Technology Update

Nationalist MP suggests community work for foreign military fleeing to Russia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:52:00 -0700

Nationalist MP suggests community work

A Russian lawmaker has prepared a bill which would make foreign military servicemen who arrive in Russia fleeing combat to do community service for up to a month. The MP says that it is aimed primarily at Ukrainian soldiers and officers.
Mikhail Degtyaryov of the populist nationalist party LDPR told the Izvestia daily that his bill would force all foreign military personnel who find themselves on Russian territory in the course of combat in border regions to do one month community service. Refusal would be punished with a fine of 300,000 rubles (about $7900) or 15 days of administrative
arrest.
The bill says the decision on what work would take into consideration the servicemen’s age, health and professional abilities.
Degtyaryov did not specify the nationality of the foreign military but in press comments made it clear that the idea was inspired by recent events on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
“They could build refugee camps, fortify the Russian-Ukrainian border, or repair the homes on Russian territory that had been destroyed by cross-border shelling. Such servicemen are not very numerous, but I think it would be right that these healthy men do a little work before they receive refugee status or go back home,” the MP told reporters.
Over 500 soldiers and officers belonging to the Ukrainian military have crossed the Russian border to seek refuge in the course of the conflict that is taking place in the Eastern and South-Eastern regions of Ukraine. In the latest incident 62 people asked Russian border guards for refuge and received the permission to cross on August 27.
Russian authorities have offered all the servicemen an opportunity to stay in Russia, as there is a visa-free regime with Ukraine, or to return home.
In mid-august Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the number of Ukrainian refugees in Russia was nearing 1 million. Earlier the UN reported the figure at 730,000.
Russian officials and human rights activists have repeatedly called for steps to make the life of Ukrainian refugees easier, and the Federal Migration Service has already introduced some measures.
At the end of July, the head of Russia’s Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovskiy, said Ukrainian citizens would be allowed to prolong their 90-day visa free stay by another 180 days, adding that they also will not be punished for minor violations of migration rules.
In June the head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov visited a refugee camp in the Rostov Region and suggested giving Russian citizenship to people born on Russian soil; the current law only automatically grants citizenship to children of Russian parents.

West should stop dragging Ukraine into NATO – Gorbachev

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:50:00 -0700

West should stop dragging Ukraine

Ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has again blamed the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine on the hasty and thoughtless breakup of the USSR. He noted that a peaceful outcome could only be reached through resumed dialogue between Russia and the US.
The former Soviet leader expressed these opinions in the afterword to his latest book of memoirs called “After the Kremlin” - soon to be released. The afterword was published before the book by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Gorbachev writes that in his view the Ukrainian conflict can only be settled through dialogue, both inside the country and at an international
level. He points out that leading nations were largely to blame for the current dire situation, as from the very beginning they were testing Ukraine’s integrity. EU countries, and first of all Germany and France, have already understood this and are taking steps to de-escalate the crisis, which is a good thing, the ex-president says.
Gorbachev also emphasized that good relations with Russia must become a priority in Ukraine’s foreign policy and this should also be understood and accepted by Western nations. Leaders of these nations should stop dragging Ukraine into NATO because these attempts would result in nothing but strife between Ukraine and Russia.
However, according to Gorbachev the main role in the settlement must be played jointly by Russia and the United States. These nations stand out because they are permanent members of the UN Security Council and can wield significant influence on the organization. The jointly prepared resolution could become a powerful factor with the potential to reverse the negative course of events.
Further development could be a broad dialogue between all Ukraine’s actors, with the ultimate objective of saving the country and reaching national accord. This will be very difficult after all the accusations, the enmity and the bloodshed, but there is no other way, Gorbachev wrote.
The ex-president again repeated his opinion that the roots of the current turmoil lie in the hasty breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. He added that back then the Ukrainian authorities sabotaged the process of the peaceful transformation of the USSR, despite Gorbachev’s best efforts.
“They did not listen to my suggestions and warnings. They forgot that relations between peoples always require extreme caution and attention to the consequences of every step. Some people might say that this is a thing of the past. But the past is connected with the present by many threads and it again and again reminds us of politicians’ mistakes,” the ex-Soviet leader writes in his book.
In March this year, Gorbachev wrote about the Ukrainian turmoil on his website and called for mass media to stop adding to the tension in order to prevent what he called “a tragic schism between two brotherly nations.” At the same time, Gorbachev stated that he would prefer not to get personally involved in any talks and diplomatic contact.
On Friday, the two parts of the Ukrainian conflict – the Kiev government and the self-defense forces of the eastern regions started peace talks in the Belarus capital of Minsk, with the participation of Russia and the OSCE. Before the start, all sides expressed the hope of reaching a peaceful settlement to the crisis, which involves a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners.

Argentina passes law to reclaim default debt from New York

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:47:00 -0700

Argentina passes law to reclaim

Argentina’s Senate has passed a law that will let the country continue paying off its default debt by transferring international bond payments from New York to local banks, which would let other investors buy Argentine debt.
The scheme, to get around a US judge’s order to immediately pay back $1.6 billion to “vulture” hedge funds in Manhattan, is the initiative of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The bill passed by a vote 39 to 27.
The initiative proposes to begin challenging payments through third parties, and allowing them to trade their bonds for new debt issued under Argentine law. Argentina’s state Banco de la Nacion could become the
trustee for payments, replacing the Bank of New York Mellon. Another proposal is to make Paris a main destination for debt payments.
According to Argentina's Chief of cabinet ministers, Jorge Capitanich, there are already several investors interested.
"There is obviously willingness among many creditors, or bondholders, to participate in the sovereign debt payment law, in order to get the money that is owed to them," Capitanich told reporters on Friday.
The US district court that ruled on Argentina’s debt maintains this is illegal.
Next week the law will be discussed in Argentina’s lower house Chamber of Deputies.
It is a brazen move against the ‘vulture’ funds that sent the country into default in July after demanding the immediate payment of $1.6 billion ($1.3 billion plus interest) in restructured debt, instead of the planned $539 million to bondholders. The ruling banned Argentina from making interest payment on restructured debt before settling with the New York hedge funds.The hedge funds had rejected Argentina’s requests to restructure the debt in 2005 and 2010.
"Sometimes there are court decisions that cannot be followed," Miguel Angel Pichetto, head of the government's Victory Front coalition in the Senate, said on Thursday.
Argentina has said it will take the US to the International Court of Justice for judicial malpractice.
"To pay the vulture funds would be very dangerous,” Pichetto said.
Argentina's next coupon payment is due on September 30.

Russia’s Gazprom to fall under new EU capital ban – sources

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:45:00 -0700

Russia’s Gazprom to fall under new

Russia's Gazprom Bank and oil producer Gazprom Neft will fall under new sanctions approved by the European Union on Friday, Reuters cited an EU diplomat as saying. The sanctions reportedly include a new ban on raising capital in the 28-nation bloc.
The sanctions were agreed against Russia for its alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis, the diplomatic source said.
According to The Financial Times, which managed to obtain a document outlining the sanctions, all Russian state-controlled companies with assets of more than one trillion rubles (US$27 billion) that receive more than half their revenue from “the sale or transportation of crude oil or
petroleum products” will be hit by the ban.

RIA Novosti / Igor Zarembo

In addition to Gazprom Neft, the oil subsidiary of Russian gas giant Gazprom, Russia’s largest oil group – Rosneft and Transneft pipeline company – would be potentially blacklisted. However, the sanctions will not apply to privately owned Russian oil groups such as Lukoil and Surgutneftegas, the Times said.
The sanctions will also include an expansion of the EU travel ban list against certain individuals, as well as asset freezes, credit restrictions against Russian companies, and export bans on dual use goods, the EU diplomat told the agency.
READ MORE: US, EU preparing new round of economic sanctions against Russia
Chiefs of Russian companies will be added to the list, along with oligarchs and local authorities of Donbass and Crimea.
The EU’s implementation of the new sanctions was delayed until Monday, Itar-Tass quoted an EU source as saying. Although the sanctions are ready, “some touch up work will be completed during the weekend.”
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso confirmed that the new sanctions will be revealed on Monday.
READ MORE: Obama: We are readying new sanctions on Russia despite peace agreement in Ukraine
Also on Friday, US President Barack Obama said that Washington and the European Union are prepared to impose sanctions against Russia if the crisis in Ukraine continues to escalate following the signing of a ceasefire agreement.
Obama said the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine – agreed upon only hours earlier – was a result of “both the sanctions that have already been applied and the threat of further sanctions, which are having a real impact on the Russian economy and have isolated Russia in a way we have not seen in a very long time.”
READ MORE: Kiev, E. Ukraine militia agree on ceasefire starting 1500 GMT Friday
Kiev officials and representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics in southeastern Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire after the contact group met behind closed doors in Belarus.

Cameron must cooperate with Putin and Assad to defeat ISIS’ – former defense chief

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:43:00 -0700

Cameron must cooperate with Putin and Assad

Lord Richards, a former British defence chief, has advised David Cameron to form an unlikely alliance with Assad’s Syrian regime, Moscow and Iranian authorities to defeat Islamic State (IS) militants.
The former head of the British Armed Forces, who retired from the post in 2013, broke his silence on the prime minister’s failure to employ his strategic plan of containing President Bashar Assad along with fundamentalist militants in the region.
Lord Richard’s spoke with BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Friday as global allied NATO leaders discussed tactical maneuvers to defeat IS
militants in Iraq and Syria.
On the question of whether the British government should form an alliance with the Assad regime in an effort to contain bloodshed and violence being committed by the Islamic State, Richards said:
"My judgment is that you do have to come to some accommodation with them. Russia, ironically could play a very important role in that and Iran too.
"There are the bones for a grand strategic solution to the Middle East here, if we can get together with people who we viewed as rather hostile."
The former defense chief emphasized he created a specially tailored contingency plan to bring about the demise of the Assad regime two years ago, which entailed the training of 100,000 rebel fighters to oppose fundamentalist Islamist groups in Syria.
"Back in 2011/12, as was my job, I did offer a coherent military strategy to deal with that. I think it was more than the market would bear, people did not realize the significance of what was happening in Syria at the time and no one really realized that Isis could grow into the hydra that it has," he said.
While Britain’s military often creates contingency plans for varying scenarios infiltrating the global stage, Richards’ was reportedly given deeper consideration than many. The strategic military proposal was circulated to No. 10 and several elite US military officials. But the British government resolved the tactical ploy was simply too risky and the proposition was shelved.

Syria's President Bashar Assad (Reuters/SANA)

Richards acknowledged the West is making some progress in containing IS militants. He told BBC radio 4, however, that NATO allied states must work with other governments and regimes if they are to thwart extremist forces in Afghanistan, Jordon, Turkey and throughout Kurdish regions.
He also suggested a more comprehensive long-term strategy to thwart the rise of extremist Islamic groups in the Greater Middle East and elsewhere is imperative.
"This is happening all over the world and needs to be the first stage in a grand strategic plan to once and for all deal with Muslim extremism in places such as Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and now we hear in Myanmar."
Richards’ suggestion that Britain should form an alliance with the Assad regime echoes proposals made earlier this month by several MPs who called for the UK government to work alongside the Syrian president to defeat IS militants.The fundamentalist Islamist group has reportedly killed thousands in Syria and Iraq.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, one of the UK’s most senior MPs, told the Financial Times (FT) in August the horrific murder of American journalist, James Foley, highlighted the urgent need to take action against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), whose swift rise to power in the Middle East had, until recently, remained largely unchecked by Western intervention.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron watch a fly-past by the Red Arrows during the NATO summit at the Celtic Manor resort, near Newport, in Wales September 5, 2014. (Reuters)

In recent times, the Assad government has increased its efforts to defeat the Islamic State following months of relative passivity. But many Western political analysts and critics view this recent resurgence in military activity as a tactical maneuver to regain leverage over the region.
Countering Richards’ views at the NATO summit in Wales on Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain does not require permission from President Bashar Assad to conduct airstrikes against IS militants. Cameron added he did not recognize Assad as a legitimate leader, declaring the autocrat to be “part of the problem.”
While Britain’s Foreign Secretary has attempted to dampen expectation of imminent UK air strikes against the Islamic State – stressing no such plans are being drawn up – he insists the British government will not refrain from undertaking such action if necessary, even if it further threatens the lives of British hostages.
Cameron has called for NATO states to join Britain and America to tackle IS militants, emphasizing the West cannot be “cowed by barbaric killers.”

UK to send 1,000 troops for NATO Spearhead Force

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:40:00 -0700

UK to send 1,000 troops for NATO Spearhead Force

The UK will contribute 1,000 personnel to a new multi-national rapid reaction force, Prime Minister David Cameron has said. He suggested the NATO "multinational spearhead force" could be deployed anywhere in two to five days.
The British prime minister announced the force, to be based in Eastern Europe, will be launched in response to alleged Russian military involvement in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East.
"To the east, Russia is ripping up the rulebook with its annexation of Crimea and its troops on the sovereign soil of Ukraine. To the south, an arc of instability bends from North Africa to the Middle East," Cameron
said at the two-day NATO summit in south Wales.
"We must be able to act more swiftly," the British Prime Minister said. "I hope that today we can agree a multinational spearhead force deployable anywhere in the world in just two to five days."
Cameron also spoke about a British contribution of 3,500 troops – but this was a reference not to the spearhead group but to British forces already engaged in exercises in the Baltics and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Downing Street confirmed.
There are currently 1,500 British troops involved in exercises in Baltic countries and an extra 2,000 will be deployed over the next two years.
The new rapid force would be headquartered in Poland, with bases across "the Eastern allies." It is likely to form the backbone of the new Readiness Action Plan (RAP), which NATO is expected to finalize on Friday. NATO officials said the force could be used anywhere else in the world in a matter of days.
The Baltic States and Romania have already offered to host the force, whose exact numbers have not been agreed upon yet.
The Baltic States have been among the most vocal advocates of NATO strengthening its presence in the region, but the organization is bound by a 1997 agreement with Russia, which bars it from placing permanent bases in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. This can be circumvented by staging constant rotations of “exercises.”
The new force will be the vanguard of the existing NATO Response Force (NRF) that began operations a decade ago. The 25,000-strong NRF can take up to a month to deploy, reducing its ability to counter any military incursion.
The announcement came while peace talks involving Russia and Ukraine were held in Minsk, the Belarusian capital. The Ukrainian government and pro-Russia separatist leaders signed a ceasefire deal on Friday.
UK’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond remained skeptical about a ceasefire. He told BBC News, "If there is a ceasefire, if it is signed and if it is then implemented, we can then look at lifting sanctions. But there is a great degree of skepticism about whether this action will materialize, whether the ceasefire will be real."
Cameron also urged NATO members to increase their defence spending to 2 percent of GDP, of which 20 percent should be spent on modern equipment, which is "as important as the overall amount of money" spent.
If NATO wishes to extend its security, the prime minister said, it should export it to allies in Georgia, Jordan and Iraq, in what he described as "the first step in a long-term commitment to help our friends and allies."

Sierra Leone to enter ‘lockdown’ as Ebola death toll tops 2,000

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:38:00 -0700

Sierra Leone to enter ‘lockdown

Sierra Leone announced it will implement a four-day “lockdown” across the country in an attempt to contain the spread of Ebola. The Friday move came as the World Health Organization stated that the virus has so far claimed over 2,000 lives in Africa.
Beginning September 18, the nation will prohibit residents from leaving their homes for four days, with the hopes that health officials will be able to detect early-stage cases, Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, a presidential advisor in Sierra Leone, told Reuters.
“The aggressive approach is necessary to deal with the spread of Ebola once and for all,” he said.
Unfortunately, the news was accompanied by worsening statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), which announced on Friday that out
of the roughly 4,000 people that have been confirmed to have the virus, 2,105 people have died in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria.
It marked a drastic rise in the death toll – a spike of about 500 people since last week – and continued adding to what is already the most deadly Ebola epidemic since the virus was first detected in 1976.
READ MORE: American doctor infected with Ebola lands in US for treatment
As officials scramble to address the problem, a separate Reuters report revealed that drug companies are also trying to fast-track their efforts to bring new kinds of medicine to market. Multiple drugs have been labeled as potentially helpful by the WHO, but ZMapp, in particular, has attracted attention worldwide.
Developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, ZMapp first made headlines when it was administered to two American aid workers who had contracted Ebola, both of whom were flown out of Africa and recovered from the virus soon after. The drug has been successfully given to seven individuals total, but Mapp president Dr. Larry Zeitlin said that despite the US granting over $42 million to speed up its testing, it still needs to undergo clinical trials – starting in 2015.
“The US support will enable us to figure out what the appropriate dose is and scale up manufacturing. With a drug you have not only to make it, but make it consistently to the same quality. The award given us is for 18 months. We will probably be in human trials beginning in 2015,” he told Reuters.
“We don’t have data indicating whether ZMapp is safe in humans, we don’t have data that it works in humans. That is the whole point of performing clinical trials,” he added.
READ MORE: Ebola-infected patient in Liberia escapes quarantine, enters crowded market
Other drugs are also being tested in the hopes that a more comprehensive view of their benefits and consequences can be determined by the end of the year.
On Wednesday, WHO director general Margaret Chan said the virus has been “underestimated” by international organizations and is only getting worse.
“All international organizations underestimated the disease,” she said. “The outbreak will get worse before it gets better. And it requires a well-coordinated, big surge and huge scale-up of outbreak response urgently.”

Ukraine peace plan: Withdraw military hardware, exchange POWs, open corridors

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:34:00 -0700

Ukraine peace plan: Withdraw military hardware

Both sides in the Ukrainian conflict have agreed to “all to all” prisoners of war exchange, hardware withdrawal and humanitarian aid access to the area. Kiev and rebel troops laid down arms as the main agreement – ceasefire- came into force at 15:00 GMT.
READ MORE: Kiev, E. Ukraine militia agree on ceasefire starting 1500 GMT Friday
The contact group in Minsk agreed on three key issues: ceasefire, exchange of war prisoners and humanitarian aid access, OSCE envoy Tagliavini told reporters. “We continued consultation and agreed on other issues. Among them are the ceasefire, the withdrawal of troops and the
"all to all" exchange of prisoners,” she said.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Wales, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that prisoner of war exchange can take place “soon, maybe tomorrow.”
According to estimates enumerated by Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, the exchange may affect “more than 1,000 people from each side.”
“We exchanged lists of prisoners and started the exchange process immediately,” said former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who represented Ukraine at the talks in Minsk.
“Within three days an expert group will be formed, which should provide a thorough plan of the release of prisoners of war,” Zurabov said.
The expert group will have to work out all the technical details, including places of exchange.
Kiev and the rebels also agreed to provide humanitarian aid to devastated regions in southeastern Ukraine.
“The first humanitarian cargo in Donbass has to be delivered on Saturday. On Monday there will be a more or less thorough plan of humanitarian corridors developed for the future for anyone who wants to help Donetsk and Lugansk,” Kuchma said. “In the next ten-day period, the second convoy of humanitarian cargo will be delivered by train. Then all donors, who want to help Donbass, will be able to send humanitarian aid,” he added.

Trucks of a Russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine (Reuters / Alexander Demianchuk)

The two sides, however, abstained from discussing the main bone of contention, which is the status of Ukraine’s southeastern regions. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) are seeking independence from Kiev and the creation of the state of Novorossiya (“New Russia”).
The question of the status of the two regions was not a priority, DNR Prime Minister Aleksandr Zakharchenko told reporters after the meeting.
"It's not so important. The most important thing now is to stop the bloodshed,” he said.
“We have not reached that point, we mainly talked about the ceasefire,” Igor Plotnitsky, Lugansk’s leader, said. "We had no assurance that we would be able to negotiate. But as a result of negotiations, we realized that on both sides of the conflict there are the people, we need to get people back to their homes," he added.
It has been decided that once the military conflict is settled, Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk will have to return to the negotiations table to discuss Donbass region’s status again.
“However, the ceasefire does not mean a shift from our course of breaking away from Ukraine. This is a compulsory measure,” he said.

A man walks past a garage set ablaze by what locals say was shelling by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk, September 4, 2014 (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)

Both Kiev’s army and militia forces laid down arms at 15:00 GMT, as stipulated by the agreed 12-point protocol.
“According to the decision of the president of Ukraine and the order of the chief of the General staff of the military units of Ukraine, troops in the area of anti-terrorist operations ceased fire at 15.00 GMT,” Lysenko said.
Rebel forces have also issued the same order.
“In the execution of the Minsk agreements, we stopped fighting at 18:00. This decision has been communicated to all departments,” RIA Novosti reported.
The ceasefire was welcomed by the OSCE, which had also been part of the closed-door meeting in Minsk.
The organization’s Heidi Tagliavini described the development as “good news.”
The UN Chief Ban Ki-moon has also welcomed the truce. He called for “credible, comprehensive monitoring and verification” of compliance with the bilateral ceasefire.
Earlier President Poroshenko called on both the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the OSCE to provide international monitoring of the process.
“We must do everything possible, and impossible, to stop bloodshed and put an end to people’s suffering,” the president said in a statement posted on his official website.

Expansionism and destabilization’: Russia lashes out over NATO spearhead force in E. Europe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:32:00 -0700

Expansionism and destabilization

Moscow has accused NATO of using the Ukrainian crisis as a “pretext” to “push its military presence closer to Russia’s borders,” and says that plans for a new rapid response force will sabotage the peace process in eastern Ukraine.
READ MORE: At least 4,000 troops: NATO approves new E. Europe-based spearhead force
“The [expansion] plans have been harbored by NATO for a long time, and recent events have served as a pretext to put them into action,” said a statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, following
the wrapping up of the NATO summit in Wales.

“Together with the rhetoric at the summit, and the planned military exercises before the end of the year, this will increase tension, destabilization the nascent peace process, and further widen the division in Ukraine,” the ministry’s statement said.

“The above is also testament to NATO’s unconditional support for the extremists and neo-fascists in Kiev, including the Right Sector political movement,” it stressed.

During the two-day summit, the 28 NATO member states instituted the creation of a rapid response unit numbering at least 4,000. It could be deployed in Eastern Europe – where it will be based – in less than 48 hours.

The primary stated reason for the initiative is “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko (RIA Novosti / Grigory Sysoev)

Russia’s NATO envoy, Aleksandr Grushko, also denounced NATO’s policy, suggesting that the alliance was engaged in “Cold War thinking,” and risked undermining the landmark 1997 treaty in which Moscow and Brussels officially proclaimed that they were no longer “adversaries.”

In a TV interview, Grushko said that NATO was “flexing its muscles,” and pointed out that an increased presence of NATO vessels in the Baltic and Black Sea would destroy the recently built-up level of trust in what were once the potential flashpoints in the standoff.
READ MORE: ‘Most convincing evidence’: Russian embassy trolls NATO with toy tanks
Grushko also called the planned NATO-Ukraine exercises a “provocation” because “foreign troops will appear in a country that is fighting its own people.”

“NATO must play no role in the Ukrainian conflict,” the official told Rossiya-24 network.

He also accused the US of “trying to unload the financial burden of maintaining NATO onto its allies.”

NATO leaders watch a fly-past by the Red Arrows during the NATO summit at the Celtic Manor resort, near Newport, in Wales September 5, 2014 (Reuters / Rebecca Naden)

Despite the harsh rhetoric, Moscow left room for potential cooperation with NATO through the NATO-Russia Council, which the foreign ministry said is an “efficient mechanism for consultation and developing common approaches.”

“We will continue to cooperate with the alliance, providing it takes our national interests into account,” Grushko stressed.

NATO cooperation with Russia has been suspended since March, following the ascension of Crimea to the Russian Federation.

Ukraine’s killing fields in 10 stories: RT reporter goes to Lugansk and Donetsk

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:29:00 -0700

Ukraine’s killing fields in 10 stories

Lugansk and Donetsk residents are now used to gunfire. RT’s Maria Finoshina crossed Ukraine’s southeast to see the aftermath of war there - and how it is the civilians who have carried the heaviest burden: relatives lost, homes destroyed, and hope gone.

‘Why is this happening? Why, God, why?’

“I worked all my life and what did I get for it,” exclaims a weeping elderly woman. “Why is this happening? Why, God, why?” Many of those left in the
besieged city of Lugansk are either elderly or too sick to leave the frontline.

‘What should we do? Die?’

The population of the city of Lugansk has to live amid non-stop bombardment.
“Half the population fled - and what should those of us left do?” asks a local woman. “I don’t have anything, no water, no electricity… nothing!”

‘Life just stopped for us’

“Life just stopped for us,” Valentina Lazareva, a Lugansk resident, told RT’s Maria Finoshina. “We wake up, stand in the bread line for two hours, then get water. And then we cook a meal to eat, and the same thing happens every day.”
Valentina sent her daughter and granddaughter to family friends in Russia a month ago. Now she realizes she has to leave almost all of their possessions behind and flee, and try to get her life back.

13yo child: 'And then glass started flying'

People in Lugansk are afraid to go out because attacks are becoming more and more frequent; they prefer to stay in bomb shelters. There is a shelter in almost every household: it looks like an apartment, but underground.
“I was really scared when the glass started flying. I’m still scared,” 13-year-old Artyom told RT.

'The Ukrainian army is supposed to protect us but it is shelling us’

“We are so sick and tired of all this, we want to live like we lived before… I could never imagine this happening,” a local resident told RT. She is sitting in a Soviet-era bomb shelter built during the Cold War. But until now, it hasn’t been used.
“This is the Ukrainian army that is supposed to protect us, and it’s shelling its own citizens,” says a mother of a 5-year-old boy.

'Let us live well, like we used to live. There is no need for war’

That’s what a local woman told RT. Lugansk urgently requires food, medicine, and medical equipment.
“My mom is diabetic and has hypertension – and she can’t get her medicine,” another woman says.

‘Why are people being killed?’

“They bombed us, the windows were shattered – in my house and over there, too. Everything was burning,” says a distraught elderly woman from the city of Donetsk. “Dear God, when is this going to end? Why are people being killed?” she asks.
Donetsk is yet another hot spot in eastern Ukraine. The situation in the city is referred to as “tense” by the city authorities as Ukrainian troops shell residential areas, schools and hospitals.

‘One person died near the school’

“All this crazy bombing of residential areas. You can take a look. One person died near the school. Why are they doing this?” demands a local man. He had come under fire from Kiev forces while traveling with his family.

‘When will this end?’

“They’ve cut off us from everything. There is nothing left and there is nothing for the children,” exclaimed one Lugansk resident. “When will this end?”
Lugansk was plunging headlong into a humanitarian crisis before Russia’s aid reached it. The city was without water and electricity for weeks, and on top of water shortages, food was scarce.

‘There's hardly anything left to bomb’

Lugansk is facing a serious humanitarian crisis since most of the shops are closed and no deliveries of food, medical supplies, or fuel were able to take place before Russia’s humanitarian aid arrived in the besieged city.
“People are running out of money. How are we supposed to survive in this heat? What if some sort of epidemic breaks out? What should we do?” local woman, Nadezhda Essaulinka, exclaimed, emotionally.
The ceasefire agreed by Kiev and the rebels on Friday may bring one last ray of hope to the devastated regions, while the Russian and Ukrainian leadership is talking of sending another humanitarian cargo to the south-east.
Since the conflict in Ukraine significantly deteriorated in mid-April, 2,593 people have died in fighting in the east of the country, while over 6,033 have been wounded. According to the UN, the number of internally displaced Ukrainians has reached 260,000, with another 814,000 finding refuge in Russia.

Porn not loading for hours? Blame ‘Internet Slowdown’ protest

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:27:00 -0700

Porn not loading for hours

Pornography tends towards the ‘harder, faster’ side of things. But porn-watchers could be in for slower, buffered videos next Friday as some of the world’s top adult film sites participate in a protest against the proposed loss of net neutrality.
READ MORE: Internet Slowdown protest: Top web companies to join strike for net neutrality
“We're in. Let's make some waves!” Pornhub proclaimed on Reddit.
The waves in question are about getting porn viewers to tear their eyes away from the motion of the ocean on screen ‒ long enough to realize what might happen if US authorities go ahead with a proposal to create
“fast lanes” on the internet for some companies.
Pornhub, RedTube and Youporn announced they will be joining leading web companies like Mozilla, Foursquare and Reddit to take part in the Internet Slowdown protest on September 10 to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change its support for the proposal.
The protesting companies will display a widget with a "loading" symbol on their websites to show how the internet would look should the FCC allow cable giants like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon to create a two-tiered internet. With that would come “slow lanes” for most internet companies and “fast lanes” for corporations that are willing to pay extra for faster service.
For now, erotica viewers will still be able to get their voyeuristic kicks on their adult film site of choice, with the pornos coming as fast and hard as always - but they will notice the protest.
“We’ll be displaying an official widget from battleforthenet.com. We won’t be shutting down or streaming your porn slower. There will be a big in your face message that users will need to close. We hope to reach around 50 million people on Sept 10th,” a Pornhub spokeswoman wrote in the Reddit post.
According to the proposed rules, cable companies would have the power to discriminate against online content and applications, shake sites down for fees, block content for political reasons and make it easier for internet users to view content the cable companies own.

Pornhub and RedTube are owned by Mindgeek, a Luxembourg-based conglomerate that claims to be one of the top five bandwidth consumers in the world, generating 1.7 billion visits per month, the Guardian reported. According to Alexa Internet rankings, Pornhub is the 77th most-visited site in the world, with RedTube as the 109th and YouPorn as the 122nd most popular web destinations, respectively.
Without net neutrality, internet service providers will benefit. Video-streaming services, on the contrary, might lose out ‒ whether the X is in Netflix or in XXX ‒ and it is not just them.
“[C]ritics worry this would undermine websites and companies unable to afford premium services, which could in turn impact on Web innovation and equality as their traffic may be reduced by being part of the 'slow lane',” Charlie Osborne wrote in a ZDnet column.
The FCC has left open the possibility of re-classifying internet service as a telecommunications service (like telephone landlines), and requiring internet service providers to deliver all content at equal speeds. During the open comment period due to end on September 15, the agency has received over a million remarks on the issue. Less than one percent of those who wrote in were “clearly opposed to net neutrality,” the Sunlight Foundation estimated in a report released on Tuesday that was based on FCC data.
Of those comments, over 1,500 either mentioned HBO host John Oliver by name or used the words “dingo” or “fuckery” (often directed towards FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler). These terms were “likely motivated by usage of these terms in Oliver’s net neutrality segment” on his show ‘Last Week Tonight’, the Sunlight Foundation noted.

Obama: We are readying new sanctions on Russia despite peace agreement in Ukraine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:23:00 -0700

Obama: We are readying new sanctions

United States President Barack Obama said Friday that the US and European Union are still prepared to impose sanctions against Russia if the crisis in Ukraine continues to escalate following the signing of a ceasefire agreement.
Speaking in Newport, Wales at the close of a major NATO alliance summit, Pres. Obama expressed skepticism over a pact signed only hours earlier in Minsk during a meeting of representatives from Kiev, Lugansk and Donetsk, and said the US intends to go ahead with new sanctions
revealed by the White House on Thursday this week.
“Obviously we are hopeful,” Obama said of the ceasefire, “but based on past experience, also skeptical that, in fact, the separatists will follow through and the Russians will stop violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“Pro-Russian separatists must keep their commitments,” Obama told the crowd.
The terms of the agreement have to be “tested,” the president added, and that he expects to “move forward based on what is currently happening on the grounds with sanctions, while acknowledging that, if in the fact the elements of the plan that’s been signed are implemented, then those sanctions could be lifted.”
Taking that approach, Obama said, “is a more likely way to ensure that there is a follow through” on the part of Russia.
One day earlier, a White House spokesperson said that the US is readying a new wave of sanctions to impose against Russia as a result of Moscow’s perceived role in the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine, and the EU was expected to do the same, targeting both the federation’s energy and defense sectors.
From the NATO summit, Obama said the ceasefire agreed upon only hours earlier was a result of “both the sanctions that have already been applied and the threat of further sanctions, which are having a real impact on the Russian economy and have isolated Russia in a way we have not seen in a very long time.”
Speaking on behalf of the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that the latest sanctions being threatened against Moscow by European powers could be rescinded if the ceasefire deal is a success.
“Everything is in flux,” Merkel said. "Therefore we should expect that these sanctions could indeed be put into force, but with the provison that they can be suspended again if this process really takes place," she said, Reuters reported.
According to Pres. Obama, this week’s talks among NATO partners yielded the decision that all 28-member states will now provide security assistance to Ukraine by means of supplying non-lethal supports, including body armor, fuel and medical care, as well as assistance intended to modernizing Ukrainian forces through improved logistics and command and control capabilities.
Petro Poroshenko, the recently elected president of Ukraine, said “The highest value is human life, and we must do everything possible to stop the bloodshed and put an end to suffering.”
The United Nations estimated last month that roughly 2,600 people have died in eastern Ukraine since fighting intensified in April.

Snowden leak exposes US plan to spy on foreign businesses for profit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 23:19:00 -0700

Snowden leak exposes US plan to spy

A 2009 intelligence document provided to journalists by former government contractor Edward Snowden suggests the United States weighed someday conducting espionage to prevent losing its economic prowess to other countries.
The document, published first by The Intercept on Friday this week, outlines tactics the American intelligence community may implement in the future in the event of certain scenarios, including one in which “the United States’ technological and innovative edge slips” in the year 2025.
In the event that the US may lose that advantage, the Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review’s final report reads in part, then “a multi-pronged, systematic effort to gather open source and proprietary information through overt means, clandestine penetration (through
physical and cyber means) and counterintelligence” could be undertaken by American agencies.
The document, classified as “secret” and supplied along with a trove of other files provided by Snowden,“is a fascinating window into the mindset of America’s spies as they identify future threats to the US and lay out the actions the US intelligence community should take in response,” wrote Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept editor who wrote about the 32-page report this week.
Indeed, David Shredd, then the deputy director of national intelligence, opens the report by describing it as the results of a 10-month study conducted among experts from agencies, academia, think tanks and industry tasked with assessing the implications of the year 2025 for the American intelligence community, or IC.
“If one does not consider the long-range future, one will never cease to be surprised,” Shredd wrote. “QICR 2009 developed alternative future scenarios based on Global Trends 2025 to explore concepts and capabilities the IC may need to fulfill critical missions in support of US national security.”
The contents of the report, Shredd added, “does not purport that any one future will materialize, but rather outlines a range of plausible futures so that the IC can best posture itself to meet the range of challenges it may face.” Speaking to The Intercept, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the report “is not intended to be, and is not, a reflection of current policy or operations.”
Jeffrey Anchukaitis, the DNI spokesperson, told Greenwald that “the United States — unlike our adversaries—does not steal proprietary corporate information to further private American companies’ bottom lines,” and that “the Intelligence Community regularly engages in analytic exercises to identify potential future global environments, and how the IC could help the United States Government respond.”
Nevertheless, the report contains potential plans of action that run counter to previous public admissions made by IC leaders.
“What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of — or give intelligence we collect to—US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line,” Greenwald quoted Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as saying previously.
“But asecret 2009 report issued by Clapper’s own officeexplicitly contemplates doing exactly that,” the journalist wrote this week.
“The IC would need the ability to access proprietary sources of information in permissive environments such as foreign universities, industry trade shows and government conferences,” part of the report reads. “This could include cooperating US students, professors and researchers reporting bits of non-public information that by themselves are not sensitive, but in aggregate could help the IC make inferences about breakthrough technological innovations. The key challenge would be working closely with the academic and scientific communities (which would include non-US persons), gaining trust and monitoring potential 'threats' while continuing to advance US scientific progress.”
According to the document, human spies and cyber operations alike have been considered as possible tools to implement if spying on foreign targets — and not just students and innovators, but entire research and development operations, as well—is needed to be done in 11 years’ time.
“In denied or more restrictive environments such as state-supported R&D centers, the IC would continue to apply human intelligence (HUMINT) tradecraft and employ HUMINT-enabled close access collection. This would include recruitment of sources and assets, and provision of appropriate technical means to acquire and exfiltrate sensitive information,” reads one part of the document.
Elsewhere, the document’s authors detail one end goal: “Technology acquisition by all means.”
“Exfiltrating intelligence from non-permissive environments will be crucial. A critical enabler would be covert communications with a negligible forward footprint. US intelligence officers and sensitive sources will need to move data in an unattributable and undetected way, sometimes from within commercial entities possessing great technical prowess and robust cyber and electronic security protective procedures. Although the likely advent of transnational, high-bandwidth wireless communications services will offer an environment with ‘lots to hide behind,’ it will also contain many highly competent, and potentially antagonistic, actors.”
An illustrate example included in part of the report provides exactly how such a hypothetical situation may play out: “The IC makes separate clandestine approaches to India and Russia to break up the partnership. It conducts cyber operations against research facilities in the two countries, as well as the intellectual ‘supply chain’ supporting these facilities. Finally, it assesses whether and how its findings would be useful to US industry.”
“Using covert cyber operations to pilfer ‘proprietary information’ and then determining how it ‘would be useful to US industry’ is precisely what the US government has been vehemently insisting it does not do,” Greenwald wrote, “even though for years it has officially prepared to do precisely that.”

European businesses call for no more sanctions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:47:00 -0700

European businesses call for no more

The Association of European Businesses has urged the governments of the European Union and Russia to protect foreign investors from any “further retaliatory measures.”
The Moscow-based lobby group represents the interests of more than 600 European businesses in Russia, and has written a letter to all 28 heads of state and governments of the EU, as well to the Russian and Ukrainian leadership stressing that among its members “are global companies with businesses in sectors which would be directly affected by
these measures.”
The group has requested a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Kiev next week.
“The introduction of such measures could lead to a serious decline in production and jobs, affecting not only manufacturers, but also suppliers and retailers working in these sectors,” the letter, published Thursday, reads.
The lobby group says it’s politically neutral, but is interested in keeping business between the two functional.
"All this would harm not only the business of the companies concerned, but also fiscal revenues through the loss of tax and duty payments," the letter said.
Sanctions are putting a brake on business activity in Europe which is plugged into the Russian economy. Trade between Russia and the EU is $440 billion and thousands of companies do regular day-to-day business in Russia.
The EU has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Russian individuals and business, most recently expanding the blacklist to include sanctions against key industries- energy, banking, and weapons.
Russia retaliated with an embargo on agriculture products from the EU, which could cost $6.6 billion per year in lost exports.
EU ministers will meet on Friday to discuss new sanctions against Russia for its perceived role in the Ukraine conflict.

Losing momentum': ECB cuts interest rate to new record low of 0.05%

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:45:00 -0700

Losing momentum': ECB cuts interest rate

The European Central Bank unexpectedly cut interest rates to 0.05% from 0.15% in a strong response to combat deflation. The move comes as the EU is struggling to boost its stagnating economy, which Draghi
“Growth recovery was losing momentum,” ECB President Mario Draghi said at the news conference after the announcement was made to cut rates further.
The ECB's main refinancing rate has been cut 10 basis points to 0.05 percent, its marginal lending facility was decreased 10 basis points to 0.3 percent, and its deposit facility decreased 10 basis points to stay in negative territory at -0.2 percent.
“The main reason is to make sure there are no misunderstandings that we’ve reached the lower bound. Now we are at the lower bound," Draghi
said.
Mario Draghi explained that the ECB decided to cut the rate in response to seeing inflation expectations worsen in August. Inflation is dangerously low, currently at 0.3 percent less than half the 2 percent target range.
Draghi announced the bank has trimmed its GDP forecast for the 18-member eurozone to 0.9 percent in 2014 and 1.6 percent in 2015.
The ECB president said quantitative easing was discussed, but there was no agreement between governing council members to begin stimulus bond purchases.
The benchmark refinancing rate is the amount banks pay the ECB for credit, and the lower the rate, the more customers and businesses are incentivized to borrow, spurring lending and growth.

Russia sees serious threat in FATCA

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:43:00 -0700

Russia sees serious threat in FATCA

Russia’s financial system is “threatened” by America’s new tax law that demands foreign banks report on all American citizens’ banking activities, the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service said Thursday.
The head of the financial monitoring authority Yury Chikhanchin likened the one-sided data exchange to turning Russian banks into spies for the Americans.
“Essentially, our financial institutions are becoming tax informants for the American economy. As similar systems start spreading to other countries, they can bring serious risks to our financial system,” Chikhanchin said at a banking forum in Sochi.
FATCA requires foreign banks to provide information on American clients, who have over $10,000 in deposits, to the US Internal Revenue Service
(IRS). If a bank does not comply; it can be subject to a 30 percent fine.
Before client information is sent to America, it will pass through the Central Bank of Russia and other local financial or government agencies, which still have the right to keep the information private.
On June 30, just before the deadline, Russia signed a law that allows Russian banks to share the tax data of American clients with US tax authorities, but participation isn’t mandatory.
The law simply gives Russian banks the ability to work with FATCA, but does not deem it obligatory. In Russia, only 10 percent of capital in the financial system is owned by foreigners or foreign entities. Participating Russian banks had to register by May 5, 2014.
The Russian financial watchdog believes the American tax law is itself a form of sanctions. The head of the authority believes that such mechanisms can exist, but should be multilateral.
Originally Russia planned a bilateral information exchange with the US over FATCA after the law was passed in 2010 but the US Treasury Department suspended negotiations with Russia in March 2014 over the Ukrainian conflict

Russia, Caucasus allies to form ‘security outline’ to counter NATO

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:41:00 -0700

Russia, Caucasus allies to form ‘security outline

Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia may soon enter a trilateral treaty on friendship and cooperation with further formation of a joint military bloc that would oppose NATO, a top diplomat has said.
South Ossetia’s ambassador to Abkhazia, Oleg Botsiyev, told popular Russian daily Izvestia that the planned coalition would be modeled on NATO’s structure and be allied with another Moscow-led military alliance on the post-Soviet space – the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (with Serbia and Afghanistan holding an observer status).
The diplomat said that the talks on the possible three-party union were still in process and it was yet undecided whether it would be a joint treaty
or two separate agreements between Russia and the two Caucasus nations. He stressed, however, that in any case the military component would be prioritized in these documents with measures for economic and informational security of the region staying behind.
Abkhazian Vice-President Vitaly Gabniya has confirmed the fact of talks and also specified that the future bloc will be “modeled on NATO to counter NATO.” The official added that his country favored the three-sided option with South Ossetia joining the existing treaty between Abkhazia and Russia.
The Abkhazian official also noted that the treaty that can be signed within months would be a correct reply to the policies of Georgia that still pursues NATO entry and had recently signed the association agreement with the EU.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Abkhazian leader Raul Khadzhinba met in Moscow in late August and both politicians pledged to deepen the cooperation between the two nations with possible signing of the major cooperation treaty before the end of the year.
Russia introduced free trade regime with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in December 2013.
The nations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent civil war in Georgia. The republics were not officially recognized, but the post-Soviet bloc CIS deployed peacekeeping forces to the region to prevent further bloodshed.
In 2008, the pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili attempted to take South Ossetia by military force, starting the operation with an attack on Russian peacekeepers. Russian army had to intervene, repelling the Georgian attack and re-establishing peace. After the 2008 conflict, Russia and a few other countries recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states.

Candidates in elections must prove their sanity – MPs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:38:00 -0700

Candidates in elections must prove

A nationalist lawmaker suggests making politicians disclose their psychiatric problems to the public and punish those who try to hide them by removing them from polls.
Aleksey Zhuravlev, who heads the nationalist party Rodina (Motherland), and sits in the Lower House on the ticket of the center-left party Fair Russia, claims that the initiative was caused by personal experience.
“In the course of election campaigns, I sometimes encounter candidates who cause only bewilderment. I have to explain the simplest things to them – like what security is, what social solidarity and responsibility are, what healthy conservatism is. Sometimes our citizens say that certain
deputies must be insane. It might be a figure of speech, but we cannot rule out that it could be an actual fact,” Zhuravlev said in an interview with Izvestia daily.
“I think voters should know about psychiatric problems of the people who seek their support. The candidates must submit official papers about their mental condition to the elections commissions, and, if they conceal anything, this can be a reason for removal from polls,” he added. The MP said that the regulations could be similar to the requirements concerning criminal records – candidates must report it in their papers and can be disqualified from the race if they fail to do so.
The motion received some support from other Fair Russia MPs and lawmakers representing the Communist Party.
In the same interview, Zhuravlev gave an example of a politician who should undergo a test. He claimed that the leader of the old and established Russian pro-democracy party Yabloko, Sergey Mitrokhin, had been recognized as unfit for military service for health reasons, with the suggestion that it was because of his mental condition.
However, Mitrokhin refuted Zhuravlev’s allegations in press comments saying that his military ID had a “fit for service” marking and expressed readiness to undergo an independent psychiatric test at any time.
“I hope other deputies agree to pass the test together with me as their mental condition can really cause worries – almost every week they submit schizophrenic motions to the parliament and then vote for them,” the Yabloko leader said.

Russian lawmaker suspects Google of spying for Kiev regime

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:36:00 -0700

Russian lawmaker suspects Google

A ruling party MP plans to ask Russian law enforcers to investigate Google’s alleged ties with the Ukrainian special services and possible leaking of Russian citizens’ personal data.
Evgeny Fyodorov of the United Russia party has accused Google of taking “an openly anti-Russian position” in an interview with popular daily Izvestia. He added that he possessed information that Google had signed a cooperation agreement with Ukrainian special services, in particular the Security Service of Ukraine or SBU.
“Google remains in the jurisdiction of the United States of America and the USA is now officially seeking to weaken Russia and destabilize the
situation. This is a direct order for all organizations that fall under its control,” Fyodorov told reporters.
He added that the recent Maidan events that have resulted in violent takeover of power in Ukraine were organized and coordinated through various internet networks and Google played a major part in it.
Fyodorov also accused Google of direct propaganda as the company colored its logo in yellow and sky blue – the colors of Ukrainian flag – on Ukraine’s Independence Day.
“Google can create mechanisms to coordinate mass street unrest and online payment systems for the participants. They also have users’ personal data that they can provide to any interested party. Previously the personal data of Russians could get into the hands of the United States, as part of the sanctions plan, but now our citizens face threats also from the SBU which is, in essence, a terrorist organization,” the lawmaker stated.
“In other words, this is quite a feasible system to invade other nations’ territory,” Fyodorov concluded.
The head of the Institute for Problems of Globalization, Mikhail Delyagin, supported the initiative, saying that Google had been known for politicizing its business as well as for sympathizing with Ukrainian nationalists.
“We all know that Google has been founded by Sergey Brin, but the main stockholder in the company is the Vanguard Group, which also owns the Monsanto company that produces genetically modified organisms. Monsanto, in turn, owns the military contractor company Academi, previously known as Blackwater, which is now fighting on the side of Ukrainian Nazis,” Delyagin said. The expert also recalled that the Internet major had repeatedly faced accusations of making backdoors in its software that can be used by the US National Security Agency.
Russian legislators already addressed law enforcers with a request to launch a probe into Google’s policies in April this year. Back then they claimed that the company’s new terms of service were violating the national law on personal data by allowing to automatically scan users’ content, including emails. Russian politicians said that this could mean that the US corporation reserves the right not only to store and transfer the users’ information, but also to modify it – to translate, distribute and even publish. Law enforcers and state watchdogs have not yet reported of any action made in connection with the request.
In 2013, one Russian MP reacted to Edward Snowden’s NSA surveillance revelations with the suggestion that the government should immediately limit civil servants’ access to the popular US internet services and social networks, including Google. The lawmaker, however, did not seek to change the Russian law but insisted that the instructions not to use Google were made part of the civil servants’ contracts.

Welfare not warfare': Protesters march on NATO Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:33:00 -0700

Welfare not warfare': Protesters march

Hundreds of protesters marched from the center of Newport in a show of opposition to the NATO Summit. There are reports of several marches taking place in other Welsh towns.
An estimated 500 NATO opponents made a three-mile trek to the venue in a peaceful protest through Newport. The turnout appears to be well below the 2,500 predicted by organizers.
Chants of “Welfare not warfare” and placards reading ‘Nuclear NATO No Thanks’ and ‘Stop NATO’ were seen and heard amongst the procession, which was followed by two police helicopters.

‘Red Block’ communists carrying hammer and sickle banners joined the
march dressed in black with their faces covered.
“Protesters hope that the NATO summit won’t be the launch pad to a dangerous global conflict,” said RT’s Harry Fear, reporting from the protests.

“Here on the ground around the base of the Celtic Manner, home of a hotel and resort here in Newport, a hundred, if not a couple of thousand protesters are visibly angry and upset at NATO being here in south Wales, and generally at its policies of warring as they see it.
“They also see NATO as symbolic of several global issues like austerity and inequality.”
Pippa Bartolotti, part of the No NATO protest group and leader of the Green Party in Wales, entered the resort venue to present peace messages and a bouquet of white flowers symbolizing peace.
The message carried with it reads: “Dear NATO, there is more power in peace than in war. Put the little people first.”
Chanting erupted as the march arrived at the metal cordon and riot police lines encircling the venue, where protesters pounded against the steel fencing.
So far the protests have been peaceful, with police making only one arrest overnight. A 57-year-old man from Newport was arrested in the early hours of Thursday for possession of an offensive weapon.
In total, some 9,500 police officers are providing security for the event. Twelve miles of security fencing was erected in Cardiff and Newport to ensure the world leaders' safety during the event, with some locals likening it to the ‘Berlin Wall.’
The summit will focus on the Ukrainian crisis and what members consider Russia’s role in it, tensions in Afghanistan, and security challenges across the wider Middle East.
“The Ukrainian president has made his statement saying the ceasefire for the Ukraine crisis could be reached in the next 48 hours and it could even be implemented on the ground within that timeframe,” said Fear.
He added: “This is of course one of the most significant things to come out of the NATO Summit here in south Wales. At the top of the agenda for today has been Afghanistan and of course this Ukrainian turmoil as well. Over the last several months the EU and NATO have taken this very hard line against Russia.”

2014 NATO Summit in Wales LIVE UPDATES

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:30:00 -0700

2014 NATO Summit in Wales LIVE UPDATES

World leaders are arriving for the NATO Summit held at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport. The summit has been marked by protests and one of the largest security operations to ever take place on British soil. Ukraine and Islamic State will top the agenda.

Thursday, September 4

21:42 GMT:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said NATO wants a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis and is ready to talk to Russia, but at the same time it is prepared to use more sanctions.
"We're also prepared to lend weight to our political demands by imposing further sanctions," Merkel said at the NATO summit in Wales on Thursday. "But the message is that we want a political solution; we and especially the Ukrainian president are, of course, prepared to speak to Russia about
that."
Merkel added that all NATO members are unanimous in thinking that the Ukrainian crisis will not be solved with military action.

21:18 GMT:

The United States is planning a new round of sanctions aimed at the Russian Federation over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, and the European Union is reportedly on the verge of doing the same.

21:17 GMT:

NATO has pledged some 15 million euros to Ukraine, with several of the bloc’s member states pledging separate bilateral support and military cooperation, involving medical supplies as well as lethal and nonlethal military equipment.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced a "comprehensive and tailored package of measures" including the donation of 15 million euros “through NATO” at a joint news conference with the Ukrainian president on Thursday on the first day of the NATO summit in Wales.

16:17 GMT:

16:09 GMT:

16:07 GMT:

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance calls on Russia “to step back from confrontation and take the path of peace”.
He said “Ukraine has been an active and reliable partner to NATO over many years” and that “we highly value our partnership”.
“NATO stands with Ukraine” he said, and NATO “support their democratic reforms”.
Rasmussen added NATO “will help build a strong modern army” in Ukraine, and that member states “are determined to make it even stronger today and in the future”.

The public part of the session has now ended.

16:01 GMT:

RT footage of anti-NATO protests.

15:53 GMT:

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the sacrifices of NATO and Afghan troops have improved global security and that Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for international terrorist.
Calling it an “unprecedented” effort, Rasmussen said the ISAF mission will come to an end in December, when 350,000 Afghan police and troops will take over security.
He said the “nature and scope” of the NATO mission in Afghanistan will change, but that the alliance will “stand ready to launch a new non-combat mission” to train and assist once legal framework is in place.
NATO is willing to assist financially as part of broader international commitment until the end of 2017, he said.
Afghanistan, too, will increase its own financial commitment, with “transparency, accountably and openness”.
“Most Afghans don’t want to return to the dark days,” said Rasmussen, who said NATO “will support a stabled united and democratic state” that promotes the rule of law and human rights.
This was the key, he said, to regional stability and the best opportunity for Afghans to gain a better future with security.

15:41 GMT:

David Cameron said he will not rule out air strikes against Islamic State, which is holding a British hostage.
Asked by the BBC whether strikes could be launched without Syria’s approval, he said President Assad's government was “illegitimate”.

15:35 GMT:

European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy, has urged Afghanistan’s two presidential candidates to “put the interests of the country first and redouble their efforts in forming an inclusive Government of National Unity. The message coming from both candidates is encouraging.”

UK doesn’t need Assad’s permission to launch airstrikes in Syria – Cameron

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:28:00 -0700

UK doesn’t need Assad’s permission

Britain could conduct airstrikes in Syrian regions captured by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said. He added that he did not need permission from Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Speaking at the start of the NATO summit in Wales on Thursday, Cameron said he did not recognize Assad as a legitimate leader, labeling him as “part of the problem.”
“We have got to understand that Assad has been part of the creation of IS, rather than part of its answer," he said.
The statement seemingly rejects proposals made earlier this month by MPs suggesting that the UK temporarily ally with Assad to put down the
militant Islamist group, who have allegedly killed thousands in Syria and Iraq.
Cameron also urged NATO countries to join the UK and the United States to tackle IS militants. Writing in The Times in a joint article with US President Barack Obama, Cameron said that the West could not be “cowed by barbaric killers.”
'Those who believe in stepping back and adopting an isolationist approach misunderstand the nature of security in the 21st century,” they added.
Additionally, Cameron said the West often found itself in ‘moral quagmires’ by taking the position that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend.’
"I don't think it's that complicated because obviously the Iraqi government is a legitimate government ... whereas President Assad has committed war crimes on his own people and is therefore illegitimate."

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.(Reuters / SANA)

Cameron also defended the need for Western intervention, though he acknowledged that it needed to be aligned to the aims and goals of regional forces currently fighting IS militants.
“I think, in the past sometimes people have seen Western intervention as something that goes right over the heads of the local people fighting these horrors and over the heads of the regional powers and neighbors,” he said.
Cameron continued that helping those fighting on the ground, including Kurds and Iraqis, should be the primary focus. He also asked how “regional players” and countries could be brought in to help “squeeze the problem at the source.”
The prime minister has come under greater pressure to act in Iraq, following the identification of a British hostage in an IS social media video, entitled “a second message to America”, in which American journalist Steven Sotloff was beheaded. Sotloff’s murderer, who may have also murdered American photojournalist James Foley, is believed to be a British man from South London.
The hostage is believed to be David Haines, an aid worker who has 16 years’ experience working for humanitarian NGOs.
Following the video’s publication, Cameron told MPs in the House of Commons that Britain will “never give into terrorism”.
‘'The only way to defeat it is to stand firm and to send a very straightforward message - a country like ours will not be cowed by these barbaric killers,” he said, adding: “We will be more forthright in the defense of the values - liberty under the rule of law, freedom, democracy - that we hold dear, and I'm sure a united message to that effect will go forward from this House today.'
Both Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband have agreed that more resources are needed to support Syrian and Iraqi forces fighting IS, as well as providing humanitarian aid and surveillance materials. Former defense secretary Liam Fox has also expressed support for conducting airstrikes in Syria, saying that it was necessary to diminish the militia groups’ “military capability” so that “countries who are our allies are able to deal with them more effectively on their own.”
However, despite a new Yougov poll showing that 47 percent of British people back airstrikes in Syria, senior government figures have not made any public announcement to launch airstrikes, or engage in military combat in the region.
Britain is set to directly supply Kurdish forces battling against IS militants in Iraq with arms, as a more comprehensive NATO-run military operation in the region becomes more likely.
One of the last Western establishments to officially arm the Kurds, the UK government is now following the lead of Italy, France, the US, Australia and several smaller states. Cameron has stressed, however, Downing Street will not channel military wares to Iraq until the besieged state has formed a new government, due to be put in place on September 11.

Illegal immigrants make 10% of California’s workforce, staying in US longer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 23:24:00 -0700

Illegal immigrants make 10% of California

There were 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants in the US in March 2013, including some 2.6 million living in California ‒ which makes up 10 percent of the state’s workforce, according to two new studies released Wednesday.
Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (USC’s CSII), in conjunction with the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC), published a study on the contributions of non-citizens in the country’s most populous state. The report includes updated information on demographics, labor force participation, economic contributions, entrepreneurship and the numbers of eligible voters among all immigrants.
Overall, people who have moved to the US contribute nearly $650 billion
to California’s economy ‒ about 31 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. Undocumented immigrants alone supply $130 billion of that total. That amount is “greater than the entire GDP of the neighboring state of Nevada,” the authors noted.
“Every one of California’s immigrants helps shape our state’s economic and civic vitality,” Reshma Shamasunder, CIPC’s executive director, said in a statement. “[B]ut the daily threat of deportation casts a shadow over California’s undocumented residents – and their loved ones and communities.”
Immigrants ‒ legal and illegal ‒ and their children make up over 40 percent of California’s population, and almost half of all children in the Golden State have one immigrant parent, the study found. Nearly 75 percent of California immigrants live with at least one US citizen.

Yoselin Cano, 5, takes part in a vigil for immigrant rights in Los Angeles on August 7, 2014. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

USC sociology professor Manuel Pastor, who worked on the report, said the results show to what extent immigrants are integrated into daily life in California.
"It's a population deeply embedded in the labor market, neighborhoods and social fabric of the state," Pastor, who is a co-director of USC’s CSII, told the Los Angeles Times.
Indeed, unauthorized immigrants around the country are staying in the US longer, with half of all illegal immigrants residing in the US for at least 12.7 years as of 2013, a Pew Research Center study found. More than 60 percent had lived here a decade or more. The median length of residence is up from 7.4 years in 1995 and 8.6 years in 2007.
Pew’s Hispanic Trends Project looked at the unauthorized immigrant population across the country, finding that the number of people living in the country illegally has effectively stabilized since 2009. As of March 2013, there were 11.3 million undocumented people living in the US, the report estimated. At its peak during the global recession in 2007, the illegal population was 12.2 million.
The report also looked at households with mixed-status family members. In 2012, there were 4 million unauthorized immigrant adults living with their US-born children. Among those, 3.7 million did not have protection from deportation under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.

Anti-immigration protesters wave flags at motorists in Murrieta, California on July 19, 2014 (Reuters/Sandy Huffaker)

An estimated 675,000 unauthorized immigrants without deportation protection have US-born children ages 18 or older; some of those parents also have younger children. The remaining 3 million only have offspring who were born in the United States and are under the age of 18. Any person born in the US is considered a citizen, regardless of the parents’ immigration status.
Jeffrey Passel, a Pew demographer and the lead author of that report, noted the difficulty that mixed-status families face as they remain in the country longer and begin setting down roots, rather than staying short-term.
“These are families – a lot of people are here as families. And it is much harder for a family to pick up and go than for a single guy,” he said, according to KPCC.
Since the Pew study only goes through March 2013, it does not cover the current immigration crisis in the US border states. According to the latest statistics from US Customs and Border Patrol, over 66,000 unaccompanied alien children were apprehended in the Southwest Border region between October 1, 2013 and August 31, 2014. Another 66,000 family units were also detained during that time. Those numbers are an 88 percent and a 412 percent increase, respectively, over the same period last year.

Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell found guilty of corruption

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 22:57:00 -0700

Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell

Robert McDonnell, the former governor of Virginia from 2010 through earlier this year, was found guilty by jury on Thursday of 11 counts involving corrupt conduct carried out while running the state.
Both the ex-governor and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, were indicted earlier this year on multiple counts each of conspiracy, bribery and extortion stemming from accusations that they improperly accepted $177,000 in gifts and cash while in office from vitamin executive Jonnie Williams.
From a federal courthouse in Richmond, VA early Thursday afternoon, a jury convicted Mr. McDonnell on 11 of the 13 counts he faced; his wife was found guilty of nine counts, and both were acquitted on bank fraud charges.
Eyewitnesses reported from the state capital that the McDonnells sobbed
heavily as the verdicts were read. They will both remain free until sentencing, currently scheduled for January 6, 2015, but face decades each in federal prison pending the outcome of that hearing.
Prosecutors argued at trial that the couple accepted lavish gifts, vacations and loans from Williams, the owner of a nutritional supplement company, in exchange for the governor’s endorsement. On his part, however, Mr. McDonnell said while on the stand that he gave Williams “the bare, basic, routine access to government and nothing more,” according to the New York Times.
“The McDonnells were shown to have used Mr. Williams like an ATM,” Times journalist Trip Gabriel reported from Richmond on Thursday. “In May 2012, Mr. McDonnell texted the executive, suggesting, ‘per voice mail, would like to see if you could extend another 20k loan.’ Mr. Williams replied within minutes: ‘Done.’”
The high-profile trial lasted roughly a month and a half, including three days of deliberation that started on Tuesday this week, and made headlines across the state and country during the course of the ordeal as 67 witnesses offered testimony.
Hank Asbill, an attorney for Mr. McDonnell, told the Washington Post after Thursday’s hearing, “I’m obviously very disappointed,” and added, “We will appeal.”
“All I can say is my trust belongs in the Lord,” the former governor said as he left court, the Post reported.

Limits to Growth’ vindicated: World headed towards economic, environmental collapse

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 4 Sep 2014 22:54:00 -0700

Limits to Growth’ vindicated: World headed

Australian researchers have shown that a book written ‒ and written off ‒ four decades ago accurately predicted where the world would be in terms of resource allocation and the environment. And that does not bode well for the future of humanity.

Image from Amazon.com

Researchers from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI) at the University of Melbourne used data from the last 40 years to compare to predictions made by the authors of the 1972 book “Limits to Growth.”
They focused on what the original authors termed the “business-as-usual” (BAU) or “standard run” scenario, collating it to what has actually happened since the publication.

Just two years after the globe celebrated its first Earth Day in 1970, Italian think tank Club of Rome commissioned researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), led by husband-and-wife team Donella and Dennis Meadows, to build a computer model to track the world’s economy and environment. They looked at industrialization, population, food, use of resources and pollution through 1970.
“The task was very ambitious,” Graham Turner, the MSSI paper’s lead author, and Cathy Alexander, a research fellow at the institute, wrote in The Guardian. “They modelled data up to 1970, then developed a range of scenarios out to 2100, depending on whether humanity took serious action on environmental and resource issues. If that didn’t happen, the model predicted ‘overshoot and collapse’ – in the economy, environment and population – before 2070… the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.”
Turner and his associates sought to update the BAU scenario with information covering 1970 to 2010, gathered from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2014; and elsewhere. They plotted the data alongside the ‘Limits to Growth’ scenarios.
“These graphs show real-world data (first from the MIT work, then from our research), plotted in a solid line,” Turner and Alexander wrote. “The dotted line shows the Limits to Growth “business-as-usual” scenario out to 2100. Up to 2010, the data is strikingly similar to the book’s forecasts.”
The results were almost exactly as the MIT researchers had predicted.

Source: Graham Turner, ‘Is Global Collapse Imminent?’, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute

“The message of [Limits of Growth] is urgent and sobering,” the Amazon book description said. “The earth's interlocking resources -- the global systems of nature in which we all live -- probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology.”
“It contains a message of hope, as well: Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and has production of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium with population and production in carefully selected balance,” the summary added.
The MSSI paper, called ‘Is Global Collapse Imminent?’, outlined how the BAU scenario would play out:

The BAU scenario results in collapse of the global economy and environment (where standards of living fall at rates faster than they have historically risen due to disruption of normal economic functions), subsequently forcing population down. Although the modelled fall in population occurs after about 2030—with death rates rising from 2020 onward, reversing contemporary trends—the general onset of collapse first appears at about 2015 when per capita industrial output begins a sharp decline. Given this imminent timing, a further issue this paper raises is whether the current economic difficulties of the global financial crisis are potentially related to mechanisms of breakdown in the Limits to Growth BAU scenario. In particular, contemporary peak oil issues and analysis of net energy, or energy return on (energy) invested, support the Limits to Growth modelling of resource constraints underlying the collapse.

“The issue of peak oil is critical,” the two researchers noted in The Guardian. They also said that the global recession of 2007 to 2008 ‒ and the “ongoing economic malaise” since ‒ could indicate the first stages of decline.
Yet Turner and Alexander said they believe there is the potential for mankind to change its current path, for better or for worse.
“Our research does not indicate that collapse of the world economy, environment and population is a certainty. Nor do we claim the future will unfold exactly as the MIT researchers predicted back in 1972,” they wrote. “Wars could break out; so could genuine global environmental leadership. Either could dramatically affect the trajectory.”
“But our findings should sound an alarm bell. It seems unlikely that the quest for ever-increasing growth can continue unchecked to 2100 without causing serious negative effects – and those effects might come sooner than we think,” the researchers cautioned.