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Paul Merrell

Prensa Latina News Agency - Ecuadoran Parliament Begins Procedure to Resign from Rio Tr... - 0 views

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foreign policy Ecuador Rio Treaty Monroe Doctrine

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Ecuador''s National Assembly has begun the procedure to make official the resignation of the Andean country from the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), signed with the United States in 1947. The approval of the resignation request is being handled by the Commission on Sovereignty and International Relations, which yesterday listened to arguments from several officials belonging to the foreign ministry, the legislative body reported in a press note. According to the text, the diplomat Mauricio Montalvo explained to some members of the commission that the Ecuadorian government supports the country's resignation from that agreement due to the current lack of political, material, and historical conditions that were once present after the end of the Cold War and which motivated the signature of the agreement. Montalvo referred to the Rio Treaty as an instrument promoted by the United States to deal with alleged attacks against the peace, security, and sovereignty of Latin American nations, as a result of the intervention of powers outside the region, specifically the communist bloc in Eastern Europe and Asia.
  • However, the diplomat stated that in recent years the document has been used to justify interventionism and the use of force against Latin American countries and governments with nationalist, socialist, or populist tendencies. In addition, he mentioned as an example the case of the British invasion of the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, when the United States sided with the United Kingdom, against Argentina´s interests, despite this Southern country being one of the signatories of the agreement. Ecuador announced its resignation from Rio Treaty at the summit of the Organization of American States celebrated in June, 2012 in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, through its foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño. On that occasion, the head of Ecuadorian diplomacy expressed that his country, like Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela had made the choice to withdraw from the agreement, considering that it had lost its legitimacy after the Malvinas war. "We have decided to bury what deserves to be buried, and to dispose what is of no longer useful," Patiño declared at the time.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 14
     
    Looks like the Monroe Doctrine is running out of steam. 
Gary Edwards

Michael Coffman -- Goodbye Property Rights - How Agenda 21 will destroy the Constitution - 0 views

www.newswithviews.com/...mike137.htm

Agenda-21 property-rights Property-Seizure-AND-Redistribution-of-Wealth progressive-socialism

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Dec 12
     
    Excellent historical background to the Agenda 21 effort to regulate private property and eventually put all private property under the control of the UN regional governments. "Since the early 1970s there has been a systematic and deliberate effort to destroy private property rights in America through the warm and fuzzy goal of sustainable development. David Rockefeller co-founded the Club of Rome in 1968 as an elite, somewhat occult think tank. The Club of Rome published Limits to Growth in 1972, which called for severe limits on human population and state control of all development in the world to achieve "sustainable development." Sustainable development was eventually formalized into a United Nations global action plan called Agenda 21, which President Bush committed the U.S. to at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. President Clinton put into action by the creation of Sustainable America in 1996. If fully implemented, private property rights will be a thing of the past. Concurrent to Limits of Growth, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller introduced legislation to create the Adirondack Park Agency in 1971 patterned after Limits of Growth. It was so successful that Nelson's brother-Laurence Rockefeller-commissioned and led a study entitled Use of Land: A Citizen's Policy Guide to Urban Growth as a set of goals for America. Published in 1973, the nationally based Use of Land was a companion to the Club of Rome's internationally based Limits of Growth. The Use of Land was edited by William Reilly, who would later be appointed by George H. W. Bush as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1989. Reilly also attended the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he advised President Bush to sign the UN Agenda 21, thereby committing the United States to Agenda 21. Although utterly evil, the Rockefeller's effort to destroy the constitutional basis of property rights was brilliant. The thrust of the Use of Land report sup
Paul Merrell

Brazil protesters flood Sao Paulo streets for 2nd night - CBS News - 0 views

www.cbsnews.com/...ao-paulo-streets-for-2nd-night

Brazil corruption protests financial-crisis

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Tens of thousands of Brazilians again flooded the streets of the country's biggest city to raise a collective cry against a longstanding lament — people are weighed down by high taxes and high prices but get low-quality public services and a system of government infected with corruption. That was the repeated message Tuesday night in Sao Paulo, where upward of 50,000 people massed in front of the city's main cathedral. While mostly peaceful, the demonstration followed the rhythm of protests that drew 240,000 people across Brazil the previous night, with small bands of radicals splitting off to fight with police and break into stores.
  • Mass protests have been mushrooming across Brazil since demonstrations called last week by a group angry over the high cost of a woeful public transport system and a recent 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares in Sao Paulo, Rio and elsewhere
  • The local governments in at least four cities have now agreed to reverse those hikes, and city and federal politicians have shown signs that the Sao Paulo fare could also be rolled back. It's not clear that will calm the country, though, because the protests have released a seething litany of discontent from Brazilians over life's struggles.
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  • The protests have brought troubling questions about security in the country, which is playing host this week to soccer's Confederations Cup and will welcome Pope Francis in July for a visit to Rio de Janeiro and rural Sao Paulo.
  • Brazilian demonstrations in recent years generally had tended to attract small numbers of politicized participants, but the latest mobilizations have united huge crowds around a central complaint: The government provides woeful public services even as the economy is modernizing and growing. The Brazilian Tax Planning Institute think tank found that the country's tax burden in 2011 stood at 36 percent of gross domestic product, ranking it 12th among the 30 countries with the world's highest tax burdens. Yet public services such as schools are in sorry shape. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found in a 2009 educational survey that literacy and math skills of Brazilian 15-year-olds ranked 53rd out of 65 countries, behind nations such as Bulgaria, Mexico, Turkey, Trinidad and Tobago, and Romania. Many protesting in Brazil's streets hail from the country's growing middle class, which government figures show has ballooned by some 40 million over the past decade amid a commodities-driven economic boom. They say they've lost patience with endemic problems such as government corruption and inefficiency. They're also slamming Brazil's government for spending billions of dollars to host next year's World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics while leaving other needs unmet.
  • A November report from the government raised to $13.3 billion the projected cost of stadiums, airport renovations and other projects for the World Cup. City, state and other local governments are spending more than $12 billion on projects for the Olympics in Rio. Nearly $500 million was spent to renovate Maracana stadium in Rio for the World Cup even though the venue already went through a significant face-lift before the 2007 Pan American Games.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 13
     
    Much more detail about the Brazil situation in this Associated Press report. 
Gary Edwards

Details you need to fight Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 Marxism - 0 views

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sustainable-development Agenda-21 Marxism New-World-Order Paganism Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Jan 14
     
    Excellent discussion explaining the connection between local planning boards, Sustainable Development, the UN's Agenda 21, and New World Order Marxism. excerpt: "The Sustainablists will always claim that planning has been with us throughout history and this is nothing new. However, the fact is, older planning groups like the American Planning Association, which had a history in old style planning and zoning, has adopted the Sustainable Development agenda while trying to pretend it hasn't. The fact is,  APA's policy is no different than that brought on by the UN's International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).     For proof of this, visit Plannersnetwork.org (of which the APA is a part) and look at its Statement of Principles. This revealing quote will be found: "We believe planning should be a tool for allocating resources…and eliminating the great inequalities of wealth and power in our society…because the free market has proven incapable of doing this."   That is the philosophy under which the APA operates. It advocates social justice and anti-capitalism as part of its purpose in enforcing planning.   Agenda 21 is divided into three parts (Economic, Equity and Environment). The "Three Es." Equity is Social Justice. The issue of social justice is the key to understanding Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development. It is the heart of the policy. The environmental concern is a convenient excuse to sacrifice liberty. The economic concern - Public/Private Partnerships is the direct elimination of capitalism through the fascist policy of partnerships between government and business. Social Justice is the redistribution of wealth, which is key to understanding Sustainable Development and specifically to understand what is meant by the Plannersnetwork.org quote above.   Connecting the American Planning Association to Agenda 21:While the APA consistently denies any UN or Agenda 21 connection to its planning programs, recently we f
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbek... - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...CEN-05-280214.html

war & peace Ukraine Crimea Russia U.S. Germany Syria EU NATO

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Time waits for no one, but apparently will wait for Crimea. The speaker of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, has confirmed there will be a referendum on greater autonomy from Ukraine on May 25. Until then, Crimea will be as hot and steamy as carnival in Rio - because Crimea is all about Sevastopol, the port of call for the Russian Black Sea fleet. If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bull, this is the red flag to end all red flags. Even if you're deep in alcohol nirvana <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> dancin' your troubles away at carnival in Rio - or New Orleans, or Venice, or Trinidad and Tobago - your brain will have registered that NATO's ultimate wet dream is to command a Western puppet Ukrainian government to kick the Russian navy out of its base in Sevastopol. The negotiated lease applies until 2042. Threats and rumors of reneging it have already emerged.
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 14
     
    Pepe Escobar makes sense out of the situation in the Ukraine with his usual ascerbic wit on full display. 
Paul Merrell

Supreme Court Strikes Out KBR - 0 views

www.pogo.org/...eme-court-strikes-out-kbr.html

war & peace Iraq Afghanistan KBR Halliburton veterans litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The U.S. Supreme Court came out in favor of contractor accountability this week, rejecting attempts by KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton, to dismiss three lawsuits accusing them of harming service members and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. (KBR, one of the largest reconstruction and logistics contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, was part of Halliburton until 2007.) The Supreme Court, which denied the companies’ petitions without comment, left intact lower court rulings allowing these lawsuits to proceed to trial:
  • McManaway v. KBR American and British soldiers allege KBR knowingly exposed them to the hazardous chemical sodium dichromate while they were posted at the Qarmat Ali water treatment facility in Iraq in 2003. The soldiers were protecting KBR employees who were restoring the facility. This case involves the Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract, which contained a provision requiring the government to indemnify KBR for any property damage, injury, or death occurring on the contract and all related legal expenses. The government is refusing to indemnify KBR for Qarmat Ali litigation, which has already resulted in an $81 million judgment against the company in a case filed in Oregon. Both the indemnification decision and the Oregon judgment are still mired in appeals, despite Congress urging the Pentagon last year to “take control of the litigation process” and hasten its conclusion. “With KBR’s immunity petitions rejected by the Supreme Court in three separate cases, the wait for the veterans’ cases to proceed to trial has finally ended,” attorney Michael Doyle, who represents the plaintiffs in in the Metzgar and McManaway cases, told the Project On Government Oversight. “There can’t be a place in American law for blanket immunity for military contractor misconduct harming our troops and others, and we look forward to the next trial soon.”
  • Metzgar v. KBR Dozens of U.S. military personnel and civilian employees claim they suffered harm as a result of KBR’s waste disposal and water treatment practices on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. The case involves KBR’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) III contract. The plaintiffs allege that the company burned large quantities of solid waste in toxin-spewing open-air burn pits and provided contaminated water. Harris v. KBR Cheryl Harris seeks to hold KBR and Halliburton accountable for the death of her son, Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, who was electrocuted in 2008 while showering at his base in Iraq. KBR’s responsibility for maintaining the shower facilities was also part of the LOGCAP III contract.
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  • The plaintiffs are suing the contractors because the government is generally immune from personal injury lawsuits. Contingency operation contractors like KBR and Halliburton argue they are also immune because they function essentially as an extension of the military. Ever since the first bombs fell on Afghanistan more than 13 years ago, contractor civil and criminal liability in war zones has been a hotly debated and litigated issue. However, recent decisions by the Supreme Court and the federal circuit courts give us hope that this area of law is becoming more settled and contractor accountability cases will have an easier time getting to trial.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15
     
    There's an error in the article where it states that "the government is generally immune from personal injury lawsuits." In fact the federal government generally can be sued for personal injury under the Federal Tort Claims Act, but there is an exception created by the Supreme Court in Feres v. United States: the federal government has no liabllity for personal injuries to members of the armed forces sustained while on active duty and not on furlough and resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces. See for an overview, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feres_v._United_States However, veterans are entitled in such circumstances to Department of Veteran Affairs disability benefits and medical treatment. Military contractors are very fond of trying to piggy-back onto the Feres Doctrine but it rarely works. I've read a fair bit about KBR's conduct involved. KBR even had multi-million-dollar incinerators there for waste disposal that the government paid for (and their transport to the war zones) to safely dispose of wastes without endangering soldiers, but never set them up. That is pretty solid evidence that they knew of the hazard from using open burn pits. And it's also pretty strong proof that our military auditors in charge of checking contract compliance gave KBR a pass. Did money change hands between KBR and the auditors? War profiteering at its finest. "There is such a thirst for gain [among military suppliers]... that it is enough to make one curse their own Species, for possessing so little virtue and patriotism." George Washington.
Paul Merrell

Brazil's Epic Scandal Takes Down a Banker - Bloomberg Business - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...ic-scandal-takes-down-a-banker

banksters Brazil Esteves criminal-prosecution litigation obstruction corruption

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Brazilians have become inured to seeing politicians and businessmen marched off to prison for corruption. But the mug shot of banker André Esteves—unshaven and frowning—that flashed across TV screens in early December was a shock. Part of a cadre of mavericks who got astonishingly rich from Brazil’s transformation into one of the world’s top 10 economies in the 2000s, Esteves helped turn Grupo BTG Pactual into Latin America’s biggest standalone investment bank. Supremely confident, Esteves—who was a billionaire by his mid-30s—liked to quip that the initials in his company’s name stood for “Better than Goldman.”Around dawn on Nov. 25, Esteves’s fortunes soured in an instant. Police showed up at his apartment, which faces Rio de Janeiro’s legendary Ipanema beach, and hauled him away on allegations of obstructing a federal investigation into a massive pay-to-play scheme centered on Brazil’s state-run oil giant, Petrobras. Now Esteves, 47, resides in a cell block with concrete beds and communal toilets at Bangu, a high-security prison in Rio better known for housing drug traffickers and murderers.
  • Having its founder, chief executive officer, and chairman behind bars has pushed BTG Pactual to the brink of insolvency as clients pull their money out. Within days of his arrest, Esteves had relinquished his controlling stake in the firm, and his partners had begun a wholesale selloff of assets. To avert disaster, Brazil’s central bank helped engineer a $1.6 billion rescue line from the country’s privately funded deposit guarantee fund. Still, the bank’s shares have lost half their value since Esteves’s arrest. On Dec. 7, prosecutors formally accused the banker of obstruction of justice. Antônio Carlos de Almeida Castro, Esteves’s lawyer, says his client has done nothing wrong.The metastatic graft scandal that sent Esteves to jail threatens more than the survival of BTG. So many legislators are implicated, Congress has been unable to pass legislation to contain an exploding budget deficit. President Dilma Rousseff has grown so unpopular that lawmakers are maneuvering to impeach her for allegedly cooking the government’s books. Meanwhile, the economy is sliding into what Goldman Sachs calls a full-blown depression.
  • BTG’s collapse won’t cause Brazil’s capital markets to seize up as Lehman Brothers’ failure did in the U.S. in 2008. Yet having one of the country’s most prominent financiers behind bars is a body blow to the confidence of investors at a time when Brazil needs their cash. “It very much gives you the impression that the corruption scheme is so widespread that it induces a kind of counterparty risk,” says Monica de Bolle, a former International Monetary Fund economist. “You enter into transactions with people in Brazil without knowing whether or not they might be implicated in something.” The result: “Nothing gets done. There’s no business,” she says.
Paul Merrell

Greenwald: Snowden's Files Are Out There if "Anything Happens" To Him - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...f-anything-happens-to-him.html

surveillance state NSA leaked-docs Greenwald

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who Snowden first contacted in February, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.” Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords.” But, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.” The fact that Snowden has made digital copies of the documents he accessed while working at the NSA poses a new challenge to the U.S. intelligence community that has scrambled in recent days to recover them and assess the full damage of the breach. Even if U.S. authorities catch up with Snowden and the four classified laptops the Guardian reported he brought with him to Hong Kong the secrets Snowden hopes to expose will still likely be published.
  • A former U.S. counterintelligence officer following the Snowden saga closely said his contacts inside the U.S. intelligence community “think Snowden has been planning this for years and has stashed files all over the Internet.” This source added, “At this point there is very little anyone can do about this.” The arrangement to entrust encrypted archives of his files with others also sheds light on a cryptic statement Snowden made on June 17 during a live chat with The Guardian. In the online session he said, “All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.”
  • Greenwald said that he himself has thousands of documents from Snowden that he is continuing to examine. That figure is considerably higher than the 200 documents that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee, said over the weekend that she was told Snowden possessed. “I don’t know for sure whether [Snowden] has more documents than the ones he has given me,” Greenwald said. “I believe he does. He was clear he did not want to give to journalists things he did not think should be published.”
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  • However, Greenwald said that in his dealings with Snowden the 30-year-old systems administrator was adamant that he and his newspaper go through the document and only publish what served the public’s right to know. “Snowden himself was vehement from the start that we do engage in that journalistic process and we not gratuitously publish things,” Greenwald said. “I do know he was vehement about that. He was not trying to harm the U.S. government; he was trying to shine light on it.” Greenwald said Snowden for example did not wish to publicize information that gave the technical specifications or blueprints for how the NSA constructed its eavesdropping network. “He is worried that would enable other states to enhance their security systems and monitor their own citizens.” Greenwald also said Snowden did not wish to repeat the kinds of disclosures made famous a generation ago by former CIA spy, Philip Agee—who published information after defecting to Cuba that outed undercover CIA officers. “He was very insistent he does not want to publish documents to harm individuals or blow anyone’s undercover status,” Greenwald said. He added that Snowden told him, “Leaking CIA documents can actually harm people, whereas leaking NSA documents can harm systems.”
  • For now, Greenwald said he is taking extra precautions against the prospect that he is a target of U.S. surveillance. He said he began using encrypted email when he began communicating with Snowden in February after Snowden sent him a YouTube video walking him through the procedure to encrypt his email. “When I was in Hong Kong, I spoke to my partner in Rio via Skype and told him I would send an electronic encrypted copy of the documents,” Greenwald said. “I did not end up doing it. Two days later his laptop was stolen from our house and nothing else was taken. Nothing like that has happened before. I am not saying it’s connected to this, but obviously the possibility exists.” When asked if Greenwald believed his computer was being monitored by the U.S. government. “I would be shocked if the U.S. government were not trying to access the information on my computer. I carry my computers and data with me everywhere I go.”
Paul Merrell

Failed NATO Invasion of Moldova SITREP, by Scott | The Vineyard of the Saker - 0 views

thesaker.is/ion-of-moldova-sitrep-by-scott

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Moldova coup-attempts

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 May 16 - No Cached
  • It’s hard to overestimate the value of planning in advance, especially when it comes to getting reservations in popular restaurants and invading countries by military force. In the week of the May 9th Victory Day two significant failures took place  each one remarkable in its own way. Each event went completely unreported by the Western corporate and government media, but discussed on Social Media.
  • In the following three weeks after the incident with the USS Florida, while Russia was preparing for Victory Day celebrations and all eyes were on Moscow, attention of Ukrainians was fully concentrated on the visit of Victoria Nuland to Kiev on April 26th allegedly to discuss the implementation of the Minsk II Agreement and the future elections in Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Since the day when President Putin said that the republics can have their elections anytime they want, the question of these elections ceased to be a subject of blackmail toward the Kremlin.   It appeared that the true reason for Nuland’s visit could be located to the west of Kiev, rather than the east. Just recently, Robert D. Kaplan, a former Stratfor’s Chief Geopolitical Analyst, and currently a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has published a book “In Europe’s Shadow” where he lays out a plan to reunite Romania with “its lost province of Moldova.” Nuland visited Moldova back in January, with the task to coerce Moldova’s government and its oligarchs to change the country’s Constitution provision of neutrality. Before she left, she gave a short speech at the American Embassy in Bucharest after a private dinner with PM Ciolos and President Klaus. “We powerfully support the desire of the people in Moldova to have responsible leaders who can implement reforms. This is the best way to assure the future of Moldova. Romania and the United States, in conjunction with NATO, have support programs in place to assure the security of Moldova but the government has to work to implement these programs.”
  • Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, and its economy heavily relies on Russia. According to the CIA Fact Book: Moldova’s annual remittances of about $1.12 billion comes from the roughly one million Moldovans working in Europe, Russia, and other former Soviet Bloc countries; Moldova imports almost all of its energy supplies from Russia and Ukraine; Moldova’s dependence on Russian energy is underscored by a more than $5 billion debt to Russian natural gas supplier Gazprom; Moldova signed an Association Agreement and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU during fall 2014, however its biggest trade partner remains Russia. Everyone understands that a NATO membership will cut all economic ties with Russia, including jobs, and it will turn Moldova into a failed state, or in the CIA doublespeak, the country would stop being vulnerable to “Russian pressure.” Apparently, the failure of Moldova as a state, and its disappearance as a nation is also what the EU wants. On January 6, the new Moldovan Ambassador to Germany was presenting his credentials when, out of the blue, the German president asked the new ambassador what the procedure was for Republic of Moldova to formally unite with Romania. On May 4th, the Katehon reported on Vladimir Plahotniuc’s (the infamous Moldavian oligarch and mafia boss) visit to the US and his meeting with Victoria Nuland there. As the Victory Day celebration was approaching, we all fully anticipated from the US to conduct terror acts, military excursions/drills, and political and legal attacks on Russia as the US and the EU always do to harass Russia during its major national and Church holidays.
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  • Starting with April 21st,  we saw a flurry of “news” about Ukraine and Romania joining NATO Black Sea flotilla and the organization of Romanian-Ukrainian-Bulgarian brigade similar to that created by Poland. On April 26, Georgia (Gruzia) pitched in via the Georgia Today: “creation of NATO Black Sea Fleet Gains US Support” and praising Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania for calls to expand the Western military. All what Russia said to all this NATO generated noise was a brief statement of  Russia’s envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko. “NATO should be in a position to know that all necessary steps will be taken from our side to neutralize the emerging threats.” With all these  preparations for the war on Russia going on, NATO also planned military drills in neutral Moldova, chosen to start on May 2nd, the day of remembrance for the victims of the Odessa Massacre. Meanwhile, the patriots of Moldavia who worked together regardless of their political views, discovered something interesting and saved Moldova. NATO reported that for drills they would be entering Moldova in four formations, and that the total of motorized units will be 50+. However, the very first formation that made an attempt to enter the territory of Moldova contained 100+ unites. This was just one formation. And there was expected three more formations.
  • The plan of NATO was to enter the country with too large for this tiny country forces, to stage a bloody false flag attack during the Victory Day celebration in Moldova with the participation of Ukrainian Right Sector terrorists masquerading as “pro-Russia separatists.” This plot worked in Ukraine, so it should work in Moldova, right? That’s the true reason why Nuland was in Kiev two weeks prior. After this false flag attack, a Romanian fleet was planned to enter Ukrainian territorial waters “by invitation of the Ukrainian government” and arrive to Odessa in order to block Russian fleets from interfering and helping Transnistria. But… Coming back to the bizarre incident near Gibraltar, when one NATO member’s tiny 20 tone Costal Guards’ boat was attacked by another NATO member for interfering with the 18,000 tones behemoth of a submarine  of the third NATO member. The NATO plan apparently was to stealthy and quietly position the Ohio-class ballistic guided-missile submarine USS Florida (SSGN 728) in the Mediterranean or even in the Black Sea so it would be able to shoot into Moldova to overwhelm Moldovan minuscule defense forces. We have to remember that it was the USS Florida “that opened up the Libya intervention,” firing more than 90 cruise missiles to destroy Libya’s air defenses and clearing the way for NATO air strikes. “Never before in the history of the United States of America has one ship conducted that much land attack strikes, conventionally, in one short time period,” Rear Adm. Rick Breckenridge had said.
  • However, thanks to Spanish Costal Guards the submarine was discovered and talked about all around the world via social media and the press. The USS Florida had no other options but to retreat and return to home base. In fact, there were TWO incidents on the same April 16th  day involving the USS Florida. First, it was  the Spanish patrol boat belonged to the Servicio de Vigilancia Aduanera, at whom the British Navy opened  fire.  A bit later,  the Guardia Civil vessel Rio Cedeña tried to cut across the submarine’s bow and was photographed  by multiple witnesses.
  • According to V.V. Pyakin, a political analyst with the Concept Technologies Foundation, a think tank located in St. Petersburg, NATO was in a process of conducting a full-scale invasion of Moldova with the annexation of a Southern part of Ukraine including Odessa to construct a NATO Navy base there. Moldova was supposed to become a part of Romania automatically with the US military forces arriving to the capital and taking  over the government of Moldova. That’s why NATO needed all those military “drills” in the Black Sea region and in the Baltics simultaneously. When the patriotic forces of Moldavia discovered that NATO was about to enter the territory of Moldova in four formations, 100+ motorized units each, they protested loudly and blocked the entrance of NATO troops on the border. Meanwhile, the biggest political fraction in Moldova threatened with the impeachment of the president for treason, if  NATO troops would be allowed to enter the country. Reports from Moldova at the time disclosed that American troops stopped at the border crossing didn’t have proper ID and other papers. Moldovans came to greet them with the banners “Moldova is a neutral country” and “Stop bases of NATO,” “Stop NATO” and “NATO go home.” As the result, on April 28th only about 60 units and 200 servicemen the U.S. Army 2nd Cavalry Regimental Engineer Squadron were allowed to enter the country.
  • When a formation of American military crossed the Romanian-Moldova border allegedly to take part in  Dragon Pioneer 2016 NATO military drills, Moldavian opposition leaders expressed protests. Several members of the Parliament blocked the road.  They reported to Russian and international media and news outlets that the US troops didn’t have an international agreement signed by the defense ministers of Moldova and USA. They also lacked a legal government agreement on the entrance of the heavy military equipment and weaponry to the territory of the country. 60% of American servicemen didn’t have valid military IDs. According to a TASS report,  “To prevent collisions, officers from the Fulger (Lightning) police battalion of special purpose intervened, which were specially delivered from Chisinau. After checking the documents, a column of military vehicles followed the US to the place of temporary location at the site of Negresht,” said the inspectorate.” “The initiative to invite the US troops into the country and hold the exhibition of American technology belongs to the Minister of Defense of Moldova Anatol Șalaru, who is famous for the organization of the “Museum of Soviet occupation” in Chisinau, calls to repeal neutrality and make the country a member of NATO, and the fight against monuments of the Soviet era.” This move was harshly criticized by Igor Dodon, whose party has the largest faction in Parliament and controls a quarter of the seats.
  • He stated: “We believe military exercises involving US troops on Moldovan territory is a flagrant violation of the constitutional principle of neutrality of Moldova. In this regard, the deputies from the Party of socialists have already initiated a number of procedures. They will continue, and this will be one of the reasons for introducing in May the initiative to dismiss the government.” By Victory Day it became apparent that the Nuland-Kogan-NATO plan for invasion of Moldova was foiled. All Americans could do was   to “crush” a Victory Day parade in the center of Moldova’s capital by coming uninvited and bringing their motorized vehicles to it. And that’s where NATO troops and Moldovan patriots came face to face. Pindos lost their freaking mind:  An American Colonel demands from the citizen of Moldova to leave the central square ПИНДОСЫ ОХРЕНЕЛИ В КОНЕЦ! Американский полковник предлагает покинуть центральную площадь Кишинева гражданину РМ pic.twitter.com/FfECO3NBXi — Серж Высоцкий (@Albertich50) May 12, 2016 An American Colonel demands from the citizen of Moldova to leave the central square
Paul Merrell

Britain Detains the Partner of a Reporter Tied to Leaks - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...of-reporter-tied-to-leaks.html

surveillance state Greenwald Miranda-detention border-search-&-seizure thumbdrive Snowden British-Terrorism-Act

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • The partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist for The Guardian who has been publishing information leaked by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, was detained for nine hours by the British authorities under a counterterrorism law while on a stop in London’s Heathrow Airport during a trip from Germany to Brazil, Mr. Greenwald said Sunday.
  • Mr. Greenwald’s partner, David Michael Miranda, 28, is a citizen of Brazil. He had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden’s leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Greenwald said, and Mr. Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
  • The Guardian published a report on Mr. Miranda’s detainment on Sunday afternoon. Mr. Greenwald said someone who identified himself as a security official from Heathrow Airport called him early on Sunday and informed him that Mr. Miranda had been detained, at that point for three hours. The British authorities, he said, told Mr. Miranda that they would obtain permission from a judge to arrest him for 48 hours, but he was released at the end of the nine hours, around 1 p.m. Eastern time. Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Aug 13
     
    My comments mighty be longer than Diigo allows from the client sidee so I will place them in in a comment following this post. However, do not miss the companion article in The Guardian, at  
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Aug 13
     
    Note that when detained, Mr. Miranda was acting in the role of a courier transporting documents on a thumb drive between two of the lead reporters working on the NSA scandal for The Guardian. The police kept the thumb drive and all other electronic devices Mr. Miranda carried, presumably to study their data stores.  Perhaps even more to the point, this was the seizure of leaked NSA documents and reporters' notes about them. I do not know about the UK law on the subject, but the shame of it is that it would be lawful accordng to the U.S. Supreme Court for U.S. Customs officials to do the same thing had Mr. Miranda arrived at an American international airport. Most Americans would be shocked to learn how many of their cherished Constitutional rights disappear at a port or entry or when crossing a border into the U.S. and when traveling within a 100-mile distance from a U.S. border on the U.S. side. But the particular detention of Mr. Miranda and seizure of the reporter's research and NSA document copies was sure from the outset to cause a major media stir. It has also provoked a strong diplomatic protest from Brazil This incident has already provoked not only a strong diplomatic protest from Brazil, but also in the UK, "Labour MP Tom Watson said he was shocked at the news and called for it to be made clear if any ministers were involved in authorising the detention." Also note in The Guardian article that the police were acting under authority of the draconian British Terrorism Act, which does not limit its application to those who are not suspected of being a terrorist. That UK government was willing to endure a public whipping by the media testifies loudly to the desperation of spy agencies - in the U.K., U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Israel intelligence alliance - to learn what documents Snowden leaked to Glenn Greenwald and the Washington Post so they have a clue about: [i] what hammer blows will hit them in the future so they can get out i
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Aug 13
     
    I see that I forgot to paste the link to the companion article in The Guardian. Here 'tis. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow
Paul Merrell

Lavon Affair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Lavon_Affair

war & peace Israel false-flag U.S.

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The Lavon Affair refers to a failed Israeli covert operation, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954. As part of the false flag operation,[1] a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned civilian targets, cinema, library and American educational center. The attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Communists, "unspecified malcontents" or "local nationalists" with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone.[2] The operation caused no casualties, except for those members of the cell who committed suicide after being captured.
  • After Israel publicly denied any involvement in the incident for 51 years, the surviving agents were officially honored in 2005 by being awarded certificates of appreciation by Israeli President Moshe Katzav.[3]
  • In the early 1950s, the United States initiated a more activist policy of support for Egyptian nationalism; this was often in contrast with British policies of maintaining its regional hegemony. Israel feared that this policy, which encouraged Britain to withdraw its military forces from the Suez Canal, would embolden Egyptian President Nasser's military ambitions towards Israel. Israel first sought to influence this policy through diplomatic means but was frustrated.[4] In the summer of 1954 Colonel Binyamin Gibli, the chief of Israel's military intelligence, Aman, initiated Operation Susannah in order to reverse that decision. The goal of the Operation was to carry out bombings and other acts of terrorism in Egypt with the aim of creating an atmosphere in which the British and American opponents of British withdrawal from Egypt would be able to gain the upper hand and block the British withdrawal from Egypt.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • According to historian Shabtai Teveth, who wrote one of the more detailed accounts, the assignment was "To undermine Western confidence in the existing [Egyptian] regime by generating public insecurity and actions to bring about arrests, demonstrations, and acts of revenge, while totally concealing the Israeli factor. The team was accordingly urged to avoid detection, so that suspicion would fall on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communists, 'unspecified malcontents' or 'local nationalists'."[2]
  • The top-secret cell, Unit 131,[5] which was to carry out the operation, had existed since 1948 and under Aman since 1950. At the time of Operation Susannah, Unit 131 was the subject of a bitter dispute between Aman (military intelligence) and Mossad (national intelligence agency) over who should control it. Unit 131 operatives had been recruited several years before, when the Israeli intelligence officer Avram Dar arrived in Cairo undercover as a British citizen of Gibraltar called John Darling. He had recruited several Egyptian Jews who had previously been active in illegal emigration activities and trained them for covert operations.
  • Aman decided to activate the network in the Spring of 1954. On July 2, the cell firebombed a post office in Alexandria,[6] and on July 14, it bombed the libraries of the U.S. Information Agency in Alexandria and Cairo and a British-owned theater.
  • Before the group began the operation, Israeli agent Avri Elad (Avraham Zeidenberg) was sent to oversee the operations. Elad assumed the identity of Paul Frank, a former SS officer with Nazi underground connections. Avri Elad allegedly informed the Egyptians, resulting in the Egyptian Intelligence Service following a suspect to his target, the Rio Theatre, where a fire engine was standing by. Egyptian authorities arrested this suspect, Philip Natanson, when his bomb accidentally ignited prematurely in his pocket. Having searched his apartment, they found incriminating evidence and names of accomplices to the operation.
  • Several suspects were arrested, including Egyptian Jews and undercover Israelis. Colonel Dar and Elad had managed to escape. Two suspects, Yosef Carmon and Hungarian-born Israeli Meir Max Bineth committed suicide in prison.
  • The Egyptian trial began on December 11 and lasted until January 27, 1955; two of the accused (Moshe Marzouk and Shmuel Azar) were condemned to execution by hanging, two were acquitted, and the rest received lengthy prison terms. The trial was criticised in Israel as a show trial, although strict Israeli military censorship of the press, at the time, meant that the Israeli public was kept in the dark about the facts of the case and, in fact, were led to believe that the defendants were innocent.[7] There were allegations that evidence had been extracted by torture.[8] After serving seven-year jail sentences, two of the imprisoned operatives (Meir Meyuhas and Meir Za'afran) were released in 1962. The rest were eventually freed in February 1968, in a secret addendum to a prisoner of war exchange.
  • Soon after the affair, Mossad chief Isser Harel expressed suspicion to Aman concerning the integrity of Avri Elad. Despite his concerns, Aman continued using Elad for intelligence operations until 1956, when he was caught trying to sell Israeli documents to the Egyptians. Elad was tried in Israel and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. During Elad's imprisonment in Ayalon Prison, the media were only able to refer to him as the "The Third Man" or "X" due to government censorship.[9] In 1976, whilst living in Los Angeles, Elad publicly identified himself as the "Third Man" from the Lavon Affair.[9] In 1980, Harel publicly revealed evidence that Elad had been turned by the Egyptians even before Operation Susannah.
  • Operation Susannah and the Lavon Affair turned out to be disastrous for Israel in several ways: Israel lost significant standing and credibility in its relations with the United Kingdom and the United States that took years to repair.[11] The political aftermath caused considerable political turmoil in Israel that affected the influence of its government.[12] In March 2005, Israel publicly honored the surviving operatives, and President Moshe Katsav presented each with a certificate of appreciation for their efforts on behalf of the state, ending decades of official denial by Israel.[13]
Gary Edwards

Cruz Control: What We Gained From the Efforts of Ted Cruz and Mike Lee | The Rio Norte ... - 0 views

therionorteline.com/...forts-of-ted-cruz-and-mike-lee

Utah rionorte Banksters Globalist-Elites Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Government-thugs

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Oct 13
     
    Excellent thinking and a great presentation from "Utah". A must read if ever there was one. Conclussion: "This is where we are in government. Our Republican leadership is failing, even as the Democrats fail at almost everything, especially their big "achievements". Obama and his team are failing because they have refused to change after their ideas didn't work - the Obamacare rollout is a perfect example. Now they are telling America that the solution is more taxes, more borrowing and more intervention - in essence, they want us to paddle harder. Just trust them, they ask - they just aren't quite through fixing things yet. As many observers have pointed out, there are no rational people who think that the current levels of borrowing and taxation can cure our ills. There are only those, many exposed in these most recent government shutdowns, who simply want to delay Obamageddon until someone else's term. The fact is that we simply have enough fatal structural defects in our approach to our governance model that just working harder and spending more cannot fix it. You can't beat structural defects with performance. I've seen it all before in companies who were burning themselves out and wasting their resources by paddling harder against a current that was too powerful…and never recognizing that rescue was only a course change away. Simply paddling harder won't do it, especially when government has been taking paddles away from some through taxation and regulation and pulling some 47% of tax filers completely out of the canoe. This will not get fixed without pain. We need to get ready for it. No amount of avoidance will forestall the inevitable crash - we have to make sure that it is only a hard landing. Something will have to be sacrificed to save the whole; I have little doubt about that. Everything can't be given to everybody - there never was going to be a unicorn in every garage and Peggy Joseph never was going to get Obama to pay
Paul Merrell

Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, Behind the Coup in Egypt | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...ro%2C_behind_the_coup_in_egypt

U.S.-foreign-policy Egypt coup decline of the American Empire nations-jumping-ship

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Given how long the United States has been Egypt’s critical supporter, the State Department and Pentagon bureaucracies should have built up a storehouse of understanding as to what makes the Land of the Pharaohs tick. Their failure to do so, coupled with a striking lack of familiarity by two administrations with the country’s recent history, has led to America’s humiliating sidelining in Egypt. It’s a story that has yet to be pieced together, although it’s indicative of how from Kabul to Bonn, Baghdad to Rio de Janeiro so many ruling elites no longer feel that listening to Washington is a must.
  • The helplessness of Washington before a client state with an economy in freefall was little short of stunning. Pentagon officials, for instance, revealed that since the “ouster of Mr. Morsi,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had had 15 telephone conversations with coup leader General Sisi, pleading with him to “change course” -- all in vain. Five weeks later, the disjuncture between Washington and Cairo became embarrassingly overt. On September 23rd, the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters ordered the 85-year-old Muslim Brotherhood disbanded. In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly the next day, President Obama stated that, in deposing Morsi, the Egyptian military had “responded to the desires of millions of Egyptians who believed the revolution had taken a wrong turn.” He then offered only token criticism, claiming that the new military government had “made decisions inconsistent with inclusive democracy” and that future American support would “depend upon Egypt's progress in pursuing a more democratic path.” General Sisi was having none of this. In a newspaper interview on October 9th, he warned that he would not tolerate pressure from Washington “whether through actions or hints.” Already, there had been a sign that Uncle Sam’s mild criticism was being diluted. A day earlier, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden stated that reports that all military assistance to Egypt would be halted were “false.”
  • In early November, unmistakably pliant words came from Secretary of State John Kerry. “The roadmap [to democracy] is being carried out to the best of our perception,” he said at a press conference, while standing alongside his Egyptian counterpart Nabil Fahmy during a surprise stopover in Cairo. “There are questions we have here and there about one thing or another, but Foreign Minister Fahmy has reemphasized to me again and again that they have every intent and they are determined to fulfill that particular decision and that [democratic] track.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • By this time, the diplomatic and financial support of the oil rich Gulf States ruled by autocratic monarchs was proving crucial to the military regime in Cairo. Immediately after the coup, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) poured $12 billion into Cairo's nearly empty coffers. In late January 2014, Saudi Arabia and the UAE came up with an additional $5.8 billion. This helped Sisi brush off any pressure from Washington and monopolize power his way.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    Add Egypt to the score card of nations departing from U.S. control, with the U.S. still shoving money at it. (The Egyptian generals told the U.S. that they would cut a weapons deal with Russia if the U.S. stopped providing them. Of course when the profits of the U.S. armaments industry and Israel's imperial ambitions are involved, incredible human rights violations don't look nearly as bad in the White House. And note that the Egyptian generals were assisted in their escape by the House of Saud, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Note that I've added a new tag, "nations-jumping-ship" to begin tracking what nations formerly under U.S. control are jumping off the U.S. ship.
Paul Merrell

BRAZIL: TORTURE TECHNIQUES REVEALED IN DECLASSIFIED U.S. DOCUMENTS - 0 views

www2.gwu.edu/...NSAEBB478

Brazil torture CIA 60s-70s

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The Brazilian military regime employed a "sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system" to "intimidate and terrify" suspected leftist militants in the early 1970s, according to a State Department report dated in April 1973 and made public last week. Among the torture techniques used during the military era, the report detailed "special effects" rooms at Brazilian military detention centers in which suspects would be "placed nude" on a metal floor "through which electric current is pulsated." Some suspects were "eliminated" but the press was told they died in "shoot outs" while trying to escape police custody. "The shoot-out technique is being used increasingly," the cable sent by the U.S. Consul General in Rio de Janeiro noted, "in order to deal with the public relations aspect of eliminating subversives," and to "obviate 'death-by-torture' charges in the international press."
  • Peter Kornbluh who directs the National Security Archive's Brazil Documentation Project called the document "one of the most detailed reports on torture techniques ever declassified by the U.S. government." Titled "Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives," the document was among 43 State Department cables and reports that Vice President Joseph Biden turned over on June 17 to President Dilma Rousseff during his trip to Brazil for the World Cup competition for use by the Brazilian Truth Commission. The Commission is in the final phase of a two-year investigation of human rights atrocities during the military dictatorship which lasted from 1964 to 1985. On July 2, the Commission posted all 43 documents on its website, accompanied by this statement: "The CNV greatly appreciates the initiative of the U.S. government to make these records available to Brazilian society and hopes that this collaboration will continue to progress." The records range in date from 1967 to 1977. They report on a wide range of human rights-related issues, among them: secret torture detention centers in Sao Paulo, the military's counter-subversion operations, attitudes of the Church on human rights violations, and the regime's hostile reaction in 1977 to the first State Department human rights report on abuses. Some of the documents had been previously declassified under routine release procedures; others, including the April 1973 report on psychophysical torture, were reviewed for declassification as recently as June 5, 2014, in preparation for Biden's trip.
  • During his meeting with President Rousseff, Biden announced that the Obama administration would undertake a broader review of still highly classified U.S. records on Brazil, among them CIA and Defense Department documents, to assist the Commission in finalizing its report. "I hope that in taking steps to come to grips with our past we can find a way to focus on the immense promise of the future," he noted. Since the inception of the Truth Commission in May 2012, the National Security Archive has been assisting the Commissioners in obtaining U.S. records for their investigation, and pressing the Obama administration to fulfill its commitment to a new standard of global transparency and the right-to-know by conducting a special, Brazil declassification project on the military era. "Advancing truth, justice and openness is precisely the way these classified U.S. historical records should be used," according to Kornbluh. "Biden's declassified diplomacy will not only assist the Truth Commission in shedding light on the dark past of Brazil's military era, but also create a foundation for a better and more transparent future in U.S.-Brazilian relations." To call attention to the records and the Truth Commission's work, the Archive is highlighting five key documents from Biden's timely donation.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15
     
    Unmentioned in this article is the U.S. role in instigating a wave of takeovers of Latin American nations by military juntas, including funding, training in torture, operation of "death squads" and the execution of tens of thousands of left-leaning Latin Americans. For a quick and grossly understated  overview, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
Paul Merrell

Putin orders Russian officials relatives studying abroad to return home - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

war & peace Russia signs-of-war U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Russia is ordering all of its officials to fly home any relatives living abroad amid heightened tensions over the prospect of global war, it has been claimed.Politicians and high-ranking figures are said to have received a warning from president Vladimir Putin to bring their loved-ones home to the 'Motherland', according to local media.It comes after Putin cancelled a planned visit to France amid a furious row over Moscow's role in the Syrian conflict and just days after it emerged the Kremlin had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border.Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has also warned that the world is at a 'dangerous point' due to rising tensions between Russia and the US.According to the Daily Star, administration staff, regional administrators, lawmakers of all levels and employees of public corporations have been ordered to take their children out of foreign schools immediately.Failure to act will see officials jeopardising their chances of promotion, local media has reported.The exact reason for the order is not yet clear.But Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky is quoted by the Daily Star as saying: 'This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites to some 'big war'.' Relations between Russia and the US are at their lowest since the Cold War and have soured in recent days after Washington pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks.
  • The Kremlin has also suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium. Just days ago, it was reported that Russia had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border as tensions escalated between the world’s largest nation and the West.The Iskander missiles sent to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Nato members Poland and Lithuania, are now within range of major Western cities including Berlin.Polish officials – whose capital Warsaw is potentially threatened – have described the move as of the 'highest concern'. Putin's decision to cancel his Paris visit came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian forces had committed a 'war crime' in the battered city of Aleppo with the support of Russian air strikes.Putin had been due in Paris on October 19 to inaugurate a spiritual centre at a new Russian Orthodox church near the Eiffel Tower, but Hollande had insisted his Russian counterpart also took part in talks with him about Syria.The unprecedented cancellation of a visit so close to being finalised is a 'serious step... reminiscent of the Cold War', said Russian foreign policy analyst Fyodor Lukyanov.'This is part of the broader escalation in the tensions between Russia and the West, and Russia and NATO,' he told AFP.The Kremlin has also been angered over the banning of the Russian Paralympic team from the Rio Olympics amid claims of state-sponsored doping of its athletes.
  • Meanwhile, the top advisor to US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said the FBI is investigating Russia's possible role in hacking thousands of his personal emails.But Russian officials have vigorously rejected accusations of meddling in the US presidential elections and dismissed allegations that Moscow was behind a series of recent hacks on US institutions. Retired Russian Lt. Gen. Evgeny Buzhinsky told the BBC: 'Of course there is a reaction. As far as Russia sees it, as Putin sees it, it is full-scale confrontation on all fronts. If you want a confrontation, you'll get one.'But it won't be a confrontation that doesn't harm the interests of the United States. You want a confrontation, you'll get one everywhere.'Earlier this week British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson waded into the row, calling for anti-war campaigners to protest outside the Russian embassy in London.Johnson said the 'wells of outrage are growing exhausted' and anti-war groups were not expressing sufficient outrage at the conflict in Aleppo.'Where is the Stop the War Coalition at the moment? Where are they?' he said during a parliamentary debate.
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