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Friday, 20 September 2013

The European Union Times


Posted: 18 Sep 2013 02:48 PM PDT

The Obama administration waived provisions of a federal law which ban the supply of weapons and money to terrorists. The move is opening doors to supplying Syrian opposition with protection from chemical weapons.
The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) allows the US president to waive provisions in Sections 40 and 40A, which forbid providing munitions, credit and licenses to countries supporting acts of terrorism. But those prohibitions can be waived “if the President determines that the transaction is essential to the national security interests of the United States.”
President Barrack Obama ordered such a waiver for supplying chemical weapons-related assistance to “select vetted members” of Syrian opposition forces, the administration announced on Monday.
The announcement came after a UN report, which confirmed that sarin gas was indeed used in Syria on August 21, but didn’t point to either the Syrian army or the rebel forces as the culprits.
US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said she was convinced that details of the report “make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack.”
But Power’s counterpart from Russia Vitaly Churkin said the report has no “airtight proof or conclusions” pointing to the Assad government and that it allows “everyone to draw their own conclusions, hopefully professional and not affected by political pressure.”
The US plan to provide chemical weapons-related assistance to Syrian opposition was in the works before the August attack a senior administration official said as cited by NBC News. Under the AEC rules, it will take at least 15 days before any of the materials can be officially shipped to Syria.
The Syrian opposition groups are increasingly dominated by radical Islamists, many of them foreign fighters who, the UN says, are involved in numerous crimes committed in Syria. According to estimates of defense consultancy IHS Jane’s, more than a half of the forces fighting to topple President Bashar Assad government are jihadists. The US explicitly listed Al-Nusra Front, a powerful Al-Qaeda-linked part of the Syrian opposition, as a terrorist organization.
Still, US politicians believe national intelligence community can ensure that the military assistance goes to the right hands.
“Our intelligence agencies, I think, have a very good handle on who to support and who not to support,” Senator Bob Corker said on CBS on Sunday. “And there’s going to be mistakes. We understand some people are going to get arms that should not be getting arms. But we still should be doing everything we can to support the free Syrian opposition.”
The US, France and UK announced their intention to provide more help to the Syrian opposition after a Monday meeting of foreign ministers in Paris. US Secretary of State said the US pursuits a political solution of the Syrian crisis, which would deliver a future Syria without Bashar Assad.
The US in the past provided non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition, like vehicles, night goggles and body armor. CIA also reportedly helped countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar to smuggle weapons to the rebels.
Damascus denied any responsibility for the August sarin attack. But it agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile after a call from Russia. The move put on hold US plan to use military force against Syria in retaliation for the alleged use of chemical weapons.
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Posted: 18 Sep 2013 02:41 PM PDT
The bailout would save Cyprus from bankruptcy and possibly guarantee its future in the eurozone.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to grant 84.7 million euros (USD 113.1 million) in financial aid to Cyprus, as part of a 10-billion-euro bailout program to the debt-stricken country.
On Monday, the IMF said it agreed, in partnership with the European Union, on the bailout package for Cyprus, extending the total loan amount to 169.4 million euros (USD 226.2 million) to date so far.
The loan, known as the Extended Fund Facility, is part of a 10-billion-euro package from the EU financial emergency fund or the European Stability Mechanism.
The bailout would save Cyprus from bankruptcy and possibly guarantee its future in the eurozone.
On May 13, Cyprus received its first installment loan for two billion euros in exchange for breaking up the Cypriot banking sector.
The country plunged into economic meltdown in 2012 as Greece’s financial crisis spilled over, crippling Cypriot banks and forcing depositors to accept reductions in the value of their bank accounts.
Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2008. The worsening debt crisis has forced the EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures, triggering protests against spending cuts in many European countries.
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Posted: 18 Sep 2013 01:54 PM PDT

A new report by the Daily Mail reveals Facebook users are abandoning the social media giant at an unprecedented rate over privacy concerns.
New research shows Facebook has lost a total of eleven million users, nine million in the US and two million in Britain. Researchers at the University of Vienna analyzed 600 users and found they quit for the following reasons:
Privacy concerns – 48.3 percent
General dissatisfaction – 13.5 percent
Shallow conversations – 12.6 percent
Fear of becoming addicted – 6 percent
Studies show the majority of users that quit the site were older males.
Facebook, among other tech giants, have been repeatedly under scrutiny for their lack of user privacy, including turning over thousands of user’s info to the government. In August, Infowars revealed Facebook submitted information on approximately 38,000 users in 74 countries during the first half of 2013.
Over half of the requests originated from inside of the United States. Tech giants are unable to reveal absolute numbers on how many requests they’ve submitted to because the government prohibits them from doing so. However, companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo have formed a unique alliance and are fighting back.
The tech alliance is putting pressure on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court by filing motions asking to publicly disclose more details about secret national intelligence requests, instead of just releasing approximations.
“We believe there is more information that the public deserves to know, and that would help foster an informed debate about whether government security programs adequately balance privacy interests when attempting to keep the public safe,” said Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch.
“Editor of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking which published the findings, said: ‘Given high profile stories such as WikiLeaks and the recent NSA surveillance reports, individual citizens are becoming increasingly more wary of cyber-related privacy concerns,’” reported Mail Online.
Facebook has also been under close examination for their recently updated “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” policy which states users’ profile data including their profile picture, name and personal information “could show up as part of a Facebook ad their friends may see on the site,” according to a report by Mashable.
Even more controversy surrounded the social media giant when they announced the update of the “Tag Suggest” feature, which would allow facial recognition technology “to speed up the process of ‘tagging’ friends and acquaintances who appear in photos posed on the network,” reported Reuters.
As you can see, users’ concerns over privacy, or lack thereof, are certainly substantiated. However, if your information isn’t being collected through Facebook, NSA’s spy program, PRISM, is sure to scoop up your info in some other way, most likely through email or cellular data.
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Posted: 18 Sep 2013 10:19 AM PDT

Brazil and Argentina have agreed to improve their cyber defense capabilities amid revelations that the US is spying on the Latin American countries, Press TV reports.
The decision was made following Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim’s recent meeting with his Argentinean counterpart Agustin Rossi in Buenos Aires.
“We need to reflect on how we cooperate to face these new forms of attack,” Amorim said after the meeting.
The two countries signed a military cooperation agreement under which Brazil is committed to providing cyber defense training to Argentinean officers from 2014.
Argentina’s Rossi and Brazil’s Amorim are expected to meet again by the end of this year in Brasilia to “intensify” joint efforts against US cyber espionage.
The agreement was made in the wake of recent revelations by Brazil’s O Globo newspaper.
The newspaper reported on July 7 that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had collected data on billions of telephone and email conversations in the country as well as President Dilma Rousseff’s personal communications.
Earlier reports have shown that Argentina was also targeted by the NSA.
The revelations were based on leaked documents by famous US whistleblower Edward Snowden in June.
Snowden, a former NSA employee, leaked confidential information that showed the NSA collects data of phone records and Internet communications in the US and Europe as well as other countries.
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Posted: 18 Sep 2013 10:12 AM PDT

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has postponed a state visit to Washington in response to the US spying on her communications with top aides. Rousseff is demanding a full public apology from President Obama.
Barack Obama spoke with Rousseff on Monday in an attempt to persuade her into following through with the trip, the Brazilian president’s office said, according to AP.
Brazil’s TV Globo reported that the call between the two presidents lasted for about 20 minutes. Obama and Rousseff discussed revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on the Brazilian leader’s phone calls and emails. The two presidents then “jointly” agreed to cancel the meeting, Globo reported, citing the presidential office.
The Brazilian government said in a statement that “the conditions are not suitable to undertake this visit on the agreed date.” It expressed hope that the conflict will be resolved “properly” and the trip will happen “as soon as possible.”
The state visit was initially scheduled for October 23. The Obama administration has confirmed that the visit was canceled.
“The president has said that he understands and regrets the concerns disclosures of alleged US intelligence activities have generated in Brazil and made clear that he is committed to working together with President Rousseff and her government in diplomatic channels to move beyond this issue as a source of tension in our bilateral relationship,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Earlier this month, TV Globo revealed in a report that the NSA monitored the content of phone calls, emails, and mobile phone messages belonging to President Rousseff and undefined “key advisers” of the Brazilian government. The NSA also spied on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and nine members of his office.
The revelations were based on evidence provided by former CIA employee and NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which was passed to British journalist Glenn Greenwald.
A document dated June 2012 showed that the Mexican President’s emails were read through one month before he was elected. In his communications, the then-presidential candidate indicated who he would like to appoint to several government posts.
The Brazilian government denounced the NSA surveillance as “impermissible and unacceptable,” and a violation of Brazilian sovereignty.
In July, Greenwald co-wrote articles for O Globo, in which he claimed that some of the documents leaked by Snowden indicated that Brazil was the NSA’s largest target in Latin America.
Greenwald wrote that the NSA was collecting its data through an undefined association between US and Brazilian telecommunications companies, but he could not verify that Brazilian companies had been involved.
Following the revelations, the Brazilian government ordered an investigation into telecommunications companies to determine whether they illegally shared data with the NSA.
Defense ministers of Brazil and Argentina signed a broader military cooperation agreement on September 13. The two governments will work together to improve cyber defense capabilities following revelations of Washington’s spying on Latin American countries.
Brazil will be providing cyber warfare training to Argentine officers from 2014.
Some experts believe that Brazil, along with other countries, should use the NSA leaks scandal as an opportunity to take a stand on internet governance.
“The fact is the government wants to offer Brazilian internet users a stronger protection for their privacy. It is a great opportunity, not only for Brazil, but for many countries to really take a stand on internet governance and really try to understand how the future of the internet and communications as a whole will end up coming out of this huge scandal about the NSA leaks,” director of the Institute of Technology and Society, Carlos Affonso Souza, told RT.
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Posted: 17 Sep 2013 03:34 AM PDT
Naegleria fowleri lifecycle stages
A deadly brain amoeba that has killed two children this year has been found in a drinking water supply, a first in the US, authorities said Monday.
The heat-loving Naegleria fowleri has been found in the water supply system of St. Bernard Parish, southeast of New Orleans, according to tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The N. fowleri parasite killed a 4-year-old boy in Mississippi and a 12-year-old Miami-area boy in separate incidents earlier this year. A 12-year-old Arkansas girl, Kali Hardig, survived an infection after undergoing an experimental treatment.
“We have never seen Naegleria colonizing a treated water supply before,” Dr. Michael Beach, head of water safety at the CDC, told NBC News. “From a US perspective this is a unique situation.”
N. fowleri isn’t harmful to a human — even if drank or bathed in — unless accessed through the nose, where it can attach to nerves that carry olfactory signals to the brain. The amoeba then reproduces, causing brain swelling and almost sure death.
N. fowleri is found in warm, freshwater lakes, swimming areas and hot springs, among other spots. A water system like St. Bernard’s, which comes from the Mississippi River, can usually deter the amoeba with routine disinfection, usually chlorination.
“The key to this is understanding that this amoeba is kind of a heat-loving bug,” Beach said. “If water temperatures start going up, you really need to be extremely careful about maintaining the disinfectant. The farther you go from a plant, the more likely you are for the disinfectant levels to get low.”
N. fowleri has only been reported in about 130 people in the US since 1962. Surviving is extremely rare; Hardig is only the third person known to have survived infection.
The Louisiana health department said the St. Bernard Parish system is being flushed and decontaminated, a weeks-long process according to officials.
“They have shocked the water, so to speak,” department spokesman Ken Pastorick said. “What has caused the problem here is low chlorination.”
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Posted: 17 Sep 2013 02:52 AM PDT

The main question ahead of the key Fed meeting on Tuesday is whether the world’s largest economy can survive on less government monetary stimulus. Data shows the economy is still luke-warm but politics will encourage the Fed to slow quantitative easing.
Chair Ben Bernanke gave strong hints in August that the Fed would decide to begin tapering its stimulus in September. If he reneges it could destabilize markets and jar investors.
A final decision will be reached on September 18 at the conclusion of the two-day meeting of Federal Open Market Committee (d).
Most economists expect a soft cut in the stimulus program to about $75 billion a month from the current $85 billion cash injection. Reducing the purchases, even by $10 billion, risks wiping out the success achieved in the last four years, and a possible return to dangerous industry bubbles and high inflation.
America’s behemothic bond-buying program has aided a housing market revival, driven economic growth, helped sustain a four-year stock rally in the US, and has been a push in emerging markets worldwide.
Unemployment and inflation are the key indicators US monetary authorities are watching in their decision making. Though the US economy and job market have slightly improved following the protracted recession, the Fed could be jumping the gun on the stimulus cut-back, as employment still lags and consumer sentiment is down.
The unemployment rate is now 7.3 percent, the lowest since 2008. Yet the rate has dropped in large part because many people have stopped looking for work and are no longer counted as unemployed – not because hiring has accelerated. Inflation is running below the Fed’s 2 percent target, with the wholesale prices adding 1.4 percent in the 12 months through August.
Forecast growth for 2013 is between 2.3 and 2.8 percent, but real growth is closer to 1.8 percent for the first half of 2013. Growth is sluggish, but much more robust compared to the EU, which posted 0.3 percent growth for Q2.
Retail sales in the US hit a five-month low in August, with strong auto sales but weak retail spending. Overall retail was up 0.2 percent, but lower than forecast.
Consumer sentiment also reached a five-month low in August, a sign household spending still hasn’t quite recovered. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to 76.8 from 82.1 in August.
‘Boss factor’
Bernanke’s departure as Chair in January 2014, politicizes the Fed decision, as many believe the US central bank will ‘rush’ to start the wind-down under Bernanke’s tenure instead of waiting for a new Chair.
Leading candidate, and Obama-favorite Larry Summers, withdrew his name for consideration on Sunday, leaving Janet Yellin, 67, the moderate vice chairwoman of the central bank, as the likely successor.
A Yellin decision is seen as a safer, smoother, move to Summers, as colleagues fear he would dismantle the stimulus too quickly and aggressively. Asian markets advanced on Summer’s exit, as the cash-cut off could have a nasty spillover effect on emerging markets.
“If this were a decision based on economics, I think the Fed would wait, but given the politics of a new chairman having to go before Congress for confirmation, that could be an argument for moving now,” David Wyss, former chief economist at Standard & Poor’s and economics professor at Brown University, Reuters reports.
More than 350 economists penned an open letter to President Obama advocating Yellin’s nomination as Deputy Chair of the US Central Bank. Yellin also has a strong contingency within the Senate Banking Committee, who saw Summers as too lax on financial regulations to count on as an ally to raise the debt ceiling, which Democrats, supported by Obama, will push to extend in mid-October once the US hits their spending limit.
If Congress doesn’t extend the debt ceiling, the US could be forced to default on their debt and the government could shut down.
Yellin, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers under the Clinton administration, would be the first woman to head the Federal Reserve.
Japan’s Nikkei bulletin erroneously reported Friday that Summers would replace Bernanke. Obama has said he has also interviewed Donald Kohn, 70, a former Fed vice chairman, to replace Bernanke.
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Posted: 17 Sep 2013 02:44 AM PDT

Turkey’s deputy prime minister says Turkish warplanes have shot down a Syrian military helicopter after violating the country’s airspace.
A Syrian MI-17 helicopter was downed over the southern province of Hatay after it strayed two kilometers into Turkish airspace, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters on Monday.
Arinc said there was no information about the fate of the crew because the helicopter fell on Syrian soil. He also noted that Turkish air defense had repeatedly warned the Syrian helicopter to leave Turkey’s airspace before being hit by missiles.
Unconfirmed reports say militants fighting against the Syrian government have killed the helicopter’s two pilots. There are also reports suggesting that one of the pilots was captured by militants while the second pilot’s fate is unknown.
The Syrian government has yet to comment on the incident.
The shooting comes almost a year after Syrian air force shot down a Turkish warplane after it entered Syria’s airspace. The plane fell in Syrian waters and near the village of Um al-Touyour. Ankara, however, insisted at the time that the plane had entered Syrian airspace but quickly left when warned, and was shot down in international airspace several minutes later.
Following this incident in June 2012, the Turkish government changed its military rules of engagement towards Syria. From that time on, every military element that approached the Turkish border from Syria would be considered as a threat.
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Posted: 17 Sep 2013 02:08 AM PDT

The intelligence material gathered to prove the guilt of the Syrian government for the alleged use of chemical weapons was made ​​by members of the U.S. intelligence community to deceive President Barack Obama and convince him to take measure of punishment, according to Ray McGovern, a veteran of the CIA itself (Central Intelligence Agency), in an interview with the Russian news agency RT.
McGovern was one of the signatories of a letter of veteran intelligence employees delivered to Obama, the agent pointing out that Bashar al-Assad is not responsible for the alleged attack with chemical weapons, and that “the CIA director, John Brennan, is committing the same pre-Iraq fraud on members of Congress, the media and the public.”
The veteran said that the problem is getting access to what they call the mainstream media. According to McGovern, the press is supporting the war and therefore did not want to hear that the evidence is very fragile. “They do not want to hear that people within the CIA, with great access to information, say there is no conclusive evidence that Assad ordered those chemical attacks. You do not assume those things, you need to prove them,” he said .
The reason why the United States did not provide proof against the Syrian regime is because it could not be supported before a court, and not go through a thorough exam – this happened before Iraq, McGovern said, adding that the U.S. government needs to disclose the alleged intercept to prove the guilt of Assad to silence critics.
The former analyst said that Secretary of State John Kerry demonstrated to be under the influence of the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu – the only state that would benefit from a war in Syria, and that people with influence and White House advisers try to convince Obama to take a decision.
For McGovern, the change of posture from Washington about the possibility of an imminent attack in Syria was a conversation between Obama and the military, who said that military action could not be justified so soon, and that people and industries that support military intervention have no idea what war is.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and worked with seven presidents, responsible, during the 80s, for preparing daily morning reports with the material gathered by the agency to the head of government. McGovern was a fierce critic of the Iraq war led by President George W. Bush in 2003. More recently, he also criticized the government’s actions in the episode involving the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, responsible for the leak of secret documents. He even said at the time that the only crime of Assange was “spreading the truth”.
U.S. soldiers are using the social networking site Facebook to protest against military offensive that President Barack Obama intended to strike against Syria . With information from international news agencies.
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Posted: 17 Sep 2013 01:57 AM PDT
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says his government will continue to press foreign firms to surrender the majority of their shares to local partners.
“The indigenization program is to be pursued with renewed vigor,” Mugabe said on Tuesday, opening a new session of parliament after the July elections.
He said the new parliament will amend laws in accordance with the country’s new constitution adopted in a referendum in March, to eradicate corruption and implement pro-poor development strategies.
The veteran president stressed the government will “mainstream the indigenization and empowerment program” in a bid to promote Zimbabweans to “significant stakeholders and not mere bystanders to the running of the national economy.”
First put into effect in 2010, the indigenization law requires foreign companies to give 51 percent shares to Zimbabwean partners. The law has so far been applied to mines with retailers next in line.
Critics voice concern that the law will scare away foreign investors from the poor African country, which remains grappling by massive unemployment and astronomical inflation rates under crippling Western sanctions.
Since 2002, sanctions have been imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union and several Western countries for violation of human rights during presidential elections that saw Mugabe succeed.
Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980 and won another five-year term in general elections on July 31, said his government was ready to “work with even those who before were at odds with us.”
He, however, did not fail to call for “the immediate and unconditional removal of sanctions imposed by some arrogant Western countries.”
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Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:19 AM PDT
The Yamal large landing craft
The Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea will be boosted by another military vessel till the end of September, according to the country’s Black Sea Fleet command.
The large landing ship, Yamal, is set to depart from the port of Sevastopol, Ukraine by the end of the month to join the 10 vessels Russia already has in Mediterranean waters.
“The Yamal’s crew has completed preparations for relocation to the Mediterranean Sea,” Captain Vyacheslav Trukhachev, the Black Sea Fleet information chief told ITAR-TASS news agency. “As part of the preparatory period, the ship has performed several drive outs, which included target practice on sea and land.”
The Yamal will represent the country at the annual ‘Russian Weeks’ forum in Greece, which this year will be hosted by the Ionian Islands.
The large landing ship – commanded by Captain Sergey Gritsay – is also expected to be called to the Greek port of Pylos and to visit Montenegro, Trukhachev added.
The Yamal vessel, which has been in service since 1988, is designed for landing operations and the transportation of military personnel and cargo. It’s able to carry up to 250 troops and 10 tanks.
Russia began military build-up in the Mediterranean in 2012, establishing a constant presence in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea since December last year.
On May 1, all of the country’s battleships operating in the area were assigned to a single task force under special offshore maritime zone operation command.
Currently there are ten Russian warships deployed in the Mediterranean: large landing ships ‘Aleksandr Shabalin’, ‘Admiral Nevelskoy’, ‘Peresvet’, ‘Novocherkassk’, ‘Minsk’ and ‘Nikolay Fylchenkov’; large anti-submarine ship ‘Admiral Panteleyev’; escort vessel ‘Neustrashimy’; guard patrol ship ‘Smetlivy’ and guided-missile cruiser ‘Moskva’.
The mounting pressure around Syria has seen naval forces both friendly and hostile to Damascus building up off the country’s coastline.
Besides the Russian warships, there are US aircraft carriers ‘Nimitz’ and ‘Harry S. Truman’; guided-missile cruiser ‘Gettysburg’ and ‘San Jacinto’ and a number of other American military vessels deployed in the area.
The French navy frigate ‘Chevalier Paul’, which specializes in anti-missile capabilities, is also in the Mediterranean Sea.
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Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:10 AM PDT
View of the Israeli nuclear facility in the Negev Desert outside Dimona
A newly released report in a US professional journal confirms that the Israeli regime possesses at least 80 operative nuclear warheads and has enough material to produce up to 190 more.
The report published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear weapon proliferation experts Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen estimate that Israel halted its production of nuclear warheads back in 2004 “once it reached around 80 munitions,” RT reports Monday.
However, the experts add, the Tel Aviv regime “can easily double its arsenal since it has enough fissile material to build at least another 115 bombs.”
“There are rumors that Israel is equipping some of its submarines with nuclear-capable cruise missiles,” the report says, echoing the 2013 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook on Armament and International Security, which also implied that the Israeli regime may have nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missiles and reported the same assessment of nuclear stockpiles.
It is still not known how many nuclear warheads of the total inventory could already be deployed, as Israel continues to maintain its long-held policy of nuclear ambiguity, under which it never confirms nor denies its possession of nuclear and other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
In December 2012, Tel Aviv once again dismissed the latest demand from the members of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to join the accord.
The suspicions about Israeli nuclear warheads were fueled by the fact that Germany supplied Israel with five Dolphin-class submarines, which are supposedly capable of launching nuclear missiles, and signed a contract to build yet another one.
Israeli regime’s stockpiles of WMD have come under particular scrutiny following the US-Russian recent agreement for the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons, which is seen as a significant step towards a WMD-free region.
This is while Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari also stated last Thursday that “The main danger of WMD is the Israeli nuclear arsenal,” stressing that the Tel Aviv regime also possesses chemical weapons but “nobody is speaking about that.”
The Syrian envoy further described his country’s chemical weapons as “a mere deterrence against the Israeli nuclear arsenal” and other WMD, referring to a declassified CIA report on Israel’s chemical weapons program.
Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday: “It’s well known that Syria has a certain arsenal of chemical weapons and the Syrians always viewed that as an alternative to Israel’s nuclear weapons.”
This is while recently declassified CIA documents suggest that the Israeli regime secretly built up its own stockpile of chemical and biological weapons decades ago, adding more fuel to the lingering complaint of Arab states, who constantly accuse Tel Aviv of possessing nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, during a speech on Sunday before talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said that “in any case, Israel must be poised and ready to defend itself, by itself, against any threat – and this capability and readiness are more important now than ever.”
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Posted: 16 Sep 2013 07:09 AM PDT
Poll: Less Americans trust government than ever before.
Amid confusion caused when gunmen opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard in D.C. this morning, the White House attempted to take control of the situation by issuing an anonymous statement telling citizens to unquestionably obey orders from so-called “authorities.”
“We urge citizens to listen to the authorities and follow directions from the first responders on site,” the anonymous source advised in a message relaying the president was aware of the situation.
The timing of the White House’s request to “trust it” is interesting in light of last Friday’s Gallup poll which indicated Americans’ trust in government to handle problems is at an all-time low.
Even the Defense Department has had to beg its public affairs employees to come up with more-believable lies to resuscitate its credibility in the eyes of the public.
However, these are the types of events governments take advantage of to rally the public and build credibility. Predictably, the White House will push the agenda of fear and rely on its media cronies to blame guns for the shooting.
It could be equally argued that casualties suffered were the result of the government’s unconstitutional D.C. firearm-ban, as an armed, and thus prepared, citizen might have been able to stop the gunmen.
It’s also interesting to note that just yesterday, Obama reiterated his efforts to attack gun rights.
Despite all this, the White House still expects the public to blindly follow its orders.
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Posted: 16 Sep 2013 07:08 AM PDT

Greek teachers have clashed with police as demonstrators took to the streets in capital, Athens, to protest against public sector layoffs and forced transfers in the austerity-hit nation.
Police fired tear gas at striking teachers and school patrol guards who tried to enter the Administrative Reforms Ministry in the country’s capital city on Monday.
The high school teachers’ union, OLME, started the five-day strike against a government move to place thousands of public sector workers in a self-styled mobility scheme.
As part of a general restructuring of the public sector, Athens must place 25,000 workers in the mobility scheme by the end of the year.
The government must also meet a mandatory dismissal of 15,000 public sector employees in 2013-14.
The teachers said the firings or transfers are a “major blow” to secondary education and would compound the pain felt by austerity-hit households.
Lawyers, nurses and doctors are also expected to join the walkout, as the government aims to reform their professions.
Greece has witnessed three years of austerity policies imposed by the government in a bid to win bailout loans from international creditors, including the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.
The country was severely hit by recession in 2008 due to fiscal mismanagement resulting in tax rises and spending cuts.
Meanwhile, Greece’s unemployment rate stands at more than double the eurozone’s average reading of 12.1 percent. Nearly one in four Greeks are unemployed.
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Posted: 16 Sep 2013 04:08 AM PDT

At least 13 people including the gunman identified as Aaron Alexis, 34, died during a Monday morning attack on the Navy Yard complex in Washington, DC. Officials say the motives of the shooting are not yet known.
Pentagon officials have said the Navy would wait 24 hours before releasing any of the victims’ identities.
Police were initially looking for two other potential shooters, though the FBI announced Monday that it had ruled out the possibility of a second shooter, while DC police felt “comfortable” that a lone gunman was responsible for the shooting incident.
At least 13 people have died in the attack so far based on official statements by DC officials. Some people were also injured, including several police officers, but only one of them being wounded by gunfire, DC Police Chief, Cathy Lanier said during a briefing.
Thousands of workers remained locked up at the Navy Yard buildings for hours as they were told to “shelter in place” until officials could safely evacuate them from the facility.
“This is not over. The building is still in lockdown, as are other buildings. Still being treated as an active search. No one is moving right now,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the US Navy’s chief spokesman, told reporters before the lockdown was slowly lifted.
Aaron Alexis
The investigators haven’t identified a motive behind the attack, DC Mayor Vincent Gray said, adding that there was no indication it was an act of terror.
“The big concern for us right now is that we have potentially two other shooters that we have not located at this point,” DC Police Chief, Cathy Lanier, said.
The suspected gunman, whom the police killed, was identified as Aaron Alexis, 34, of Texas. Alexis left the Navy on January 31, 2011 as a petty officer 3rd class — the circumstances of his departure from the armed forces was not immediately clear.
Alexis had since then worked for US fleet logistics support squadron No. 46 in Fort Worth, Texas, according to the AP. The US Navy stated that his home of record was New York City. He was reported to hold a “secret” security clearance and had a military issued ID card.
“He did have a secret clearance. And he did have a CAC (common access card),” Thomas Hoshko, CEO of The Experts, the firm contracted by the Navy, told Reuters.
Hoshko was also asked when Alexis was scheduled to begin work, to which he replied “That’s what I got to find out, if he was supposed to start today…it’s not clear to me.”
A Hewlett Packard spokesman said Alexis worked for the company as a contractor, with duties to “refresh equipment used on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) network.” He was officially employed by a company called “The Experts.”
Alexis was a practicing Buddhist known to frequent the Wat Busayadhammavanaram Meditation Center in Ft. Worth, Texas, although at least one other visitor came to be wary of Alexis because of his attitude.
“He would help people if they came in carrying heavy things,” J. Sirun, an assistant to the monks at the center, told the Washington Post. “From the outside, he was a quiet person. But on the inside, I think he was very aggressive. He did not like to be close with anybody, like a soldier who has been at war.”
A spokeswoman for the MedStar Washington Hospital Center said that it had received three gunshot victims from the Navy Yard.
The victims said that shots from semi-automatic guns were fired at them, she added. The specific weapons used in the attack were confirmed by authorities as an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun.
Authorities said Alexis arrived at the Navy Yard with a shotgun and obtained the Ar-15 and handgun from a safe at the military site.
“I’m deeply shocked and saddened by the shooting this morning at the Navy Yard. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families,” Ray Mabus, US Navy Secretary, said in a statement.
The shooting took place inside the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters (NAVSEA) building. It is the largest of the Navy’s five system commands.
That center engineers, builds, buys and maintains ships, submarines and combat systems that meet the fleet’s current and future operational requirements. Some 3,000 people regularly work out of that facility.
Some witnesses said a gunman opened fire from the fourth floor, aiming down on people in the first-floor cafeteria. The others said a shooter fired at them in a third-floor hallway. It’s not clear if the witnesses on different floors were describing the same suspect.
After going on the rampage, one of the gunmen reportedly barricaded themselves in one of the rooms where he was cornered by the police.
Hundreds of police officers and FBI agents were initially involved in trying to get control of the situation. Fire and emergency crews also responded to the scene. A “shelter in place” order has been issued for Navy Yard personnel.
The area around the Navy Yard was cordoned off, schools were on lockdown and planes at nearby Reagan National Airport were briefly grounded so they wouldn’t interfere with law enforcement helicopters.
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