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Obama warns of 'fallout' for Israel if peace effort fails

Matt Spetalnick, Mark Felsenthal and Dan Williams
Yahoo! News
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 12:37 UTC
Image
© AP/Sebastian Scheiner
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
President Barack Obama, issuing a veiled warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of talks, said in an interview published on Sunday it would be harder for Washington to defend Israel against efforts to isolate it internationally if U.S.-led Middle East peace talks fail.

Obama, speaking to Bloomberg View, also made clear that he would press Netanyahu to allow him the time needed to test Iran's willingness to curb its nuclear ambitions, despite the Israeli leader's deep skepticism of the West's diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

Responding to the interview, a senior Israeli cabinet minister said the Netanyahu government was serious about peace but would not be pressured into endangering the Jewish state.

Obama said the "the window is closing" for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, and called on Netanyahu to "seize the moment" to help achieve a framework agreement that Secretary John Kerry is trying to forge to extend peace talks.

Obama said his message to Netanyahu in a White House meeting scheduled for Monday would be: "If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?"

Comment: Hmmm... considering this, is it possible that Israel has created the Ukraine debacle to engage the US with Russia as "punishment" for not having the "right attitude" toward Israel?

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Magic Hat

Where did they go?: Almost half a billion worth of Bitcoins vanish

Robin Sidel, Eleanor Warnock and Takashi Mochizuki
The Wall Street Journal
Fri, 28 Feb 2014 19:16 UTC
Image
© Slimbeleggen.net
Mt. Gox, once the dominant exchange for bitcoin trading, on Friday said more than $470 million of the virtual currency vanished from its digital coffers, kicking into high gear a search for the missing money by victims and cybersleuths.

Acting alone and in groups, the people stepped up their efforts after Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and confirmed rumors it had lost almost 750,000 of its customers' bitcoins, as well as roughly 100,000 of its own.

Mt. Gox Chief Executive Mark Karpelès said technical issues had opened the way for fraudulent withdrawals, though he didn't provide details.

"There was some weakness in the system, and the bitcoins have disappeared. I apologize for causing trouble," Mr. Karpelès said at a packed news conference at a Tokyo courthouse after the bankruptcy filing.

The disappearance underscores the risks of currencies that exist only online and aren't backed by a central bank. Mt. Gox wasn't overseen by national regulators, so there is no entity to step in and back investors' deposits.
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Dollar

Russian sanctions? You Must be Joking! Russia Holds All the Cards!

Joshua Raymond
City Index
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 16:34 UTC
Putin
© shutterstock

With the west and the G7 nations unlikely to pursue military options in retaliation to Russian aggression to deploy troops in Crimea region of Ukraine, threats of economic sanctions is being talked up.

President Obama said that the US will take a series of steps, both economic and diplomatic, to isolate Russia. They have suspended trade and investment talks already.

The UK has equally talked up the potential for sanctions, with the potential for an agreement on the details of those sanctions could be reached at the end of the week in an emergency EU summit.

Yet still there remains a degree of ambiguity as to the form in which what those sanctions could take. The UK government wittingly leaked their initial thoughts on sanctions yesterday when a minister quite blatantly left documents on the cabinets view on sanctions in full view for the worlds media to photograph and analyse.

That document identified a preference for restricting travel and visa, as opposed to tougher economic sanctions. In essence, it showed a lack of appetite amidst the UK government for tough bargaining with Russia.

Yet the true cost of sanctions, if Russia is hit hard, could hurt the UK much more than people think.
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Chess

Putin says he will protect Russians in Ukraine - Reserves legal right to use force

Kathy Lally and William Booth
The Washington Post
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 16:01 UTC
Russian warship
© Unknown
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a vigorous defense Tuesday of Russian intervention in Ukraine, saying the pro-Russian former government in Kiev was illegally overthrown and that the man he regards as Ukraine's legitimate president asked him for military help.

But he also asserted that the troops wearing unmarked uniforms in Crimea are local self-defense groups - not Russian forces, as observers on the scene have said.

Accusing the West of encouraging an "unconstitutional coup" in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin said that Moscow reserves the right to protect Russians there.
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Cow Skull

Too little, too late: Obama's 2015 budget will seek $60 billion tax credit by closing 'Gingrich loophole'

Mark Felsenthal and Jeff Mason
The Raw Story
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 15:32 UTC
Obama
© Agence France-Presse
President Barack Obama will strike a firmly populist tone in his 2015 budget plan on Tuesday, proposing to pay for an expansion of a popular tax credit for the working poor by eliminating tax breaks claimed by wealthy Americans.

The proposal to expand one of the most popular U.S. government poverty reduction programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, would cost $60 billion, a modest amount in a budget in which the president has $1.014 trillion in spending to parcel out, the White House said.

Obama would pay for the tax credit expansion by closing tax loopholes used typically by wealthy investors or employees of professional service companies such as law, consulting or lobbying firms.
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Che Guevara

Hugo Chavez: what the mainstream is hiding

StormCloudsGathering
Youtube
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:57 UTC
Hugo Chavez's death radically shifted the balance of power in Latin America and the Caribbean but not for the reasons that you are being told on the mainstream media.
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Quenelle - Golden

US, UK foreign secretaries visit Kiev in PR stunt - Deputy national security adviser accidentally reveals UK government too weak to confront Russia

Tim Shipman
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 12:28 UTC
  • Cameron's adviser Hugh Powell left file on display to photographers
  • Document revealed Britain will not impose sanctions against Russia
  • Will not support military action against the country either, it showed
  • Also disclosed Russian investors will not be frozen out of City of London
  • Hague and Cameron claimed today they would 'get tough' with Russia
  • Britain will not impose sanctions or support military action against Russia, according to a briefing paper that was revealed in error yesterday.
Image

The document was snapped by a sharp photographer who zoomed in on the deputy national security adviser Hugh Powell as he walked past No10 to attend a meeting about the coup in Ukraine.

The document became public when one of David Cameron's advisers left it on display to press photographers before a Downing Street meeting.

The blunder by Hugh Powell, who is deputy national security adviser, also shows that the Government has no plans to freeze Russian investors out of the City of London.

Instead, the briefing paper recommends that the UN should take the lead and possibly send monitors to Ukraine.

The document says: 'UK should not support for now, trade sanctions ... or close London's financial centre to Russians.'

Comment: As the British establishment is joined at the hip with the American, we can deduce that the US won't do anything either.

It's all hot air and PR stunts, with both foreign secretaries visiting Kiev in two days, while their lackeys in the press push all the right propaganda buttons.

They can't slap sanctions on Russia because the financial elite in London would overrule them. They can't confront Russia's army because it's too risky to wage war with a real army.

They're pathetic creatures, which is why they instead use their armies to target defenseless peoples and hope that repeating lies often and loudly enough will convince the others to submit to their will.

See also:

Sophomoric peer pressure: Lawmakers call for G8 suspension of Russia

Russia mocks Britain: 'That small island no one listens to'!

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Chess

Russia mocks Britain: 'That small island no one listens to'!

James Kirkup
telegraph.co.uk
Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:15 UTC
Russia mocked Britain today as "a small island no one listens to", sparking a diplomatic spat with David Cameron.

Image
© API
The Russian official is also said to have joked about Russian “oligarchs” buying up large parts of Chelsea and other upmarket London districts.
The Prime Minister insisted that Britain remained a major world power.

Tensions surrounding the Syrian crisis boiled over at a G20 summit in St Petersburg. Mr Cameron has backed calls for military intervention in Syria after the Assad regime allegedly used chemical weapons.

Mr Putin has opposed intervention and questioned Western claims about the attack. Britain has faced questions about its role and influence in the world since Mr Cameron was embarrassed by last week's Commons vote to rule out a military strike against Syria.

Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's official spokesman, is said to have highlighted that embarrassment, telling Russian journalists that Britain was now diplomatically irrelevant.

Britain is "just a small island ... no one pays any attention to them", Mr Peskov is reported to have said. The blunt remarks appeared to realise British fears that the Russians would use the St Petersburg summit to upstage Mr Cameron over his criticism of Syria, Russia's closest Middle Eastern ally.
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Boat

Propaganda: Ukraine mobilizes reserves troops, threatening war

Alison Smale and Steven Erlanger
The New York Times
Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Photomig/EPA
Demonstrators put up a Russian flag near an administration building in Donetsk, Ukraine
Russia's move to seize control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula on Saturday led Ukraine to call up its military reserves on Sunday and warn Moscow against further incursions as Western powers scrambled to find a response to the crisis.

A day after the Russian Parliament granted President Vladimir V. Putin broad authority to use military force in response to the political upheaval in Ukraine that dislodged a Kremlin ally and installed a new, staunchly pro-Western government, the Ukrainian government in Kiev threatened war if Russia sent troops further into Ukraine.

Russian troops stripped of identifying insignia but using military vehicles bearing the license plates of Russia's Black Sea force swarmed the major thoroughfares of Crimea on Saturday, encircled government buildings, closed the main airport and seized communication hubs, solidifying what began on Friday as a covert effort to control the largely pro-Russian region.

The announcement of the reserve mobilization was an attempt by the rattled new government in Kiev to draw a line against Mr. Putin, an effort expected to continue later on Sunday when NATO holds an emergency meeting on Ukraine and the British foreign secretary, William Hague, visits Kiev in a sign of Western support.

Comment: The New York Times is blowing smoke!

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Hotdog

Lies and Spin: Vladimir Putin tightens grip on Crimea

Ian Traynor, Shaun Walker and Jon Swaine
The Guardian
Sun, 02 Mar 2014 15:16 UTC
Image

Yulia Tymoshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk
The fledgling government in Kiev put the country on a war footing on Sunday as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, tightened his grip on the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and western powers were left scrambling to find a response to the escalating crisis.

"We are on the brink of disaster," said Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's acting prime minister, as Kiev called for help from Washington and London, co-signatories of a 1994 pact with Russia guaranteeing Ukraine's security and its borders.

"This is actually a declaration of war on my country," he said. "We urge Putin to pull back his troops from this country and honour bilateral agreements. If he wants to be the president who started a war between two neighbouring and friendly countries, he has reached his target within a few inches."

As John Kerry, the US secretary of state, described Russia's gambit as "an incredible act of aggression", western powers pondered their limited options. Nato ambassadors met in Brussels, with Lithuania and Poland arguing that Russia's actions threatened them as Nato members bordering Russia and Ukraine, and pushing for appropriate action.

Comment: The Nuland Eavesdrop redux: Anybody that tells you that the U.S. is not running the "revolution" from behind the scenes is blowing smoke

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