| Puppet Masters |
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The BRICS Post
2015-01-01 17:44:00
In his New Year address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Russians for their "invariable readiness to defend Russia's interests, to be with it both in days of triumph and in times of trial". Russia is struggling to avoid a recession next year having been hit hard by the steep fall in oil prices and economic sanctions imposed by the US, EU and their allies over Moscow's alleged role in the Ukraine unrest. The Russian currency has hit an all-time low in 2014 and has declined more than 50 per cent since the start of the year. | |
Comment: Putin is a true statesman, openly acknowledging mistakes and maintaining dialogue with the Russian people. He also is not afraid to voice the truth during a time when it has become a criminal act punishable by death:
This is one of the reasons Putin has to go - NATO cannot allow an independent Russian superpower to challenge their empire of lies.
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Huffington Post
2014-12-31 19:45:00
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in a New Year's message to U.S. President Barack Obama that Moscow is looking for equality in bilateral relations next year. The Kremlin on Wednesday published several dozen New Year's messages addressed to heads of states and international organizations such as the Olympic Committee and FIFA. Putin reminded Obama of the upcoming 70th anniversary of the allied victory in World War II and said that it should serve as a reminder of "the responsibility that Russia and the United States bear for maintaining peace and international stability." Moscow is anxious for the relations to advance but only as long as there is "equality and mutual respect." Conspicuously absent from the list of the recipients of New Year's messages was Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. | |
Comment: Polite, firm, diplomatic, reasonable. How many times, and in how many ways, does Putin have to say it? The only thing standing in the way of peace is the U.S.'s belligerent, arrogant, megalomaniacal psychopathy. There would be no conflict in Ukraine, or Syria, or Iraq, if the U.S. just accepted that they have no right to rule the world like a global dictator. Equality and mutual respect. It doesn't sound like much, but it's unthinkable to the clowns in Washington.
Putin also wished happy New Year to the Russian people. Here's his description of the holiday season: The world needs more leaders like this man: individuals willing and able to live with virtue, honor, and goodwill, to be the conscience of their nation, setting an example. The example set by leaders in the West is atrocious, and we can see the result in the social chaos eating away at Western society. | |
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Ma'an News Agency
2015-01-01 19:33:00
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi on Wednesday condemned the UN Security Council vote against a bid to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine as "outrageously shameful." "It is ironic that while the United Nations designated 2014 as the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the resolution failed to pass as an indication of a failure of will by some members of the international community," she said in a statement. "Furthermore, all the articles of the resolution are consistent with declared American policy, international law, UN resolutions, and the requirements of peace. The extent to which the US has gone to protect Israeli impunity and lawlessness and to enable its criminal behavior is disgraceful and dangerous." | |
Comment: Ashrawi is right. It is utterly disgraceful and hypocritical. See also: Not surprising: Palestinian statehood bid fails at UN Security Council
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Peter Hitchens
Mail Online 2010-09-26 14:04:00 Comment: This article from 2010 shows how the pro-Western forces were doing all they could to antagonize the Russian speaking population in Ukraine. The Crimean people were justified in wishing to rejoin with Russia; a wish that came true in the spring of 2014. Imagine some future Brussels edict has finally broken up Britain and handed Devon and Cornwall over to rule by Wales. Imagine the Royal Navy, much shrunk and renamed the English Navy, being told it has to share Plymouth with a new Welsh fleet; that is, if it is allowed to stay there at all.
Picture the scene as cinemas in Plymouth and Exeter are forced to dub all their films into Welsh, while schools teach anti-English history and children are pressed to learn Welsh. Identity crisis: Peter Hitchens at Sevastopol's port, now home to two fleets - Russian and Ukrainian Street signs are in Welsh. TV is in Welsh. Police cars patrolling Dartmoor have 'Heddlu' blazoned on them, banks have become 'bancs' and taxis 'tacsis'. Meanwhile, Devon and Cornwall are cut off by a frontier from the rest of England, closing down industries with English links, and people are issued with new identity documents with Welsh names. Utterly mad and unthinkable, you might say. And you would be right. But something very similar has happened in what used to be the Soviet Union, and we are supposed to think it is a good thing - because Russia is officially a bad country, and its former subject nations are therefore automatically good. Remember how the world's media reported on Kiev's 'Orange Revolution', which lasted from November 2004 until the following January, with gushing approval? Remember how you were supposed to think the Orange-clad crowds were a benevolent expression of popular opinion? Remember talk of a 'New Cold War', in which wicked Russia was the enemy and 'we', the European Union, were going to extend 'our' rule deep into the former Soviet lands? | |
Comment: See also this recent article by Peter Hitchens: We're the bloodthirsty warmongers, not 'evil' Putin
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Christof Lehmann
NSNBC International 2014-12-31 06:00:00
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reports that 118 journalists and other media workers have been the victims of targeted killings while another 17 were registered as "accidental death" among them, Serena Shim, who died in Turkey after she told colleagues that she had been threatened by Turkey's intelligence service. Leading in the tragic statistics about media workers who died after being targeted is Pakistan with fourteen targeted killings followed by Syria with twelve fatalities. The tragic records are followed by Afghanistan and Palestine with respectively nine each and Iraq with eight. The IFJ's list of media workers who died in targeted murders shows an unmistakable trend. That is, the majority of high-rates of targeted assassinations of media workers happened in countries where Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States and its allies have fostered and used radicalized Islamic militant groups or Nazi militants as respectively ally, or infiltrated, and in part controlled foe. | |
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Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge 2014-12-31 12:54:00
It was a good year for those long 'beheadings'. After a solid 79 head-removals in 2013, 2014 surged 10% higher with a recent record 87 beheadings overall (following a surge since August for crimes such as "drug smuggling, witchcraft, or sorcery"). The 'State' responsible for all these executions... not ISIS, but US ally, Saudi Arabia... As BNO News reports, | |
Comment: Saudi Arabia along with their masters in Washington are also directly responsible for the rise of ISIS.
ISIS: The creation of Saudi money and ideology in conjunction with Obama's foreign policy Saudis provide weapons to terrorist groups in boxes labeled 'food aid' | |
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Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com 2014-12-31 12:37:00
From November 2013 through November 2014, the aggregate balance in the federal direct student loan program--as reported by the Monthly Treasury Statement--rose from $687,149,000,000 to $806,561,000,000, a one-year jump of $119,412,000,000. The balance on all student loans, including those from private sources, exceeded a trillion dollars as of the end of the third quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "Outstanding student loan balances reported on credit reports increased to $1.13 trillion (an increase of $8 billion) as of September 30, 2014, representing about $100 billion increase from one year ago," the bank said in its latest report on household debt and credit. Seven years ago, in November 2007, the aggregate balance in the federal direct student loan program was only $98,529,000,000. Since then, it has grown by $708,032,000,000. This is money that young Americans owe the federal Treasury--and that gives the federal government leverage over their lives. "Under the DL program, the federal government essentially serves as the banker - it provides the loans to students and their families using federal capital (i.e., funds from the U.S. Treasury), and it owns the loans," explains the Congressional Research Service. In fact, the program is a government-funded redistribution of wealth to colleges and universities. The question is: Who will ultimately pay for that wealth transfer? In 2013, the National Center for Educational Statistics published a study of student aid in the 2011-2012 school year. It showed that 40.2 percent of students attending a postsecondary school had a federal student loan. | |
Comment: The federal government, the universities, and the loan companies are not acting at cross purposes. Indebtedness feeds the psychopathic capitalist (slavery) system. This situation is likely to get much worse over time. As it is, the capitalist systemcriminalizes poverty. Are debtors prisons for student loans on the way?
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| Society's Child |
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Sott.net
2015-01-01 22:29:00
This documentary follows the citizens of Donbass, southeastern Ukraine, the target of Kiev's "anti-terrorist operation" for the better part of last year. It documents their suffering, where they live, work, and fight, in this senseless war instigated by the U.S. desire to weaken Russia and her people. What the barbarians directing this war don't understand is that suffering together makes you stronger. The point of no return is passed, the people of Donbass have declared their independence and will never accept rule by people who sought to wipe them out. The conscience of the world stands by the people of Donbass.
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Richard Shears
Daily Mail, UK 2015-01-01 20:03:00
The AirAsia jet which plunged into the Java Sea rose up as fast as a fighter jet and then dropped almost vertically into the water as if being thrust down by a giant hand, crash experts agreed today. Their conclusion is that the Airbus 320-200 was in the grip of weather so freakishly extreme that there was nothing the pilots could have done to save the jet and all 162 people on board. The plane behaved in ways 'bordering on the edge of logic,' Indonesian aviation analyst Gerry Soejatman said after examining figures leaked from the official air crash investigation team. The news came as the first victim of the crash was identified and handed back to her family, and rescuers pulled two more bodies from the ocean, bringing the total recovered to nine. | |
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RT
2014-12-31 12:08:00
At least 35 people have been killed and 48 injured during a New Year's celebration in central Shanghai. The tragedy might have been caused by people rushing to pick up fake money thrown in the crowd. The stampede happened shortly before midnight local time as a massive crowd was celebrating New Year in Chen Yi Square in Shanghai's Huangpu district, Xinhua reports. The injured, many of them students, have been rushed to a number of hospitals in Shanghai, including Changzheng Hospital, the First People's Hospital, Ruijin Hospital, and Huangpu District Central Hospital. | |
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Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project 2015-12-30 04:58:00
The NYPD has basically stopped doing its job since the murder of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu earlier this month, according to reports in the New York Post and New York Daily News, and yet the city hasn't descended into total chaos. The Post reported that arrests were down 66% in the week following the deaths of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, compared to the same period in 2013. For certain offenses, the arrest levels are staggeringly low, according to the numbers put out by the Post. Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.It's not a slowdown - it's a virtual work stoppage, reported the Post yesterday. The Post says these numbers were obtained hours after revealing that cops were turning a blind eye to some minor crimes and making arrests only "when they have to" since the execution-style shootings of Ramos and Liu. Some of the reason for the drop off in police activity is that there are some safety concerns. However, one of the Post's sources says that yes it's partly out of safety concerns and partly a continuation of the childish and embarrassing protest against Mayor de Blasio's response to the non-indictment of Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Eric Garner last summer. | |
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Stephen Lendman
Global Research 2014-12-31 00:00:00
Black Americans are in the eye of the storm. Militarized cops target them nationwide. According to Operation Ghetto Storm, police, security guards, and other self-appointed enforcers kill black youths and adults on average every 28 hours. "(S)tate-sanctioned killings." Casualties of war. Ongoing daily against black Americans. Compounded by other systemic abuses. Including judicial unfairness. Get tough on crime policies. Mandatory minimum sentences. Guilty unless proved innocent. Three strikes and you're out. Racist drug laws. Stop-and-frisk. Driving while black. Filling the world's largest gulag. Mostly with people of color. | |
Comment: The Police State, can also be summed up by Chris Hedges here:
The tyranny of law enforcement in poor communities is a window into our emerging police state. These thuggish tactics are now being used against activists and dissidents. And as the nation unravels, as social unrest spreads, the naked face of police repression will become commonplace. Totalitarian systems always seek license to engage in this kind of behavior by first targeting a demonized minority. Such systems demand that the police, to combat the "lawlessness" of the demonized minority, be, in essence, emancipated from the constraints of the law. The unrestricted and arbitrary subjugation of one despised group, stripped of equality before the law, conditions the police to employ these tactics against the wider society. "Laws that are not equal for all revert to rights and privileges, something contradictory to the very nature of nation-states," Hannah Arendt wrote in "The Origins of Totalitarianism""The clearer the proof of their inability to treat stateless people as legal persons and the greater the extension of arbitrary rule by police decree, the more difficult it is for states to resist the temptation to deprive all citizens of legal status and rule them with an omnipotent police." The following are just a fraction of the articles you can read on SoTT related to this subject: The path to tyranny: The Nazi Gestapo and the US police state Police brutality is nothing new, it's just militarized | |
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| Secret History |
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| Science & Technology |
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| Earth Changes |
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Richard Gray
Mail Online 2014-12-31 10:46:00
Tropical forests are growing faster than scientists thought due to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A Nasa-led study has found that tropical forests are absorbing 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year as they photosynthesise and grow. And this is far more than is absorbed by the vast areas of boreal forest that encircle the Arctic. | |
Comment: See also:
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Montevideo suffers its worst flooding in more than 50 years. Several days of torrential rain has led to widespread flooding across Uruguay. Among the worst hit is the capital city, Montevideo, much of which has been left under water. Thousands of homes and businesses have been damaged in the process. This has been described as the worst flooding in almost a century. Friday saw an incredible amount of rainfall with 63mm of rain falling in around half an hour. The average rainfall for the entire month of December is 78mm.
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Michael Gadd
Daily Mail, UK 2015-01-01 19:49:00
As if there weren't already enough potential perils on the slopes, skiers in Steamboat Springs in Colorado had to contend with a charging moose this week. In footage shot on Sunday, December 28, a moose wandered onto the popular ski fields of Routt County and took aim at a red jacket-wearing ski patrolman. Luckily for the patrolman, who was not on skis, he was fleet of foot enough to evade the largest member of the deer like a matador.
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The International News
2014-12-31 17:00:00
The fishermen released it back into the sea upon realising the special rarity and uniqueness of the breed. According to WWF Pakistan, it was caught in a net by fishermen in Ormara town in Gwadar District of Balochistan. The fish was a common 'mola' (Mola mola), that was seen in Pakistan's waters for the first time ever. According to experts, it is supposed to be the heaviest known bony fish in the world. This particular fish was measured to be about 1.8 meters in length and weighed about 450Kg. The fishermen released it back into the sea after 20 minutes. | |
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Thomas Wyke
International Business Times 2014-12-29 16:08:00
Two female Mexican bullfighters, one a single mother competing for the first time in three years, have been gored in a bloody annual festival. The two fighters, Karla de los Angeles and Lupita Lopez, were taking part in an all-women event called the "festejo de damas", alongside Hilda Tenorio. The event was staged at one of the world's biggest bullrings, Plaza Mexico. De los Angeles, one of Mexico's best-known female bullfighters, was fighting for the first time since she withdrew from the sport in 2011 to look after her young daughter. Before the fight, she had spoken of her dream of becoming a matador - a master bullfighter - and made national headlines by saying "being a mother is not an impediment".
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PressTV
2015-01-01 15:43:00
A severe winter storm across the western United States has taken five lives in the state of California. The New Year in the US has started with a winter system bringing very cold temperatures, heavy snow and freezing rain from southern California through the southern Plains, the National Weather Service reported Thursday. Strong gusts toppled trees in Northern California, killing two people in the town of Paradise on Tuesday. Another person was killed by a tree early Wednesday in Redding. Two other people died and a third was missing after storm winds up to 40 miles an hour broke boats loose from moorings at Santa Catalina Island off the Southern California coast Tuesday night. | |
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Ian Hughes
Daily Mirror, UK 2015-01-01 15:44:00
Four people were injured as tents and marquees were sent flying through the air when a freak tornado-like wind tore through a US music festival. The violent gust was caught on camera at Fan Fest, in Pasadena, as terrified crowds ran for cover near The Rose Bowl outdoor athletic stadium. People can be heard screaming shortly after a black gazebo is whipped up into the air. It spirals in the wind, surrounded by smaller pieces of debris - and then smashes into a parked car. The festival tent is then followed into the skies by much larger marquees, including one inflatable which flies around 30ft into the air.
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Everton Fox
Al Jazeera 2014-12-31 14:45:00
Cold air has made its way across much of Europe over the past week bringing snow to many parts. The snow was probably most welcome when it made its way across the Alps, finally allowing the long awaited ski-season there to get underway. The wintry weather has since dug further south. It now extends across the Balkans into Greece, Turkey and the Hungarian Plain. There has been widespread travel disruption in Greece with snow forcing the closure of several roads, especially in the north and over the central mountains. Athens hasn't been as badly affected, but there has been a healthy dusting of snow across the nation's capital. | |
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Sputnik
A huge, quickly spreading fire erupted in Quezon City, Philippines, Thursday morning.2015-01-01 12:31:00 A massive fire broke out in Quezon City, Philippines, burning around 2,000 buildings to the ground Thursday morning and threatening to destroy even more, Rappler reported. The fire broke out around 6:45 a.m. local time (23:45 GMT Wednesday). Two people have been injured and their life is not threatened.
According to the news website, around 4,000 people have been affected by the fire.The fire in Quezon City, making up Metro Manila, Philippines' National Capital Region, was only declared under control three and a half hours after it broke out. The cause of the fire is still unknown as an investigation is underway by police. | |
Comment: Earlier this week, the Philippines were hit by tropical storm Jiangmi, leaving at least 54 people dead and 13 missing.
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Dan Billow
Wesh.com 2014-12-31 18:29:00
Palm Bay - Thousands of fish and animals are dying in a local waterway, and longtime residents say it's not just an ordinary fish kill. Turkey Creek in Palm Bay is known for its clean, fresh water. It flows into the Indian River Lagoon downstream, and it's there in the lagoon where most fish kills happen, not in the creek. Chris Jones grew up along Turkey Creek. "You can get out and be in old Florida, natural Florida, the way it was hundreds of years ago before people were here," said Jones. But now, catfish have been dying for weeks. People have reported dead animals including an alligator and some raccoons and turtles. They've taken pictures of a film on the water. "I've never seen catfish or any fish die off to this extent," said Jones. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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April McCarthy
Preventdisease.com 2013-03-07 19:00:00
The modern diet of processed foods, takeaways and microwave meals could be to blame for a sharp increase in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, including alopecia, asthma and eczema. A team of scientists from Yale University in the U.S and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, say junk food diets could be partly to blame. 'This study is the first to indicate that excess refined and processed salt may be one of the environmental factors driving the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases,' they said. Junk foods at fast food restaurants as well as processed foods at grocery retailers represent the largest sources of sodium intake from refined salts. |
