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'Washington will lift debt ceiling to intervene in more countries'


RT
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:35 UTC
Reuters
© US national debt figure
The Democrats are going to vote against raising the debt ceiling, but enough Republicans are going to vote for it. They shouldn't raise the debt ceiling, but they will, explains Lew Rockwell, editor of LewRockwell.com.

The US Congress is expected to vote to raise the debt ceiling, prompting a possible stand-off between the parties which could end in a government shutdown.

RT spoke to Lew Rockwell, editor of LewRockwell.com, to discuss the ramifications of increasing the debt ceiling.

RT: Thursday is the deadline to raise the government's debt limit so it can pay its bills and avoid a potentially devastating looming economic crisis. What are the chances the deadline will be extended?
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Rocket

Enormous overkill: $3M Patriot missile used to shoot down small quadcopter drone

Chris Baraniuk
BBC News
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:15 UTC
patriot missile
© AFPPatriot missiles are normally used to shoot down enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles.
A Patriot missile - usually priced at about $3m (£2.5m) - was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone, according to a US general.

The strike was made by a US ally, Gen David Perkins told a military symposium.

"That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot," he said.

Patriots are radar-targeted weapons more commonly used to shoot down enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles.

"Now, that worked, they got it, OK, and we love Patriot missiles," the general said.

Recently, there have been reports that some groups, for example in Iraq, have taken to attaching weapons to small, commercial drones and using them against security forces.

However, Gen Perkins suggested deploying large surface-to-air missiles as a defence was probably not economically wise.
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Info

Theresa May, Britain's clueless Prime Minister, starts to unravel

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:10 UTC
Theresa May
Theresa May's sudden capitulation on taxes exposes her again as a weak and clueless Prime Minister.

Back in December 2016 I wrote an article for The Duran in which I wrote of how Theresa May's inability to articulate a clear Brexit plan exposed her as someone with no clear idea of the way forward.

In the weeks following that article the Supreme Court decision forced Theresa May to present a Brexit plan to the House of Commons, something which up to then she had been loathe to do, almost certainly because she had no plan to present. The plan was essentially one for a so-called 'hard Brexit' - with Britain quitting both the EU and the European Single Market - so as to give itself the power to reimpose control of its borders.
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Cow

Cattle ban: Turkey expels Dutch cows as diplomatic crisis expands


Yahoo News
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
Turkey expels Dutch cattle
© AFP Photo/Thierry ZOCCOLANBulent Tunc, head of the Turkish Association of Red Meat Producers, said a consignment of 40 Holstein cattle was being sent back to the Netherlands.
Turkey's red meat association has ordered a consignment of prize Dutch cattle to be sent back to the Netherlands, saying it no longer wants to farm the cows due to the diplomatic crisis between the countries.

Bulent Tunc, the head of the Turkish Association of Red Meat Producers, told Turkish media that a symbolic consignment of 40 Holstein Friesian cattle was already being sent back to the Netherlands.

"The Dutch Holstein cows have become very common in our country. But this breed is starting to cause serious problems," he told the Anadolu news agency.

"In future we do not want animal products from Holland. The first batch of Holsteins have been loaded and we will send them back," he added.

He said Turkey should start focusing on breeding its own cattle. "We have our own quality breeds," he said.

Comment: For background on the diplomatic row, see our SOTT Focus: The Bigger Picture: What's Behind the Souring Relationship Between Turkey and The Netherlands

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Attention

Ukraine crisis: Poroshenko sidelined as Tymoshenko reportedly flies to Washington

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 22:48 UTC
Alexander Turchinov
Alexander Turchinov
As Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council makes key decisions, Poroshenko's long-term rival Yulia Tymoshenko reportedly flies to Washington for secret talks.

Though the decisions taken by Ukraine today - to legalize the radicals' blockade of Donbass and to prepare action against Russian banks - are in themselves unsurprising, one interesting fact about them is the way they were announced.

Neither decision was announced by President Poroshenko, who is the country's head of state and the head of its executive branch. Nor was either decision announced by the government headed by Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who is a longterm ally of Poroshenko's. As it happens both Poroshenko and Groysman have been remarkably reticent about the coal blockade ever since it began.
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MIB

Two high-level government child trafficking rings busted - U.S. media silent

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 17:06 UTC
Silencing child trafficking
© thefreethoughtproject.com
In late 2016, the government's spin machine made it a point to feature "pizza gate," only to mock anyone who would ever believe it to be true. The thought that high-level government officials in the U.S. would or could ever be involved in sex-trafficking or pedophilia was presented as far-fetched conspiracy theory, only believed by the fringe elements of society. But as The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous occasions, pedophilia involving high-level government officials is becoming the norm rather than the exception.

In the North Bengal region of India, a child welfare officer, India's equivalent of a Child Protective Services official was arrested for her role in a child-trafficking ring. Sasmita Ghosh's arrest makes the seventh as of late. The State's Criminal Investigative Department (CID) made the arrests. According to the Hindu, "The CID had unearthed the child trafficking racket during raids at homes and nursing homes in Baduria area of North 24 Parganas district, in Behala in the southern fringes of Kolkata and some other parts of south Bengal in November last year."

Abortion clinics in the area were convincing mothers to give birth to their children in exchange for money ranging between $1,400 and $4,500 USD. Other birthing centers told mothers their children were stillborn, when they weren't, allowing the clinic to steal the babies for sale on the black market. The children were transported in bread baskets to nursing homes in the area where they would remain until they were sold into servitude, as sex slaves, or brothels.

"It is a huge network of NGOs, nursing homes, doctors and middlemen dealing in illegal adoption and baby trafficking that the police have busted. Our men are now building on the huge leads they have already got in this case," Rajesh Kumar, CID's Additional Director General told the press. Additionally, investigators believe foreigners were buying the children. Currency from other countries was found at the same time the children were discovered. Several corpses and skeletons of infants were also unearthed in the raided businesses.

Comment: See also:

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Info

Early exit polls: PM Rutte's party wins most seats in Dutch election


RT
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 20:50 UTC
Mark Rutte
© Michael Kooren / Reuters
The Netherlands' ruling People's Party for Freedom and Democracy has won the most seats in parliamentary elections held on Wednesday, according to early exit polls. Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom is tied second with two other parties.

The People Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) has won 31 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliamentary elections, according to the first exit polls released by national broadcaster NOS.

"This poll shows that people trust us," Tamara van Ark, VVD campaign manager said, according to NOS.
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Info

US Senate approves Coats for director of national intelligence


RT
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 20:44 UTC
Dan Coats
© Lucas Jackson / Reuters
Dan Coats has been confirmed as the new US Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The former senator from Indiana will oversee more than a dozen US intelligence agencies.

In his confirmation hearing on February 28, Coats took a hard line on Russia, defended extensive NSA surveillance, and supported the continued operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for terrorists.

Coats, 73, has been critical of Russia for years, and landed on the list of US politicians barred from the country in March 2014.

Comment: More on Dan Coats: Controversial DNI pick Dan Coats: Defends NSA, protects 'deep state', is banned from Russia, scandal in Germany

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Pills

Washington city sues Purdue Pharma, Makers of OxyContin, for flooding their town with opioids

Alex Pietrowski
Waking Times
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 19:58 UTC
oxycontin addiction
The abuse and misuse of prescription, non-prescription, and illegal opioid drugs is devastating North America, and as municipalities and communities struggle to deal with the many causes for and approaches to resolving widespread opioid addiction, the city Everett, WA is suing the makers of OxContin for their role in flooding the streets with pills.
"Everett's lawsuit, now in federal court in Seattle, accuses Purdue Pharma of gross negligence and nuisance. The city seeks to hold the company accountable, the lawsuit alleges, for "supplying OxyContin to obviously suspicious pharmacies and physicians and enabling the illegal diversion of OxyContin into the black market" and into Everett, despite a company program to track suspicious flows." [Source]
Everett has spent millions of dollars in combating the epidemic, and Mayor Ray Stephanson believes that Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, a powerful opioid which is perhaps the most abused pharmaceutical medication on the planet, should bear some of the burden.
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Attention

RT penetrates fog of war around civilians' plight in besieged Mosul, as humanitarian catastrophe unfolding


RT
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 20:33 UTC
Refugees flee Mosul
The US-led coalition's liberation of Mosul is in its final phase. While Western media praise the operation, RT has been there on the ground witnessing what they don't talk much about: the plight of the people and the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

Innocent people are being caught in the crossfire between terrorists and the US-led coalition, eye-witnesses have been telling RT's Murad Gazdiev in recent weeks as he visited refugee camps and hospitals in Iraq. While it is a known common practice for jihadists to use civilians as human shields, it seemingly has not stopped the coalition from trying to regain control over the city by any means necessary.

"On the day that our house was hit, a dozen other homes were destroyed by airstrikes in our neighborhood. It is a deep injustice," one local at the Rojava hospital in Erbil recalled.


Refugees in the Hazar refugee camp near Erbil, northern Iraq, confirmed that they had seen bombs falling on them indiscriminately.

Comment: Iraqi troops are firing heavy artillery and rockets in west Mosul, which they earlier pledged to avoid. This is forcing a massive civilian exodus from the Iraqi city, a senior Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, Belkis Wille, told RT.
"We are seeing the Iraqi forces starting to use heavy artillery in west Mosul, something they didn't do in the east and they committed not to doing. We're also seeing them firing inherently indiscriminate rockets... into civilian-populated neighborhoods," Wille said.

"As long as that continues, we're going to continue to see people pouring out, as well as of course an increase in civilian casualties, because these people are also victims of abuses by ISIS [Islamic State or IS], so they are really caught in the crossfire and they need to get out," Wille emphasized.

Yet even if people manage to escape, they are faced with blood-chilling conditions in what used to be refugee camps - but have become prisons in disguise, she said.
Iraqi forces recaptured the neighborhoods of Bab al-Bid and Bab al-Jadid, according to a statement by Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat. Hours later, troops retook a railway station and garage in Nineveh as well.
Referencing one of five strategic bridges that connect eastern and western Mosul near the Tigris River, Jawdat said, "The Rapid Response forces recaptured 90 percent of the Old City and came 100 meters away from the Old Bridge."

The Old City section of Mosul is seen as an important target by Iraqi officials due to its dense population and small alleys, and retaking it will have a decisive impact on anti-Daesh operations in Mosul's western region.

Eastern Mosul was recaptured from the jihadists on January 24, after three months of intense battle. Another operation to retake the region was launched in February, resulting in 30 percent of Mosul being recaptured, according to security officials.

Troops have also regained control of the city's airport, important government facilities, and a military base.


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