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Paul Merrell

NSA Whistleblower: Snowden Never Had Access to the "Juiciest" Intelligence Documents | ... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5386231

surveillance state NSA Snowden-documents NSA-domestic-surveillance Tice must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • NSA whistleblower Russel Tice was a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping. Tice told PBS and other media that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers, including Supreme Court Justices, highly-ranked generals, Colin Powell and other State Department personnel, and many other top officials:
  • He says the NSA started spying on President Obama when he was a candidate for Senate:
  • Many of Tice’s allegations have been confirmed by other government whistleblowers. And see this. Washington’s Blog called Tice to find out more about what he saw when he was at NSA.
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  • NSA Has Hidden Its Most Radical Surveillance Operations … Even from People Like Snowden Who Had General “Code Word” Clearance WASHINGTON’S BLOG: Glenn Greenwald – supposedly, in the next couple of days or weeks – is going to disclose, based on NSA documents leaked by Snowden, that the NSA is spying on all sorts of normal Americans … and that the spying is really to crush dissent.  [Background here, here and here.] Does Snowden even have documents which contain the information which you’ve seen? RUSSELL TICE:  The answer is no. WASHINGTON’S BLOG: So you saw handwritten notes. And what Snowden was seeing were electronic files …?
  • RUSSELL TICE: Think of it this way.  Remember I told you about the NSA doing everything they could to make sure that the information from 40 years ago – from spying on Frank Church and Lord knows how many other Congressman that they were spying on – was hidden? Now do you think they’re going to put that information into Powerpoint slides that are easy to explain to everybody what they’re doing? They would not even put their own NSA designators on the reports [so that no one would know that] it came from the NSA.  They made the reports look like they were Humint (human intelligence) reports.  They did it to hide the fact that they were NSA and they were doing the collection. That’s 40 years ago.  [The NSA and other agencies are still doing "parallel construction", "laundering" information to hide the fact that the information is actually from mass NSA surveillance.] Now, what NSA is doing right now is that they’re taking the information and they’re putting it in a much higher security level.  It’s called “ECI” - Exceptionally Controlled Information  – and it’s called the black program … which I was a specialist in, by the way. I specialized in black world – DOD and IC (Intelligence Community) – programs, operations and missions … in “VRKs”, “ECIs”, and “SAPs”, “STOs”. SAP equals Special Access Program. It’s highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. STO equals Special Technical Operations  It’s highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these.
  • Now in that world – the ECI/VRK world – everything in that system is classified at a higher level and it has its own computer systems that house it.  It’s totally separate than the system which Mr. Snowden was privy to, which was called the “JWICS”: Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.  The JWICS system is what everybody at NSA has access to.  Mr Snowden had Sys Admin [systems administrator] authority for the JWICS. And you still have to have TS/SCI clearance [i.e. Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmented Information - also known as “code word” - clearance] to get on the JWICS. But the ECI/VRK systems are much higher [levels of special compartmentalized clearance] than the JWICS. And you have to be in the black world to get that [clearance]. ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks). VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks. These programs typically have, at the least, a requirement of 100 year or until death, ’till the person first being “read in” [i.e. sworn to secrecy as part of access to the higher classification program] can talk about them.  [As an interesting sidenote, the Washington Times reported in 2006 that – when Tice offered to testify to Congress about this illegal spying – he was informed by the NSA that the Senate and House intelligence committees were not cleared to hear such information.]
  • It’s very compartmentalized and – even with stuff that they had – you might have something at NSA, that there’s literally 40 people at NSA that know that it’s going on in the entire agency. When the stuff came out in the New York Times [the first big spying story, which broke in 2005] – and I was a source of information for the New York Times –   that’s when President Bush made up that nonsense about the “terrorist surveillance program.” By the way, that never existed. That was made up. There was no such thing beforehand. It was made up … to try to placate the American people. The NSA IG (Inspector General) – who was not cleared for this – all of a sudden is told he has to do an investigation on this; something he has no information or knowledge of. So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation.
  • Snowden’s Failure To Understand the Most Important Documents RUSSELL TICE: Now, if Mr. Snowden were to find the crossover, it would be those documents that were downgraded to the NSA’s IG. The stuff that I saw looked like a bunch of alphanumeric gobbledygook.  Unless you have an analyst to know what to look for – and believe me, I think that what Snowden’s done is great – he’s not an intelligence analyst.  So he would see something like that, and he wouldn’t know what he’s looking at. But that would be “the jewels”. And the key is, you wouldn’t know it’s the jewels unless you were a diamond miner and you knew what to look for. Because otherwise, there’s a big lump of rock and you don’t know there’s a diamond in there. I worked special programs. And the way I found out is that I was working on a special operation, and I needed information from NSA … from another unit. And when I went to that unit and I said “I need this information”, and I dealt with [satellite spy operations], and I did that in the black world. I was a special operations officer. I would literally go do special missions that were in the black world where I would travel overseas and do spooky stuff.
  • Cheney Was Running the Show WASHINGTON’S BLOG: You said in one of your interviews that Dick Cheney ordered the intercepts that you found in the burn bags [the bags of documents which were slated to be destroyed because they were so sensitive]. Is that right … and if so, how do you know that? RUSSELL TICE: I did not know one way or the other until I talked to a very senior person at NSA who – much later – wanted to have a meeting with me. And we had a covert, clandestine style meeting. And that’s when this individual told me that the whole thing was being directed and was coming from the vice president’s office … Cheney, through his lawyer David Addington. WASHINGTON’S BLOG:  It sounds like it wasn’t going through normal routes?  It’s not like Cheney or Addington made formal requests to the NSA … through normal means? RUSSELL TICE: No, not normal at all. All on the sly … all “sneaky pete” under the table, in the evening when most NSA employees are gone for the day. This is all being done in the evenings … between like 7 [at night] and midnight.
  • NSA Is Spying On CONTENT as Well as Metadata WASHINGTON’S BLOG: And from what you and others have said, it’s content as well as metadata? RUSSELL TICE: Of course it is. Of course. [Background. But see this.] NSA Spying On Journalists, Congress, Admirals, Lawyers … RUSSELL TICE: In 2009, I told [reporters] that they were going after journalists and news organizations and reporters and such. I never read text of Congressman’s conversations. What I had was information – sometimes hand-written – of phone numbers of Congressmen, their wives, their children, their staffers, their home numbers, their cellphone numbers, their phone numbers of their residence back in Oregon or whatever state they’re from, and their little offices back in their state. Or an Admiral and his wife, and his kids and his staffers …
  • The main thing I saw more than anything else were lawyers and law firms. I saw more lawyers or law firms being wiretapped than anything else. These are the phone numbers I saw written. And then I would see those numbers incorporated into those lists with the columns of information about the phone number, and the serial number and the banks of recorders and digital converters and the data storage devices. I could see handwritten phone numbers and notes, sometimes with names, sometimes not.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Jun 14
     
    Whistleblower Russell Tice says that there are super-classified domestic surveillance records that Edward Snowden, Congressional oversight committees, and the NSA Inspector-General did not have access to. Must-read.
Paul Merrell

Furious Russia, Downgraded To Just Above Junk By S&P, Proposes "Scorched Earth" Retalia... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...scorched-earth-retaliation-aga

war & peace sanctions Russia U.S.-foreign-policy monetary-policy BRICS

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • a few hours ago that joke of a rating agency, Standard & Poor's, which also earlier announced it was "affirming" France at an AA rating making it very clear it will no longer accept being sued for telling the truth and downgrading sovereigns or otherwise have its offices abroad raided, not only upgraded Cyprus from B- to B (please deposits your funds in Cyprus banks now: they are safe, S&P promises), but - far more importantly - delivered a political message to the Kremlin, and downgraded Russia from BBB to BBB-, one short notch away from junk status. This was the first downgrade of Russia by S&P since December 2008.
  • Russia's response was prompt. First, in retaliation to the downgrade, Russian economy minister Alexei Ulyukaev said S&P’s downgrade of Russia’s rating was expected by investors, won’t significantly change their behavior, adding the obvious that the decision to cut Russia’s rating was partly political, partly based on economic situation. In other words, entirely symbolic - it is not as if Russia has access to bond markets anyway, plus as we wrote earlier this week in "Why Putin Is Smiling At The Bond Market's Blockade Of Russia", it is not as if it needs them. But far more importantly, and ahead of yet another round of western sanctions which appears imminent unless Obama is to look even more powerless than he currently is (granted, a difficult achievement), Russian presidential adviser Sergei Glazyev proposed plan of 15 measures to protect country’s economy if sanctions applied, Vedomosti newspaper reports, citing Glazyev’s letter to Finance Ministry. According to Vedomosti as Bloomberg reported, Glazyev proposed:
  • Russia should withdraw all assets, accounts in dollars, euros from NATO countries to neutral ones Russia should start selling NATO member sovereign bonds before Russia’s foreign-currency accounts are frozen Central bank should reduce dollar assets, sell sovereign bonds of countries that support sanctions Russia should limit commercial banks’ FX assets to prevent speculation on ruble, capital outflows Central bank should increase money supply so that state cos., banks may refinance foreign loans Russia should use national currencies in trade with customs Union members, other non-dollar, non-euro partners In other words, a full-blown scorched earth campaign by Russia.
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  • Granted, Russian holdings of US Treasurys are not that substantial (and could be monetized entirely in three months of POMO by the Fed), and western financial linkages to Russia, aside from trade routes, are not life-threatening, but if Russia were to take the baton, and other BRIC countries, already furious by the recent US decision to not boost their IMF status, follow suit, then Obama's life is about to become a living nightmare. Especially, if that most important BRIC member - China - does any of the many things it can do to indicate if, in this brand new Cold War, it is with or against the US... Finally, those curious what are the linkages between the west and Russia are, review our recent post on the matter: All You Need To Know About Russia, In Charts.
Paul Merrell

BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...-derivatives-to-bank-unit.html

banksters toxic-derivatives BoA JPMorgan FDIC Dodd-Frank too-big-to-fail

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.
  • Three years after taxpayers rescued some of the biggest U.S. lenders, regulators are grappling with how to protect FDIC- insured bank accounts from risks generated by investment-banking operations. Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms. “The concern is that there is always an enormous temptation to dump the losers on the insured institution,” said William Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former bank regulator. “We should have fairly tight restrictions on that.”
  • Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Bank of America’s long-term credit ratings Sept. 21, cutting both the holding company and the retail bank two notches apiece. The holding company fell to Baa1, the third-lowest investment-grade rank, from A2, while the retail bank declined to A2 from Aa3.
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  • The Moody’s downgrade spurred some of Merrill’s partners to ask that contracts be moved to the retail unit, which has a higher credit rating, according to people familiar with the transactions. Transferring derivatives also can help the parent company minimize the collateral it must post on contracts and the potential costs to terminate trades after Moody’s decision, said a person familiar with the matter. Bank of America estimated in an August regulatory filing that a two-level downgrade by all ratings companies would have required that it post $3.3 billion in additional collateral and termination payments, based on over-the-counter derivatives and other trading agreements as of June 30. The figure doesn’t include possible collateral payments due to “variable interest entities,” which the firm is evaluating, it said in the filing.
  • Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in the weather or interest rates. Dodd-Frank Rules Keeping such deals separate from FDIC-insured savings has been a cornerstone of U.S. regulation for decades, including last year’s Dodd-Frank overhaul of Wall Street regulation. The legislation gave the FDIC, which liquidates failing banks, expanded powers to dismantle large financial institutions in danger of failing. The agency can borrow from the Treasury Department to finance the biggest lenders’ operations to stem bank runs. It’s required to recoup taxpayer money used during the resolution process through fees on the largest firms.
  • Bank of America’s holding company -- the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit -- held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades. That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
  • Moving derivatives contracts between units of a bank holding company is limited under Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act, which is designed to prevent a lender’s affiliates from benefiting from its federal subsidy and to protect the bank from excessive risk originating at the non-bank affiliate, said Saule T. Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. “Congress doesn’t want a bank’s FDIC insurance and access to the Fed discount window to somehow benefit an affiliate, so they created a firewall,” Omarova said. The discount window has been open to banks as the lender of last resort since 1914. As a general rule, as long as transactions involve high- quality assets and don’t exceed certain quantitative limitations, they should be allowed under the Federal Reserve Act, Omarova said.
  • In 2009, the Fed granted Section 23A exemptions to the banking arms of Ally Financial Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, Fifth Third Bancorp, ING Groep NV, General Electric Co., Northern Trust Corp., CIT Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others, according to letters posted on the Fed’s website. The central bank terminated exemptions last year for retail-banking units of JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc and Deutsche Bank AG. The Fed also ended an exemption for Bank of America in March 2010 and in September of that year approved a new one. Section 23A “is among the most important tools that U.S. bank regulators have to protect the safety and soundness of U.S. banks,” Scott Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, told Congress in March 2008.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 13
     
    So according to Bloomberg, JPMorgan's commercial bank was the recipient of 99 percent of JPMorgan's $79 trillion (face value of derivatives) in bad bets. So adding JPMorgan's $78 trillion or so to the $75 trillion in bad bets Bank of America unloaded on its FDIC insured subsidiary, we arrive at $153 trillion in bad bets moved by two investment banks alone under the FDIC umbrella. Meanwhile, FDIC has authority under Dodd-Frank to liquidate these insolvent banks but doesn't, despite several successful lawsuits to recover the value of toxic derivatives that they sold to smaller banks that failed (which implies that FDIC could tell JPMorgan and BoA's investment banksters that they've got to pay off the toxic assets they transferred to their commercial banks, rather than diluting the insurance for normal depositors. Problem: the two big investment banks don't have sufficient assets to absorb those losses, so the too-politically-connected-to-fail factor kicks in. Note that I have not done any legal research in regard to these issues and am basing these observations on what has been stated about legal requirements in various media articles.
Paul Merrell

Microsoft to host data in Germany to evade US spying | Naked Security - 0 views

nakedsecurity.sophos.com/...-in-germany-to-evade-us-spying

surveillance state NSA FBI EU data-centers privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Microsoft's new plan to keep the US government's hands off its customers' data: Germany will be a safe harbor in the digital privacy storm. Microsoft on Wednesday announced that beginning in the second half of 2016, it will give foreign customers the option of keeping data in new European facilities that, at least in theory, should shield customers from US government surveillance. It will cost more, according to the Financial Times, though pricing details weren't forthcoming. Microsoft Cloud - including Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online - will be hosted from new datacenters in the German regions of Magdeburg and Frankfurt am Main. Access to data will be controlled by what the company called a German data trustee: T-Systems, a subsidiary of the independent German company Deutsche Telekom. Without the permission of Deutsche Telekom or customers, Microsoft won't be able to get its hands on the data. If it does get permission, the trustee will still control and oversee Microsoft's access.
  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella dropped the word "trust" into the company's statement: Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every individual on the planet to achieve more. Our new datacenter regions in Germany, operated in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, will not only spur local innovation and growth, but offer customers choice and trust in how their data is handled and where it is stored.
  • On Tuesday, at the Future Decoded conference in London, Nadella also announced that Microsoft would, for the first time, be opening two UK datacenters next year. The company's also expanding its existing operations in Ireland and the Netherlands. Officially, none of this has anything to do with the long-drawn-out squabbling over the transatlantic Safe Harbor agreement, which the EU's highest court struck down last month, calling the agreement "invalid" because it didn't protect data from US surveillance. No, Nadella said, the new datacenters and expansions are all about giving local businesses and organizations "transformative technology they need to seize new global growth." But as Diginomica reports, Microsoft EVP of Cloud and Enterprise Scott Guthrie followed up his boss’s comments by saying that yes, the driver behind the new datacenters is to let customers keep data close: We can guarantee customers that their data will always stay in the UK. Being able to very concretely tell that story is something that I think will accelerate cloud adoption further in the UK.
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  • Microsoft and T-Systems' lawyers may well think that storing customer data in a German trustee data center will protect it from the reach of US law, but for all we know, that could be wishful thinking. Forrester cloud computing analyst Paul Miller: To be sure, we must wait for the first legal challenge. And the appeal. And the counter-appeal. As with all new legal approaches, we don’t know it is watertight until it is challenged in court. Microsoft and T-Systems’ lawyers are very good and say it's watertight. But we can be sure opposition lawyers will look for all the holes. By keeping data offshore - particularly in Germany, which has strong data privacy laws - Microsoft could avoid the situation it's now facing with the US demanding access to customer emails stored on a Microsoft server in Dublin. The US has argued that Microsoft, as a US company, comes under US jurisdiction, regardless of where it keeps its data.
  • Running away to Germany isn't a groundbreaking move; other US cloud services providers have already pledged expansion of their EU presences, including Amazon's plan to open a UK datacenter in late 2016 that will offer what CTO Werner Vogels calls "strong data sovereignty to local users." Other big data operators that have followed suit: Salesforce, which has already opened datacenters in the UK and Germany and plans to open one in France next year, as well as new EU operations pledged for the new year by NetSuite and Box. Can Germany keep the US out of its datacenters? Can Ireland? Time, and court cases, will tell.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 15
     
    The European Community's Court of Justice decision in the Safe Harbor case --- and Edward Snowden --- are now officially downgrading the U.S. as a cloud data center location. NSA is good business for Europeans looking to displace American cloud service providers, as evidenced by Microsoft's decision. The legal test is whether Microsoft has "possession, custody, or control" of the data. From the info given in the article, it seems that Microsoft has done its best to dodge that bullet by moving data centers to Germany and placing their data under the control of a European company. Do ownership of the hardware and profits from their rent mean that Microsoft still has "possession, custody, or control" of the data? The fine print of the agreement with Deutsche Telekom and the customer EULAs will get a thorough going over by the Dept. of Justice for evidence of Microsoft "control" of the data. That will be the crucial legal issue. The data centers in Germany may pass the test. But the notion that data centers in the UK can offer privacy is laughable; the UK's legal authority for GCHQ makes it even easier to get the data than the NSA can in the U.S.  It doesn't even require a court order. 
Paul Merrell

SodaStream to close illegal settlement factory in response growing boycott campaign | B... - 0 views

www.bdsmovement.net/...growing-boycott-campaign-12782

war & peace Israel Palestine BDS Sodastream

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists have welcomed the news that SodaStream has announced it is to close its factory in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumim following a high profile boycott campaign against the company. “SodaStream’s announcement today shows that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is increasingly capable of holding corporate criminals to account for their participation in Israeli apartheid and colonialism,” said Rafeef Ziadah, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement. “BDS campaign pressure has forced retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream, and the company’s share price has tumbled in recent months as our movement has caused increasing reputational damage to the SodaStream brand,” she added. The news of this major success against a company famed for its role in illegal Israeli settlements broke amidst intensifying demonstrations against Israel’s policies of colonisation in Jerusalem. Grassroots boycott activism saw SodaStream dropped by major retailers across North America and Europe including Macy’s in the US and John Lewis in the UK.
  • SodaStream was forced to close its flagship store in Brighton in the UK as a result of regular pickets of the store. Soros Fund Management, the family office of the billionaire investor George Soros, sold its stake in SodaStream following BDS pressure. SodaStream’s share price fell dramatically in recent months as sales dried up, particularly in North America. After reaching a high of $64 per share in October 2013, the stock fell to around $20 per share this month. SodaStream has estimated its third quarter revenue will be $125 million, down almost 14 percent from the same period last year. But Ziadah warned that SodaStream will still remain actively complicit in the displacement of Palestinians in the Naqab and will remain a focus of boycott campaigning. “Even if this announced closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights,” she said.
  • SodaStream’s participation in Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians gained international notoriety when A-list celebrity Scarlett Johansson signed up to be a brand ambassador for the company. Following an international campaign urging Oxfam end its relationship with Johansson for endorsing SodaStream, the actor decided to quit Oxfam. SodaStream has also come under fire for its treatment of Palestinian workers in its West Bank factory, as Ziadah explains: “Any suggestion that SodaStream is employing Palestinians in an illegal Israeli settlement on stolen Palestinian land out of the kindness of its heart is ludicrous.” “Palestinian workers are paid far less than their Israeli counterparts and SodaStream recently fired 60 Palestinians following a dispute over food for the breaking of the Ramadan fast. Workers have previously said they are treated ‘like slaves’”. “Palestinians are forced to work inside settlements in sub-standard conditions because of Israel’s deliberate destruction of the Palestinian economy. There’s an urgent need for the creation of decent and dignified jobs within the Palestinian economy.”
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  • SodaStream have said all workers will be offered jobs at its new plant, although Israel’s apartheid wall and severe restrictions on movement will make the commute to the new plant difficult for its Palestinian workers. All of the main Palestinian trade unions have called for boycott and are members of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the civil society coalition that leads the BDS movement and helped to initiate the campaign against SodaStream.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Nov 14
     
    The Palestine BDS Movement drew economic blood According to the NYT, SodaStream's revenues fell so far that its books needed red ink and the Israeli government chipped in $20 million to move SodaStream out of the Occupied Territories. 
Paul Merrell

Why France Sank an Iran Nuke Deal | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...-france-sank-an-iran-nuke-deal

war & peace Saudis Israel France Egypt Syria

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • France’s sabotage of a compromise agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is a textbook case of how the new Saudi-Israel alliance can disrupt President Barack Obama’s strategy for resolving Middle East disputes through diplomacy, not war. Over the summer, Saudi officials including intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan visited European capitals dangling financial deals and energy concessions to countries if they would line up behind Saudi and Israeli desires for military intervention in the Syrian civil war and heightened economic warfare against Iran. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius greets U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris, France, on Feb. 27, 2013. [State Department photo]The carrots were particularly appealing to the French who are struggling with a sluggish economy, high unemployment and a recent credit downgrade. So, the flash of Saudi petro-dollars got the attention of the French government.
  • Just last month, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian celebrated the signing of a $1.5 billion deal with Saudi Arabia to overhaul six of its navy ships. In July, Saudi Arabia’s ally, United Arab Emirates, signed a $913 million deal with France to buy two high-resolution Helios military satellites. Other lucrative arms deals are reportedly in the works between France and Saudi Arabia (and its Sunni allies). Saudi Arabia also has deployed its money to bolster France’s sagging agricultural and food sectors, including a Saudi firm buying a major stake in Groupe Doux, Europe’s largest poultry firm based in Brittany. The Saudis, however, had less success with other countries.
  • Putin also stepped up his cooperation with President Obama in searching for negotiated settlements to longstanding disagreements in the Middle East, including a U.S.-Russia-brokered deal to get the Syrian government to give up its chemical weapons, a joint push for Syrian peace talks in Geneva and a plan to resolve the Iranian nuclear dispute. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi royals favor a more belligerent approach to these conflicts – wanting the United States to bomb Syria and “degrade” its military, demanding the immediate removal of Syrian President Assad, and insisting on a complete capitulation by Iran under threat of crippling economic sanctions or a U.S.-Israeli aerial bombardment. Last weekend – as an interim agreement with Iran was about to be signed by the five United Nations Security Council members plus Germany – the French rushed to the rescue of the Israeli-Saudi alliance, showing up at the last minute to unravel the deal that had been painstakingly knitted together. To the apparent surprise of the Obama administration, the Russians and other governments working on a compromise with Iran over its nuclear program, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius joined the talks late and prevented the accord from being signed.
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  • Much of the subsequent commentary has focused on why the French were coming to the aid of the Israelis in blocking the interim agreement that Netanyahu has denounced in apocalyptic terms. But France’s interest in undercutting the deal can perhaps best be understood by factoring in the Saudi money. Indeed, the logic behind the behind-the-scenes Saudi-Israeli alliance has been that the two former adversaries now view their interests as mostly aligning, especially their contempt for Iran’s Shiite government and its influence extending along the Shiite Crescent from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut. Israel and Saudi Arabia agree that Iran is the greatest threat to their regional interests. Both countries have indicated that they want the Iranian-backed government in Syria to be overthrown even if that means it will be replaced by Saudi-backed Sunni jihadists linked to al-Qaeda. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Israel Sides with Syrian Jihadists.”]
  • Israel and Saudi Arabia also took the same side on the Egyptian military coup d’etat which ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Though the Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni – like the Saudis – it represents a populist movement that the Saudi monarchy considers a threat to its anti-democratic structure. Israel views the Muslim Brotherhood as sympathetic to Hamas in Gaza. But what makes the Saudi-Israeli alliance so influential is the complementary strengths of the two countries. Israel has extraordinary skills at lobbying and propaganda, especially in influencing Official Washington and Capitol Hill. Saudi Arabia has vast financial resources that can turn the heads of defense officials in Paris, oil men in Houston or investment bankers on Wall Street. Together these strengths can make the negotiation of any good-faith compromise with Iran or Syria difficult, if not impossible. Between Netanyahu pulling the strings of his political and media marionettes in Washington and the Saudis manipulating the French government and others with financial inducements, it will take toughness and savvy for the Obama administration to guide the process to a peaceful resolution. And, toughness and savvy are not attributes that the administration is known to have in great supply.
Gary Edwards

The GOP Should Be Mindful Of August And Take Back Up Holding the Line | RedState - 0 views

www.redstate.com/...-take-back-up-holding-the-line

Obama-downgrade redstate cut-cap-balance Ryan-Budget

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Aug 11
     
    The White House no longer has a commander in chief in charge, but a professional victim. Last week, it was the Arab Spring, those damn Europeans, Mother Nature, etc. Now it is all about those evil tea partiers. For three years, Barack Obama has blamed George W. Bush for all his ills. Yes, it is true, Barack Obama inherited an economy sliding backward. But it is also true Barack Obama inherited a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush. Obama's policies have exacerbated a bad economy and caused us to lose our credit rating. But still, expect a full court press to blame the GOP and Tea Party. So I have some quick advice for the GOP. Back when S&P said it was considering a down grade, it set out two criteria to avoid losing the downgrade: (1) at least $4 trillion in cuts and (2) bipartisan support. Only the tea party movement came up with such a plan - Cut, Cap, and Balance. It received bipartisan support in the House, came within five votes of a majority in the Senate, and not only cut $4 trillion, but put caps on future government spending and balanced the federal budget. No other plan, including the public grand bargain and Barack Obama's own super-double-top-secret plan that no one has ever seen did that. Were I in Republican Leadership in Washington, I would haul my butt back to D.C. right now and start fighting again for Cut, Cap, and Balance. 66% of Americans support the plan. It is the only plan that would have avoided a credit decline. Go back and pick up the fight on the front lines for freedom. And if they just can't, they they better point out to the new Super Committee that it was, in fact, possible to cut $4 trillion without enacting job killing tax increases and encourage them to send back as its package Cut, Cap, and Balance.
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Aug 11
     
    The Tea Party passed two plans to restore USA crdibility and good standing: The Ryan Balanced Budget and the Cut, Cap & Balance plan. Both plans passed the House with bipartisan support. Both plans were acceptable to the credit rating agencies, including Standard & Poor. Both plans were blocked by the Democrats in the Senate, and, threatened with a veto from Obama. The people with no plan blocked the only plans that would have saved the USA credit rating. Rush made the point this morning that if Obama and the Democrats cared about this country, they would be insisting that both the Tea Party plans, the Ryan Balanced Budget and the Cut, Cap & Balance plans be put forward in the Senate immediately for a vote, with the full backing of Obama. Rush pointed out that if Obama and the Democrats didn't do this, or didn't come forward with a proposal of their own that actually qualified and met the credit ratings agencies $4 Trill - stop the reckless spending criteria debt concerns, then our worst fears would be confirmed. Our worst fears being that Obama and the Democrats are worse than mere incompetent socialist ideologues. That they are in fact out to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg: Constitutional Capitalism, American exceptionalism, and our God given right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that under-girds the extraordinary story of American prosperity. So Obama has a choice today. He either complies with the demands that the USA Government get it's finances in order by supporting the credit ratings approved Tea Party plans. Or, explain why his vision of a downgraded, prosperity bereft and indentured debt bound America is the way forward. Time to start demanding resignations. The fish rots from the head.
Gary Edwards

Obama Downgrade: The Guns of August - 2 views

The world is upside down with the USA credit rating downgrade. Gold surges over $1700 per oz. The stock market continues it's downward spiral, now in free fall. The Federal Reserve Bankster Carte...

Obama-downgrade Cut-Cap-Balance Ryan-Budget Tea-Party-Patriots financial-collapse

started by Gary Edwards on 08 Aug 11 no follow-up yet
Paul Merrell

Moody's downgrades 4 US giant lenders - RT Business - 0 views

rt.com/...downgrades-four-us-lenders-766

financial-collapse too-big-to-fail bail-ins U.S. Cyprus

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Moody’s is to cut the credit rating of US major banks, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of New York Mellon. The rating agency thinks the government is now less likely to support the lenders in times of new financial difficulties. The debt rating of the holding company of Goldman Sachs was cut from A3 to Baa1, JPMorgan - from A2 to A3, Morgan Stanley - from Baa1 to Baa2, and Bank of New York Mellon -  from Aa3 to A1.
  • "We believe that US bank regulators have made substantive progress in establishing a credible framework to resolve a large, failing bank," said Robert Young, the Moody’s Managing Director. "Rather than relying on public funds to bail-out one of these institutions, we expect that bank holding company's creditors will be bailed-in and thereby shoulder much of the burden to help recapitalize a failing bank." Lower credit rating can cost the lenders a higher loan price, increasing their financial burden. However the bank executives complained about unfairly assessed downgrades, and optimism overcompensation, the Financial Times reported. The review is similar to one by Standard & Poor's in June and comes from government’s unwillingness to repeat bailouts in a crisis.
  • The decision was made after the ratings of eight American banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and State Street were placed on revision in August, when more details of government’s intention to abandon banks support were unveiled.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13
     
    So Moody's thinks Cyprus like bail-ins for large failing U.S. banks are more likely than government bail-outs and names the large banks most likely to fail, with their projected likelihood to fail reflected in Moody's adjusted credit ratings. For those who don't understand what a "bail-in" is, it means that the bank gets your deposits and you get back a bit of ownership in a failing enterprise. Try to spend that. 
Paul Merrell

Russia and China: Watch Out Moody's, Here We Come! | New Eastern Outlook - 0 views

journal-neo.org/...watch-out-moody-s-here-we-come

banksters ratings-agencies history Russia China

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • In 1945 it was easy to get a defeated Europe to agree to Bretton Woods Gold Exchange Standard in which all currencies would be fixed to the US dollar and the dollar alone fixed to gold at $35 an ounce, where it remained until the system collapsed in August 1971 and Nixon abandoned gold-dollar convertibility. By then Europe was booming with modern reconstructed industry and the USA was becoming a rustbelt. France and Germany demanded US gold bullion instead of inflated dollars, and US gold reserves were vanishing. After 1971, the dollar flooded the world unfettered by gold reserve requirements and US military might during the Cold War forced Japan, Western Europe and others including OPEC to accept constantly inflating paper US dollars. From 1970 until about 2000 the volume of dollars in the world had risen some 2,900%. Because the dollar was the world “reserve currency” needed by all for trade in oil, goods, grains, the world was forced to swallow a de facto mammoth inflation after 1971.First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/01/22/watch-out-moody-s-here-we-come/
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Jan 15
     
    The established New York credit agencies would play a strategic role in this post-1971 dollar system. During the 1970's the US Government's Securities & Exchange Commission, charged with oversight of bond and stock markets, issued a ruling giving the then-dominant New York credit rating agencies-Moody's and Standard & Poor's (and later Fitch Ratings)-a de facto guaranteed monopoly in an unregulated market, when they ruled that only "Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations" would be qualified to issue appropriate ratings, i.e. only Moody's and S&P. Corruption was made endemic to the US ratings game and Washington was party to the dirty deal. By the end of the 1970's, using the vast amount of OPEC "petro-dollars" from the two oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979, New York international banks, using London, began to loan to the rest of the world to finance imports of oil and other essentials. The New York credit rating agencies, previously primarily rating US corporate bonds, expanded into the new foreign debt markets as the largest and only established rating agencies in the new phase of dollarization and globalization of capital markets. They set up branches in Germany, France, Japan, Mexico, Argentina and other emerging markets much like the US Big Five accounting firms. During the 1980s the rating agencies played a key role in down-rating the debt of the Latin American debtor countries such as Mexico and Argentina. Their ratings determined if the debtor countries could borrow or not. Financial market insiders in London and New York openly spoke of the "political" rating agencies using their de facto monopoly to advance the agenda of Wall Street and the Dollar System behind it. Then in the 1990's, the New York rating agencies played a decisive role in spreading the "Asia Crisis" of 1997-98. With the precise timing of its downgrades they could worsen the panic because they had been suspiciously silent right up un
Gary Edwards

How Can the US Get Back its AAA Rating? | NewsyStocks.com - 0 views

www.newsystocks.com/...the-us-get-back-its-aaa-rating

Banksters S&P-downgrade USA-downgrade financial-collapse Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • First among the recommendations of S&P 500, it expects the US government to get the federal debt down to around 60 percent or 65 percent of GDP, which has been historically around 40 percent.
  • . Its concerns were divided into two categories. First, the Americans are growing old and the cons
  • Currently, t
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • S&P had made it clear that budget cuts alone are not sufficient but taxes must be increased.
  • S&P wants the US to generate enough savings from its debt deal to stabilize the national debt so that it will no longer
  • w faster than t
  • The government requires at least $4 trillion to $5 trillion in savings over the next 10 years to achieve the debt target.
  • tinue to gro
  • ncreases in entitlement costs cannot be sustained alone by the current tax collections for programs like Social S
  • ecurity.
  • budget cuts alone are not enough to reduce deficits. So taxes have to be increased to add revenue to the Treasury.
  • A cap on spending would act as sort of a stopgap preventing lawmakers from letting party politics put a blockade in the way on necessary steps towards the economic recovery of the US.
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Aug 11
     
    S&P wants the US to generate enough savings from its debt deal to stabilize the national debt so that it will no longer continue to grow faster than the economy. Its concerns were divided into two categories. First, the Americans are growing old and the consequent increases in entitlement costs cannot be sustained alone by the current tax collections for programs like Social Security. So, the government needs to create a framework to address the costs of an aging American population. This could require an increase in the age limit at which Social Security and Medicare Benefits could be accessed and to exclude those people who have savings or jobs from both of these programs.   The other crucial area of concerns highlighted by S&P is that budget cuts alone are not enough to reduce deficits. So taxes have to be increased to add revenue to the Treasury. While increasing revenue and cutting spending will help in reducing the deficit and help in balancing the budget. A cap on spending would act as sort of a stopgap preventing lawmakers from letting party politics put a blockade in the way on necessary steps towards the economic recovery of the US.   Analysts believe that the US needs to compromise on its defence budget also, which still supports large deployments of armed forces and material overseas. The US has commitments to NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the federal government believes that it needs to support strategic initiatives in place like Japan. The government has to take strong steps in its policy towards these obligations to put the country's economy back on track.   The US owes maximum of its debt to China. So the Congress needs to put pressure on the Chinese government to alter the value of its currency to make the trade between the two countries fair. Furthermore, cheap goods exported by China have caused a loss of manufacturing jobs in the US, so the latter should place tariffs on more Chinese goods as a way to raise money and prevent dumping of pro
Paul Merrell

'Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius' | The Times of Is... - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/the-deal-french-mp-told-fabius

war & peace Israel Iran Iranian-nukes-myth P5+1 U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday
  • “I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.” France’s Fabius is widely reported to have scuppered the finalizing of the emerging deal late Saturday, leading to the halting of the negotiations with Iran, and an agreement to reconvene on November 20. Explaining his concerns to reporters in Geneva, Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium. Habib, the deputy president of the Jewish umbrella organization in France, was elected to the National Assembly in Paris in June, to represent the district of southern Europe, which includes French nationals residing in Israel.
  • The TV report on Sunday said Jerusalem believed that Netanyahu’s angry public criticism of the emerging deal, and his phone conversations with world leaders — including Presidents Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Francois Hollande, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister David Cameron — had played a crucial role in stalling the deal, but that Israel was well aware that an agreement would be reached very soon. Netanyahu himself said Sunday that he was aware of the “strong desire” for a deal on the part of the P5+1 negotiators, and had asked the various leaders in his calls, “What’s the hurry?” The report, quoting sources in Jerusalem, said Netanyahu and ministers close to him were castigating the United States for its “radical eagerness” in seeking a deal, and saying that Washington appeared fearful of confrontation with Iran. “This is no way to run a negotiation,” the sources were quoted as saying. The Americans “are giving up all of their pressure points, and the Iranians recognize the Americans’ weakness.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu expressed outrage that under the terms of the emerging deal, “not a single centrifuge would be dismantled, not one.” Israel believes the imminent deal will leave Iran with uranium enrichment capabilities, and thus enable it to become a nuclear breakout state at a time of its choosing. Secretary of State John Kerry hit back at Netanyahu on Sunday, declaring, “I’m not sure that the prime minister, who I have great respect for, knows exactly what the amount or the terms are going to be because we haven’t arrived at them all yet. That’s what we’re negotiating.”
  • After the talks broke up in Geneva after midnight Saturday, Kerry complained about critics who were “jumping to conclusions” about the terms of the accord on the basis of “rumors or other parcels of information that somebody pretends to know.” Netanyahu on Friday publicly pleaded with Kerry not to rush to sign what he called a “very, very bad deal.”
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13
     
    Let's remember that Netanyahu made identical go-it-alone threats to attack Iran during the run-up to the U.S. 2012 presidential election to bring pressure on Obama to send U.S. military forces in to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. All the while, the Israeli Defense Force top brass were telling the press that Israel doesn't have the military power to go it alone against Iran. I doubt that Netanyahu's message mattered much to the French. Netanyahu has a credibility problem on that issue. So Netanyahu tried to play the stick role while the House of Saud offered the carrot of weapons purchases from the French and the like. Some stick. 
Paul Merrell

Main U.S.-Backed Syrian Rebel Group Disbanding, Joining Islamists - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...banding-joining-islamists.html

war & peace Syria Al-Nusrah moderate-rebels collapse

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Syrian rebel group Harakat al-Hazm, one of the White House’s most trusted militias fighting President Bashar al-Assad, collapsed Sunday, with activists posting a statement online from frontline commanders saying they are disbanding their units and folding them into brigades aligned with a larger Islamist insurgent alliance distrusted by Washington.
  • The apparent implosion comes just weeks after the Obama administration halved its funding of the 4,000-strong secular brigade—one of several more moderate rebel militias that have seen their U.S. funding cut or scaled back since Christmas.   Hazm has suffered an increasing number of defections in recent weeks in the face of repeated attacks from al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra on its remaining redoubts in Aleppo and in the area west of the city.This weekend the brigade suffered 300 casualties, say opposition officials, from fighting with the jihadists, and its leaders say that to avoid further bloodshed they have had no choice but to dissolve themselves and throw in their lot with the larger Shamiah Front, an alliance of mainly-Islamist militias in Aleppo. They say the morale of the militia—one of the few rebel brigades to have been trusted in the past by the U.S. with TOW anti-tank rockets—had plummeted as the American money spigot was slowly turned off.
  • A U.S. official said the secular militia had no alternative but to disband. He said it will now be crucial to see what individual Hazm fighters do, indicating that he hoped some would volunteer for the train-and-equip program.. A 50-man intelligence unit formed by Hazm to assist in on-the-ground damage assessment of U.S. airstrikes on ISIS and to provide information on al Nusra was disbanded because of the funding reductions, a senior opposition source told The Daily Beast.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Hazm was frequently touted by Obama aides as one of the militias they could rely on—a brigade that could partner on train-and-equip.But like other moderate militias, the program didn’t sit well with Hazm fighters, who were infuriated with Washington at what they saw as a downgrading of their efforts to topple President Assad.
  • Hazm’s problems with al Nusra, al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria, have multiplied since late October when their jihadist foes overran several of the militia’s key strongholds in Idlib, including Khan al-Subul, where it stored about 10 percent of its equipment. Hazm denied reports that al Nusra fighters managed to seize U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles, but conceded that al Nusra was able to secure 20 tanks, five of which were fully functional; six new armored personnel carriers recently supplied from overseas; and dozens of the group’s walkie-talkies, which Hazm leaders bought themselves from Best Buy during a visit to the U.S.
  • The brigade’s failure to hold the line against al Nusra—as well as the failure of other Western-backed armed groups to assist the beleaguered Hazm—was one of the reasons given to The Daily Beast by a State Department official for the cutbacks in funding for several rebel groups.Another reason cited was the increasing tendency of the moderate and secular militias to coordinate with the Shamiah Front.
  • Aleppo-based rebels insist they have no choice but to work with the Front, which also coordinates operations against Syrian government forces inside Aleppo with al Nusra. “Without the front, Assad would overwhelm us,” says a secular rebel commander. He and other brigade commanders say the Obama administration’s train-and-equip plan has little to do with what is unfolding rapidly on the ground. Brigades are demoralized, disintegrating, and fighting among themselves.
  • While al Nusra has been fighting the moderate armed opposition to Assad, it has been left alone by rival ISIS, with clashes between the competing jihadists all but ceasing.
Gary Edwards

Cow Economics & Politics - 1 views

docs.google.com/...pub

Banksters Cows S&P-downgrade

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Aug 11
     
    Update on that classic economic-political use case; "You have two cows". Hard to joke when the stock market has lost over $2 Trill in one week, and neither the government or the Federal Banksters Reserve show any concern.  Obama's golf game, fund raising and vacation schedule will not miss a beat.  Cape Cod calls and Obama is there.  Bernake and the Banksters met today, with a stock market begging for him to print up some more free fuel.  Bernake decides to stick with the plan and go with the collapse of the USA and the Dollar as scheduled. GOLD today is over $1780 /oz.  It's value in dollars has risen over $120 /oz since the raising of the debt limit to near $17 Trillion. The stock market melted down yesterday, crashing through key support barriers … shattering the confidence of millions of individual investors … and prompting most - who had been trying to turn a blind eye to the carnage - to start heading for the hills. Yesterday, Aug 9 2011 was the worst trading day since December of 2008. Just since the market began falling on July 26th, more than $7.8 trillion in equity has now been erased! Even though the Banksters are flush with $16.1 Trill in Federal Bankster Reserve coupons (GAO Audit of 2009-2010 Bankster books), the market can't seem to sort things out. And Banks stocks got hit hardest of all in yesterdays crash: US Bancorp and Wells Fargo were both down 9%. Huntington Bancshares and JP Morgan Chase declined 8.5% and 9.4% respectively. Fifth Third Bankcorp fell 11.4% and Capital One fell 12.08%. Regions Bank dropped 13.5% and SunTrust lost 13.9% of its value. Saw a National Media special on S&P last night.  These clowns gave Enron, Worldcom, Lehman Brothers, Ireland, Greece and Iceland their highest ratings right up until the eve of their collapse.  And then there's those trillions in garbage mortgage securities and derivatives rated triple A right through the collapse of the World economy
Paul Merrell

​Russia may join forces with China to compete with US, European satnavs - RT ... - 0 views

rt.com/...92-russia-china-gps-competitor

global-realignment Russia China BRICS technology-agreements

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Russia and China are eyeing a number of joint high-tech projects, ranging from creation of a new long-range passenger plane to joining forces on a satellite navigation system to compete with American GPS and European Galileo. The range of prospects was outlined on Friday by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who met Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang in Siberian Novosibirsk. Rogozin said Russia would develop cooperation with BRICS members in defiance of any possible Western sanctions. “Our technological partnership should be directed at the countries that are close to us in mentality and which in general constitute an emerging geopolitical force that we could rely on in opposing the monopolar world. Those are BRICS countries first and foremost,” he said.
  • Rogozin set examples of several joint projects Russia has or may have with China. The most concrete is the project for a new long-range wide-hull airliner with an estimated development cost of $7-8 billion. Russia and China have already signed a memorandum on it in May. Another aviation project the countries may pursuit is the modernization of Mil Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter. The aircraft design would be altered for smaller weight, but without compromising its capacity too much. The new helicopter would be able to carry up to 15 tons of cargo as opposed to 20 tons of the original.
  • If both pilot projects do well, Russia and China may form a permanent cooperation consortium similar to Europe’s Airbus, Rogozin said. China and Russia may also find synergy in space by making their respective satellite navigation systems, Glonass and Beidou, more compatible, the Russian official said. “We see good prospect in cooperation between the Russian Glonass system and the Chinese navigation system,” he said. “Our system is more suitable for northern, polar latitudes. The Chinese system is more southern. Their complementariness would result in a biggest and most powerful competitor to any navigation system." Rogozin’s shot was aimed at both American GPS, which was the focus of a recent fallout between Russia and the US, and the European Galileo. He also commented on Russia’s downgrade of the work of ground stations of the Differential GPS network based in the Russian territory. This week’s move was Moscow’s response to Washington’s failure to allow deployment of similar Glonass stations in America.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14
     
    So Russia and China aim to take down Boeing and Airbus. And it seems as though the BRICS nations may get their own global positioning system by integrating Russian and Chinese satnavs. While Russia and China progress rapidly for earned economic leadership of the world, the U.S. sinks billions intoa new super-aircraft carrier and lets its civilian infrastructure -- vital to economic recovery if were was any serious plan to recover -- disintegrate into obsolete rust. But Obama tells us that the U.S. economy is not in decline.That's why China becomes the world's largest economy this year, no doubt. 
Gary Edwards

So Who's Up For A Round Of Messenger-Shooting? | RedState - 0 views

www.redstate.com/...-a-round-of-messenger-shooting

Banksters national-debt-Ceiling dollar-destruction banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Aug 11
     
    The US Government will continue to borrow over $100 Billion per month.  Thanks to the grand borrowing plan, the ruling class assures us that spending cuts for 2012 will total $7 Billion (for the year).  2013 is whopping $2 Billion.  What a deal!!!  It's convert to GOLD or kiss it goodbye time my friends. excerpt:  The prospect of having S&P downgrading US debt has politicians scrambling to prevent such a Bonfire of The Keynesians. To forestall the coming horror, they worked tirelessly to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment, means test entitlement programs, close unnecessary military bases which were doled out as Congressional Pork, and repealed ObamaCare to the ringing cheers of small businesses all over America. Pysch! No they didn't. They immediately mounted a rhetorical assault against S&P for having the temerity to question the creditworthiness of an organization that has borrowed $5Tr dollars in the past five years, seen a precipitous and enduring decline in its corporate revenues, and has failed to fashion an acceptable long-term budget in the last 800 days. If a broker told me to buy lots of stock in some private corporation that tried that crap I'd hang up the phone on that individual without any further comment. S&P put it more politely when they said the following. "We view an inability to timely agree and credibly implement medium-term fiscal consolidation policy as inconsistent with a 'AAA' sovereign rating." So the United States government has failed to pass a budget for 800 days. We have increased our national debt from $9Tr to $14Tr in the very recent near-term. Our President has recommended a budget that would have raised this indebtedness to $25Tr over the next ten. It's a genuine shame we aren't giving these people more revenues. They manage what we do give them so well.
Paul Merrell

Corrupt "Secret" Global Trade and Investor Agreements: EU Facilitating Corporate Plunde... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5372796

banksters trade agreements arbitration vulture-capitalism

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Since the economic crisis hit Europe, international investors have begun suing EU countries struggling under austerity and recession for a loss of expected profits, using international trade and investment agreements. Speculative investors are claiming more than 1.7 billion Euros in compensation from Greece, Spain and Cyprus in private international tribunals for the impact of measures implemented to deal with economic crises. This is the conclusion from a new report released by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO). The report, ‘Profiting from Crisis – How corporations and lawyers are scavenging profits from Europe’s crisis countries’ (1), exposes a growing wave of corporate lawsuits against Europe’s struggling economies, which could lead to European taxpayers paying out millions of euros in a second major public bailout, this time to speculative investors. These lawsuits provide a warning of the potential high costs of the proposed trade deal between the US and the EU, which has just begun its fourth round of negotiations in Brussels.
  • Pia Eberhardt, trade campaigner with CEO and co-author of the report says: “Speculative investors are already using investment agreements to raid the cash-strapped public treasuries in Europe’s crisis countries. It would be political madness to grant corporations the same excessive rights in the even more far-reaching EU-US trade deal.”  The report examines a number of investor disputes launched against Spain, Greece and Cyprus in the wake of the European economic crisis. In most cases, the investors were not long-term investors, but rather invested as the crisis emerged and were therefore fully aware of the risks. They have used the investment agreements as a legal escape route to extract further wealth from crisis countries when their risky investment didn’t pay off.
  • For example, in Greece, Poštová Bank from Slovakia bought Greek debt after the bond value had already been downgraded and was then offered a very generous debt restructuring package, yet sought to extract an even better deal by suing Greece, using the bilateral investment treaty between Slovakia and Greece. In Cyprus, a Greek-listed private equity-style investor, Marfin Investment Group is seeking €823 million in compensation for their lost investments after Cyprus had to nationalise the Laiki Bank as part of an EU debt restructuring agreement. In Spain, 22 companies (at the time of writing), mainly private equity funds, have sued at international tribunals for cuts in subsidies for renewable energy. While the cuts in subsidies have been rightly criticised by environmentalists, only large foreign investors have the ability to sue.
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  • Growing controversy around the EU-US trade talks has forced the European Commission to temporarily halt negotiations on the investor rights chapter in the proposed transatlantic deal and announce a public consultation on the issue expected to start this month. ‘Investor rights’ is essentially a big business agenda that constitutes little more than a recipe for the further plundering of economies by powerful corporations. This agenda allows big business to bypass democracy and bully sovereign states into instituting policies that trample over ordinary citizens’ rights in the name of even higher profits (2).  However, the Commission has already indicated that it does not want to abandon these controversial corporate rights, but rather reform them.
  • This whole scenario is but one more ploy to facilitate what has been the biggest shift of wealth from the poor to the rich in modern history (3). The authors state that it is time to turn a spotlight on the bailout of investors and call for a radical rewrite of today’s global investment regime. In particular, European citizens and concerned politicians should demand the exclusion of investor-state dispute mechanisms from new trade agreements currently under negotiation, such as the proposed EU-US trade deal. A total of 75,000 cross-registered companies with subsidiaries in both the EU and the US could launch investor-state attacks under the proposed transatlantic agreement. Europe’s experience of corporate speculators profiting from crisis should be a salutary warning that corporations’ rights need to be curtailed and peoples’ rights put first.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14
     
    In my lifetime, I have encountered only a single trade agreement, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, that I would have supported had I been given the opportunity, and its mandates have been trashed in their implementation. Beware "trade agreements" in general. They are almost uniformly the tools of banksters seeking greater profits at the expense of non-banksters. 
Paul Merrell

Ukraine's threat from within - latimes.com - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...cists-20140313,0,7664312.story

war & peace Ukraine Russia MSM neo-Nazis

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • It's become popular to dismiss Russian President Vladimir Putin as paranoid and out of touch with reality. But his denunciation of "neofascist extremists" within the movement that toppled the old Ukrainian government, and in the ranks of the new one, is worth heeding. The empowerment of extreme Ukrainian nationalists is no less a menace to the country's future than Putin's maneuvers in Crimea. These are odious people with a repugnant ideology. Take the Svoboda party, which gained five key positions in the new Ukrainian government, including deputy prime minister, minister of defense and prosecutor general. Svoboda's call to abolish the autonomy that protects Crimea's Russian heritage, and its push for a parliamentary vote that downgraded the status of the Russian language, are flagrantly provocative to Ukraine's millions of ethnic Russians and incredibly stupid as the first steps of a new government in a divided country.
  • More to the point, why wave a red flag in front of a nervous bull? The answer is that for Svoboda, Right Sector and other Ukrainian far-right organizations, it was barely a handkerchief. These are groups whose thuggish young legions still sport a swastika-like symbol, whose leaders have publicly praised many aspects of Nazism and who venerate the World War II nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, whose troops occasionally collaborated with Hitler's and massacred thousands of Poles and Jews. But scarier than these parties' whitewashing of the past are their plans for the future. They have openly advocated that no Russian language be taught in Ukrainian schools, that citizenship is only for those who pass Ukrainian language and culture exams, that only ethnic Ukrainians may adopt Ukrainian orphans and that new passports must identify their holders' ethnicity — be it Ukrainian, Pole, Russian, Jew or other.
  • Is it so hard to understand Russians' shock that senior U.S. officials (such as Sen. John McCain, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland) flirt with extremists who have been denounced as anti-Semitic, xenophobic, even neo-Nazi by numerous human rights and anti-defamation groups? That they were snapping pictures and distributing pastries among protest leaders, some of whose minions were at that same moment distributing "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" on Independence Square? In the few instances where concern over such extremists is acknowledged, it is usually dismissed along the lines of, "Yes, the new government isn't perfect, but moderates will soon prevail." But Russian worry is well-founded. Since the Soviet Union's collapse, millions of ethnic Russians or Russian speakers have endured loss of citizenship in the Baltic republics (where many lived for generations), have been driven out of Central Asian jobs and homes and have suffered particularly virulent discrimination in Georgia (the root cause of the 2008 war with Russia, but also broadly ignored in the West). How did such extremists capture key posts in the new Ukrainian government? If Svoboda was only a minority faction in the parliament (and Right Sector just a fringe paramilitary group), and their ideology is not shared by a majority of Ukrainian moderates, then doesn't that mean that Putin is right? That Ukraine's cobbled-together-under-street-pressure new government is indeed unrepresentative, and therefore illegitimate?
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Mar 14
     
    Wow. An LA Times op-ed that actually addresses the issue of neo-Nazis installed by the U.S. government to rule the Ukraine. If this spreads into other mainstream media, it might slow down our neocon President.
Paul Merrell

China and Russia to launch new credit rating agency in 2015 - RT Business - 0 views

rt.com/...175-russia-china-rating-agency

war & peace economic-warfare credit-ratings-bureau Russia China

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The new Universal Credit Rating Group (UCRG) is being set up to rival the existing agencies Moody's, S&P and Fitch, and its first rating will be issued this year. The setting up of UCRG is in its final stages, ready to challenge the ‘Big Three’ that currently dominate the industry, the Managing Director of RusRating Aleksandr Ovchinnikov told Sputnik News Agency on Tuesday. "In our opinion, the first ratings [will] appear … during the current year," Ovchinnikov said, adding that accreditation with the local regulator is already underway.
  • The news comes on the heels of Fitch’s decision to follow S&P in downgrading Russia’s sovereign credit rating to BBB-, a step above junk level and on par with India and Turkey.
  • The new agency will be based in Hong Kong, and provide a check on the ‘Big Three’, which some analysts say don’t provide an accurate reading of economic situations. Many securities and bonds in the US that had triple-A ratings in 2008 and were considered ‘safe’, turned out to be a bubble, revealed by the subprime mortgage crisis.
Paul Merrell

US withdraws Patriots despite Turkey's appeal to keep them - 0 views

www.todayszaman.com/ppeal-to-keep-them_401117.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Turkey Patriot-missiles

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • A day after Ankara urged NATO to keep up Patriot defense systems in Turkey following Russian incursions into Turkish airspace over the weekend, the US began withdrawing its Patriot batteries from the country, on Friday, in line with its earlier announcement of pulling out on technical grounds -- for updating its systems -- and its assessment of the downgrading threat level from Syria. Dozens of US trucks transported pieces of batteries and other systems to the port of İskenderun for shipment to the US on Friday. While the US made the decision to withdraw its Patriot systems for mere technical reasons and due to the decreasing threats from Syria, imminent threats in northern Syria precipitated by Russian air strikes against rebel-held areas and the Russian violation of Turkish airspace twice over the weekend expose a troubling reality for Turkey. Having lacked a genuine air defense system, Turkey solely relies on NATO's cover against any missile threat in its vicinity and several times over the course of the past two decades, Ankara has appealed to the alliance to deploy Patriots on its soil, first against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and then Bashar al-Assad's Syria.
  • Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said NATO-member Turkey is continuing talks with the alliance and its bilateral partners on enhancing its defense capabilities, including Patriot missile systems, but has not made a request for NATO to send military forces to Turkey.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Oct 15
     
    Looks like no-fly zones and "safe zones" in Syria are no longer in U.S. foreign policy plans.
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