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'Sultan' Erdogan now targeting academic community to curb freedom of speech


Sputnik
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
Erdogan
© Unknown
Turkey's President Erdogan
Following the crackdown on journalists, the Turkish government has now targeted the academic community in a desperate attempt to curb freedom of speech in the country, Turkish Professors Tahsin Yesildere and Fatih Yasli told Sputnik in an interview.

It all started after 1,128 academics from 89 Turkish universities, as well as some foreign scholars, signed a document urging the government "to stop the massacre" of Kurds in the southeastern part of the country. Turkish academics called on the government to return to negotiations and said they no longer wanted to be "the accomplices of this crime."

The publication of the the document enraged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who subsequently lashed out at the professors.

"Hey, you so-called intellectuals! You aren't enlightened, you're dark people... You're ignorant and know nothing about the situation in the East and South-East [of Turkey]," Erdogan said during his speech in an annual meeting with Turkish diplomats in Ankara.

Comment: The only thing of importance to Erdogan is power and control, and like most of his ilk he will do anything necessary to maintain his position.

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Dollars

India and BRICS are so over the petrodollar

Rakesh Krishnan Simha
Modern Diplomacy
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 20:19 UTC
money US dollar
The last time a country decided to dump the dollar in the oil business, the US destroyed it. Now India, the world's third largest economy, and Iran have agreed to settle their outstanding oil dues in rupees. What's more, the two countries may conduct all future trade in their national currencies.

This follows an agreement between Iran and India in mid-2011 in which both sides decided to settle 45 per cent of India's oil import bill in rupees and the remaining 55 per cent in euros. In March 2012 the two countries inked the Rupee Payment Mechanism that allowed India to buy crude oil in its national currency. Iran then used the funds to buy products from Indian manufacturers.

Ironically, it is the US itself which is responsible for the dollar's elimination from India-Iran trade. The Rupee Payment Mechanism was set up to skirt American economic sanctions on Tehran. Iranian oil forms a significant portion of India's energy requirements. Similarly, the Iranians rely upon India for steel, medicines, food and chemicals.

Replacing the dollar

India and the US may have come closer in recent years, but that hasn't blinded New Delhi to the toxic nature of America's currency as well as manipulation by Britain.

The US is literally writing its own cheque with its unrestrained printing of the dollar, the bedrock of America's post-war hegemony. It is the reserve currency status of the dollar that allows the US to fund its endless wars and topple governments with impunity.

Comment: The Unites States economic influence is waning and it really is just a matter of time until reality corrects the gross imbalance that has been imposed on the world. Regional partners have been preparing during the past years, and it would behoove those living in the west to do the same.

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Attention

Another year for blood: Egypt extends participation in military operation in Yemen


Sputnik
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:05 UTC
Yemen war
© AP Photo/ Hani Mohammed
Egypt's National Defense Council on Thursday decided to extend the country's participation in a Saudi-led military operation in Yemen for another year, media reported Thursday.

"The National Defense Council agreed to extend the participation of the necessary elements of the Egyptian armed forces in a combat mission outside its borders to defend the national security of Egypt and the Arab world... This is for a year or until the end of the combat mission," the Egypt's presidency said in a statement, as quoted by Al Yamania News.


Comment: More blah, blah, blah about national security. Is Yemen threatening Egypt or anyone else?

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Bad Guys

Jund Al-Sham ringleader: Resistance against Syrian Army no longer possible


FARS News Agency
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 19:11 UTC
Jund al-Sham terrorist group
Leader of Jund al-Sham terrorist group Abu Walid al-Shishani announced that his forces can no more block the Syrian army advances.

Appearing in a video message on Wednesday, Shishani referred to the dire situation of his forces in Syria, and underlined that they are no more able to stand against the Syrian army in Lattakia province any more.

He also said that the preparedness and number of his forces have decreased.

He made the remarks after the Syrian army and the popular forces captured and imposed full control over more than 300 square kilometers of lands in the Northern parts of Lattakia province.
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Vader

Supporting the troops? Military dumped hundreds of soldiers remains in a landfill during Bush presidency


Groopspeak
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 17:56 UTC
military bodies, military
© AP
Shocking revelations: the military dumped the remains of 274 troops in a landfill
This story has been out for a few years now, but it's hardly made a blip in the mainstream media landscape. While Republicans have had a non-stop stream of rants about how President Obama doesn't care about the troops, a dirty little secret is haunting the era known as the George W. Bush administration.

We've known since the start of the two Bush wars that there was a media blackout. Unlike Vietnam before it, the media was not allowed to show the hundreds and thousands of body bags being flown from the Middle East. That blackout could be why it went unnoticed for several years that they were regularly incinerating and throwing the bodies of our troops into a Virginia landfill.

The Washington Post picked up the story in 2011, but odds are that most still aren't aware that at least 274 troops were treated like last night's chicken bones. Naturally, the families did not know about the dumping. Instead, they were under the impression that their loved ones would be disposed of in a "respectful and dignified manner."
This week, after The Post pressed for information contained in the Dover mortuary's electronic database, the Air Force produced a tally based on those records. It showed that 976 fragments from 274 military personnel were cremated, incinerated and taken to the landfill between 2004 and 2008.

An additional group of 1,762 unidentified remains were collected from the battlefield and disposed of in the same manner, the Air Force said. Those fragments could not undergo DNA testing because they had been badly burned or damaged in explosions. The total number of incinerated fragments dumped in the landfill exceeded 2,700.

Comment: Even though 'things are better now,' it is a brilliant display of a psychopathic mentality of our leadership in which the remains of soldiers who literally gave their lives for this country are discarded as trash.

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Eye 2

Federal investigation finds National Parks Service rangers routinely sexually assault female colleagues

Felicia Fonseca
Associated Press
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:53 UTC
grand canyon
© Sean Gallup, Getty Images
'Watch out for bears, wolves and sexual predators...' A group prepares to embark on a 16-day journey down the Colorado River on rafts through the Grand Canyon on July 14, 2014 at Lee's Ferry, Arizona.
Deep inside the Grand Canyon, on river trips that stretch for weeks, National Park Service workers have preyed on their female colleagues, demanding sex and retaliating against women who refused, a federal investigation found.

The Department of the Interior's Inspector General's report Tuesday was prompted by a complaint in 2014 accusing the Grand Canyon National Park's chain of command of mishandling complaints that trip leaders pressured female co-workers for sex, touched them inappropriately, made lewd comments and retaliated when rejected.

Thirteen current and former Grand Canyon employees filed the 2014 complaint alleging a pattern of abuse that continued for 15 years. The Inspector General's Office interviewed 80 people, 19 of whom said they experienced similar bad behavior; a park service human resources official described a "laissez faire" culture of "what happens on the river stays on the river" that continued even after the women formally complained.

Eight women said the men reacted in a hostile manner during the trips when rejected. Several accused a boatman of arbitrarily taking them to the wrong sites so that they couldn't do their assigned work. One accused the supervisor of leaving cans of human waste outside her tent. Another said non-compliant female colleagues were denied food.

The report charts a dozen instances in which park employees have been disciplined for sexual misconduct since 2003, ranging from a written reprimand to suspension and termination, but it concludes that responses to harassment complaints and any resulting discipline have been so inconsistent that many women decided against reporting them at all.

Comment: National Park Rangers as organized, long-term mass sexual predators? There goes the squeaky-clean 'Smokey the Bear' image.

And not a Muslim in sight.

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Dollar

Cost of wars: Lies, damned lies and statistics

Graham Vanbergen
TruePublica
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:45 UTC
Syria destruction
© EPA
Last month, before the parliamentary vote on whether to bomb Syria, British Chancellor George Osborne publicly stated that the cost of extending air strikes against Islamic State into Syria would run in the "low tens of millions of pounds".

Reuters (December 1st 2015 Osborne referring to the bombing of Syria) - "I think the estimate of extended air action over Syria would be in the low tens of millions of pounds. That will come out of the special reserve which we established for the purposes of military action like this." Osborne told a committee of lawmakers.

Reuters (March 23 2011 Osborne referring to the bombing of Libya) - "The cost of Britain's involvement in military operations in Libya is likely to be measured in tens of millions of pounds rather than hundreds of millions, Chancellor George Osborne said on Tuesday. Osborne said the cost would be less than recent conflicts and would be fully met from contingency reserves rather than the defense ministry's main budget".

Same thing, different bloodbath.
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Bomb

Japan to support US presence in South China Sea, increase tensions with China


Sputnik
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 14:01 UTC
South China Sea
© AFP 2016/ JAPAN POOL via JIJI PRESS
Japan is set to boost its presence in the South China Sea in 2016 with Japanese anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft making transits in locations along the South China Sea waters.

Japan's Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces have allowed the country's P-3C patrol aircraft to stop at bases of countries facing the South China Sea when returning from anti-piracy activities off the coast of Somalia, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, which quoted Japanese government sources.

The newspaper said the move will allow Japan to support US patrols around the islands in the South China Sea.

Comment: Obviously the US and its allies are not interested in 'peace and stability'. They find tensions between the rising powers and their neighbors and exacerbate them to the brink of war. Also see:

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Bomb

China is looking at a make-over of its armed forces

Vladimir Terehov
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 13:41 UTC
China Putin Xi
© Unknown
The meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the supreme governing body of the armed forces of one of the leading global powers, held on November 24 - 26, 2015, will have a significant impact not only on the development of internal processes in China, but also on the surrounding political environment. The keynote address of the country's leader Xi Jinping added the significance to this event.

Despite the paucity of available information, it obviously concerns quality changes in the character of the development of military capability of the PRC, especially those in the organizational structure, as well as in the management system of the major component of the country's "power" tool, i.e. People's Liberation Army of China (PLA).

It is worth noting that the process of gradual transfer from the doctrine of "people's war" with the mass army towards the construction of relatively compact, professional and modernly equipped armed forces was outlined in China a long time ago. Naturally, it accompanied and served as a consequence of the rapid economic and technological development of China, and the decreased probability of a large-scale military incursion into its territory.
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Chess

Eurasian Geopolitics: Does China hold key to the Afghan puzzle?

Pepe Escobar
RT
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 13:03 UTC
Taliban fighter
© Reuter
Just like Lazarus, there were reasons to believe the Afghan peace process might have stood a chance of being resurrected this past Monday in Islamabad, as four major players - Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US and China - sat together at the same table.

The final communiqué though was not exactly ground breaking: "The participants emphasized the immediate need for direct talks between representatives of the Government of Afghanistan and representatives from Taliban groups in a peace process that aims to preserve Afghanistan's unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity."

A week before the Islamabad meeting, while in the Persian Gulf, I had an extremely enlightening conversation with a group of Afghan Pashtuns. After the ice was broken, and it was established I was not some Sean Penn-style shadowy asset with a dodgy agenda, my Pashtun interlocutors did deliver the goods. I felt I was back in Peshawar in 2001, only a few days before 9/11.
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