Russia and China hit back on Monday after U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton criticised their stance on Syria and as the European Union agreed new sanctions against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The exchange came after Clinton warned of “every possibility” of civil war in the unrest-hit nation where more than 150 people were killed in violence over the weekend as Syrians voted in a referendum on a new constitution.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday agreed to freeze assets of the central bank, impose a travel ban on seven Syrians close to Assad, ban cargo flights into the 27-nation bloc and restrict trade in gold and precious metals.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin slammed the West’s “cynical” stance on Syria, staunchly defending Moscow’s joint veto with China of two UN Security Council draft resolutions condemning Damascus for its deadly crackdown.

The Russian strongman accused the West of “lacking the patience to work out an adjusted and balanced” resolution that also required opposition forces to cease fire and withdraw from flashpoints such as the besieged central city of Homs.

“All that remained was to demand that the armed opposition do the same as the government — namely, withdraw their fighting units and detachments from the cities,” Putin wrote in the Moskovskiye Novosti daily.

“A refusal to do so was cynical.”

Beijing also attacked Clinton’s criticism of its backing for Assad’s regime, with foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei saying China “cannot accept that at all,” again criticising the international community for trying to “impose a so-called solution” on the Syrian people.

“China has been calling on the Syrian government and all parties in Syria to immediately and fully stop all acts of violence and launch a political dialogue process with no preconditions attached,” Hong told a briefing.

“We believe the international community should fully respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Syria… We also hope, within the framework of the Arab league, that the Syrian crisis will be resolved through political dialogue.”

Clinton said on Friday the international community must work to change the positions of Moscow and Beijing, which have faced intense criticism for vetoing the two UN resolutions condemning Damascus.

“It is quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto when people are being murdered,” she said after a meeting of Arab and Western foreign ministers in Tunisia.

Clinton also urged regime troops involved in the 11-month crackdown to renounce violence against civilians.

“We are appealing to the members of the Syrian army to put their country first,” she said in Morocco.

“The longer you support the regime campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honour.”

In Homs — under assault by regime forces for more than three weeks — the Red Cross continued attempts to evacuate two wounded Western journalists from the city’s rebel district of Baba Amr.

“Negotiations are under way but one should be patient,” said Saleh Dabbakeh, the Damascus spokesman of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

But regime forces resumed shelling the neighbourhood on Monday morning, killing at least four civilians, according to monitors.

British photographer Paul Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier were wounded in an attack on Wednesday which claimed the lives of American war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Meanwhile, the count after Sunday’s referendum on a draft constitution continued, state television reported.

The draft text ends the legal basis for the five-decade stranglehold on power of the ruling Baath party but still leaves huge powers in Assad’s hands.

Washington branded the referendum “laughable” and Canada slammed it as “a farce.”

Assad “must go. A new day must dawn for the Syrian people,” Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird said.

He called the referendum “a dubious ploy by the Assad regime to delay the inevitable while continuing its slaughter of Syrian civilians.”

The Syrian opposition says the changes are cosmetic after nearly a year of repression by Assad’s security forces that human rights groups say has left more than 7,600 people dead.

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) piled the pressure on Assad by inviting the Alawite community from which he hails to join ranks to build a new Syria.

“We are determined to close national ranks and the first sign of this unity is to extend our hands to our Alawite brothers in order to build a country of nation governed by citizenship and the rule of law,” it said.

The SNC accused the regime of trying to set religious communities against each other and stressed that Alawites — who represent 12 percent of the mostly Sunni population of 22 million — will always be an “important component of Syria.”

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Britain is reportedly drawing up a battle plan for a war with Iran as top defence officials believe London will be “sucked into” any new conflict with Tehran.

Plans are being made to send hundreds of troops and an nuclear submarine to the Gulf region, The Sun reported.

Defence officials believe it is just a matter of when the war breaks out — with the timescale set between 18 and 24 months.

“Ministry of defence planners went into overdrive at the start of the year. Conflict is seen as inevitable as long as the regime pursue their nuclear ambitions. Britain would be sucked in whether we like it or not, probably via Iranian attacks on our forces in Afghanistan next door to them,” an unnamed official said.

The report said Britain will first fly an infantry battalion to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country’s strong ally in the Gulf region.

It would also mean a “public show of support” that would demonstrate that Britain was ready to defend the UAE if it comes under attack from Iran. The UAE is separated from Iran by just over 50 km of sea across the Strait of Hormuz.

If other allies like Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar ask for help, Britain could fly in further troops. The Royal Navy has already gathered seven warships in the Gulf.

The HMS Daring, a powerful destroyer, arrived in January to join Type 23 frigate HMS Argyll.

Minesweepers Pembroke, Quora, Middleton and Ramsey are based in Bahrain and a nuclear submarine is reportedly also in the area, the report said.

Under the war plan, a second submarine armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles would be deployed.

The Royal Air Force would send Typhoon and Tornado fighter jets to reinforce helicopter and transport plane crews already stationed in Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the UAE. (IANS)

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Russian and Ukrainian intelligence services have foiled terrorist plans to assassinate Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to Russia’s Channel One. Russia’s most-wanted terrorist is thought to be behind the plot.

Russia’s Channel One said on Monday the internationally-wanted criminals detained in Ukrainian city of Odessa confessed they had intended to assassinate Putin. The attack was supposed to be carried out in Moscow right after the presidential elections of March 4.Another group participant, Adam Osmaev, was later arrested in Ukraine (image from Channel One footage)

One of the detained revealed they had flown into Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey. His accomplice has been killed in an explosion in the apartment they rented, where investigators later found explosives.

They got all the instructions from Russia’s most-wanted terrorist Doku Umarov. According to the detained, they were instructed to carry out a number of attacks in Moscow and to plan a further attack on Putin.

The detained also informed about another group participant, Adam Osmaev who was later arrested in Ukraine. The suspect is now cooperating with investigators in fear of possible extradition to Russia.

“The final aim was to come to Moscow and try to carry out an attack on Putin,” confessed Osmaev. “There are such military mines, called off-route anti-tank mines, the use of which does not even require a suicide bomber. Though the dead fellow was ready to become one.””

The suspects, however, were supposed to be able to make a powerful explosive in case their instructors fail to deliver the mines, internet source LifeNews quotes one of the Ukrainian Security Service officers as saying.

And this where it all went wrong.

They purchased all the ingredients for the explosives in a drug store, but due to very poor training made a number of serious mistakes.

“Nowadays there are a number of ways to make an explosive,” said the officer. “Electrolyte and Hydroperitum are available in any store and the purchase will not cause any suspicions. But they decided to dry out an explosive base by putting it on a radiator wrapped in a newspaper.

And the newspaper ink contains some substance which can cause peroxide detonation. This is a typical mistake of all amateur fire-workers.  The explosion happened during the drying.”

Osmaev, who used to reside abroad, in London, was a terrorist instructor and their contact in Odessa. He was supposed to train the alleged terrorists and send them to Moscow. The whole scheme for the preparations was discovered in his laptop.

“There is a video of motorcades, Putin’s motorcade in particular, shot from different angles and different streets. It enables one to get all the information on a number of accompanying vehicles and the behavior of the guarded person,” explains an FSB officer. “So the trainees used more than one example for preparation.” 

Some detonators and plastics were brought to Moscow in advance. Osmaev has revealed the storage himself in the hope of possible leniency in punishment.

“There could be quite a powerful explosion. Enough to tear apart a truck,” suggests another FSB officer.

Adam Osmaev does not deny that he studied the government motorcade routes in Moscow thoroughly. He confessed the preparation for an attack was in its final stage. “The deadline was after the presidential elections.”

The information on the detention of the alleged terrorists in Ukraine became known at the beginning of February. However the details of the detention and the goals of the suspects have not been disclosed.

The press-secretary of Russia’s head of government and presidential hopeful has confirmed the report.

“I confirm the information, but make no comment on it,” Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency quotes Dmitry Peskov as saying on Monday.

Detained long-wanted over previous plot

Adam Osmaev, detained for the alleged plotting of the assassination of Russia’s prime minister, was on the international wanted list for earlier assassination plot of the head of Russia’s Chechen republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Together with other accomplices from Chechnya, was detained in Moscow in 2007.

But due to the lack of evidence, Osmanov was released on a written pledge not to leave the city. Despite this, he fled to Great Britain and thus was immediately put on the international wanted list.

Last year he was contacted by the accomplices of Russia’s most wanted terrorist, Doku Umarov, with a suggestion to stage a new terrorist act. He therefore flew into Ukraine using fake documents.

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Projected increases in sea-levels and storm intensities triggered by climate change is likely to flood low lying areas more frequently, a study reveals.

Researchers from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that regions such as the New York city metropolitan area, that experience a disastrous flood every century, could instead become submerged every one or two decades.

Using various global climate models, the team developed a simulation tool that can predict the severity of future flooding an area can expect, the journal Nature Climate Change reported.

The researchers used New York city as a test case and found that with fiercer storms and a three-foot rise in sea-level due to climate change, “100-year floods” — a depth of roughly 5.7 feet above tide level that occurs roughly once a century — could more likely occur every three to 20 years.

What today are New York city’s “500-year floods” — or waters that reach more than nine feet deep — could, with climate change, occur every 25 to 240 years, the researchers wrote, according to a university statement.

The research is not only the first to examine the future intensity of storm surges, but also to offer a tool for estimating an area’s vulnerability, said co-author Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton.

“Coastal managers in cities like New York make daily decisions about costly infrastructure that would be affected by such storms. They need a reliable indicator of the risk,” he said.

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Despite the improvement in indicators of global activities, the risks are latent and the world economy is still in ‘the danger zone’, International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde has said.

At the conclusion of the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, Lagarde said at a press conference that the reasons to stay alert is the situation of ‘fragile financial sector’ in the eurozone, the ‘high level of public debt in most advanced economies’ and ‘high oil prices’.

“Growth is still weak in advanced economies and is moderating in some emerging markets, and at the same time, unemployment remains excessively in many economies, particularly in advanced economies,” Lagarde said.

She termed the outcome of Sunday’s meeting of the 20 strongest economies in the ‘a step in the right direction’ to a sequence of actions to Europe to increase its ‘firewall’ and then wait contributions from the IMF.

The G20 agreed Sunday in a communique that they will wait for the eurozone to strengthen its ‘firewall’ before providing more resources to the IMF, an issue which would be discussed in April.

The IMF is seeking to raise $500 billion to cope with the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone and its possible implications to other regions.

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The information in this article comes from my personal experience as a licensed mental health counselor.

One of my missions as a member of the mental health underground, a secret society of rogue mental health types, was to infiltrate the massive system created by the managed care industry.

I was out to crack their code and bring home the details about 1) how mental health patients are treated 2) who is really in charge and 3) why typical psychiatrists and psychotherapists seemed so boring and incompetent.

It took me two years to complete the assignment. I secured a position at the largest agency in town, carried a caseload that included 25 billable hours weekly, dutifully completed mountains of paperwork, and received direct oversight and clinical supervision from a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist.

It was perfect! I had direct access to the inner workings of the managed care machine. We decided against secretly recording my weekly supervision meetings on ethical grounds (patient confidentiality). Yet, I almost wish I had. You wouldn’t believe what went on.

Today’s report includes seven things your psychiatrist would never want you to know.

1. Making money is priority #1.

Of course, you can’t hold this against anyone. Health practitioners need to make a living, too. More power to them if they do it while helping others, right? Maybe. The dirty little secret in mental health, however, is that some clients are treated as cash cows. Here is how it works.

A person with means to pay for therapy, Martha, enters counseling in hopes of getting to the root of problems and making some changes. The counselor arranges for weekly visits at $125 per hour. Great.

Two visits into the treatment the counselor discovers just what Martha needs to solve the problem at the heart of her dilemma. This could be a short-term gig. Not so fast. The counselor decides to hold off. Martha may not be “ready” for the solution yet.

The same logic applies when the counselor has constructive criticism or challenging feedback for Martha. Hold off. Let’s not offend her. She pays my bills! Let’s keep her around as long as possible.

2. They can’t survive without insurance company overlords.

The vast majority of psychiatrists and counselors are beholden to insurance companies to pay for treatment. This has many implications, but the most significant has to do with simple economics. People will not pay an average counselor out of pocket.

Why? In most cases, isn’t worth it. Who wants to pay $125 to talk to someone who isn’t very helpful after all? So, most counselors get referred their clients from insurance companies. They don’t earn the right to practice by creating real value that people are willing to pay for.

Really skilled counselors and psychiatrists have the choice to practice outside the system. You need to pay them their full fee directly. People do this because a skilled counselor is worth the investment.

3. Your diagnosis precedes your arrival.

Most psychiatrists and counselors are sheeple, brainwashed into believing that human suffering can be categorized per the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual, which serves as the basis for psychiatric treatment, insurance billing and prescribing medication.

When you arrive at your average mental health practitioner’s office, you are being viewed through a lens that includes cookie cutter categories. You will be placed in one of these categories, billed and prescribed accordingly.

For the most part, you will be diagnosed with a condition that is likely to get your insurance company to approve the lengthiest treatment protocol.

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A string of attacks on government websites by hackers has driven American policy-makers into a state of high-alert over a so-called terrorist threat.

But some doubt the danger even exists, as RT’s Lucy Kafanov reports.

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I find it amazing how people can’t see the simplicity of it all. Honestly.

Is it a desire to hold on to their beliefs–religious, scientific, intellectual or otherwise–because they think that’s their identity? If so, you can sure see how easily swayed humanity would be. Which it is.

It’s true though. Try to tug at someone’s belief and watch their identity get yanked with it. How did we get to identify with our ideas and beliefs as if they are ourselves? This has been a point of discussion for eons. If you go back to Plato you’ll get the classic illustration of illusion versus reality and why the cave dwellers are the way they are.

It just doesn’t register until someone has had the experiential breakthrough.

To tell the cave dwellers there’s a whole other True reality if they’d get out of their stupid little self bubbles and connect with the sunshine of Universal Truth is still met with the same antipathy as it always has.

To them, these shadows are it. They always were and always will be.

Do they fight the Truth because it’s humbling?

I think so. I mean Truth negates everything the ugly ego stands for. You can tell a person’s ignorance by their grip on their ego.

Defensiveness, stubbornness, unrighteous anger, prejudice, arrogance, intellectual pride, lack of humor. These are all symptoms of self-reinforcement, when that’s the last thing in the world you want to fortify.

I mean, what a relief when you realize there’s nothing to defend! And that in fact if someone can help destroy this ugly contracting ego muscle that keeps us from the Truth, more power to them!

But alas, everything in this shallow manipulated world system of false shadows is intended to reinforce ego, self, separateness. What’s the biggest concern of most people? Their image.

They’ll literally ask people to take a knife to their body to carve a better figure, spend their every waking hour studying magazine and television images, and even hire expensive advisors to help create the right image.

It’s nuts, but it’s “normal” in a world based on selling images.

Even more so this image infatuation affects all of life’s choices and most of all the design of the character and personality. We learn language and self expression habits based on wanting acceptance of this image we think we need or want to be.

So whoever controls the mass image machine, as in mass imagination, is now in control as much as people are attached to this fabricated image of self.

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Since the European colonial state of southern Bavaria Sachs (formerly known as the insolvent Hellenic Republic) no longer even pretends to be anything less than a pass-thru funding colony of its creditors, said creditors (European banks and various insurance companies) are about to send out the first group of colonial scouts in the form of German tax collectors.

Also, since as reported previously, Greece will literally have to collect taxes to fund the Second “bailout package”, which is merely a front for on ongoing Greek bailout of European banks (recall that it is Greece who is partially funding the bailout Escrow Account), said tax collectors will assist their Greek counterparts (who will rather likely miss their quote of becoming 200% more efficient in 2012) in collecting money from Greek citizens to pay off German banks. If in the process a few (or all) bars of gold end up missing, so be it.

From Athens News:

More than 160 German financial services executives are willing to come to Greece in order to strengthen the Greek tax mechanism, according to a report to be published in the German magazine ‘Wirtschafts Woche’, which will be released on Monday.

The magazine cites German deputy finance minister Hans Bernhard Beus, who explains that a key factor is the knowledge of a foreign language – some of them speak Greek – while the return to active duty of retired tax collectors should not be ruled out.

Many come from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, whose finance minister, Norbert Walter-Borjans, compares Greece’s with 90s East Germany, noting that even the East Germans at the time were suspicious towards the West. “In Greece suspicion will be greater, in part because of the inappropriate language used by some in Germany,” he said.

The article also refers to a confidential report from the European Commission, according to which the mechanism of tax collection in Greece is especially problematic.

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The FDA reign of terror against family farms who are serving the needs of private buying clubs is culminating in one Wisconsin farmer facing federal charges.

Citizens deserve the freedom to choose, and are staging an event in support of this principled farmer, Vernon Hershberger. He is being dealt with unjustly, and is standing strong with the support of the families he serves. (Kimberly Hartke)

February 24, 2012–Baraboo, WI. Food sovereignty activists from around North America will meet at this tiny town on March 2, 2012 to support Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger and food sovereignty.

Hershberger, who has a court hearing that day, is charged with four criminal misdemeanors that could land him in prison for three years with fines of over $10,000. The Wisconsin Department of Agricultural Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) targeted Hershberger for supplying a private buying club with fresh milk and other farm products.

DATCP has charged Hershberger with, among other things, operating a retail food establishment without a license. Hershberger repeatedly denies this, citing that he provides foods only to paid members in a private buying club and is not subject to state food regulations.

“There is more at stake here than just a farmer and his few customers,” says Hershberger, “this is about the fundamental right of farmers and consumers to engage in peaceful, private, mutually consenting agreements for food, without additional oversight.”

At a pre-court rally scheduled for 11:00am, in front of the Sauk County Courthouse in Baraboo, food rights activists will read and distribute a “Declaration of Food Independence” that asserts inherent rights in food choice.

A signing ceremony will be part of the rally. The signers expect the declaration will inspire a growing food sovereignty movement. Speakers at the rally will include members of Hershberger’s club.

Hershberger and other farmers around the country have been and are facing state or federal charges against them for providing fresh foods to wanting customers. In recent months the FDA has conducted several long undercover sting operations and raids against peaceful farmers and buying clubs that have resulted in farms shutting down and consumers without access to their food.

Farm Food Freedom Coalition wants to ensure that America’s treasures, our independent farms and ranches, are able to thrive. We aim to preserve our agricultural heritage and the future availability of traditional, farm fresh foods. Americans want and deserve the freedom to choose natural, unprocessed foods for generations to come.

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