US Air Force Admits To Harvesting Russian Tissue

An update from yesterday’s post “Why is Russian DNA Being Collected?”

 

 

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised members of Russia’s human rights council by informing them that some shadowy entity – possibly with ties to the United States – had been collecting biological tissues from Russians from different ethnic groups, the group responsible for harvesting the tissue has revealed itself.

While some initially discounted Putin’s remars as another loony conspiracy theory, as it turns out, he was right: The group responsible for the tissue collection was none other than the US Air Force, proving that yet another conspiracy theory has become a conspiracy fact.

Hungary’s Leader: EU and Soros Seek to “Muslimize” Europe

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — European Union leaders and Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros are seeking a “new, mixed, Muslimized Europe,” Hungary’s anti-migration prime minister said Saturday.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said during a visit to Romania that Hungary’s border fences, supported by other Central European countries, will block the EU-Soros effort to increase Muslim migration into Europe.

The Little Putsch That Could Beget a Great Big Coup

 

So let’s start with two obvious points about the whole Russia fiasco…

Namely, there is no “there, there.” First off, the president has the power to declassify secret documents at will. But in this instance he could also do that without compromising intelligence community (IC) “sources and methods” in the slightest.

That’s because after Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, the whole world was put on notice — and most especially Washington’s adversaries — that it collects every single electronic digit that passes through the worldwide web and related communications grids.

A Preview Of Trump’s Seven Imminent Executive Orders

 

Having already signed a (mostly symbolic) executive order on Obamacare on Friday night, urging US agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of provisions deemed to impose fiscal burdens on states, companies or individuals, Trump is preparing to unload a volley of many more executive orders. Courtesy of Axios, which quotes “one of the best-wired Republican lobbyists in town”, here is a preview of the initial round of Trump executive actions, some of which may hit as soon as Sunday afternoon:

• Look for a possible hiring freeze at executive branch
• 5-year lobbying ban on transition and administration officials
• Mexico City policy, which prevents foreign NGOs from getting U.S. family planning money if they provide abortions with non-U.S. funds. (It’s already illegal to use U.S dollars on abortions.)
• Task the Defense Secretary and joint chiefs to come up with plan to eviscerate ISIS
• Report on readiness, and something cyber security related
• Border/immigration: Something on sanctuary cities, expand E-Verify, an extreme vetting proposal
• Trade: Withdraw from TPP and a thorough review of NAFTA

Diesel Emissions: EU Commission Has Known for Years about Manipluation

The European Commission insists that it knew nothing about diesel emissions manipulations perpetrated by Volkswagen and other automobile manufacturers. Documents obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE show otherwise.

Since at least 2010, the European Commission has been in possession of concrete evidence that automobile manufacturers were cheating on emissions values of diesel vehicles, according to a number of internal documents that SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained. The papers show that emissions cheating had been under discussion for years both within the Commission and the EU member state governments. The documents also show that the German government was informed of a 2012 meeting on the issue. The scandal first hit the headlines in 2015 when it became known that Volkswagen had manipulated the emissions of its diesel vehicles.

The records provide a rough chronology of the scandal, which reaches back to the middle of the 2000s.

World War III Has Begun — Paul Craig Roberts

The Third World War is currently being fought. How long before it moves into its hot stage?

Washington is currently conducting economic and propaganda warfare against four members of the five bloc group of countries known as BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Brazil and South Africa are being destabilized with fabricated political scandals. Both countries are rife with Washington-financed politicians and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Washington concocts a scandal, sends its political agents into action demanding action against the government and its NGOs into the streets in protests.

On China’s fringes, cyber spies raise their game

Almost a year after students ended pro-democracy street protests in Hong Kong, they face an online battle against what Western security experts say are China-sponsored hackers using techniques rarely seen elsewhere.

Hackers have expanded their attacks to parking malware on popular file-sharing services including Dropbox and Google Drive (GOOGL.O) to trap victims into downloading infected files and compromising sensitive information. They also use more sophisticated tactics, honing in on specific targets through so-called ‘white lists’ that only infect certain visitors to compromised websites.

Security experts say such techniques are only used by sophisticated hackers from China and Russia, usually for surveillance and information extraction.

TTIP and CETA Would ‘Remove People’s Rights From Basic Human Needs’

The controversial TTIP and CETA trade deals could leave people’s access to basic rights such as water and energy at the mercy of large multinational corporations as part of a wholesale takeover of public services, a new report has warned.

The ‘Public Services Under Attack’ report, released by a group of international NGOs and trade unions, claims that the CETA and TTIP trade deals, being negotiated between the EU, and Canada and the US respectively, would expose public services to highly damaging “commercialization” from multinational corporations.

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While the UK government has previously stated that “TTIP will not change the way that the NHS, or other public services, is run,” the report has raised questions over the legitimacy of such claims, pointing out the ‘negative list’ approach to public services in the CETA deal.

The Renaissance of the West (I)

BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Own report) – German foreign policy experts are calling for a “renaissance” of the transatlantic alliance to defend Western global hegemony. According to the strategy paper written by two German authors, published recently by the think tank of the European People’s Party (EPP), the EU must strengthen its cooperation with the United States in spite of certain controversies. The experts write that the “global liberal order,” which had secured a global hegemony for Western countries since the end of the Cold War, can only be maintained if Europe and North America enhance their economic, political, and military cooperation. All efforts aimed at improving cooperation with Russia should be halted. To enhance influence, the focus should, instead, be shifted to engaging NGOs and East European religious communities in pro-western activities. A new consensus within the EU must be established and pro-Russian “disinformation” must be systematically “exposed.” One of the authors even calls for the nuclear rearmament of Europe, claiming “we” must be “willing to go to war.”

Soft power for sale: Money talks through NGOs backed by Soros, Putin, et al.

Ostensibly benign, independent NGOs are effective propaganda tools for those with the means — such as Russia.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are becoming ever-more significant on the international scene. Non-profit and generally non-taxed organizations, ostensibly with educational, charitable, human rights and environmental and other goals and activities, do studies, issue reports, hold meetings and conferences and lobby governments and international organizations.

Russia Will Have an Answer Ready if US Supplies Arms to Ukraine

The original article is in German but for translation purposes a rough version courtesy of Google will remain here in its entirety.

What the Russians have in response is yet to be seen. But one thing is clear, the Russians do not warn, they act, which can make things quite dangerous when poking a big bear in the eye with a tiny stick.

Ankündigung: Wenn Sie Lust auf eine deutschen Version haben, bitte auf den originales Quelle klicken. Schön Dank.

 

The US Senate has passed a law that sanctions against Russia should be tightened. At the same time, the US government is to supply Ukraine with military equipment worth 350 million dollars. Russia summarizes the law as a provocation and has announced a reaction if the law comes into force. President Obama has for the time being denied the law his signature.

All signs point to confrontation when the diplomacy can not prevail: US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov will meet on 15 December in Rome. One of the Agenda items will form the Ukraine conflict.

Between the US and Russia worsened again the sound: The US Senate has decided arms supplies and sanctions against Gazprom. Even US President Barack Obama denied the law his signature. But it should come, Russia will show a reaction, notify the State channel Russia Today.

Disarming the U.S. on the “Information Battlefield”

Paul Goble, a specialist on international broadcasting and the propaganda war being waged over Ukraine, writes that “…as effective as [Vladimir] Putin’s disinformation campaign has been inside Russia, it has been even more successful beyond that country’s borders.” One problem, he says, is that the Western media treat Putin’s lies as just another point of view.

Another problem is that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency that oversees all U.S. civilian international media, seems to be completely clueless as to how to win the information war and make sure truth triumphs over lies.

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Concerning the role played by the Western media, Goble contends that “…many Western outlets report what Moscow ‘says,’ while describing any Ukrainian government statement as ‘claims.’ Invariably, doing so is called objectivity but in fact it is anything but. Instead, it gives an opening to governments like Putin’s, which are prepared to lie and to spread their lies widely, confident that what they say, however untrue or outrageous, will be reported.”

This is one reason why the idea that Ukraine shot down the Malaysian plane, thinking it was Putin’s jet, has gotten so much attention in the West. It gets picked up as just another point of view, even though it is a blatant lie and was designed as such. Russia has a propaganda channel, Russia Today (RT), which broadcasts this disinformation inside the U.S. on a regular basis.

Showing his own receptivity to Russian propaganda, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul went on a new conservative news channel, Newsmax TV, to suggest that the government of Ukraine had shot the plane down. The former Republican congressman has been a regular guest on RT, and has wandered far from the days when he claimed to be an anti-communist.

Goble says many in the West fall victim to Moscow’s lies, “either out of a confusion between balance and objectivity, a conviction that all governments lie and that no one should be surprised, or a commitment to maintaining good relations with the Russian government no matter what it does.” It is not clear what motivates Ron Paul, but his acceptance of the Kremlin point of view makes a mockery out of his proclaimed devotion to liberty around the world.

Russia in secret plot against fracking, Nato chief says

Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia was mounting a sophisticated “disinformation campaign” aimed at undermining attempts to exploit alternative energy sources such as shale gas

Russia is secretly working with environmental groups campaigning against fracking in an attempt to maintain Europe’s dependence on energy imports from Moscow, the secretary-general of Nato has said.

Speaking at the Chatham House foreign affairs think-tank in London, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia was mounting a sophisticated disinformation campaign aimed at undermining attempts to exploit alternative energy sources such as shale gas.

He said: “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas. That is my interpretation.”

Demographic Shifts Could Radicalize Russia

Experts say changes could lead to social strife, sectarian conflict

Experts said Wednesday that a myriad of demographic, social, and economic problems could transform Russia into a virtually unrecognizable country in just a couple of decades that is more harmful to U.S. and Western interests.

As Russia’s native population shrinks, incorporates more Muslim immigrants, and remains tightly controlled by President Vladimir Putin, it risks social strife and sectarian conflict, said Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and a former CIA and Department of Defense consultant, during a panel event at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The country’s shrinking population is largely a result of declining fertility, high mortality rates, a surge in divorce rates and abortions, an AIDS “epidemic” stemming from rampant heroin use, and emigration, said Berman, author of the new book, Implosion: The End of Russia and What it Means for America.