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The return of German militarism: What could possibly go wrong?

Ulrich Rippert
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 06 Feb 2014 21:46 UTC
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The announcement by the new grand coalition government in Germany that the country's previous policy of military restraint is at an end marks a historic turning point. It heralds a new stage of aggressive imperialist foreign policy.

For the first time since the end of World War II and the monstrous crimes of the Nazi dictatorship, Berlin's leading politicians have clearly stated that Germany will in the future intervene in crisis areas and global hot spots more strongly and independently than before, including by military means. The days when Germany was obliged to practice military abstinence are finally over, they insist.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party - SPD) first announced the new policy last week in the Bundestag (parliament). He said Germany was "too big and too important" to confine itself any longer "to commenting on world politics from the sidelines."

Due to its economic power and geographical location in the centre of Europe, Germany bore a special responsibility in regard to world affairs, Steinmeier declared, adding, "We recognise our responsibility." Germany would serve as a catalyst for a common European foreign and security policy, he said, and while the use of military force was only a last resort, it could not be ruled out.

Comment: This is bad news for the German people. The constraints placed on the military in Germany and Japan in the postwar period, by freeing them from the burden of an imperialistic war machine, led to a golden age of export-led economic growth. Here's a crazy idea: maybe all countries should follow the policy of Ohnemicheltum (not with me).

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Pills

Cost of generic drugs soaring due to increased demand from Obamacare

Dr. Susan Berry
Breitbart
Sat, 01 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Breitbart
The pervasive use of generic over brand-name medications was anticipated to be a money-saver, but recently prices are soaring, even up 6,000 percent for some common drugs that were once fairly low-cost.

As National Journal reports, pharmacists are perplexed about the huge price hikes in many drugs and are asking Congress to hold a hearing to look into the matter.

Generic drugs such as Pravastatin, which treats high cholesterol, and the antibiotic Doxycycline spiked upwards of 1,000 percent in 2013, according to a survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association.

According to the survey, 77 percent of pharmacists said they experienced 26 or more instances of a large increase in the acquisition price of a generic drug within the last six months of 2013.

The survey found an additional 84 percent of pharmacists said price fluctuations prevented them from providing care and remaining in business due to the fact that filling prescriptions resulted in losses when some patients refused their prescriptions because of costs.

Comment: There is also no guarantee the generic drug is safe and if Big Pharma hurts, maims or kills you, well, you can't do much about it.

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Cult

UN committee blasts Vatican on sex abuse, abortion

Nicole Winfield
breitbart.com
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 17:36 UTC
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© Reuters
Pope Francis came under new pressure Wednesday to punish bishops who covered up for pedophile priests when a U.N. human rights panel accused the Vatican of systematically protecting its reputation instead of looking out for the safety of children.

In a scathing report that thrilled victims and stunned the Vatican, the United Nations committee said the Holy See maintained a "code of silence" that enabled priests to sexually abuse tens of thousands of children worldwide over decades with impunity.

Among other things, the panel called on the Vatican to immediately remove all priests known or suspected to be child molesters, open its archives on abusers and the bishops who covered up for them, and turn the abuse cases over to law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution.

The committee largely brushed aside the Vatican's claims that it has already instituted new safeguards, and it accused the Roman Catholic Church of still harboring criminals.

"The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators," the panel said.
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Binoculars

Turns out the Canadian State has also been conducting mass surveillance against its own people

Colin Freeze
The Globe and Mail
Mon, 03 Feb 2014 17:31 UTC
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© CHRIS WATTIE/REUTERS
Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) chief John Forster waits to testify before the Senate national security and defence committee in Ottawa February 3, 2014.
Canada's top security and spy-agency officials have given the first detailed public defence of secret government surveillance programs that collect telecommunications "metadata."

"We wouldn't be able to find or locate our targets without it," John Forster, chief of the Communications Security Establishment Canada, told a parliamentary committee.

The head of the foreign-intelligence electronic-eavesdropping agency, Mr. Forster said snooping on metadata is fundamental for the Canadian government to pick out foreign terrorists and other targets "in a sea of billion and billions of communications traversing the globe."

For nearly a decade, Canada's surveillance sleuths at CSEC have been collecting and analyzing Internet Protocol addresses, phone logs and other metadata. Government lawyers have told them this kind of surveillance is legally sound - and not the same as illegally wiretapping phone calls or steaming open letters.

This means that standard privacy strictures - such as not intercepting Canadian material without warrants - do not necessarily apply. In the search for foreign intelligence "targets" outside Canada, CSEC analysts are allowed to use metadata regardless of whether the underlying communications originate in Canada.
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Eye 2

Unidentified assailants are kidnapping and torturing protesters in Ukraine

Roman Goncharenko
dw.de
Mon, 27 Jan 2014 17:22 UTC
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Ukrainian protesters may be risking their lives, as cases mount in which activists are kidnapped and beaten. One of them was found dead, and others have gone missing. Some experts suspect death squads behind the crimes.

A sign hangs on one of the three-meter high barricades built out of sacks filled with snow that block entrance to Independence Square in Kyiv. It bears the words: "Belarus is with you!" in large, black letters against a white background - a gesture of solidarity from Belarusian opposition activists.

But the message could also be read as such: in Ukraine, the political situation now resembles that of its neighbor.

Bound hands, dead in the forest

A photo that hangs near that sign offers a piece of evidence. A bearded man with clever eyes can be seen in it. Yuri Verbizky, a 50-year-old seismologist from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, was found dead in a forest near Kyiv on January 22, 2014. His hands had been bound together with tape, and his corpse showed signs of torture.

Few details are known, but doctors have determined that Verbizky died due to exposure. Temperatures of around minus 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) are common at the moment in Ukraine. Police are investigating the case as murder.
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Eye 1

In an ironic twist, the psychopathic Department of Homeland Security develops screening technology to identify psychopaths

Steven Hipwell
ComputerWeekly.com
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 19:36 UTC
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Channel 4's recent "Psychopath Night" gave some chilling insights into the inner workings of the psychopathic mentality. Put simply, a psychopathic personality is one whose levels of empathy, conscience and remorse are low or barely exist. Such people are able to operate unburdened by normal human compassion, often leaving a trail of broken relationships and hurt in their wake. Psychopathy is also thought to be untreatable.

It's reckoned by experts that approximately one in 100 people is a psychopath, but they are notoriously hard to spot by other humans. That's where technology comes in. Research on known psychopaths has revealed under-active brain responses while viewing visually traumatic images in an MRI scanner - the technology providing a strong indicator of a lack of empathy.

The US Department of Homeland Security has developed a technology called FAST or Future Attribute Screening Technology. Originally named Project Hostile Intent, the system screens for psychological and physiological factors. It might be useful in the right and proper context as an assessment tool for psychopathic behaviours, such as helping to categorise and segregate prisoners.

Software for psychometric testing has been available for a long time. Responses can also be assessed for psychopathic traits. Maybe human-resources departments will make more use of such technology. According to a 2011 story in The Independent there is anecdotal evidence that some sectors recruit social psychopaths on purpose. Remember the banking crisis?

Comment: SOTT.net has been saying for years that using technology to identify psychopaths is not enough and could even be dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Psychopaths could manipulate the use of such technology to further conceal themselves while silencing opponents. The best protection we have is through the application of knowledge and networking with others to identify these unusual creatures with human masks.

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Road Cone

Governor Christie linked to knowledge of shut lanes

Katie Zernike
The New York Times
Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Launch media viewer
David Wildstein, right, with his lawyer, Alan Zegas, at a hearing in Trenton in January.
The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, central to the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, said on Friday that "evidence exists" that the governor knew about the closings when they were happening.

A lawyer for the former official, David Wildstein, wrote a letter describing the move to shut the lanes as "the Christie administration's order" and said "evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference" three weeks ago.

During his news conference, Mr. Christie specifically said he had no knowledge that traffic lanes leading to the bridge had been closed until after they were reopened. "I had no knowledge of this - of the planning, the execution or anything about it - and that I first found out about it after it was over," he said. "And even then, what I was told was that it was a traffic study."

The letter, which was sent as part of a dispute over Mr. Wildstein's legal fees, does not specify what the evidence is. Nonetheless, it marks a striking break with a previous ally. Mr. Wildstein was a high school classmate of Mr. Christie's who was hired with the governor's blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge.
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Green Light

Over 1,000 Syrian refugees of U.S-Saudi dirty war granted Russian asylum


RT
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 16:37 UTC
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© AFP Photo / Gurcan Ozturk
A Syrian man and his son sits for a lunch in an evacuated building on January 27, 2014 in the Kucukpazar district of Istanbul
Over 1,000 people from civil war-torn Syria have received temporary asylum in Russia, the head of the asylum department of the Federal Migration Service has said.

A total number of Syrians who have officially applied for refuge in Russia is over 1,200, Vladimir Rucheikov said at gathering of the Presidential Council for Human Rights. His agency makes decisions about Syrian refugees mainly on humanitarian grounds, and he noted Syria is an unsafe place to live in.

In January this year, Olga Kirillova of the Moscow City Directorate of the Federal Migration Service told the press that the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Russia was rising.

In December 2013, the agency had to refute media reports about a mass deportation of Syrians from Russia. The head of the Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovsky, emphasized that his people had to observe the law and only granted asylum to those who had sufficient grounds for it. He did not give any concrete figures.

In October 2013, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that it received a letter from a 50,000-strong group of Syrian Christians who asked to be granted Russian citizenship.
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Eye 1

New Russian anti-extremist law comes into force


RT
Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:30 UTC
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© RIA Novosti/Mihail Metzel
President Putin has signed the bill introducing heavier fines and longer prison sentences for those convicted of extremism-related crimes.

The law was published on the official government portal on Tuesday and comes into force on the same day.

The maximum prison term for public calls for extremism is raised to four years. The minimum fine for the same crime is set at 100,000 roubles (about $2,850) while the maximum fine was left at 300,000 roubles (about $8,550).

The maximum punishment for inciting ethnic, religious or other types of hatred changes from two to four years, and the minimum fine was tripled and is now 300,000 roubles (about $8,550). The maximum fine again remains the same at 500,000 roubles (about $14,280).

The maximum penalty for the organizers of extremist groups is increased from the current four years to six years in prison. Anyone involved in such organisations would face up to four years instead of the current two.

The bill introducing tougher punishment for extremism was drafted by the government in June 2013.

The parliament is currently working on another bill that toughens the punishment for terrorists. Once passed into law it would increase the punishment for terrorist activities to life in prison.

Comment: Well, in the US, those kinds of activities can lead to having everything you own confiscated and yourself disappeared into Gitmo.

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Take 2

'Sochi is Putingrad': Vladimir Putin has made a lasting impression in most expensive Games ever

Mark Mackinnon
The Globe and Mail
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 16:13 UTC
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© John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
A homeless man gets a hot meal from a soup truck courtesy of the Nochlezhka homeless shelter in St. Petersburg January 18, 2014.
In the Soviet era, great leaders had cities named after them. St. Petersburg, the imperial capital, was rechristened in honour of Lenin and Volgograd became Stalingrad. Now, as modern Russia strives to recapture its past glory, the practice seems ready for a revival.

"Sochi is Putingrad," says Marat Gelman, who considers the $50-billion investment in the Black Sea resort and the Winter Olympics to begin there on Friday the personal handiwork of his former boss, President Vladimir Putin.

"He built the whole thing. It's his legacy."

And they are the Putin Games. Seven years ago, Mr. Putin travelled to Guatemala and campaigned so persuasively (in three languages) that the International Olympic Committee chose Sochi even though it lacked appropriate facilities and is Russia's only city never guaranteed to see snow in February.

Eager to erase painful memories of 1980's blighted Summer Games in Moscow, marred by a Western boycott after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the President and his supporters are now poised to celebrate, with by far the most costly Olympiad ever held, the rebirth of a country they say is strong and proud once again: stable domestically and able to walk on the international stage with a swagger.

The trouble is that Mr. Putin hasn't contained himself to Putingrad.
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