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Saturday, 20 December 2014

Spying for everyone: Civilian drones take off this Christmas

Drone

© AFP Photo/Bertrand Langlois



Andrew Steele, 15, chose a drone as a Christmas present. And he's not alone. Thousands of drone fans - young and old - turned out at a recent show in Los Angeles.

While historically people have thought of drones as military aircraft or flying devices used by businesses, the growth of drones as recreational vehicles has exploded.


And the range of devices on offer - many of which could end up giftwrapped under the Christmas tree next week - is as varied as the demand for them.


"I really like how it stays static, how it stays at the same place when you move it," said the teenager, whose parents had to fork out $1,200 for his present.


The success of the quadricopter has enabled the Chinese manufacturer who makes them to multiply the number of people it employs by 100 in eight years.


Tony Mendoza, a salesman with UAV-RC.com who was manning a stand at the LA fair, showed off a much more basic model "This happens to be a simple drone and it starts at $25," he said.


"It is basically for children and parents wanting to get something for their kids for Christmas."


Headache for regulators


Of course, the more drones are given as presents this Christmas, the more of them will be flying around in the New Year.


That is a headache for regulators.


"It's important, no matter how small the drone is, to be aware of your surroundings, making sure you're not operating the drone in a fashion that would endanger anybody," said former White House advisor Lisa Ellman.


In addition, you have to be sure "that you're not spying on your neighbors in your backyard," she added.


But even if drones are becoming accessible for everyone, flying one is not necessarily as easy as falling off a log.


Adam Gibson is a professional who regularly organizes training sessions for beginners.


"To properly know how to use the system, I would say you need about two weeks, 20 hours a week," said Gibson, boss of Ctrl.Me.


To avoid accidents, you need to both be able to pilot it and configure it correctly in the first place. If it is not set up right, the machine risks crashing.


"A lot of the crashes that we see are from not properly calibrating the compass or it could also be that someone has painted it and when they paint it, it interferes with the GPS," said Gibson.


Once you have configured it correctly and learned to fly it, the sky is the limit, as long as you stay below 390 feet (120 meters), which is the altitude limit above which it risks getting mixed up with other, larger craft.


Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog


Paul Craig Roberts - Russia's black swan card(s) and the end of NATO

financial collapse economic

Today Dr. Paul Craig Roberts warned King World News that the Russians are going to unleash what he called the "ultimate black swan" against the West. Dr. Roberts also discussed how a terrifying series of events would then bring the Western financial system to it knees as the banking system completely collapses.

Dr. Roberts: "I was listening to the news today and there were all these self-righteous people just happy as all get out that they had finally stomped Russia into the ground and 'Russia is now finished,' and Russia was broken and 'would soon be an American vassal state where it belongs.' And I was listening to this rot and got to thinking, 'How can people be so utterly stupid?' But they are, and they are just as stupid in Washington.


And in the meantime, as part of this process, Eric, we may see Russia unleash the predicted black swans that bring down the Western house of cards...


"Suppose the Russian government says, 'Well, since the attack on the ruble is political and you guys are attacking the ruble and causing us so much trouble, we are just not going to pay off the next tranche of our debt that comes due early in 2015.'


Well, the European banking system would collapse because those banks are terribly under-capitalized. Some of them have loans to Russia that almost absorb the entire capital base. So the Russians don't even have to default. They can just say, 'We're not going to pay this year. We will do it later. We'll do it when the ruble stabilizes.' (Laughter).


You can understand the impact of such a decision by the Russians on the West. And given all the linkages and the interconnections - when Lehman Brothers went down it had just about as much adverse affect on Europe as it did the United States.

[...]

What would come from that? Who knows? There are all kinds of derivatives and credit default swaps everywhere. We know these derivatives now are some multiple of the world's Gross Domestic Product. And nobody really knows who all the counterparties are. If the European banks start going down, who knows what the impact on this pile of derivatives would be? But the whole Western system is a house of cards. It's not based on anything other than market manipulation. So it doesn't take much of a push to knock it down.

[...]

The biggest black swan of all, Eric, if the Russians get thoroughly angry, all they have to do is call up the European governments and say, 'We no longer sell natural gas or any other form of energy to members of NATO.' The consequence would be the utter and total collapse of NATO. Not even a puppet state like Germany is going to let the people freeze to death, let the factories be closed down, and let the unemployment rate hit 40 percent. It's just not going to happen - it would be the end of NATO.


So whenever the Russians want to destroy NATO, that's all they have to do. Just call up the puppet Merkel, call up the puppet Hollande, the puppet Cameron, and say, 'You guys really enjoy being in NATO, well let me tell you what, we no longer sell energy to NATO members.' That's the end of NATO and that's the end of the cover for American power.


That would set off so many black swans. Every banking system would probably collapse because if the German banks are faced with German industry closing down, what the hell is going to happen to the banks? So all the cards are in Putin's hands. None of them are in Washington's hands. Putin is going to ignore it and reorient Russia to the East. Then you are going to see Russia, India, and China, take over the leadership of the world. That will start in 2015."


Listen to the entire interview:


Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog


Israel bombs Gaza in alleged response to a rocket attack



© Unknown



The Israeli military forces have conducted the first airstrikes on targets in Gaza Strip after the August ceasefire agreement, the BBC Israel reports.

Residents of the Khan Yunis area in Gaza reported hearing two explosions, the Associated Press news agency said.


The attack was carried out on a Hamas infrastructure site in response to a rocket, fired from Gaza several hours earlier, a statement from the Israeli defense reads.


No casualties were reported as a result of the attack.


Israel and Palestine agreed on an open-ended ceasefire, brokered by the Egyptian government, on August 26.


The truce followed an escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which happened in June after Israel laid the blame for the death of three Israeli schoolboys on Hamas, a radical Palestinian Islamic organization and the de facto authority in Gaza. In response, Israel launched its operation "Protective Edge." Over 50 days of hostilities, 2,100 Palestinians and 73 Israelis lost their lives.


Palestinians want to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, partially occupied by Israel, and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and want Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories it took after the Six-Day War in 1967.





Comment: Recently, EU took Hamas off their list of "terrorist" organizations and the Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon responded with the following:

The Israeli army might be forced to attack Gaza again, said the Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Tuesday, according to the army's radio channel.


Ya'alon met with Israeli soldiers and told them that they need to be ready for another war in Gaza anytime, the Israeli news radio reported. Ya'alon reportedly said, "The army might be forced to attack Gaza with all its power."



And something to keep in mind whenever you hear about 'Hamas Rockets.'

The false image of Palestinians as 'terrorists' who want to 'destroy Israel' is promoted by Israel as a bulwark against the emergence of a genuine movement for Palestinian rights that can be accepted internationally. To perpetuate the idea that Paestinian = terrorist, Israel has to launch periodic 'anti-terrorist' operations against the Palestinian people. When such operations are politically expedient, Israel manufactures a 'provocation' to justify the operation.



See also: Hamas blames 'Israeli collaborators' for launching rockets

The Hamas rulers of Gaza Strip on Tuesday lashed out at gunners who fire rockets at Israel from the Palestinian territory in violation of a seven-week-old calm, calling them Israeli collaborators. "About the rocket-firing, I think those who are responsible are those who collaborate with Israel because there is a consensus by all Palestinian groups to respect the truce," said Dr. Mahmud Zahar, a senior leader of the Hamas movement.



Is the latest attack by Israel another attempt at demonizing Hamas?

Nobody has claimed responsibility so far for the rocket attack, but the former deputy defense minister Danny Danon rushed to announce that the incident once again proves that Hamas, ruling Gaza, is a terrorist organization. Danon said.




Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog


Obama condemns Sony's decision to drop film, says US must retaliate and pass cyber bill



Sony Pictures Entertainment should have touched base with the White House before deciding to cancel the release of a controversial movie, United States President Barack Obama said Friday.


Weighing in on the major Sony scandal only hours after federal investigators attributed the recent hack to North Korea, Pres. Obama said the Hollywood studio was wrong to pull “The Interview,” a satirical film containing a plot to kill North Korean Pres. Kim Jong Un that was scheduled to be released on Christmas Day.


At the same time, though, Obama said the attack should serve as a wake-up call to Congress and prompt lawmakers in Washington, DC to get serious about implementing cybersecurity legislation in the wake of what is only the latest hack to be endured by a major American company.


“Sony is a corporation, it suffered significant damage [and] there were threats against its employees,” Obama said during an end-of-year press conference at the White House. “I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake.”


“I wish they would’ve spoken with me first. I would have told them: do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks,” he said.


After hackers infiltrated Sony’s network last month and then released pilfered data, threats were made against movie theaters that planned to show “The Interview” starting next week. On Thursday, Sony said the film would not be released.


AFP Photo

AFP Photo



Earlier Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it’s concluded that the Kim Jong Un regime has indeed, in the FBI’s opinion, was responsible for the attack.


“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can starts imposing censorship here in the United States,” the president added during his address later that day. “Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they’re going to start doing when they see a documentary they don’t like, or news reports they don’t like or, even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. So that’s not who we are — that’s not what America is about.”


Reuters/Jim Urquhart

Reuters/Jim Urquhart



"We will respond proportionally and we will respond in a place and time and manner that we chose," Obama said.


But on the heels of similar breaches that brought significant harm and embarrassment to retail giant Target last year, and other companies in the interim, Obama said lawmakers should use the latest breach to go about getting a cybersecurity bill finally approved by Congress.


“In this interconnected digital world, there are going to be opportunities for hackers to engage in cyber-assaults both in the private sector and in the public sector,” Obama said.


“We’ve been coordinating with the private sector, but a lot more needs to done. We’re not even close to where we need to be,” the president said.


In the wake of the Sony hack, both Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), the outgoing chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the chair of the Senate’s panel, said Congress must pass a bill that will more easily allow the private and public sectors to share threat information, the likes of which may prevent future attacks from ever unfolding.


“This is only the latest example of the need for serious legislation to improve the sharing of information between the private sector and the government to help companies strengthen cybersecurity,” Sen. Feinstein said in a statement. “We must pass an information sharing bill as quickly as possible next ."


In October, Rep. Rogers said that the US government is in dire need of developing rules for waging offensive cyber operations, like the kind the president suggested could soon be launched against North Korea.


"This is a new dangerous form of warfare and international relations that, candidly, the United States, as a whole, is not prepared to handle," Rogers said. "We are not prepared if the federal government decides that they want to take an offensive action or disruptive action in any significant way, even in response."




Where's the evidence? U.S. accuses North Korea for Cyberattack on Sony



© Reuters / Jason Lee

Kim Jong-un.



A Japanese company with some offices in California was hacked. Several terrabytes of data were copied off its internal networks and some of it was put on file sharing sites. One of the items copied was a film produced in Canada that depicts as comedy the terror act of killing of a current head of state. The U.S. State Department applauded that movie scene. But there were tons of other data like social security numbers, payroll data, and internal emails stolen all of which that might have been the real target of the hackers.

The tools to hack the company are well known and in the public domain. The company, Sony, had lousy internal network security and had been hacked before. The hackers probably had some inside knowledge. They used servers in Bolivia, China and South Korea to infiltrate. There is zero public evidence in the known that the hack was state sponsored.


But the U.S. is claiming that the event is a "national security matter" . Who's national security? Japan's? Canada's? Why? A private Japanese entertainment(!) company left the doors open and had some equipment vandalized and some of its private property stolen. Why, again, is that of U.S. "national interest"? Why would the U.S. even consider some "proportional response "?




The White House is anonymously accusing the state of North Korea of having done the hack. It provides no evidence to support that claim and the government of North Korea denied any involvement. The FBI and Sony say they have no evidence for such a claim.

Still the editors eat it all up:



North Korean hackers, seeking revenge for the movie, stole millions of documents, including emails, health records and financial information that they dished out to the world.



How do the editors know that these were "North Korean hackers"? The same way the knew about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? Make believe and anonymous claims by U.S. government officials? Yeah - those folks never lie. Right?



Comment: After stating that the U.S. government has no evidence to implicate North Korea in the hacking, the following article would admit that the NSA has been trying to hack and infiltrate North Korea's computer network for years. And if that wasn't enough the U.S. government is considering relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. Double standards and exceptionalism at work.

American officials have concluded that North Korea was "centrally involved" in the hacking of Sony Pictures computers, even as the studio canceled the release of a far-fetched comedy about the assassination of the North's leader that is believed to have led to the cyberattack.


Senior administration officials, who would not speak on the record about the intelligence findings, said the White House was debating whether to publicly accuse North Korea of what amounts to a cyberterrorism attack. Sony capitulated after the hackers threatened additional attacks, perhaps on theaters themselves, if the movie, "The Interview," was released.


Officials said it was not clear how the White House would respond. Some within the Obama administration argue that the government of Kim Jong-un must be confronted directly. But that raises questions of what actions the administration could credibly threaten, or how much evidence to make public without revealing details of how it determined North Korea's culpability, including the possible penetration of the North's computer networks. [...]


It is not clear how the United States determined that Mr. Kim's government had played a central role in the Sony attacks. North Korea's computer network has been notoriously difficult to infiltrate. But the National Security Agency began a major effort four years ago to penetrate the country's computer operations, including its elite cyberteam, and to establish "implants" in the country's networks that, like a radar system, would monitor the development of malware transmitted from the country.




Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's Blog


Exploring the possibility of a 'Russian Maidan'


© Unknown



The coordinated manipulation of global energy prices, a NATO build-up in Eastern Europe, and the rekindling of terrorism in Russia's southern Caucasus region all appear to be ever-increasing crescendos toward a much larger event - a "Russian Maidan."

The necessary components of a successful Western bid to overthrow the Russian political order include a political front protesting in Russia's major cities, as well as a full-spectrum economic war to put pressure on Russia's population, increasing dissent as well as swelling the ranks of staged protests Wall Street and Washington put in Russian streets. Another necessary component includes armed components to act under cover of "peaceful protesters" to escalate street demonstrations, prevent security forces from restoring order, and to carry out the actual physical overthrow of these security forces.


These elements could all be seen in neighboring Ukraine - a nation in which America and NATO's incessant meddling is a matter of long-standing public record. The Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, "US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev," that (emphasis added):



...while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.




Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.




Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.




Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.




That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.




But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.




The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.



Not only has Ukraine suffered because of this admitted US-backed political destabilization over the years, but as revealed by the Guardian and other sources, all of Eastern Europe has fallen prey to this brand of foreign-backed subversion, manipulation, and regime change. Considering this documented fact, the prospect of Wall Street and Washington trying likewise in Russia itself is not only possible, it has already been tried before, with likely attempts in the future only inevitable.

The Blockade...


Already at work is a coordinated manipulation of world oil prices. Revealed among plunging oil prices is that the entire industry is centrally manipulated not by market forces but by political agendas involving the US and its partners in the Middle East, most notably the enduring dictatorship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While any nation possesses the ability to weather such economic measures in the long-term as Iran and Cuba have proven, in the short-term, economic instability is one of the harbingers of political subversion where ranks of street demonstrations can be swelled by those who perceive such economic instability as the fault of the current government, rather than an economic attack from abroad.


The Political Front and Muscle



© Unknown

Alexey Navalny, a hardcore U.S. puppet.



The political front that will take to Russia's streets has already long been identified. It includes the same brand of extreme "nationalists" and ultra-right groups seen overrunning Ukraine's political order. This includes literal Neo-Nazis. One of the prevailing figures among Russia's ultra-right is US-backed Alexey Navalny - billed by the West as an "anti-corruption activist," who is in all reality a neo-fascist operating openly in the service of Wall Street.

Alexey Navalny was a Yale World Fellow, and in his profile it states:



Navalny spearheads legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in large Russian companies, including Gazprom, Bank VTB, Sberbank, Rosneft, Transneft, and Surgutneftegaz, through the Union of Minority Shareholders. He has successfully forced companies to disclose more information to their shareholders and has sued individual managers at several major corporations for allegedly corrupt practices. Navalny is also co-founder of the Democratic Alternative movement and was vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the political party YABLOKO. In 2010, he launched RosPil, a public project funded by unprecedented fundraising in Russia. In 2011, Navalny started RosYama, which combats fraud in the road construction sector.



The Democratic Alternative, also written DA!, is a US State Department National Endowment for Democracy (NED) fund recipient, implicating Alexey Navalny as an agent of US-funded sedition. The US State Department itself reveals this as they list DA! among many of the "youth movements" they support operating in Russia:

DA!: Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.



That this funding is nowhere on NED's official website indicates that full disclosures are not being made and that NED is engaged in clandestine funding.

Navalny was involved directly in founding a movement funded by the US government and to this day has the very people who funded DA! defending him throughout Western media. The mention of co-founder Mariya Gaydar is also revealing, as she has long collaborated, and occasionally has been arrested with, Ilya Yashin, yet another leader of a NED-funded Russian "activist" opposition group.


Ilya Yashin leads the Moscow branch of the People's Freedom Party and is a leading member of the "Strategy 31″ campaign whose ranks are filled with activists trained and coordinated by US NED-funded NGOs. Deleted from the official NED.org website was Strategy 31's US funding:



Moscow Group of Assistance in the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords $50,000




To draw greater attention to the issue of freedom of assembly in Russia and to the "Strategy 31" movement, which seeks to protect this fundamental right. The organization will train a network of regional activists and coordinate their activities through mini-seminars and field visits, and conduct an information cam­paign through press conferences, posters, and educational handouts pertaining to freedom of assembly, to be distributed to the general public by regional partners.



Also deleted was a NED "Democracy Digest" article titled "Strategy 31: A sign of civil society's resilience." In it, the "Moscow Helsinki Group" is explicitly stated as leading Strategy 31 marches and that the group is a "long-time grantee of the National Endowment of Democracy."

The multiple deletions across NED's networks of Russian "activists" it is heavily funding and directing is yet another sign of imminent subversion, in hopes that links cannot be provided fast enough as the unrest unfolds to undermine the legitimacy of the otherwise US-engineered subversion.


Yashin's People's Freedom Party is lined not only with NED-funded "youth," but also lined with career politicians and businessmen collaborating with foreign-interests. Among them is Vladimir Ryzhkov a member of the NED-funded, Washington-based World Movement for Democracy (whose profile has also been recently deleted). There is also Boris Nemtsov whose adviser, Vladimir Kara-Murza (of Solidarnost) took part in a September 14, 2011 NED-sponsored event titled, "Elections in Russia: Polling and Perspectives."


Revealed is a political front entirely created by the US State Department to pose as the aspirations of the Russian people while in reality a creation and perpetuation of the aspirations of Wall Street and Washington. Under the unrest this front creates may be a heavily armed front consisting of ultra-right Neo-Nazis as observed in Ukraine, heavily armed sectarian terrorists backed by Saudi Arabia, or both.




A Look At America's "Sedition" Handbook

The use of armed elements to assist in US-engineered political subversion is not speculation. Rather, it is a documented policy included in plans laid for the undermining and overthrowing of other governments around the world. In one particular 2009 US policy paper titled, "Which Path to Persia?" by the Brookings Institution regarding the overthrow of Iran, it is stated specifically that:



One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.



Here, US policymakers are openly conspiring to covertly provoke a nation through political subversion. The resulting "act of aggression" would be portrayed as "unprovoked," just as has been done regarding Russia's involvement in neighboring Ukraine and all moves since Moscow has undertaken as the US and NATO continue to move toward war.

The policy paper also openly talks about the particulars of fomenting political unrest. Under a section called literally, "Finding the Right Proxies" it states:



One of the hardest tasks in fomenting a revolution, or even just unrest, is finding the right local partners.



After openly admitting the goal of "fomenting a revolution" or "unrest," it then details what support to provide these proxies:

...students and other groups need covert backing for their demonstrations. They need fax machines. They need internet access, funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep vigilantes from beating them up. Beyond this, U.S.-backed media outlets could highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent. The United States already supports Persian-language satellite television (Voice of america Persian) and radio (radio Farda) that bring unfiltered news to Iranians (in recent years, these have taken the lion's share of overt U.S. funding for promoting democracy in Iran). U.S. economic pressure (and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership.



The report finally mentions armed groups supporting US-engineered sedition:

Some who favor fomenting regime change in Iran argue that it is utopian to hold out hope for a velvet revolution; instead, they contend that the United States should turn to Iranian opposition groups that already exist, that already have demonstrated a desire to fight the regime, and who appear willing to accept U.S. assistance. The hope behind this course of action is that these various opposition groups could transform themselves into more potent movements that might be able to overturn the regime.



What is troubling about this 2009 report is that each and every conspiracy contained within is not only confirmed by the authors to already be well underway against Iran, it is now clear that similar tactics have been used against Syria, China, and Russia itself. The "Arab Spring" was little more than these tactics used on a regional scale, and what was done in Syria and even Ukraine are almost verbatim pages torn from this playbook.

For a campaign aimed at Moscow itself, it is likely the same playbook will once again be employed. Exposing the insidious, malicious criminality of US policymakers who openly conspire to provoke other nations into conflict and manipulate public perception to maintain moral primacy is the first step to undoing attempts to destabilize and undermine Russia, and all other nations caught in the crosshairs of Wall Street and Washington.


While the West continues to portray Russia as the "aggressor," throughout America's own policy papers it can be seen that such accusations are just one part of an immensely insidious and deceitful plan. Portraying Russia as the "aggressors" helps justify further measures to set the board for widespread political subversion within Russia itself. It seeks to justify not only direct ties to opposition groups when they are finally revealed, but also increasingly aggressive interventions both by armed proxies and NATO forces themselves to continue propping up these opposition groups.


The spectacular nature of "invasions" as we imagine them, such as the Nazi blitzkrieg into Western Europe are behind us. Invasions within fourth generation warfare utilize faux opposition groups, covert military support, and full-spectrum economic, political, and information warfare. Russia has built defenses against this form of warfare, confounding the West , but ultimately the moral high ground and all of its advantages is a position only one can hold. Either by truth through exposing the West's means and agenda will Russia climb to the top, or through the West's continued successful deception, will Russia be pelted below.



Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook".



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China takes a stand in the U.S. currency war against Russia and offers Putin support


© secretsofthefed.com

China and Russia against the U.S.



Over the past month, attacks on both oil and the Rouble have created economic turmoil around the world, and especially in the economies of Russia and the European Union. And despite the fact that the United States has chosen Ukraine as ground zero for instigating pressure against Russia and the Russian currency, one superpower has sat on the sidelines until today when on Dec. 17, China stepped forward and offered full aid and assurances to Russia in their ongoing proxy war with Washington .

Until yesterday, Russia was believed to be isolated and under immense economic pressures from both the U.S. and Europe over what has been labeled 'aggressions against Ukraine'. However, the underlying truth is that Ukraine has little or nothing to do with the war on the Rouble and on the Russian economy, and the U.S. is simply using the Eurasian country as a scapegoat for Putin's chess moves against the petro-dollar and America's hegemony over the global reserve currency.



Russia could fall back on its 150 billion yuan (HK$189.8 billion) currency swap agreement with China if the rouble continues to plunge.


If the swap deal is activated for this purpose, it would mark the first time China is called upon to use its currency to bail out another currency in crisis. The deal was signed by the two central banks in October, when Premier Li Keqiang visited Russia.


"Russia badly needs liquidity support and the swap line could be an ideal tool," said Bank of Communications chief economist Lian Ping.


The swap allows the central banks to directly buy yuan and rouble in the two currencies, rather than via the US dollar.


Two bankers close to the People's Bank of China said it was meant to reduce the role of the US dollar if China and Russia need to help each other overcome a liquidity squeeze. -South China Morning Post



Most of the sanctions placed upon Russia oil companies and investment banks stem primarily from several ground-breaking agreements the Eurasian state has made this year to facilitate the selling of oil and other products in currencies other than the dollar. In addition, Russia has established very strong partnerships with China and the BRICS coalition to offer alternatives to the dollar and the Western based systems led by the BIS, IMF, and World Bank, and now have agreements in place that are tied to more than 40% of the global population, and contain two of the top 10 largest economies.

Many have wondered when or if China would enter into the proxy war Washington has declared on Russia, especially as the U.S. is a much bigger trading partner than Russia is with China at this time. However, it appears that China now sees a ripe opportunity to take a stand contrary to that of America and Europe, and by their move to support the Russian Rouble has changed the entire shape of the conflict because now, Russia has the opportunity to completely divest themselves from the dollar and any potential chaos Wall Street's hedge funds may bring against their currency by opting to peg the Rouble to the Yuan, and begin an all out program of no longer selling their oil in dollars, but in the Yuan, Rouble, and even the Euro.


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