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Chess

Ukrainians cooling to idea of joining the EU: 'They don't need us'


Fort Russ
Mon, 27 Jun 2016 16:02 UTC
Ukraine EU citizens
Many Ukrainians are already talking about the fact that the EU does not need Ukraine. The number of people dissatisfied with the European Union is increasing every day.

Today the political elite continue to actively discuss the question of what will happen to Ukraine and how it will be affected by the outcome of the will of the British people.

Many are sounding that the EU will never take Ukraine in its composition, so as to solve their internal problems, in order not to disintegrate completely. And Ukrainians should not think about the visa-free regime in the near future. As it turns out, the sounds are not groundless.

Comment: Ordinary Ukrainians may be slowly awakening to the fact that their corrupt leaders have sold them out in service to the Empire. The welfare of Ukraine was never a concern. The goal has always been to damage Russia in any way possible. In this case creating an economic basket-case accompanied by a civil war, right on Russia's doorstep.

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Snakes in Suits

Great Lakes water wars have begun - U.S. officials approve drawing 30 million liters per day

Joe Battaglia
Prevent Disease
Sat, 25 Jun 2016 16:04 UTC
water wars
A group of eight U.S. officials have voted to allow a Wisconsin-based region to begin drawing 30 million liters of water a day from lake Michigan for drinking water. A Canadian Mayor has spoken out on the recently-approved plan calling the recent decision "the end of the Great Lakes as we know them."

Last year, the city of Waukesha in Wisconsin had asked the Great Lake states for permission to divert water from Lake Michigan because its own aquifer is running low and the water is contaminated with high levels of naturally occurring cancer-causing radium.
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Network

The Empire prepping for war: Next "Russian government cyber attack" may be a Gulf of Tonkin fake


Moon of Alabama
Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:27 UTC
hackers
© Kacper Pempel / Reuters
Yesterday the Washington Post published a piece that smelled of bullshit from the first line to the last:

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump.
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
...
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
...
Some of the hackers had access to the DNC network for about a year, but all were expelled over the past weekend in a major computer cleanup campaign, the committee officials and experts said.
Why the f*** would Russia want to steal oppo research about Trump when it can read such in Politico and the Washington Post every day? Why start A YEAR AGO to hack something for Trump data? Who would have thought A YEAR AGO that Trump would be relevant? This was obvious nonsense. But some snakeoil salesmen convinced the Washington Post know-nothing reporter and the DNC that it all must be true:
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Blackbox

The Jordan weapons-smuggling story makes no sense - Is U.S. sending Jordan a message?


Moon of Alabama
Mon, 27 Jun 2016 15:20 UTC
jordan
© Muhammad Hamed/ReutersA deadly car bomb killed 6 Jordanian soldiers near the border with Syria. The vehicle had been provided to Syrian rebels. ISIS claimed responsibility.
U.S. officials called up the New York Times. They requested to send two reporters to take down dictation. The reporters dutifully stenographed what they were told and copied it into some publishable format.

The main purpose of the story seems to be to blame the Jordan intelligence service that CIA supplied weapons for "Syrian rebels" are ending up in weapon markets and with the Islamic State.

But the officials are also giving a limited hangout, confirming some already known facts to obfuscate and hide others. The reporters never bother to explain that to their readers. They leave all major assertions unchallenged even while those contradict reports already in the public record. "Why confuse the reader with facts?" they might have thought.

Comment: More background: Jordan intel regularly 'stole' U.S. arms intended for Syrian 'rebels'

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Binoculars

Snowden on Russia's anti-terror bill: 'Mass surveillance doesn't work'


RT
Sat, 25 Jun 2016 21:07 UTC
1010eyes
© www.torn-republic.com
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has criticized Russia's new anti-terrorist legislation draft that's related to communications security. He stressed that the bill endangers liberty "without improving security."

The former CIA employee, now residing in Russia as a temporary asylum holder, spoke against the legislation, which is part of a package of anti-terrorism bills prepared by a group of lawmakers headed by Chair of the State Duma Committee for Security Irina Yarovaya. Having called it a "Big Brother law," Snowden tweeted that it's "an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights that should never be signed."

Snowden, wanted by the US for his disclosures on numerous global surveillance programs, reacted to the measures that had been approved by the Russian lower house earlier this week. The draft also obliges all communications companies, including internet providers, to retain information about data traffic on their servers for three years. Messengers and social networks must keep it for at least one year, the bill says. Actual records and messages must also be kept for six months.

The document that was first drafted as a response to the bombing of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt last year, and the terrorist attacks in Paris, also requires social media and communications companies to assist state security agencies in reading encrypted data by handing over encryption keys. Non-compliance could result in fines.

Comment: As in the US, this is a downhill slide that will pick up momentum. Enough becomes never enough.

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Gift

Jordan intel regularly 'stole' U.S. arms intended for Syrian 'rebels'


Sputnik
Mon, 27 Jun 2016 14:47 UTC
jordan
© REUTERS/ Muhammad HamedJordanian security vehicles near the GID base.
A journalist investigation has revealed that Jordanian intelligence officers kept stealing US-provided arms intended for Syrian rebels and sold them on the black market for their own profit.

A joint investigation by the New York Times and Al Jazeera revealed a messy scheme of arms theft that Jordanian intelligence service (the General Intelligence Directorate, or GID) officers used to smuggle weapons provided by the US and Saudi Arabia for Syrian rebels trained on Jordanian soil.

The CIA reportedly conducted Syrian rebel training programs for decades. One, the less effective, was intended to train Syrian fighters to fight against Daesh. This program was shut down after it reportedly managed to train only a handful of fighters. The second one, though, trained fighters to fight against Syrian government of Bashar Al-Assad. This one, reportedly, was way more effective.

Comment: Where else did these weapons go? ISIS? This whole narrative looks more like damage control. A rogue group 'stealing' weapons is a very convenient way of deflecting blame. If part of the scheme is ever revealed, it can be written off as a bunch of bad apples, when in reality the black market is being used to funnel weapons to bona fide terror groups.

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Dominoes

Germany plans to keep UK in the EU at an 'associated partner country' status

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Sun, 26 Jun 2016 00:00 UTC
CameronMerkel
© FreakingNews.com"Near, far, wherever you are," Merkel, Cameron and the EU Titanic
German newspaper Die Welt says Germany will offer the UK an "associated partner country" agreement to keep the UK in the EU's orbit. With the earthquake that was the Brexit result, the EU now has to deal with something it has never faced before, democracy. The will of the people won the day. The EU's damage control mechanism is now in overdrive in order to prevent France, the Netherlands, Austria, or Hungary from potentially leaving the union.

The Brexit was not a sudden event, but an evolution of past democratic referendums overturned and ignored. A year ago Greece overwhelmingly voted to reject EU/Troika austerity demands. Brussels cut off Greece's access to Euro notes, and put the Greek "revolution" quickly to rest. Recently Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected a Ukraine-European Union treaty. Brussels brushed the vote aside as nothing more than a non-binding tantrum of the peasant class.

Now the big one hit, Brexit. The UK's voice is too big to blackmail into submission, and too important to ignore. The domino effect is now in play. France's Marine Le Pen has pledged to hold a French referendum if she emerges victorious in next year's presidential elections.

For those who think the EU is officially knocked out, think again. We are just at the very beginning of European liberation from the super state that is Brussels. The scaling down of the EU, and a return to a more sensible European integration and union will be a battle hard fought and take years, if not decades to reach its conclusion.

The unelected oligarchs in Brussels will not simply stand by and watch the serfs stage a revolt. Plan B is being quickly cobbled together. Angela Merkel is leading the charge to keep her dream of a United States of Europe from faltering. Berlin's finance ministry has already drafted a strategy document, poison pill, to float to the UK public.

Comment: EU Titanic has encountered its Brexit iceberg and is looking to plug the hole. The people versus the oligarchs, who will next see the danger ahead and abandon ship?

See also: Joining the Brexit party: Netherlands, France and now Italy attempt to launch EU referendum campaigns next

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Bad Guys

Kiev officially refuses to fulfill the Minsk agreements claiming 'security issues', ignores its role in ceasefire violations


Fort Russ
Mon, 27 Jun 2016 16:22 UTC
Andriy Parubiy
Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

The government in Kiev is not ready to perform the Minsk agreements. This was stated by the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy to the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

Parubiy noted that currently it's "very hard to talk about changes to the Constitution on decentralization and the law on elections in Donbass. According to him, this is due to security issues in the region. "Until we see a lasting ceasefire for at least 30, but preferably 60 days, it is very difficult to have a discussion about the following points (of the Minsk agreements)," said Parubiy.

As was reported by RIA Novosti, on June 22nd Victoria Nuland met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy. They discussed the program of reforms in Ukraine and implementation of the Minsk agreements. On 24th June, she flew to Moscow to meet with Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. Press Secretary of Russian President Dmitry Peskov noted that this meeting would be the traditional exchange of views and comparing of notes.

The conflict in the southeast of Ukraine began in the spring of 2014. During this time, victims of the conflict reached more than 9,000 people. Measures to resolve the conflict are being discussed in the Normandy Format, as well as a special contact group. Negotiators adopted three documents governing the steps to de-escalate the conflict.

Comment: Indeed it's very hard to have a ceasefire when one side keeps shelling the other.

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Bad Guys

South Front: Brexit vote was an 'earthquake,' will affect the world for decades to come

J. Hawk
South Front
Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:24 UTC
European parliament building
© UnknownFile photo shows the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France.

The Brexit vote in favor of leaving the EU ranks as one of the most significant events of the last decade. It is an earthquake which, in addition to its immediate consequences, will be followed by aftershocks by years if not decades to come. It is an event of first-rank significance for not just the increasingly dis-United Kingdom, but also the EU, US, Russia, and much of the rest of the world.

The Causes

Brexit is, so far, the most powerful manifestation of the "boomerang effect" of the West's
JFK Russia US Russia
post-Cold War expansionism. Much of the West's prosperity in the last two decades has been underwritten by one factor alone: the ability to expand its economic power into the post-Soviet space and into developing world countries aligned with USSR. This so-called "Third Way", which was promoted by leaders such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, and which in the 1990s was spearheaded by military interventions in the name of "human rights," was never sustainable. Once a country or an empire (and "the West" as a whole today can be best described as a US empire, with its various members enjoying varying privileges and obligations) adopts expansion as its default political-economic model, it must continue expanding. Until it can't.

And now Western neocolonialism is encountering resistance from Russia and China and feeling the boomerang effect of the instability Western policies have fostered. The anxiety concerning refugees from the Middle East and North Africa is building on the pre-existing resentment of economic migrants from EU members of Eastern Europe. The resentment toward Eastern Europeans in the UK was a major factor that propelled David Cameron into power and led him to propose the Brexit referendum before Middle Eastern refugees have washed up on Greece's shores.

Comment: Further reading:

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Quenelle

Russia fights corruption, arrests 'chaotic & corrupt' pro-Western politician

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:02 UTC
Putin Nikita Belykh
Putin at a meeting with Kirov Region Governor Nikita Belykh.
Nikita Belykh - prominent Russian liberal politician and governor of Kirov Region - arrested after being caught receiving 400,000 euros in alleged bribe money.

The arrest of Nikita Belykh, the governor of Russia's Kirov Region, after he was caught in a sting accepting an alleged 400,000 euro bribe, is not perhaps the sort of event that attracts world attention. After all the fact there is corruption in Russia is hardly news.

Belykh is not however a run-of-the-mill governor. Unlike all of Russia's other governors his background is firmly in Russian liberal politics and he has in the past enjoyed close links with what is sometimes called Russia's "non-system" opposition. This consists of the individuals and groups who agitate outside Russia's parliamentary system and who - almost to a man and woman - consider Putin an evil dictator who they want overthrown.

In fairness to Belykh he has been marginally more effective electorally than most of the other members of the liberal "non-system" opposition. For a time in the mid-2000s he was the leader of the ultra-liberal Union of Rightist Forces where he became close to Boris Nemtsov. A coalition he formed in 2005 with Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko party (Russia's oldest and biggest liberal party) won 11% of the vote in the Moscow city elections of 2005, gaining a presence in the Moscow City Duma. In 2006 his party did even better in local elections in Belykh's home region of Perm where it won 16% of the vote. However under Belykh's leadership the Union of Rightist Forces - like all other Russian "non-system" liberal parties and groups - never made a significant impact on national politics.
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