including Google, Boeing, IBM, PepsiCo and MasterCard, and a have private dinner with US President Barack Obama. Modi's visit promises to be extremely important for the future development of Indian-US relations.

Comment: The US government may well find that their ability to dictate is finally coming to an end with the emergence of the BRICS countries - and it is well past time:

10 major outcomes of BRICS summit
Collapse of the Empire: Washington has lost friends and influence in the BRICS
BRICS creation signals shift towards new "global architecture"

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Red Flag

NYT columnist David Brooks' son serves in IDF

Philip Weiss
MondoWeiss
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 23:31 UTC
Image

David Brooks
From the Jewish Journal two days ago. "David Brooks' son is in the Israeli army. Does it matter?"
One of the more interesting nuggets buried in a long, Hebrew-language interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks in the recent Ha'aretz magazine is the revelation, toward the very end, that Brooks's oldest son serves in the Israel Defense Forces.

"Brook's connection to Israel was always strong," the article reports. "He has visited Israel almost every year since 1991, and over the past months the connection has grown even stronger, after his oldest son, aged 23, decided to join the Israel Defense Forces as a "lone soldier" [Ed. Note: a soldier with no immediate family in Israel].

"'It's worrying,'" says Brooks, 'But every Israeli parent understands this is what the circumstances require. Beyond that, I think children need to take risks after they leave university, and that they need to do something difficult, that involves going beyond their personal limits. Serving in the IDF embodies all of these elements. I couldn't advise others to do it without acknowledging it's true for my own family.'"
This is now the third Times reporter/writer whose son has gone into the Israeli Defense Forces. Famously Ethan Bronner, of course - whose son's service was disclosed not by the NYT but by EI - and a third person I will not identify (I know the individual personally, the beat didn't involve the Middle East, the son left before long).

Comment: A journalist is expected to be unbiased and objective in their reporting. It's clear that David Brooks, among many other "journalists", is anything but objective in his Middle East coverage, and the revelation that his son serves in the Israeli army should have been made clear to all readers of the New York Times. He should be removed from covering the Middle East.

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Yoda

Former Czech president & prime minister says what every sane person is thinking: "US/EU propaganda against Russia is really ridiculous"


Russia Insider
Sat, 27 Sep 2014 23:26 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Vaclav Klaus - has a reputation for cutting through the nonsense
Vaclav Klaus, longtime president and prime minister of the Czech Republic who is still highly popular, is one of the most respected and outspoken conservatives in Europe.

He has a reputation for straight talk and brilliance. The English magazine The Spectator publishes an interview with him in this week's issue by Neil Clark entitled "The Lies Europe Tells About Russia".

Klaus bemoans EU bureacracy bloat, EU non-market economic policies, and the "tragic misunderstanding ... on same-sex marriages and all that stuff about family."
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Radar

Former Navy official: Missile from USS Seawolf submarine shot down TWA Flight 800

Wayne Madsen
milfuegos.blogspot.com
Mon, 28 Jul 2014 23:10 UTC
Image
According to a senior member of the staff of then-Secretary of the Navy John Dalton, the test firing of a new generation Navy missile from the submarine USS Seawolf accidentally struck TWA flight 800 en route from New York to Paris on July 17, 1996. According to the former Navy official, the missile test was so important for the Clinton administration, it was being shown live on a Navy closed-circuit television feed at the White House. The Seawolf's missile was to have struck a drone reportedly being towed by a Navy P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft. However, to the horror of the Navy personnel involved with the test and senior White House staff gathered to witness the missile's successful launching, it veered off course and intercepted the TWA 800 Boeing 747, killing the 230 passengers and crew on board the aircraft.

ABC News Paris correspondent and former John F. Kennedy Press Secretary and U.S. Senator Pierre Salinger reported that a U.S. Navy missile, according to his sources, had downed TWA 800. A vicious smear campaign was launched against Salinger and he was eventually fired by ABC. This editor subsequently spoke at length with Salinger about both TWA 800 and Pan Am 103. We agreed that the investigations of both involved U.S. government cover-ups.

The Seawolf, which had recently completed sea trials but had not yet been fully commissioned into service, was participating in a major Navy exercise off Long Island in exercise area W-105. The exercise was dubbed GLOBAL YANKEE '96. Ironically, the Seawolf was to be commissioned in Groton, Connecticut on July 17, 1997, the anniversary of the shooting down of TWA 800, but the Navy, sensitive to the date, altered the commissioning to July 19, two days later. Margaret Dalton, the wife of Navy Secretary John Dalton, carried out the submarine's "christening" in Groton.
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Eye 1

After visiting with US officials, Ukraine neo-nazi commander admits "The US is training and funding us"

Federico Pieraccini
Russia Insider
Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:52 UTC
Image

Semyonchenko in visit at the International Repubblican Institute. Behind him, on the right, Tennessee Senator Robert Corker.
A commander of one of the Ukrainian neo-nazi battalions, the Donbass, Semyon Semyonchenko, has just returned from the US, where he met with senior senators from both parties, and received commitments of material support.

He posted a comment on Facebook in which he gives a detailed explanation of this assistance.

He was also received by IRI (International Republican Institute) and NDI (National Democratic Institute), the international branches of the two main American political parties, and met with democratic Senator Robert Menendez and republican senator Robert Corker.

"Menendez and Corker are the two senators who have sponsored the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, a bill that will allocate money to provide assistance to Ukraine, including the supply of weapons. Radar, anti-tank weapons, drones, communications systems and many other useful things for our army. "
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Arrow Down

The Wal-Mart model: Not just for retail, now it's for private prisons too!

Carl Takei
ACLU National Prison Project
Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:02 UTC
Prison
© ACLU
The nation's biggest and baddest for-profit prison company suddenly cares about halfway houses - so much so, that they want in on the action.

About a year after acquiring a smaller firm that operates halfway houses and other community corrections facilities, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) CEO Damon Hininger announced a few weeks ago that "[r]eentry programs and reducing recidivism are 100 percent aligned with our business model."

Wait, what?

High recidivism rates mean more people behind bars, and CCA depends on more and more incarceration to make its billions. Since when do they actually want people to do well after they get out, instead of being sucked back into the system?

It's tempting to be hopeful. Is this a long-overdue acknowledgment that it's morally bankrupt to make money off of imprisoning human beings? Is the nation's largest for-profit prison company really admitting that mass incarceration has destroyed too many communities and that locking fewer people behind bars is a good thing?
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Black Magic

Charged pedophile Catholic Archbishop's computer contained over 100,000 pornographic images of children

Tom Boggioni
Rawstory
Sat, 27 Sep 2014 20:25 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
Vatican detectives analyzing a computer used a by an archbishop arrested earlier this week discovered over 86,000 pornographic photos and 160 sexually explicit video files of children, reports the International Business Times.

According to investigators, another 45,000 pictures had been deleted.

Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, 66, was arrested at the Vatican earlier this week on charges that he paid to have sex with minors when he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic from 2008 to 2012.

Wesolowski is the first Vatican official to be arrested within the city state on charges of pedophilia.

The former archbishop was recalled to Rome by the Vatican last year while still a diplomat in Santo Domingo and relieved of his duties following accusations from Dominican media that he was paying for underaged sex partners.

Until earlier this week, he had been free to roam Rome, but is now being held in in a small room in the basement of the Collegio dei Penitenzieri, which hosts the Vatican's court and military police.

Vatican authorities are now investigating if Wesolowski was part of a network of pedophiles and whether he abused children in other posts during his career.

Wesolowski previously served in South Africa, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, India and Denmark.

If convicted, Wesolowski faces 12 years in jail in the first trial for sexual abuse to be held inside the Vatican City.

His trial is expected to start in January.

Comment: Vatican opens its own sexual abuse trial against former Vatican ambassador

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