Las Vegas Is ‘Screwed’ – The Water Situation ‘Is As Bad As You Can Imagine’

Las Vegas Is “Screwed”; The Water Situation “Is As Bad As You Can Imagine” (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

“It’s just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly,” warns Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, telling The Telegraph, the situation in Las Vegas is “as bad as you can imagine”. After a devastating, 14-year drought drained the reservoir that supplies 90% of the city’s water, the apparently endless supply of water is an illusion as Las Vegas population has soared. As Barnett ominously concludes, “unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere, Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid.”

As The Telegraph reports, as with many things in Sin City, the apparently endless supply of water is an illusion.

Read moreLas Vegas Is ‘Screwed’ – The Water Situation ‘Is As Bad As You Can Imagine’

Ukraine President Declares End To Cease-Fire; Vows To ‘Attack & Liberate Our Land’

Ukraine President Declares End To Cease-Fire; Vows To “Attack & Liberate Our Land” (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

As propogandists prepare their “it’s the other guy’s fault” press releases, Ukraine’s President Poroshenko issued a statement declaring the cease-fire over…

  • *POROSHENKO SAYS UKRAINE TO END CEASE-FIRE IN EASTERN REGIONS
  • *POROSHENKO PLEDGES TO MOVE AGAINST REBELS, ‘FREE OUR LAND’
  • *POROSHENKO BLAMES REBELS FOR FAILURE OF PEACE PLAN IN UKRAINE
  • *POROSHENKO SAYS MILITANTS VIOLATED CEASE-FIRE OVER 100 TIMES

Furthermore, his promise to “attack and liberate” the land and resumption of the “anti-terrorist” operations, means civil war is back on (and what appeasrs to be martial law) as he explains Armed Forces, National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, Security Service received appropriate instructions.

Read moreUkraine President Declares End To Cease-Fire; Vows To ‘Attack & Liberate Our Land’

Obama Lied: US Sending 300 Additional Troops Into Iraq, Including Detachment Of Helicopters And Drone Aircraft


–  Obama Lied: US Sending 300 Additional Troops Into Iraq, Including Detachment Of Helicopters And Drone Aircraft (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

The lukewarm war waged by the Nobel peace prize winner is getting warmer by the day. Just out from Reuters:

  • UNITED STATES SENDS UP TO AN ADDITIONAL 300 TROOPS INTO IRAQ, DETACHMENT OF HELICOPTERS AND DRONE AIRCRAFT – PENTAGON

From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama says he’s sending about 200 more U.S. troops to Iraq to protect Americans and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Read moreObama Lied: US Sending 300 Additional Troops Into Iraq, Including Detachment Of Helicopters And Drone Aircraft

GM Now Without Doubt The Biggest Company Joke In US History: 28.5 Million Cars Recalled In The First Half Of 2014

Here Are The 28.5 Million Cars Recalled By GM In The First Half Of 2014 (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

One could say things about what is now without doubt the biggest company joke in the history of the US – maybe global – automotive sector, putting even East Germany’s infamous Trabant to shame.

Things like following the just announced latest recall of another 7.6 million cars across models from 1997 to 2014, and another 800K+ cars thrown in just because, GM has recalled more cars in the first 6 months of 2014 than it has sold in all of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Which incidentally would be true as the chart below shows.

Gm total recalls vs sales

Things like it took GM over a decade to that these latest recalls affecting cars made in the 20th century resulted in “seven crashes, eight injuries and three fatalities.

Read moreGM Now Without Doubt The Biggest Company Joke In US History: 28.5 Million Cars Recalled In The First Half Of 2014

U.S. Supreme Court Gives Obamacare Opponents Biggest Legal Victory Yet

Obamacare-summary


Supreme Court Gives Obamacare Opponents Biggest Legal Victory Yet (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

Moments ago the US Supreme Court – the same Supreme Court which two years ago upheld Obamacare but as a tax, something the administration has since sternly denied – dealt Obamacare its biggest legal blow to date, and alternatively handing Obamacare opponents their largest court victory yet, when in a 5-4 vote SCOTUS ruled that business owners can object on religious grounds to a provision of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law that requires closely held private companies to provide health insurance that covers birth control.

Read moreU.S. Supreme Court Gives Obamacare Opponents Biggest Legal Victory Yet

Iraq Receives First Fighter Jets From “Our Russian Friends”

–  Iraq Receives First Fighter Jets From “Our Russian Friends”  (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

Having offered “complete support” for Iraq’s embattled PM Maliki, the troubled nation receives its first shipment of “America deluded us” Russian fighter jets. As RT reports, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense on Sunday confirmed receiving five Su-25 fighter jets in accordance with the deal with Moscow. Iraqi Army Lieutenant General Anwar Hamad Amen Ahmed explained, “our Russian friends have also sent their own experts to assist us in preparing the aircraft. All the logistics have been planned for as well.” The proxy war continues…

As RT reports,

The first delivery of Russian Sukhoi fighter jets arrived in Iraq on Saturday, the country’s Defense Ministry said. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is hoping the jets will make a key difference in the fight against ISIS.

Read moreIraq Receives First Fighter Jets From “Our Russian Friends”

Chris Hedges: Pity The Children

Afghanistan
An Afghan child looks toward the site of a suicide bombing that occurred near a NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, last February.

Pity the Children (Truthdig, June 30, 2014):

By Chris Hedges

For the United States, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be over soon. We will leave behind, after our defeats, wreckage and death, the contagion of violence and hatred, unending grief, and millions of children who were brutalized and robbed of their childhood. Americans who did not suffer will forget. People maimed physically or psychologically by the violence, especially the Iraqi and Afghan children, will never escape. Time and memory will play their usual tricks. Those who endured war will begin to wonder, years from now, what was real and what was not. And those who did not taste of war’s noxious poison will stop wondering at all.

Read moreChris Hedges: Pity The Children

Earth-Like Planet Has Been Discovered A ‘Stone’s Throw Away’

The Milky Way contains at least 100 billion planets and between 200 and 400 billion stars …


the-earth

One of the most Earth-like planets in the galaxy has been discovered ‘a stone’s throw away’ (Independent, June 30, 2014):

Gliese 832c is a super-Earth located in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ of a solar system 16 light years away

Astronomers have discovered an alien planet that could offer some of the most Earth-like conditions seen to date in the galaxy.

Located just 16 light years away from our planet, Gliese 832c is a super-Earth with a mass 5.4 times that of our own planet orbiting a red dwarf star every 36 days.

Read moreEarth-Like Planet Has Been Discovered A ‘Stone’s Throw Away’

Japan Gov’t-funded Study: Fukushima has released up to 120 Quadrillion becquerels of radioactive cesium into North Pacific Ocean — Does not include amounts that fell on land — Exceeds Chernobyl total, which accounts for releases deposited on land AND ocean (MAP)

Japan Gov’t-funded Study: Fukushima has released up to 120 Quadrillion becquerels of radioactive cesium into North Pacific Ocean — Does not include amounts that fell on land — Exceeds Chernobyl total, which accounts for releases deposited on land AND ocean (MAP) (ENENews, June 30, 2014):

Scientific Reports (Nature.com),  Mar. 4 2014: The total amount of decay-corrected 134Cs in the [subtropical] mode water was an estimated about 6 PBq [petabecquerels, i.e. 6 quadrillion becquerels] corresponding to 10–60% of the total inventory of Fukushima-derived 134Cs in the North Pacific Ocean. […] The decay corrected ratio of 134Cs/137Cs in soils has been calculated to be 1.0, which suggests that the total amounts of 134Cs and 137Cs released from FNPP1 were equivalent. […] the total amount of Fukushima-derived radiocesium in the North Pacific remains uncertain, because it has been difficult to obtain sufficient samples of water, especially from subsurface and deep waters, in the vast North Pacific Ocean […] Estimates of the total 134Cs released to the North Pacific Ocean ranged from 10 PBq (direct discharge of 4 PBq + atmospheric deposition 6 PBq) to 46 PBq (16 + 30 PBq). Thus, the 6 PBq inventory accounts for 10–60% of the total release. However, the total inventory in the subtropical region derived from the activity in STMW [Subtropical Mode Water] may be underestimated, because CMW probably carried the radiocesium into the subtropical region, too […] The estimated inventory in the subtropical region (6 PBq or 10– 60% of the total inventory) is probably a lower limit of estimation because contribution of CMW [Central Mode Water]  was not counted. […]

Read moreJapan Gov’t-funded Study: Fukushima has released up to 120 Quadrillion becquerels of radioactive cesium into North Pacific Ocean — Does not include amounts that fell on land — Exceeds Chernobyl total, which accounts for releases deposited on land AND ocean (MAP)

Study: Fukushima plutonium in playground 60 km from nuclear plant — “Proves that indeed Plutonium has been emitted by the accident” — Some “in the form of fuel fragments”? — Up to 14 Billion Bq of Pu-239 and-240 released

Flashback:

Scientists Detect Plutonium From Fukushima In Lithuania


Study: Fukushima plutonium in playground 60 km from nuclear plant — “Proves that indeed Plutonium has been emitted by the accident” — Some “in the form of fuel fragments”? — Up to 14 Billion Bq of Pu-239 and-240 released (MAP) (ENENews, June 30, 2014):

German Federal Office for Radiation Protection, PLUTONIUM EMISSION FROM THE FUKUSHIMA ACCIDENT (pdf), 2013 (emphasis added): […] Apparently no explosive fuel fragmentation occurred, so that little, if any of the release happened in the form of fuel fragments. […] Only scattered data are available from the farther surroundings. It can be assumed that continuous and frequent monitoring of environmental media for Pu from locations more distant than a few km was deemed unnecessary […] Given two different sources (global and Fukushima fallout) with different, but known 238Pu : 239+240Pu ratios, the contributions of the both in a sample which is a mixture of both can be calculated […] we estimated a median 2.28 (95% conf. interval 1.98 –2.58), [15] and 2.19 ± 0.48 (1 ?), [14], for Fukushima emissions. […] The background Pu ratio in global fallout has been reported 0.035 ± 0.008 […] a map of the 238Pu : 239+240Pu ratio in the region around the NPP […] The “trace” towards NW from the NPP, in which the Pu ratio deviates strongly from the background […] This proves that indeed Pu has been emitted by the accident […] For 238Pu, the Fukushima contribution is much higher than the global one in many places (as detectable at all) because the Pu ratio is much higher in Fukushima (~2.19) than in global fallout (~0.035). […] Keeping with [the total 137Cs release of] 15 PBq given by NISA […] we find an atmospheric emission of 239+240Pu equal 4.2 GBq. Using the upper estimate of released 137Cs, 50 PBq, a release of 14 GBq is found. [NISA 239+240Pu estimate = 6.4 GBq; Zheng et al. 239+240Pu estimate = 1.0 to 2.4 GBq] […] It should be stressed that the evidence of Pu from Fukushima does not pose any radiological concern […]

Read moreStudy: Fukushima plutonium in playground 60 km from nuclear plant — “Proves that indeed Plutonium has been emitted by the accident” — Some “in the form of fuel fragments”? — Up to 14 Billion Bq of Pu-239 and-240 released

McDonald’s Is Secretly Testing Its Own Order-Ahead And Payments App

Exclusive: McDonald’s Is Secretly Testing Its Own Order-Ahead And Payments App (Business Insider, June 24, 2014):

McDonald’s is quietly testing an order-ahead and mobile payment app at a tiny handful of its more than 14,000 U.S. locations.

The pilot is limited to 22 locations in the Columbus, Georgia area. Called “McD Ordering,” the app links to a credit or debit card, which is automatically charged when a customer arrives and scans a QR code displayed at the restaurant.

The phone then displays the customer’s order number. Once everything’s ready, the customer picks up food and drinks — without waiting in a line or interacting with a cashier.

Here’s a tutorial from the app, which is listed in the iOS and Android stores, but has yet to be publicly announced:

Read moreMcDonald’s Is Secretly Testing Its Own Order-Ahead And Payments App

Gold Spikes To 3-Month Highs And Silver Getting Close

are Gold Spikes To 3-Month Highs (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):32

It appears the same ‘contagion’ that is driving copper prices higher is also impacting gold and silver this morning. As we have noted previously, the CCFD unwind drives synthetic short (hedge) covering and inevitably rolls down the curve to drive spot strength (as the paper gold market tail wags the ‘physical’ market’s dog). Gold is at 3 month highs and silver getting close.

20140630_gold

One wonders if the following disclosures from Bank of America early this morning had something to do with the move: 

  • Strongest weekly buying of Gold in more than two years
  • Large specs increased their Gold and Silver longs at the strongest pace in two years 

Charted:

bofa gold

And In Retaliation For Outright EU Stupidity … Russia Reveals ‘Plan B’: Gazprom Says Gas Transit Via Ukraine May Be Stopped Completely

Before:

EU Gives Russia Three Days to De-Escalate Ukraine Crisis, Threatens Sanctions

Again, it’s Ukraine vs East Ukraine, but Russia is now told to solve the problem the U.S. and the EU have created in the first place???

Reader Marilyn commented:

“The EU receives E120 billion a year from Russia. Any threats are hot air, nothing more. They better shut up before they start sounding like the mendacious cries of the US.”

Reader squodgy commented:

“This is blatant intimidation.

Vlad has used International Law to prove his stance in the past.

Western MSM presstitutes ignore the other’s argument.

His only option is to fight fire with fire & cut off the gas completely.”

And as predicted here comes Putin’s retaliation.

And this, unlike the EU’s empty intimidation talk, IS a real threat.

The EU seems to feel an urgency to go back to the Neolithic Age. (And I am not joking!!!)

And that is what the EU will get if it is not stopping to act like the US puppet that it is.

If  the gas transit will be stopped completely, then prepare for energy prices (and food prices) to skyrocket.


Putin chess

Russia Reveals “Plan B”: Gazprom Says Gas Transit Via Ukraine May Be Stopped Completely (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

A few days ago, when we wrote our “explainer” on the need for Russia to have an alternative pathway for its gas, one which bypasses Ukraine entirely and as the current “South Stream” framework is set up, crosses the Black Sea and enters Bulgaria before passing Serbia and Hungary on the way to the Central European energy hub located in Baumgarten, Austria, we said that “one short month after Putin concluded the Holy Grail deal with Beijing, he not only managed to formalize his conquest of Europe’s energy needs with yet another pipeline, one which completely bypasses Ukraine (for numerous reasons but mostly one: call it a Plan B), but scored a massive political victory by creating a fissure in the heart of the Eurozone, after Austria openly defied its European peers and sided with Putin.”

Major_russian_gas_pipelines_to_europe

Today we find just what said Plan B is.

As Itar-Tass reports, citing Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, “Russia’s gas giant Gazprom does not rule out gas transit via Ukraine may be stopped completely.”

Read moreAnd In Retaliation For Outright EU Stupidity … Russia Reveals ‘Plan B’: Gazprom Says Gas Transit Via Ukraine May Be Stopped Completely

Default Imminent: Argentina Must Pay $539 Million Today

Argentina Must Pay $539 Million Today – Default Imminent (ZeroHedge, June 30, 2014):

Today is the day that Paul Singer and his Elliot Capital Management team have been waiting for. Thanks to SCOTUS’ decision, as Bloomberg reports, Argentina is poised to miss a bond payment today, putting the country on the brink of its second default in 13 years, after a U.S. court blocked the cash from being distributed until the government settles with creditors from the previous debt debacle. The decade-long battle between Argentina and holdout creditors from the country’s $95 billion default in 2001 is coming to a head as the judge’s decision “closes Argentina’s options to finally force it to negotiate,” and “should now stop using these delay tactics and get serious.” Argentina sees it a different way, the ruling “is merely a sophisticated way of of trying to bring us down to our knees before global usurpers,” according to the economy minister Axel Kicillof.

Amid all this, Argentina’ MERVAL remains near all-time record highs… (as equity hopes of devaluation trump bond fears of default)

20140630_MERVAL

As Bloomberg notes, if non-payment were to occur today, default would not be officially triggered yet (forcing Argentina’s hand to negotiate)…

Read moreDefault Imminent: Argentina Must Pay $539 Million Today

Top NSA Officials: U.S. Has Turned Into Stasi Germany Or Soviet Union

STASI-USSA1

Top NSA Officials: U.S. Has Turned Into Stasi Germany or Soviet Union (Washington’s Blog, June 30, 2014):

What the Heck Happened to America?

Senior NSA executive Thomas Drake is an expert on spying in Stasi Germany … having studied it for years.

Drake told Washington’s Blog that the U.S. has adopted the Stasi model:

Read moreTop NSA Officials: U.S. Has Turned Into Stasi Germany Or Soviet Union

U.S. Relies On Law From Governments Which Don’t Even HAVE A Constitution To Justify Assassination Of U.S. Citizens By Drone

drone cartoon

U.S. Relies On Law from Governments Which Don’t Even HAVE a Constitution to Justify Assassination of U.S. Citizens By Drone (Washington’s Blog, June 30, 2014):

U.S. Relies On Law of Non-Constitutional Countries

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ….

So how did the legal memorandum “justifying” assassination of U.S. citizens by drone try to sidestep the Fifth Amendment?

It relied on reasoning from two countries that don’t have any constitution.

The New York Times reports:

Read moreU.S. Relies On Law From Governments Which Don’t Even HAVE A Constitution To Justify Assassination Of U.S. Citizens By Drone

What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia (Bill Moyers Essay)

Bill Moyers Essay: What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia (Bill Moyers, June 27, 2014):

As fears grow of a widening war across the Middle East, fed by reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) envisions a region-wide, all controlling theocracy, we found ourselves talking about another war. The Great War – or World War I, as it would come to be called — was triggered one hundred years ago this month when an assassin shot and killed Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Through a series of tangled alliances and a cascade of misunderstandings and blunders, that single act of violence brought on a bloody catastrophe. More than 37 million people were killed or wounded.

Read moreWhat We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia (Bill Moyers Essay)

4 Ways That Mass Surveillance Destroys The Economy

4 Ways that Mass Surveillance Destroys the Economy (Washington’s Blog, June 29, 2014):

Prosperity Requires Privacy

Privacy is a prerequisite for a prosperous economy.    Even the White House admits:

People must have confidence that data will travel to its destination without disruption. Assuring the free flow of information, the security and privacy of data, and the integrity of the interconnected networks themselves are all essential to American and global economic prosperity, security, and the promotion of universal rights.

Below, we discuss four ways that mass surveillance hurts our economy.

Read more4 Ways That Mass Surveillance Destroys The Economy

Provoking World War III – Antagonizing The Dragon And Bear

Provoking World War III - Antagonizing the Dragon and Bear

Provoking World War III (Dissident Voice, June 6, 2014):

Antagonizing the Dragon and Bear

It is not prudent and it is not safe to stick an iron rod into a dragon’s mouth. Whatever they say in the West about dragons… but here in Asia, the dragon is revered as the greatest fabled creature on Earth and in the sky. The dragon is wise and patient, and it hardly ever uses force first. But if treated with disrespect and aggression, it is capable of retaliating in a deadly, determined and powerful way.

It is also thoroughly idiotic to go and start terrorizing a sleeping bear. It is obvious what would follow if one descended into a bear’s hole and then started poking a hibernating creature in the head. Nothing good would follow, nothing good at all.

But it appears that those who are ruling the Empire are not obsessed with prudence. They seem to be tired of tiny conflicts, which they are continuously stirring all over the globe. Libya is not enough and Congo is not enough. They need something big, really big; even much bigger than what they had already ‘achieved’ a few decades ago – like the destruction of the entire Indochina or Indonesia.

The Empire needs a mortal fight with mighty opponents.

Instead of helping to build a decent and peaceful world, it needs to cover our planet with innumerable corpses.

This time, if it will be allowed to do it, like it was some 70 years ago, tens of millions, and maybe many more, will vanish.

Once again, it would have to be a dragon and a bear, this time in unison, facing fascism and fighting for the survival of the world.

*****
The anti-Chinese and anti-Russian propaganda howl is reaching a deafening crescendo, especially in Asia. Western media outlets are in the highest gear, spreading propaganda through both their own outlets and through their local media affiliates in the client states, mostly owned by big business.

China and Russia are now vilified, openly insulted, and blamed for the escalation of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, and for the military build up. The entire mighty Western propaganda machine is now at work, demonizing China, Russia and other independent countries.

It is because the West is obviously pushing this planet towards the war. Not to see it would require truly great discipline.

Politicians are parading, one after another, in front of television cameras, pledging allegiance to capitalism, the Western-style regime or simply put, to the Empire. All those derogatory and inflammatory speeches against their ‘enemies’ are embarrassing, see-through, but nobody in North America and Europe is laughing, as they are becoming the norm.

Many are warning that this can lead to a world war, that the West has lost all restraint and is ready to bathe the planet in blood, once again. A quarter of century ago it appeared that with the destruction of the Eastern block and with China then increasingly on a capitalist course, the West had finally got what it had fought for centuries for – the total and absolute control of the planet.

But recently, something went ‘wrong’ for the West. Latin America rose and most of it gained freedom, then spat on the Monroe Doctrine. China began pushing for socialist reforms in medical care, education, culture and many other spheres. And Russia refused to get bullied and humiliated, reminding both Europe and North America that it is as always powerful and will not be stepped on as happened in the era of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

North Korea and Iran (countries that have never attacked anyone in modern history) realized that the only way to survive and not to be reduced to dust is by having their own nuclear capacity.

And all these nations: several in Latin America, China, Russia, Iran, joined forces and decided: “Never again!” Never again will they allow the world to descend to the horrors of Western colonialism.

The wet Western dream of unopposed rule over the world is beginning to disappear into thin air. Is the West going to risk the destruction of our planet simply because it cannot own it?

*****
“Stephen Harper attacks Vladimir Putin and ‘evil’ communism”, reported the Canadian news outlet, CBC News on 31 May 2014, in reference to the “lengthy keynote speech” at a fundraising event that the right-wing Canadian PM gave in Toronto. The speech was spiced with “language reminiscent of the height of the Cold War”.

Grotesquely, the President of the most aggressive country on Earth, the United States, Barrack Obama, was promising to ‘curb the aggression’ of Russia and China, two countries that have not invaded anywhere in the last few decades.

In a speech clearly aimed at provoking China, the US Defense secretary Chuck Hagel, spoke more like a thug than a politician: “The United States will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international order are being challenged.”

‘Which order?’ Some would ask. Was he talking about the order that is being imposed on the world from Washington and European capitals and has been for centuries, at the cost of hundreds of millions of human lives? Quite an order!

Christopher Black, a leading international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, provided an analysis for this report:

The speech made by President Obama at West Point, the American military academy, that the fulcrum of American policy will be to curb the “aggression” of Russia and China immediately followed by his Defense Secretary Hagel in Singapore accusing China of destabilization in the South China Sea, rightly characterized by Lt. General Wang GuanZhong as “threats and intimidation”, express the clear intent of the United States to wage war in all its aspects against the two most powerful nations that dare to develop independently of American domination.

The United States has attacked China several times since World War II, first in the Korean War, followed by decades of attempted sabotage and isolation and then by the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. It now has continued that pressure by trying to destabilize China internally through various mechanisms of infiltration of “human rights” groups into Chinese society and within China’s military and administrative mechanisms and a constant propaganda campaign to defame China and its people around the world. The momentum of this strategy has been stepped up with the recent attacks by fanatical Muslim groups from western China against Chinese civilians in key cities and transportation hubs and use of provocateurs to attacks Chinese interests in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Africa and the recent absurd charges against Chinese military officers for cyber attacks.

The recent events in Ukraine show that the pace of this aggression is accelerating as America attempts to complete the encirclement of Russia and China by advancing NATO to Russia’s borders and by repositioning of 60 per cent of US military assets to the Pacific.

But now the true aggressors are blaming the victims for ‘aggression’. And it is nothing new under the sun. Nazi Germany and its propagandists employed the same ‘logic’ and arguments, before and during WWII. And the French used it in Algiers and their other colonies, as did the Brits all over their ‘dependencies’.

*****
In Asia, on a local level, the servile press in countries like the Philippines is taking orders and often surpasses its handlers in the West by its zeal.

On May 25 2014, The Philippine Star began with lashing out at China, continued by quoting the words of Admiral William Locklear III, the commander of US Pacific forces, that “Russia has its own ‘pivot’ in Asia”. Then the newspaper finally produced a few pieces of ‘brilliant’ analyses: “Official sources said Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has raised concern in Washington that China may try something similar in staking its territorial claims, in the guise of protecting its citizens overseas.”

‘Russian incursion into Ukraine?’ That sounds more like propaganda shouting from the pages of the North American or European daily press. In some 15 years of work in the region, after interacting with hundreds of media people from all over Southeast Asia, I have to testify that such a thought as quoted above, could never have come from a local journalist. Here, knowledge about Eastern Europe is very near absolute zero. And after being brainwashed in London, New York and elsewhere, local journalists do not compare. Someone else wrote it. Who did it? We all know it. It is the same source, which sends trolls biting at all my reports written for RT.

Most of the local Philippine press generally concluded that the US has basically no choice but to expand militarily, because of ‘China’s aggressive moves.’ Almost all the newspapers mentioned the high cost of the permanent US military bases in the region, also arguing that ‘spokes’, bases belonging to local countries but wide open for use by US forces, are the real way forward. Such bases would also be located on Australian and Japanese territories, and possibly in Singapore and Thailand, as well as Malaysia.

Now Thailand is certainly ‘secured’, after the army that has been killing millions in the region on behalf of the West, overthrew the progressive and elected government, and took control of the country. The coup is truly timely, isn’t it?

As if it would not already be enough to have countless bases in Africa, the Middle East, Japan, Oceania and those few client states that are still left in Latin America. But of course, those are too far from the main targets – China and Russia.

The mainstream Philippine media is not even bothering to question the integrity of such a military agreement, which is in direct violation of the nation’s Constitution. It is because the journalists in Southeast Asia are not paid and flown for training abroad, to moralize. They are paid to write what suits the elites and their foreign handlers.

Eduardo Tadem, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Philippines, explained, during our recent conversation in Manila:

The recently signed agreement between the Philippines and the United States is called EDCA (Economic Defense Cooperation Agreement). In this agreement the Philippine government offered virtually all the military bases in the Philippines for total access to American soldiers, for a ten-year period. But who knows for how long, really… This is very dangerous, because all military installations of the country are now open for ‘entry’ of the US forces. And this certainly goes against the Philippine Constitution, which bars the establishment of foreign bases on our territory.

Then what really happened? Why the sudden change?

It has to do with certain factors. One, of course, is the factor of the so-called ‘US pivot’ to Asia. Under Obama there is this strategy of ‘pivoting to Asia’. Second has to do with the so-called Trans-Pacific partnership proposal of the United States; to build some sort of integrated market in the Asia Pacific region. Except that the Philippines is not part of it for now… The third one has to do with the territorial disputes that are taking place in this region, both in the South China Sea and the North China Sea.

China.

It is mainly an issue of nationalism. And it is also because here they were always asking for more assistance, including military assistance. And this is the way to get that assistance. Also remember that Philippine Presidents were consistently supportive of the US. You probably saw the survey that shows that the Philippine people love the United States more than Americans love themselves. So for the Americans it is easy to get support for their China policy here.

I asked both Teresa Tadem, Professor of Political Science at the University of Philippines, and Professor Eduard Tadem, how was it possible that a country, the Philippines, that suffered so severely during its occupation by the United States, during the colonial era, when there were human rights violations, massacres… How come it feels so positive towards its former brutal colonizer?

It has to do with the extremely intensive American propaganda machine, which depicted the colonial era as a benevolent type of colonialism. Atrocities during the Philippine-American War at 1898–1901, which saw 1 million Philippine people killed, which was then almost one tenth of the population, were made to disappear from the consciousness of the people… the genocide, torture… The Philippines was known as the ‘first Vietnam’… all of this has been conveniently forgotten, hidden in the history books. And then of course the image of Hollywood that we are bombarded with…

How dangerous is it to antagonize China and even Russia? For centuries, China had been a very peaceful country, and it still is to this day. Many Filipinos come from China; it is a natural, historical ally… While the West is liquidating, and bombing entire countries into the ground, overthrowing governments, China pulls one oil-rig into disputed waters, sprays a few boats with water cannon, and it is immediately defined as the aggressor.

“It is again all about propaganda. They depicted China as Communist and here they always attach a negative connotation to that word”, said Professor Teresa Tadem.

For me the most dangerous country on Earth now is the United States”, continues Eduardo Tadem. “It has been the most aggressive… intervening in many countries all over the world, thousands of miles from its shores, trying to impose on the planet its vision of a global capitalist system. So, if you compare what China is doing in the vicinity of its territory, and compare it to what the US is doing in all parts of the world, on every continent… then you clearly see the disparity in the image that has been created, depicting China as a danger to peace in the world.

Both professors then expressed deep concern over the fact that the Western propaganda is igniting Sino-phobia in the Filipinos and in other Asians. They pointed out that what the US is doing is actually fanning ultra-nationalism, which can easily mutate into fascism. This is, according to them, an extremely dangerous situation – planting seeds of Sino-phobia all over the continent.

“This can lead to a point of no return”, explains Eduardo Tadem. “I am afraid that this is what is happening now in the Philippines, as well as in other parts of Asia where territorial disputes are taking place.”

And it is clearly not only Sino-phobia that can lead to the destruction of the world, although Sino-phobia is partially, definitely is. Stirring hatred against Russia is also clearly on the menu of the Western masters of propaganda. Stephen Harper of Canada, Polish and Baltic politicians and their irrational anti-Russian speeches, is all leading to a frightening outcome: manufacturing racism against those nations that are standing in the way of US and European domination of the world.

Dehumanizing a potential enemy, unleashing racist and derogatory sentiments against him or her, is the first step in the Western ‘art’ of war, the first step towards a confrontation.

One should seriously question what is being planned? One should demand to know, because what is being planned is most likely really awful.

*****
People are beginning to speak up. Geoffrey Gunn, a prominent Australian historian and Professor Emeritus at Nagasaki University in Japan, wrote to me, for this report:

The international media big notes the “China threat,” yet who is the provocateur? We observe the Japanese Prime Minister in Singapore (May 30) offering to lead an international coalition to check Chinese aggression offering ‘quality’ Japanese naval vessels to obliging clients as with the Philippines and Vietnam. This is madness coming from a nation without official contrition seeking as well to unpick its god-save, the “peace constitution.” Meantime, the neo-con government in Australia overreaches with matching rhetoric, together snaring the US Defense Secretary to offer his own “pivot” to the South China Sea. My spin is to let Asian nationalisms (China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea) resolve their own problems diplomatically – after all the central kingdom has been in place for several millennium – outsiders keep out, militarists watch your step, and China rise peacefully.

From Vietnam, saddened by the new wave of hostilities between two Communist neighbors, Vietnam and China, a renowned Western artist who did not want to be identified, explained the situation:

I have no doubt the West is delighted at the turn of events and will do all it can to further exacerbate the China-Vietnam etc. rift. Of course it serves the pivot to Asia and other nasty US-NATO agendas. But the Vietnamese are just angry at bully China and one can’t argue with them about it. The Vietnam’s PM has been sending text messages to the entire mobile network warning people not to listen to “bad guys” and to only protest within local and international law…

It is striking how emboldened and self-assured Vietnam is becoming, lately, considering that it is actually doing an identical thing as China is – drilling in the disputed area.

Many see tensions between Vietnam and China as dating back to the Chinese punitive expedition to Vietnam (after Vietnam entered Cambodia and deposed the Khmer Rouge), known as the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. And it is almost bizarre to observe how unforgiving Vietnam is towards China, but how reconciliatory it has become towards the United States.

During the Sino-Vietnamese War some 10,000 Vietnamese civilians lost their lives – definitely not an insignificant number. But how could it even be compared to the millions of Vietnamese civilians who died in the “American War” (or the “Vietnam War” as it is known in the West). During the American War, entire cities were leveled into the ground, fields poisoned, women raped and people burned by napalm and other chemicals.

But, as in case of the Philippines, the creeping Western propaganda erased many of the horrors from people’s minds.

I spent 3 years in Hanoi. Holding US citizenship, I was treated with respect and never insulted. In a stark contrast, now Chinese businesses are being attacked and going up in flames, while Chinese people (from Mainland China, but also from Taiwan and elsewhere), are being chased, beaten, and even killed.

In the meantime, RT reported:

Visiting Washington, General Fang Fenghui also blamed the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia as a reason for heightened tensions in the region. He said some Asian nations have used the strategic shift to create mischief in the South and East China Seas.

*****
Are we being dragged into the final global confrontation, to a possible WWIII? Observed from Asia Pacific or from Ukraine, it clearly appears so.

Christopher Black has no doubts that provoking, antagonizing and insulting powerful independent countries like Russia and China may be the next step towards the destruction of our human race:

All these actions are preparations for war. In fact, the positioning of American anti-ballistic missile batteries in Eastern Europe is in preparation for a nuclear first strike on Russia. Those batteries are deployed solely for the purpose of trying to intercept a retaliatory strike by Russian nuclear forces after a US first strike. They have no other purpose. These preparations for a war of aggression, in fact nuclear war, are a clear violation of the UN Charter and all international laws and can rightly be characterized as war crimes. But since the United States has contempt for all international laws and civilized standards of behavior we can expect these preparations to continue.

Mankind rests on the brink of annihilation for no other reason than the American pursuit of unlimited profit. They are the extremists of the capitalist system. We must hope that the skillful diplomacy we have seen employed by both Russia and China, the increased pace of their bilateral cooperation with each other and their increased steps to achieve multilateral cooperation throughout the world from Latin American to Africa and Europe and Asia will change the power dynamics of the world sufficiently to prevent the Americans and their allies from achieving their aims so that the peoples of the world can live in peace and devote their energies to solving mankind’s pressing problems.

The Trigger Event for the UN Takeover of the US

“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”

– Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991

H/t reader squodgy.


un-fema-camp

The Trigger Event for the UN Takeover of the US (The Common Sense Show, June 28, 2014):

Parts One and Two of this series described how the United Nations is poised to take over the United States. The border crisis with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens is threatening to paralyze several federal agencies. When this number grows to millions, this country and its resources will be paralyzed in terms of responding the holocaust which is underway. Part Two, in particular, demonstrated how the United Nations is prepositioning resources in anticipation of being able to assume a policing duty with regard to the border crisis, which has totally been manufactured in order that the UN has a pretext to function as a force. Because the UN will be responding to a “humanitarian need” the American military will have a very difficult time objecting and opposing the takeover by the UN. The policing of the US by the UN is merely a move to gain a foothold for control over this country. When one looks at the wholesale movement of UN military vehicles, it is easy to conclude that their mission will not be humanitarian, in its totality, but this is lining up to be a military mission. As bad as the crisis on the border will be, this is just the opening act. What follows will allow the UN to assume complete policing powers in all 50 states and the assumption of jurisdictional control over all state and federal agencies.

USGS: 1 Day, Magnitude 2.5+ Worldwide – 39 Earthquakes!

1 Day, Magnitude 2.5+ Worldwide (USGS, June 29, 2014):

39 earthquakes

Updated: 2014-06-29 21:17:43 UTC+00:00

Showing event times using Local System Time

(UTC+00:00)

  1. 2.5 16km NE of Hawaiian Ocean View, Hawaii 2014-06-29 19:22:30 UTC+00:00 1.4 km
  2. 5.6 193km WNW of Hihifo, Tonga 2014-06-29 18:24:30 UTC+00:00 10.0 km
  3. 3.1 79km NNW of Kobuk, Alaska 2014-06-29 17:43:24 UTC+00:00 15.2 km
  4. 5.1 165km NNW of Visokoi Island, 2014-06-29 17:33:54 UTC+00:00 10.0 km
  5. 4.0 101km NNW of Kobuk, Alaska 2014-06-29 17:33:41 UTC+00:00 11.7 km
  6. 5.2 9km NE of Zaqatala, Azerbaijan 2014-06-29 17:26:12 UTC+00:00 34.4 km
  7. 6.7 205km SSE of Mata-Utu, Wallis and Futuna 2014-06-29 17:15:08 UTC+00:00 10.0 km
  8. 6.4 197km NW of Hihifo, Tonga 2014-06-29 15:52:22 UTC+00:00 10.0 km
  9. Read moreUSGS: 1 Day, Magnitude 2.5+ Worldwide – 39 Earthquakes!

Pentagon: More Than Two-Thirds of American Youth Wouldn’t Qualify For Service

More Than Two-Thirds of American Youth Wouldn't Qualify for Service, Pentagon Says

Recruits’ Ineligibility Tests the Military (Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2014):

More Than Two-Thirds of American Youth Wouldn’t Qualify for Service, Pentagon Says

More than two-thirds of America’s youth would fail to qualify for military service because of physical, behavioral or educational shortcomings, posing challenges to building the next generation of soldiers even as the U.S. draws down troops from conflict zones.

The military deems many youngsters ineligible due to obesity, lack of a high-school diploma, felony convictions and prescription-drug use for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. But others are now also running afoul of standards for appearance amid the growing popularity of large-scale tattoos and devices called ear gauges that create large holes in earlobes.

Read morePentagon: More Than Two-Thirds of American Youth Wouldn’t Qualify For Service