The Raw Story

Saturday, 24 January 2015

Message of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to the youth in Europe and North America

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader

In the name of God, the Beneficent the Merciful

To the Youth in Europe and North America,

The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them. I am addressing you, [the youth], not because I overlook your parents, rather it is because the future of your nations and countries will be in your hands; and also I find that the sense of quest for truth is more vigorous and attentive in your hearts.

I don't address your politicians and statesmen either in this writing because I believe that they have consciously separated the route of politics from the path of righteousness and truth.

I would like to talk to you about Islam, particularly the image that is presented to you as Islam. Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the West.

Here, I don't want to deal with the different phobias with which the Western nations have thus far been indoctrinated. A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home to you the fact that the Western governments' insincere and hypocritical treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new historiographies.

The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodsheds wrought in the name of religion between the Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.

By mentioning a fraction of this long list, I don't want to reproach history; rather I would like you to ask your intellectuals as to why the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay of several decades or centuries. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic culture and thought?

You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the "other" have been the common base of all those oppressive profiteers. Now, I would like you to ask yourself why the old policy of spreading "phobia" and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an unprecedented intensity. Why does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized and remain latent? What concepts and values in Islam disturb the programs of the super powers and what interests are safeguarded in the shadow of distorting the image of Islam? Hence, my first request is: Study and research the incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam.

My second request is that in reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.

I don't insist that you accept my reading or any other reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don't allow this dynamic and effective reality in today's world to be introduced to you through resentments and prejudices. Don't allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.

Receive knowledge of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam through the Qur'an and the life of its great Prophet. I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur'an of the Muslims. Have you studied the teachings of the Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines? Have you ever received the message of Islam from any sources other than the media?

Have you ever asked yourself how and on the basis of which values has Islam established the greatest scientific and intellectual civilization of the world and raised the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals throughout several centuries?

I would like you not to allow the derogatory and offensive image-buildings to create an emotional gulf between you and the reality, taking away the possibility of an impartial judgment from you. Today, the communication media have removed the geographical borders. Hence, don't allow them to besiege you within fabricated and mental borders.

Although no one can individually fill the created gaps, each one of you can construct a bridge of thought and fairness over the gaps to illuminate yourself and your surrounding environment. While this preplanned challenge between Islam and you, the youth, is undesirable, it can raise new questions in your curious and inquiring minds. Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an appropriate opportunity to discover new truths.

Therefore, don't miss the opportunity to gain proper, correct and unbiased understanding of Islam so that hopefully, due to your sense of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer conscience and lesser resentment.

Seyyed Ali Khamenei

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Outside of heart disease and statins, another area I have been studying for many years is diabetes. Not type I diabetes (caused by destruction of beta-cells in the pancreas and a lack of insulin), but type II diabetes. Type II diabetes has nothing to do with a lack of insulin, it is generally considered to be caused by insulin resistance i.e. enough insulin is produced, but there is 'resistance' to its effects.

This resistance firstly drives up the insulin levels. However, as it worsens, the raised insulin levels are no longer sufficient, so the blood sugar levels rise anyway. At first the fasting sugar levels may be normal, but the response to a sugar 'test' shows an abnormally high level about an hour later. This is why a glucose tolerance test (GTT) used to be the way of diagnosing early stage type II diabetes.

This has been superseded by the HbA1c test. This test, essentially, looks at the amount of glucose that has stuck to your red blood cells over the last month.

Which gives an idea of what the 'average' sugar level has been over a longer time period. It is a better measure.

Anyway, without getting too bogged down in technical details, the model that is used to explain type II diabetes is very simple.

You eat too much

You become obese

As you become more and more obese you become more and more insulin resistant

Your insulin level rises to overcome this resistance

At some point the resistance become too much

You develop raised blood sugar levels aka type II diabetes

I call this the 'blowing up a balloon' model of diabetes. As the balloon expands, you need to blow harder to get more air in.

This model (or variations thereof) is almost universally agreed, by almost everyone. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that I do not agree with it. Yes, there is not the slightest doubt that diabetes and obesity are related. In fact, there is no doubt that obesity; insulin resistance and type II diabetes are closely related.

Equally, there is no doubt that if people lose weight, their diabetes can go into reverse, and 'reversibility' is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence possible in proving causality. So where exactly, you may think, is my problem?

My problems first started with the recognition that you can find far too many direct contradictions to this model. Just to look at two examples. First we can look at the least obese people in the world. Those unfortunates who have a condition called '. In this condition you have no fat cells - at all. So, of course, the rate of type II diabetes in these people would be zero...right? Wrong, the rate of type II diabetes is 100%.

Then we have Sumo wrestlers, the single most obese group of people on earth. So, they all have severe insulin resistance and type II diabetes right...? Wrong, whilst in training, none of them have type II diabetes.

In short:

Thinnest group of people in the word, 100% diabetes

Fattest group of people in the world 0% diabetes

Or to put this another way round, it is clear that obesity is neither necessary, nor sufficient to cause type II diabetes. If you were a follower of Bradford Hill, or Koch, of Popper this, effectively, writes off obesity as a possible causal factor for type II diabetes.

But, but.

But what?

To move sideways for a moment or two. When you first read about type I diabetes, one of the things that stands out is that those diagnosed with type I (at least in the past) lost weight very rapidly. They grew thinner and thinner, becoming almost like skeletons - before they all died. Why?

Why, is because insulin is the energy storage hormone. It does not just affect blood sugar levels. In fact, the almost obsessive focus on the interplay between insulin and blood sugar has blinded almost everyone to the fact that insulin does far more than just lower sugar levels. It affects fat, protein and sugar metabolism. It interacts with many different pathways in adipose tissue, muscle cells and the liver. Lowering blood sugar may be, in some ways, the least important thing that it does.

The reason why you die in type I diabetes has little to do with blood sugar levels. You die because, without insulin, fats escape from adipose tissue and travels to the liver as free fatty acids. In the liver these fatty acids are automatically converted into ketone bodies (which the body uses for energy in a fasting state).

The ketone bodies are, in turn, acidic, and in a high concentration they cause 'acidosis'. This acidity overwhelms the alkali buffering systems, and you die in a keto-acidotic coma. To reiterate, it is not the high sugar that kills you in type I diabetes, it is the uncontrolled release of fats. This has nothing to do with sugar at all - except indirectly. Which, although you may not think it, returns us to the matter in hand. Namely, what is the association between obesity and diabetes?

As we have seen, without insulin, fats escape from fat cells at a high rate, so you lose weight. If we turn this though one hundred and eighty degrees, it should be clear that, if you have too much insulin in your bloodstream, fat can no longer escape from fat cells, and you will get fatter and fatter.

Essentially, insulin is obesogenic. A fancy way of saying that if you produce too much insulin you will become obese. An amazing fact '' in August 2014

"DALLAS - August 25, 2014 - UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a crucial link between high levels of insulin and pathways that lead to obesity, a finding that may have important implications when treating diabetes."[1]

Yes chaps, well done. You made a breakthrough discovery of the absolute bleeding obvious. You mean, insulin makes you fat? Well who'd a thunk? Well, lots and lots of people actually. At which point, let me introduce you to the Pima Indians of North America. This race has an almost unbelievably high rate of type II diabetes. It is greater than 50%. Perhaps more. Are they obese, yes? Of course. However, of greater interest is that Pima Indians, long before they become obese and/or diabetic, produce far, far, more insulin than any other race [2]:

'The normal and prediabetic Indians had fasting and stimulated insulin levels during all the tests two-to-threefold greater than the Caucasians. Differences in insulin levels between the two races could not be explained by differences in glucose level, age, or obesity.'

Interesting... It is clear that the model with the Pima Indians is, as follows:

You produce too much insulin

You become obese

You become insulin resistant

You develop type II diabetes

Of course, it is not just the Pima Indians where this happens. This causal chain works for us all. It contains most of the same 'factors' as the blowing up a balloon model of diabetes (although you will notice it does not contain the 'you eat too much' factor). However, as you can also see, the facts are in a different order. I like to call this, the correct order.

In short, yes, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes are closely associated. But not quite in the way that everyone believes.

Moving on. What, you might think, would cause people to produce too much insulin. Well, what foodstuffs cause the greatest rise in insulin levels? Why, let me think... Yes, carbohydrates would cause the greatest rise in insulin levels. So if you eat lots of carbohydrates, you will produce lots of insulin. Insulin forces fats into fat cells and stops it escaping. Insulin is obesogenic... Join those dots ladies and gentlemen.

P.S. Pop quiz. What do you think happens if you try to force blood sugar levels down in type II diabetes by prescribing insulin?

P.P.S. So why does everyone with Beradinelli-Siep syndrome have type II diabetes? Answers on a postcard please.

References:

1: High insulin levels tied to obesity pathway

2: Lymphocyte membrane receptors mediating recognition of antigens (translated article in German)

January 23, 2015 "ICH" - Imagine - a bunch of French, CIA and Mossad special forces, one of them or a combination of the three, attack a racist, Moslem-insulting publisher in Paris and a kosher supermarket at another end of town - killing altogether 17 people, notwithstanding the 'suicide' of the French police chief in charge of investigating the atrocity.

A million and a half people in Paris take to the streets - about 6 million throughout Europe - all screaming or carrying posters with a maddening, inexplicable " - depicting an utterly brainwashed mindset, brainwashed for decades with Washington directed mind control.

They do not know, do not want to know, that the Charlie massacre was yet another staged event, another false flag that will eventually give their masters green light to intensify their 'wars on terror' around the globe. Terrorists are mostly Muslims; so is their dictum. Before the massacre, the powers that be identified three Muslims as the perpetrators of the crime to come. Soon after the Charlie attack, they sent killer squads to massacre them, before anybody could question them. The fight on terror - don't leave witnesses behind.

The millions of demonstrators' war cry is literally asking the western armies, led by NATO to turn- and speed up their brutal killing machine in the Middle East - to exterminate the Moslem population.The western public has been told and is constantly being told by the western powers dominated main stream media thatMuslims are at the heart of all evil; when in fact quite the contrary is true. The West under neoliberal leadership (sic) has become a horrifying merciless killing machine.

That's Paris Charlie revisited and in a nutshell. - That's our neoliberal 'civilization' - with a purpose. written all over the walls of Charlie Hebdo's blasphemous infrastructure. Waging even more savage war on the 1.6 billion Muslims. Killing 17 people by Empire and its stooges, will allow Empire and its stooges to kill more millions, perhaps tens of millions, to exterminate this 'evil' Muslim sect of 'terrorists'. A 'terrorist' is anybody who doesn't bend to the empire's boot. That doctrine has been impregnated in western minds ever since another killed on 9/11 about 3,000 people in New York, allowing the beginning of the eternal war - wars, one succeeding the next - the criminal Bush-Blair legacy of the 21^st Century.

The Afghanistan invasion of empire directed NATO forces was to control the TAPI pipeline project (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India), for which the Taliban were unwilling to negotiate with the Bush family, nor with a secret Congressional commission in 2001. The project is as of this day a bone of contention - and a good reason for Obama to leave a permanent 'residue' of troops in Afghanistan.

To keep a roving mindless populace tight - local false flags, à la Boston Marathon bombing are necessary to intensify repression, abrogate ever more civil liberties - and this even on demand from the very people affected by the repression. They want more security, more protection.

As with Charlie Hebdo, the bad guys were pre-identified, so that when the secret special forces launched their ugly plot, they were easy to trace and chase - and kill. One of the designated 'perpetrators' in the Boston case and all of them in Paris. Dead men don't talk.

The Bostonians literally invited armed police to take over their streets and invade their homes. In Paris the marchers of 1.5 million people were silently screaming, "Hollande go to war and free us from evil! " - What a depressing joke this is. It would be laughable if it weren't that serious. - It is one more step won by the neoliberal empire - a step towards full dominance and subjugation of the populace.

The Washington funded AlQaeda-turned-Taliban-turned-AlQaeda Osama BinLaden was made responsible for the Twin Tower's collapse - in no time. And in no time, two years to be exact, the wind shifted. Iraq's Saddam is the culprit. The power of the msm - in combination with the brainless masses works wonders.

Saddam, the newly designated culprit of the New York 9/11 monstrosity triggered the war on Iraq - the empire taking over the country's riches, her oil wells; at that time the world's cheapest oil to bring to the surface - and making sure that Saddam would not tell helped and incited him to wage an eight-year war against his neighbor Iran, and gave him the poison to gas in 1988 the Kurds in the North, and especially, that he would not convert his forced dollar denominated sales of hydrocarbons into euros, as he unwittingly announced - he had to be executed. He received a world stage hanging, propaganda for justice, for American justice - justice of the exceptional people, supported and road-mapped, as always, by the banking backed 'chosen people'.

The Bush-Blair led 'coalition of the willing' slaughtered more than a million and a half Iraqis, mostly civilians;women, children and elderly; creating other millions of refugees. Countless people murdered in Afghanistan. In parallel the NED-induced (National Endowment for Democracy) infamous machinery of 'regime change' produced the so-called Arab Spring which had nothing to do with spring, but everything with devastating one Middle Eastern and North African country after another. The obliteration of Libya and Syria through NATO bombing and NATO prompted civil wars, and more brutal and bloody conflicts all over Mother Earth.

Obama's personally directed drone war on Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Turkey - and the list goes on - is further fomenting and funding local unrest, killing masses of defenseless people.

It is American judgment over nations by war. ISIS, a US-EU-NATO creation, generously funded by the empire and its European and Middle Eastern stooges, as a rebel force to fight Syrian troops and to take over Iraq, is torturing and slaughtering in the (concealed) name of the neocon empire, other thousands of people.

ISIS, supplied with cutting-edge weaponry by the US and NATO, is assailing Iraq, where George W. Bush notoriously declared in May 2003, two months after his shock and awe invasion, "Mission Accomplished".

Not to mention the horrifying eight more years of war Iraq and her people endured until Obama ceremoniously announced the end of war, pulling out US troops in 2011 - not without leaving a core presence behind, though.

As Eduardo Galeano, the famous revolutionary Uruguayan writer and philosopher said - once US troops are in a country, they never leave. Hence, the more than thousand US military bases around the globe.

Wars must go on. The US neoliberal economy depends on them. The war machine and its ramifications contribute more than 50% to the US GDP.

Without wars, the country would collapse. All peace talks and negotiations initiated or feigned by Washington are fake, a deception, propaganda for the goodness of the naked emperor. Kudos for the exceptional nation.

World peace would mean a black hole for the United States, demise.

In both cases, Iraq and Syria, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) - the Sunni caliphate having merged in 2013 with Syria's al-Nusra Front - and whatever other names the 'rebels' may morph into - are paid to fight national armies unwilling to bend. In turn, they are justifying US interventions, bombing the same ISIS they created, though only a little bit, to make believe, lest ISIS might really be wiped out. Recent US helicopter food and ammunition drops behind ISIS Iraqi lines testify to the west's double standards and deceit.

In reality, when bombing ISIS, NATO is bombing Iraq and Syria for regime change, and as an added icing on the cake, to grease the US war machine, the ever hungry military industrial complex.

Estimates have it that US carried out and inspired wars and conflicts around the globe have killed over ten million people in the last decade and a half.

That's neoliberal 'civilization' - murdering 17 to kill millions - making billions by weapon manufacturing and selling, plus more billions by stealing hydrocarbon - the God of Energy of our ever growth-lusty western greed economy; and making even more billions by converting small-holder agriculture which still today feeds 80% of world population - into pesticide-implanted genetically modified food production, the Monsanto world.

As if this destruction, annihilation and misery of war and mass killing were not enough, there is reconstruction after war, another bonanza for the destroyer. The words of former World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, also known as the US neoliberal trade tsar, will not be forgotten, when he said in the midst of NATO devastating Libya in 2011 - "We hope that the World Bank will also be involved in the reconstruction of Libya." Well, this wish has not come through yet, but in other war-torn zones it has.

After destruction comes reconstruction with all the neoliberal strings attached, financial robbery of public goods, reduction of pensions, minimum wages, social services, privatization of education and health, expropriation and privatization of natural resources by foreign corporations - and the list goes on, all requisites of extreme austerity measures as conditions for the sacrosanct IMF, World Bank and ECBso-called rescue packages.

At times, countries whose existence remains somehow important for the empire, like those in Southern Europe, will be driven into misery without physical war, just by financial abuse and economic slavery. Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy, were driven to the abyss of suffocation by the all-powerful, but appallingly criminal troika, the IMF, ECB and the European Commission.

After coercing or replacing their elected governments with neoliberal puppets, mostly former Wall Street execs, as is the President of the ECB, they - the troika and their masters - forced these countries into debt, after debt and more debt - debt that is virtually unrecoverable in a generation; debt that causes astronomical levels of unemployment, Greece, Spain and Portugal, hovering above 25% and 65% among the young people, slashing social services, health care, pensions, leaving a huge proportion of their population in absolute poverty and in physical and mental misery.

And who funds all these atrocities - wars and financial devastation? - Wall Street, the extended arm of the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon controlled monetary system, and its puppets, the FED, IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank and their subordinate European mega-banks. Naturally. - Who else?

All of these neoliberal mayhems are guided by the invisible hand of the PNAC - the Plan of a New American Century, designed by Zionist Washington think tanks, the tail that wags the dog. The PNAC foresees the annihilation of the Middle East, the pocketing of Europe by implanting puppets - done! - and finally the encircling and eventual subjugation of Russia and China - the ascent of a Washington directed One World Order.

It shall not happen. There is hope in the solid alliance of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, of Russia and China; a strategic economic and defense pact, the western media are silent about. The less the public knows of the truth, the more it will adore the 'exceptional nation', as its one and only master - so goes the theory of western self-adulation.

Neoliberalism wants it all, the supremacy of the 1% - addressing the lowest common denominator in human kind - greed, using the main stream media concocting lies and deceptions to nurture more greed which in turn is the engine that fuels the neoliberal doctrine of private property, of privatization of public goods, privatization - stealing - of other countries natural resources, the steady pursuit of instant profit, of police and military oppression of the few who refuse to comply. A Win-Win-Win situation - energy, food and money, as per Kissinger's infamous dogma - who controls energy controls continents, who controls food controls people, and who controls money controls the world.

Neoliberalism, the religion of the West, is the epitome of evil, of destruction of civilization itself. Neoliberalism - thanks to its unifying factor of greed, has ravaged the west like brushfire and taken over the world in less than 30 years, a feat grander than that achieved by mono-theistic Judo-Christianity in over 2000 years.

Citizens of Mother Earth - BEWARE ! - Wake up ! Open your eyes and ears ! - Become vanguards of a new world, new values - where the neocons and their globalization bite the dust, and where local production for local markets funded by local banks propels solidarity and harmony into new generations of mankind.

Attack on Mariupol Begins; 7,000-8,000 Ukrainian Forces Nearly Encircled in Northern Cauldron; US Sends Army Trainers

Yesterday, DNR (Donetsk People's Republic) president Alexander Zakharchenko issued this statement on a ceasefire:

"There will no longer be any attempts to speak about a ceasefire from our side. We will now see how Kiev reacts. Kiev doesn’t currently understand that we can advance in three directions simultaneously".

Jacob Dreizin, a US citizen who speaks Russian and reads Ukrainian provides a DNR perspective that he has seen.

Jacob writes ...

Background for Zakharchenko's "no more ceasefires" statement stems from rebel disappointment back in August when Moscow forced the rebels to the negotiating table in Minsk, Belarus. The rebels gave up some territory around Mariupol at a time when Ukraine army was retreating, and in complete disarray.

This could have been a great opportunity for Kiev to come to its senses and accept a political solution.

However, the Ukraine side openly and repeated stated that the so-called ceasefire was just a tactical move prior to building up the forces and going back on the offensive. Then Kiev announced a 4th wave build-up of 50,000-100,000 troops.

In that context, Zakharchenko is telling the world that the Ukrainians blew their second chance, and there will be no more opportunities because all Kiev has done is move to strengthen its forces. Zakharchenko’s patience has run out especially considering nonstop bombardment of rebel-held cities.

Enough is enough.

Attack on Mariupol Begins

Today Zakharchenko announced the battle for Mariupol is underway. Also, to the North the Debaltsevo cauldron is closing and 7,000 to 8,000 Ukrainian forces will be trapped (encircled).

Here are some images and text regarding the attack on Mariupol from Colonel Cassad.

Colonel Cassad writes ... "This morning our forces continued their attempts to sever an exit path for the Debaltsevso-Group of Ukrainian forces. Encirclement failed so far, but according to reports, our artillery began to pound the main road leading from Debaltsevo to Svetlodarsk."

That paragraph is in reference to the about-to-be trapped Ukrainian forces around the city of Debaltsevo (the Debaltsevo cauldron).

Red Alert: Rocket Fire Could Signal New Offensive on Mariupol

From Stratfor: Red Alert: Rocket Fire Could Signal New Offensive on Mariupol.

Reports of heavy rocket artillery firing on the eastern parts of the city of Mariupol, Ukraine, as well as a statement made by a separatist leader, indicate the potential preparation of an offensive on the city. While this would be a significant escalation and an indicator of Russian intent to push further into Ukraine, potentially forming a much-rumored land connection to the northern border of Crimea, there are also several indicators required for such an offensive that are currently still missing.

The attack comes days after the Russian forces secured the Donetsk Airport, important in defending the right flank of any offensive westward. It also comes days after Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, came to Ukraine and publicly announced that a small number of U.S. Army trainers would be arriving in Ukraine. While any large-scale offensive would have been considered and planned for much longer, the decision of the United States to send Lt. Gen. Hodges could have affected the dynamic of internal Russian calculations.

In any event, we do not yet know Russia’s strategic intentions. This could simply be an attempt to signal the danger Russia could pose to their negotiating partners in the west. It could be an attempt to extend the pocket they hold modestly. It could, finally, be the opening of an offensive toward Crimea.

The Russian position in Crimea is untenable. Crimea is easily isolated should Ukranian forces strengthen or Western forces get involved. Russia holds Crimea only to the extent that the West chooses not to intervene, or to the extent that it extends a relatively wide and robustly defended land bridge from Russia to the Crimea. Crimea and the Sevastapol naval facilities are of strategic importance to Russia and the decision to hold these facilities but not extend their power makes diplomatic sense, though it is not militarily rational. Either Russia can build the geographical structure to support Crimea, or it becomes a permanent weak point in the Russian position. The Russians do not want a massive confrontation with the West at a time of economic dysfunction, yet at the same time, having made the decision to hold Crimea, they will not have a better moment for consolidation.

This is an ongoing conversation in Moscow. It is not clear that it is over. The artillery may simply be a minor probe or it could be the preface to an assault. We know that there has been a significant increase in Russian presence in the pocket, but it does not seem to us that the Russians are logistically ready for a major offensive yet.

Taking Mariupol is a first step to a broader offensive. It is also an end in itself, anchoring the southern flank in the city, though may not even be that. However, the MLRS barrages on Mariupol open the door to multiple avenues of exploitation and have clearly moved the fighting to a new level, not so much in intensity, but in raising serious questions of strategic intention.

Mariupol Video

Link if video does not play: Attack on Mariupol

Major Offensive

In contrast to the analysis from Stratfor, it seems to me the major offensive started yesterday with the warning from DNR president Alexander Zakharchenko "Kiev doesn’t currently understand that we can advance in three directions simultaneously."

The intent of Zakharchenko is to take and hold the entire Donetsk region. And it appears he will be able to do just that unless the US intervenes in a major way.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://bit.ly/1CGxx6l to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

© NASA, ESA and A. Field (STScI)

This NASA graphic shows how scientists used Hubble Space Telescope observations of a distant quasar to discover that two giant gas bubbles are erupting from the Milky Way's core at 2 million mph. In this graphic, material shown in blue is moving toward the observer, while material in red is traveling away.

Giant bubbles of gas that erupted from the core of the Milky Way galaxy millions of years ago are expanding out into space at mind-blowing speeds, according to new observations that may help reveal how the strange balloon-like lobes formed.

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have clocked the speed of gas bubbles, known as Fermi bubbles, at a whopping 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h). The giant structures now extend 30,000 light-years above and below the plane of the Milky Way.

"A few million years ago, there was a very energetic event at the galactic center, and we're seeing a remnant," lead author Andrew Fox, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, said at a press conference this month.

Fox presented the new Hubble observations at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, revealing the age of the Fermi bubbles.

Piercing the Dust and Gas

Fermi bubbles were first discovered in 2010 by scientists using NASA's Fermi Large Area Telescope, which revealed two lobes of material protruding from the center of the Milky Way. Since then, the features have been studied in the X-ray and radio wavelengths.

Fox and his team paired Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph with a distant quasar to measure the speed and composition of the billowing bubbles. A quasar is a very bright source of light generated by fast-moving particles near a supermassive black hole inside a distant galaxy. Light from the quasar is so strong that it outshines its parent galaxy. The scientists measured how the ultraviolet light from quasar PDS 456 shifted as it passed through the base of the northern bubble.

With the help of the bright quasar, the team determined that material on the near side of the northern lobe is streaming toward the sun, while material on the far side is zipping away. The material is gushing out of the Milky Way at approximately 900 to 1,000 kilometers per second, or about 2 million mph.

At this rate, the scientists calculated that the event that created the lobes occurred between 2.5 and 4 million years ago.

In addition to measuring its speed, the new Hubble observations also determined that the material swept up by the gas was made up of silicon, carbon and aluminum. This composition suggests that the gas is enriched by heavy elements that are forged within stars, and represents the fossil remnants of star formation.

The gas studied by Fox's team reaches temperatures of 17,500 degrees Fahrenheit (9,700 degrees Celsius). Far cooler than the rest of the gas in the outflow, which reaches temperatures of around 18 million degrees F (10 million degrees C), the cooler gas may be interstellar gas from the Milky Way that has been swept up in the hot outflow, Fox said.

A Front-Row Seat

In other galaxies, starbursts drive outflows of gas that resemble Fermi bubbles, but these features are difficult to study from so far away. The Milky Way's Fermi bubbles provide an up-close look at these formations.

"We have a front-row seat. We can study the details of these structures," Fox said in a statement. "We can look at how big the bubbles are and how much of the sky they are covering."

PDS 456 is the first of 20 quasars whose light passes through the lobes. Studying the entire sample will allow astronomers to further narrow down the source of the event that generated the Fermi bubbles.

One potential cause of the outflows is rapid star formation at the galactic center. This birth of stars produced a series of supernovas that blew out a significant supply of gas. Another explanation involves the fall of a star or group of stars into the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, causing superheated gas to be blasted into space.

Whatever the cause, the short-lived nature of the bubbles (when compared with the 13.2-billion-year-old age of the galaxy) suggests that they may be repeating phenomena, occurring frequently throughout the life of the Milky Way.

"It looks like the outflows are a hiccup," Fox said in the statement. "There may have been repeated ejects of material that have blown up, and we're catching the latest one. By studying the light from the other quasars in our program, we may be able to detect the fossils of previous outflows."

The study will be published in the and is available online in preprint form.

The Donetsk militia has been ordered to suppress Kiev's military positions to the east of Mariupol, but is not going to storm the city, said Donetsk Republic head, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, accusing Kiev of a false flag operation and shifting the blame.

"Until now, we weren't conducting any operations outside Mariupol. We're saving strength," Zakharchenko was cited by RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.

"But now, after Kiev decided to shift the blame on us for its erroneous fire from Grad multiple rocket launchers at residential areas [in Mariupol], I gave an order to suppress the positions of the Ukrainian military, stationed east of Mariupol," he added.

[embedded content]

Zakharchenko added that the forces of the People's Republic of Donetsk (DPR) have no plans of storming the city itself.

The DPR leader said that "in the last few days the Ukrainian side had relocated a large grouping of its troops to Mariupol."

"Day and night, our positions in the town of Novoazovsk are subjected to massive bombardment from Grad multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery. Today, the armored vehicles from the 28th Ukrainian brigade have arrived in the area as well," he stressed.

According to Zakharchenko, Kiev is doing everything to make the rebels "move the forces, which are now involved in the battle for the Donetsk airport, to Mariupol, to weaken us and dislodge us from there [the airport]."

The Ukrainian military is using the citizens of Mariupol as "human shields," the People's Republic of Donetsk leader said.

[embedded content]

Earlier, a DPR military official, Eduard Basurin, said that the Kiev forces have renewed their attempts to retake the strategically significant Donetsk airport on Saturday.

"The Ukrainian military is trying to attack from the north, west and east. Hostilities are underway at the airport," Basurin said, as cited by Interfax news agency.

According to the rebels, they established full control over the Donetsk airport on January 16, following an exhausting standoff with Kiev troops, which has been ongoing since May last year.

[embedded content]

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has dispatched its Mariupol observer mission to the city's Olimpiiska Street, which was hit by artillery fire, in order to conduct a fact-finding mission on the ground.

The monitors said that the crater analysis led them to the conclusion that Grad and Uragan rockets were used in the bombardment.

"According to the impact analysis, the Grad rockets originated from a north-easterly direction, in the area of Oktyabr (19 km north-east of Olimpiiska Street), and the Uragan rockets from an easterly direction, in the area of Zaichenko (15 km east of Olimpiiska Street), both controlled by the "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR")," the Special Monitoring Mission report said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has aborted his visit to Saudi Arabia for the funeral of King Abdullah, and has flown back to Kiev.

On his arrival, Poroshenko will "host an urgent meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council," which was ordered "to develop and implement more effective steps in view of the rapid deterioration of the situation in the east of the country," the presidential press-service said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, has requested that an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council be held over the situation in Mariupol.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry also issued a statement, expressing hope that the shelling will be comprehensively and objectively investigated and that the perpetrators will receive the punishment they deserve.

The EU has urged Moscow to persuade the leaders of the eastern Ukrainian militias to stop the hostilities, saying that the continued warfare in south-eastern Ukraine "would inevitably lead to a further grave deterioration of relations between the EU and Russia," according to a statement made by Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The EU and the US keep blaming Russia for supporting the militias in Donbas. The claims have not been backed by any significant proof and have been repeatedly denied by Russian officials.

Approximately 30 people, including two children, were killed when the city of Mariupol, which has remained relatively insulated from violence during the majority of the Ukrainian conflict, was shelled on Saturday.

Kiev was quick to place the blame with the militia, saying that the bombardment was part of their advancement on the port.

The militia representatives denied the accusations and called the shelling "yet another provocation" by the Ukrainian forces.

According to the DPR's speaker of parliament, Denis Pushilin, the rebels simply don't have the necessary long-range artillery equipment to hit the center of the city from their positions.

The Ukrainian conflict began last April when Kiev launched a military operation in the southeastern the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, after they refused to recognize the country's new, coup-imposed authorities.

The death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,000 people. Over 10,000 have been injured, according to UN estimations.

According to Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, 30 people were killed and another 102 injured when the city of Mariupol, which has remained relatively insulated from violence during the majority of the Ukrainian conflict, was shelled on Saturday.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with US Special Operations Command, American forces are conducting black ops and shadow wars in 133 countries - roughly 70% of the nations on the planet. This capped a three-year span in which the country's forces were active in more than 150 countries, carrying out missions ranging from kill and capture raids to terrorist training exercises, wars and coups - with unforeseen blowbacks and catastrophic consequences.

Just for the record, some 405,000 people have been killed as a result of the US-led war in Iraq. Some 200,000 people have also been killed in Syria where America's "moderate" terrorists are pushing for regime change in Damascus. The US is also a major threat to its own people: It is the world's largest incarcerator of people, with some 2.3 million in prison - one million of whom are African Americans.

Much of the global violence and terrorism today can be traced back to these imperial adventures and shadow ops. The rise of the terrorist groups of Al-Qaeda and ISIL is traced to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The recent terrorist attack in France came as a direct consequence of the Syria war spillover. The drug-related violence sweeping Latin America or the territorial disputes and wars across the African continent are also tied to the US role in militarizing these regions. Since 2006, the US-led war on drugs has taken over 100,000 lives in Mexico alone!

The arming and outfitting of militants and the training of terrorist leaders in the Persian Gulf also serve as further proof that consecutive US administrations have lied about the so-called war on terror. Their double standard approach to the subject matter of terrorism is in fact the reason behind the ongoing surge in violence and terrorism in the Middle East AND Europe.

Despite their massive scale and scope, these not-so-secret adventures across much of the planet are unknown to most people. The vast majority of missions remains completely in the shadows and is never subjected to meaningful examination - which only increases the chances of blowbacks and catastrophic consequences.

This criminal legacy was put into focus once more by the Senate's torture report released last December. American media outlets summarized the findings of the damning document: The torture program was far more brutal than we thought and not effective enough!

These are only some of the overwhelming facts that managed to make it into the news and onto the record. So after considering the trail of torture, war crimes, bloods, coups, tactical missions and "humanitarian" bombs that continues to follow the American flag wherever it goes, it is safe to say the US is exceptional in many things; liberty, democracy and justice are not among them.

This while the Military Industrial Complex is still being consistently propped up by the concept of American exceptionalism, shadow wars, massive surveillance and untold numbers of assassinations. So it's also safe to conclude that these bullets and beliefs make the United States the biggest war criminal and the biggest threat to global peace and security the world has ever seen.

The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

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