Puppet Masters
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Russian-made antitank guided missiles and Chinese man-portable air-defense systems are up for grabs, already waiting in warehouses in Jordan and Turkey.
An Arab diplomat and several opposition figures with knowledge of the Saudi efforts have told WSJ that these supplies are likely to tip the battlefield scales, as the rebels will become capable of taking on the government's air power and destroying heavy armored vehicles.
"New stuff is arriving imminently," a Western diplomat with knowledge of the planned weapons deliveries told the American publication.
Leaders of the Syrian opposition said they don't yet know the total amount of military aid that will be shipped. The new weapons are expected to reach southern Syria from Jordan while the opposition in the north will get arms from Turkey, the Western diplomat said.

Caracas photo of burned police units in the city center
4:38 PM - 12 Feb 2014
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the Venezuelan capital on Wednesday in the worst unrest since Nicolas Maduro assumed the presidency last year. Demonstrators from several different political factions clashed in Caracas, leaving at least three people dead and over 20 injured.
Venezuela's top prosecutor confirmed the death of 24-year-old student Bassil Dacosta Frías, who was shot in the head and died later in hospital. Officials said that a government supporter was also assassinated in what they decried as an act of "fascism." A third person was killed in the Chacao neighborhood in the East of the Venezuelan capital.
Shares of Twitter dropped about 24 percent Thursday - a paper loss of $8.7 billion - after it reported sluggish user growth. The selloff was a sign that the social network will have a tough time regaining its stature with advertisers, at least until it releases better numbers, a senior tech analyst told CNBC.
"To us, when you're talking about opportunities relative to communicating with advertisers, you want to lead with a large and growing and increasingly engaged user base," Scott Kessler of S&P Capital IQ told "Squawk on the Street." "And Twitter doesn't seem to have the data to support that proposition."
Twitter closed Wednesday's trading session at $65.97 a share before posting earnings after the bell, the first quarterly report since it went public in November. Shares reached a low of $50 during trading Thursday, on pace for Twitter's worst day on record. The formerly red-hot stock had zero room for error, said Colin Sebastian, a senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.
Despite a rocky trading session Thursday, Twitter's stock remained up 99 percent from its IPO price of $26 a share.

Al-Shabab terrorists, aka CIA/Mossad/MI6/DGSE dupes, terrorise people in Nairobi Kenya on behalf of their corporate sponsors
Running Time: 01:59:00
Download: MP3

Methods for detecting natural gas emissions. Top-down methods take air samples from aircraft or tall towers to measure gas concentrations remote from sources. Bottom-up methods take measurements directly at facilities.
Methane, also called natural gas, is a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas. It lasts just nine years in Earth's atmosphere but is about 34 times more potent at trapping infrared radiation (the greenhouse effect) than carbon dioxide, which is more abundant and lasts longer. While methane spews into the sky from both natural sources, such as wetlands, and human activities, including oil and gas production, the government estimates only track manmade sources.
The review of scientific studies of methane emissions suggests that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) methane counts are about 50 percent too low, though the underestimate could range from 25 percent to as much as 75 percent. That means the United States is pumping about 14 million tons more methane than thought into the atmosphere each year, according to the findings, published today (Feb. 13) in the journal Science.
"Evidence from numerous studies consistently suggest that methane emissions are larger than those estimated by the EPA inventory," said Adam Brandt, lead study author and an energy resources engineer at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
The review analyzed the results of more than 200 studies that traced methane emissions across the United States and were published in the past 20 years. The results were compared to the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which records methane emissions and other climate-changing gases.
Israel has convened a ministerial meeting to discuss how to respond to the growing number of foreign companies refusing to do business with Israeli entities operating in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, The Times reported on Tuesday.
The United Nations regards the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured in the war and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid any constructions on the occupied lands.
The meeting saw Israeli Minister for Intelligence and Strategy, Yuval Steinitz tabling a plan for media propaganda against organizations advocating boycotts.
Earlier in the month, US Secretary of State John Kerry pointed to "an increasing de-legitimization" campaign building up against Israel internationally and "talk of boycotts" if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not end.

(L-R) National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn testify during a hearing before Senate (Select) Intelligence Committee January 29, 2014
All five of these Gestapo wannabes are in violation of their oath of office to protect the Constitution of the United States. They have relentlessly violated the Constitution, which makes these five, who are in charge of US intelligence and black operations, traitors to the United States. Yet, they have not been arrested and put on trial. Congress is content to sit there and listen to their ongoing lies time after time after time, despite the fact that these 5 have committed more and worse crimes against our country than the "terrorists" that serve as an excuse for the crimes committed by the intelligence agencies.
Remember, dear readers, it is a crime for you to lie to any federal agent even if you are not under oath or before Congress. How much more evidence do you need that you are not a citizen of the United States but a mere serf of the federal government? Will you ever wake up?
Agriculture Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, in his former post as interior minister, tipped off the party leader of a prominent lawmaker whose name had cropped up in an international probe, Friedrich's spokesman said.
The move dates back to October, a month after German general elections when Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives were in the process of building a coalition government with the centre-left Social Democrats.
Friedrich, a conservative ally of Merkel in her left-right "grand coalition", insisted Friday he did not believe he had done anything wrong politically or legally but said he would resign if a legal inquiry was launched.
Merkel had held an "intensive discussion" with Friedrich on Friday, said her spokesman Steffen Seibert, adding that the minister "is aware of the dimension of the case".
The case has blown up after news broke early in the week that searches as part of a child pornography investigation had been carried out at the home and offices of Social Democrat (SPD) lawmaker Sebastian Edathy.

Victoria Nuland, previously foreign policy adviser to vice-president Dick Cheney. Married to neo-con Robert Kagan. Her slogan sums up the US' attitude towards the EU.
On Russia, the denigration of all things Sochi - attributable to the inherent stupidity of Western corporate media "standards" - was just a subplot of the main show, which always gets personal; the relentless demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin. [1]
Yet Nulandgate - as in US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria "neo-con" Nuland uttering her famous "F**k the EU" - was way more serious. Not because of the "profanity" (praise the Lord!), but for providing what US Think Tankland hailed as "an indicator of American strategic thinking".
Here's the game in a nutshell. Germany remote controls one of the leaders of the Ukrainian protests, heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko. [2]
"F**k the EU" is essentially directed towards Berlin and Klitschko, its key protege. Washington sees this going nowhere, as Germany, after all, has been slowly building a complex energy-investment partnership with Russia.
The Obama administration wants results - fast. Nuland herself stressed (check it out, starting at 7:26) that Washington, over the past two decades, has "invested" over US$5 billion for the "democratization" of Ukraine. So yes: this is "our" game and the EU is at best a nuisance while Russia remains the major spoiler. Welcome to Washington's Ukrainian "strategy".

Kuwaiti activists gather outside the courthouse in Kuwait City on November 3, 2011 where two fellow leading youth activists were questioned for allegedly making remarks on their Twitter accounts deemed offensive to the status of the Gulf state ruler.
Saudi Arabia, which is on the group's "Enemies of the Internet" list and ranks 164 out of 179 on its 2014 World Press Freedom Index, has been particularly aggressive in policing the Internet, including by arresting those who post critical articles or comments, it said.








