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The sanctions which were implemented against Russia in July 2014 include selected Russian citizens, the Russian military sector and industries involved in dual-use products and services, the Russian oil and the financial sectors. It is noteworthy that the regime of sanctions against Russia was predominantly promoted by the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom. In response, Russia, in August 2014, imposed a one-year-long ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Norway, and the United States. It is noteworthy that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Monday, January 7, received his French, Ukrainian and Russian counterparts in the German Foreign Minister’s guest house. The quartet agreed to continue discussions on how to break the stall-mate between the conflicting parties in Ukraine within the Normandy Framework. It was this framework, with participation of the OSCE and the EU, that led to the Minsk Accord and the ceasefire agreement in Ukraine on September 5, 2014.

While Gemalto was indeed another casualty in Western governments’ sweeping effort to gather as much global intelligence advantage as possible, the leaked documents make clear that the company was specifically targeted. According to the materials published Thursday, GCHQ used a specific codename — DAPINO GAMMA — to refer to the operations against Gemalto. The spies also actively penetrated the email and social media accounts of Gemalto employees across the world in an effort to steal the company’s encryption keys. Evidence of the Gemalto breach rattled the digital security community. “Almost everyone in the world carries cell phones and this is an unprecedented mass attack on the privacy of citizens worldwide,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-profit that advocates for digital privacy and free online expression. “While there is certainly value in targeted surveillance of cell phone communications, this coordinated subversion of the trusted technical security infrastructure of cell phones means the US and British governments now have easy access to our mobile communications.”

For Gemalto, evidence that their vaunted security systems and the privacy of customers had been compromised by the world’s top spy agencies made an immediate financial impact. The company’s shares took a dive on the Paris bourse Friday, falling $500 million. In the U.S., Gemalto’s shares fell as much 10 percent Friday morning. They had recovered somewhat — down 4 percent — by the close of trading on the Euronext stock exchange. Analysts at Dutch financial services company Rabobank speculated in a research note that Gemalto could be forced to recall “a large number” of SIM cards. The French daily L’Express noted today that Gemalto board member Alex Mandl was a founding trustee of the CIA-funded venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. Mandl resigned from In-Q-Tel’s board in 2002, when he was appointed CEO of Gemplus, which later merged with another company to become Gemalto. But the CIA connection still dogged Mandl, with the French press regularly insinuating that American spies could infiltrate the company. In 2003, a group of French lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to create a commission to investigate Gemplus’s ties to the CIA and its implications for the security of SIM cards. Mandl, an Austrian-American businessman who was once a top executive at AT&T, has denied that he had any relationship with the CIA beyond In-Q-Tel. In 2002, he said he did not even have a security clearance.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon could not be reached for comment Friday. Sprint declined to comment. Vodafone, the world’s second largest telecom provider by subscribers and a customer of Gemalto, said in a statement, “[W]e have no further details of these allegations which are industrywide in nature and are not focused on any one mobile operator. We will support industry bodies and Gemalto in their investigations.” Deutsche Telekom AG, a German company, said it has changed encryption algorithms in its Gemalto SIM cards. “We currently have no knowledge that this additional protection mechanism has been compromised,” the company said in a statement. “However, we cannot rule out this completely.”

Update: Asked about the SIM card heist, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he did not expect the news would hurt relations with the tech industry: “It’s hard for me to imagine that there are a lot of technology executives that are out there that are in a position of saying that they hope that people who wish harm to this country will be able to use their technology to do so. So, I do think in fact that there are opportunities for the private sector and the federal government to coordinate and to cooperate on these efforts, both to keep the country safe, but also to protect our civil liberties.”

And everyone else, the UN, the Holy See, the House of Saud, are just onlookers, even as several players, from the EU to India, China and Japan, can think of nothing but finally normalizing everything with Iran. The Syrian government, for its part, will be in Montreux; it had agreed to the conference long ago. Yet President Assad Laid down ; he will not 'Leave' , as President Barack Obama US demanded The. He will not Let the foreign-Sponsored 'Opposition' Take over. And he may even contest the next presidential elections. Assad went for the jugular when he said Geneva 2 Should be About His own 'War on Terror' . Terror, incidentally, widely supported by the West. So under this perspective, even Washington needs Assad not to go. The bottom line is that the only players who really want Assad to go are the House of Saud and the House of Thani in Qatar. Many in the West have now Realized Assad must Fight to Stay 'the Terrorists' .

What's even more farcical is what Ford may have told the SNC stalwarts - still subject to much debate across the Middle East. If Ford really Said That Bandar Bush's Strategy has Been A Total Failure (in Fact turning Syria into an Al-Qaeda Hub) then this points to the Obama Administration, for All Practical Purposes, Sharing the Same Objective as Assad's: Fighting 'Terror' . Still, Geneva 2 will not 'Solve' anything. Iran and Russia will keep supporting Damascus. The desert wasteland from Syria to Iraq will keep being occupied by Bandar Bush-supported and Gulf-supported hardcore sectarian jihadis. The war will keep spreading deeper into Lebanon. The government in Damascus won't collapse. The refugee crisis will soar. And the West Will Keep Striking A pose of Being Concerned with 'Terror' .

While most journalists have been too intimidated to report details, and media have largely been put under State control, it has transpired that police has dispersed non-violent protests throughout the country. In some cases police used disproportionate violence and water cannons. “The heads of 100 nongovernmental organizations wanted to come and make statements here (in front of the parliament). But now you see, parliament is under blockade, the roads are closed, there is a TOMA (a water cannon vehicle). We are under siege,” said Aykut Erdogdu, a lawmaker of the Republican people’s Party – CHP. He added: “It is very wrong to block parliament on the eve of such an important constitutional change that will be discussed in parliament.” Erdogdu stressed that the CHP’s parliamentary group will attempt to prolong and if possible stall the “constitutional reform” by issuing proposals and non-confidence motions in order to emphasize their opposition. CHP Deputy Group Chair Özgür Özel, for his part, told the press: “We think that the longer this process is going to be, the more useful it will be, the more likely these mistakes will be realized, and the constitutional proposal will be completely withdrawn.” He added that the discussions which prolonged the process in the parliamentary commission were fruitful in that they created awareness about the importance of the amendment. “We will give speeches on the entire constitutional amendment and then on each item. In addition, we may also propose that the material be removed from the text because it is contrary to the constitution,” Özel added. The governing, Islamist AKP Group’s Deputy Chairperson Mustafa Elitaş, for his part, criticized the CHP’s plan to suggest it would appeal the amendments on the grounds that they are anti-constitutional. He noted that: “The parliamentary spokesperson should not issue that contradiction to the constitution proposal because after the constitution has changed, it will become the material of the constitution”.

Semih Yalçın, the MHP deputy leader, also opposed the CHP’s criticism that the amendment would pave the way for a federal system and ultimately the division of the country. Yalçın noted in a written statement that with the efforts of the MHP, the unitary character of the country had been protected and that all the possibilities that would lead to a regime change or division had been eliminated. The AKP and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) block is making a special effort to prevent any defections from their parties in an effort to reach the 330 votes needed to bring the constitution to the referendum. The total number of votes of the two parties reaches 355, but seven lawmakers from the MHP have already publicly declared their opposition to the package. On Monday Filiz Kerestecioğlu, the Peoples Democracy Party (HDP) Group’s Deputy Chairperson, stressed that the HDP would say “no” to the constitution, adding that the HDP would try to make sure that the lawmakers vote in a secret ballot, despite pressures from the ruling party. He added: “We believe that some lawmakers who have the possibility to say ‘no’ will be pressured by other lawmakers; the government will use man-to-man marking.” The HDP now decided to boycott the vote.