EU joint army proposal backed by Germany would diminish NATO's influence over Europe

© Reuters / Ints Kalnins

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker

The European Commission chief has called for the creation of an "EU joint army" that would "react credibly" to any external threat and defend the bloc's "values." While the UK and France are wary it could undermine NATO, Germany has backed the idea.

"An army like this would help us to better coordinate our foreign and defense policies, and to collectively take on Europe's responsibilities in the world," the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview to Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

He added the EU's image "has suffered dramatically and also in terms of foreign policy, we don't seem to be taken entirely seriously."

"A joint EU army would show the world that there would never again be a war between EU countries,"Juncker said.

With a joint EU army, the bloc could "react more credibly to the threat to peace in a member state or in a neighboring state."

"You would not create a European army to use it immediately," Juncker said. "But a common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union."

Juncker's proposal has been supported in Germany, where last month Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen also spoke of an EU army, calling it the main goal for the bloc.

In her comment on Junker's proposal, she told Deutschlandfunk radio station that a "European army is the future."

Chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Norbert Rottgen has also told the Welt that "a joint army is a European vision whose time has come."

"The European countries spend enormous sums on the military, many times more in total when compared to Russia. Yet our military capabilities remain unsatisfactory from a security standpoint," he said. "And they will for as long as we're talking about national mini-armies, which are often doing and purchasing the same things in their minor formats."

According to Hans-Peter Bartels, the chairman of the Defense Committee of the Bundestag, "the past 10 years have added little to Europe's defense. It needs a boost."

"It is important that we now swiftly implement concrete measures. We should not wait for an overall concept of all 28 EU members, but start with agreements between the nation states," he added.

However, Junker's idea of an EU Army is a concern for some of the bloc's members, particularly France and the UK. They are wary of granting a bigger military role to the EU as it could undermine NATO.

Meanwhile, former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana is planning to present a report called "More Union in European Defense." It urges the creation of a new method for EU protection, which would have"a political and military ability to autonomously conduct intervention operations beyond the EU's borders."He also proposes to establish an EU military HQ in Brussels.

In the meantime, senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said the EU is paranoid about Russia.

"The European version of paranoia: declaring the establishment of a unified army to counterbalance Russia, which does not intend to go to war with anyone," he wrote on his Twitter page.

The "military" ambitions of the EC chief come right after the EU's Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini stressed that Europe has a realistic view of Russian events, but it "will never be trapped or forced or pushed or pulled into a confrontative [sic] attitude" towards Moscow.

On Saturday, the German newspaper revealed that Berlin had slammed comments by NATO European Commander General Philip Breedlove on Ukraine as 'dangerous propaganda,' which put the West at risk of losing credibility.

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An Eritrean refugee in Israel

© www.haaretz.com

African migrants behind barbed wire, curtesy Israel

Over 35,000 Eritrean refugees live in Israel today. Dubbed a "cancer" by right-wing politicians, just four have been granted asylum.

Kifle was in the fourth grade at — the "Revolution School" run by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front at their rear base in Harareb — when the final battle of the 30-year struggle for independence from Ethiopia was fought in 1991 outside Asmara.

His father, a fighter, had been killed in the war, and his mother and a younger brother were based elsewhere then. But Kifle was not alone. His family was the liberation front.

Today, Kifle languishes in a minimum-security prison, euphemistically termed a "detention center," in Israel's sweltering Negev Desert, unsure where his life is headed. His brother is a refugee in South Africa. His mother remains in Eritrea. Like most Eritrean refugees I've interviewed on four continents over the past six months, he asked that his real name be withheld to protect relatives from retribution at home and himself from repercussions in Israel.

Whether he or the others are right to be afraid at this point — many tell stories of family members punished in Eritrea after their flight — fear and uncertainty are their constant companions. Their experience teaches them this.

On the Move

Kifle spent the decade after Eritrea's liberation in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, and graduated from high school in 2000. He was called up for military service that May during the last round of fighting in a two-year border war with Ethiopia and given a shortened training course at Gahtelay. But combat ended before he was deployed, and he was sent to the Sawa military training center for two months of instruction as a military policeman.

Over the next four years, he was assigned to posts in Decamare, Barentu, and Tserona under a National Service program initially requiring all young people to serve 18 months but indefinitely extended since the conflict with Ethiopia. This has left tens of thousands to work at bare subsistence pay for a decade or longer as soldiers, low-level administrators, teachers, agricultural laborers, or in other government jobs.

For his part, Kifle kept hoping to be released so he could return to school. In 2005 he was assigned to Mai Nefi, the Eritrean Institute of Technology, but his former police commander intervened and ordered him to return to his post in Barentu.

For Kifle, this was a dead end from which he might never emerge. Faced with this, he fled to Asmara and went into hiding. A year later he was caught and sent to Mai Nefi again, this time as a prisoner under military guard, and put in a small room with 20 others for six months. It was not a known prison, just an empty room with no windows and a door with a lock.

Nearly every government facility or military camp in Eritrea has such holding tanks. Former detainees call them "prisons." But they are not jails in any formal sense, just over-sized closets where offenders are held for interrogation or just kept out of sight. They do not appear on any prison lists published by human rights organizations, which often leads to problems later with asylum claims.

If anything, they're worse than prisons, as they were not constructed to hold detainees, the guards are not trained to deal with them, and there are no services or structures (or even furniture) to accommodate them.

Out of Eritrea

After half a year, Kifle was taken out one night with no warning and put in the back of a large truck to be transferred to one of Eritrea's official prisons. At a traffic light in Asmara, several of the prisoners jumped out, and the guards went after them. Taking advantage of the confusion, Kifle leapt out too — and escaped.

Two months later, he bought a forged travel permit for 2,000 nakfa (about $150 at official rates) and made his way to the southern town of Tserona, where he had previously served. He arrived at 4 a.m., waited two hours for daybreak, and then joined a parade of farmers on their way to the weekly outdoor market. He knew the area and chose the day carefully. He also dressed as a peasant and carried an axe to avoid notice. When he got close to the border, he hid in a thicket. At midnight, in a driving rain, he crossed the border into Ethiopia.

"Always I think about what the government is doing, after growing up in the field with such a different idea of the future," he remarked, referring to the liberated zones of Eritrea during the independence war. We sat on dusty wooden benches in January with only a lattice roof for cover from the blistering desert sun, a few meters from the detention facility he now calls home.

Kifle spent three months at the Shimelba Refugee Camp in northwestern Ethiopia before moving on to Sudan. "I wanted to continue my education," he said, "and there were no prospects there." He paid smugglers about $120 for the trip, which ended at another refugee camp — Kilo 26, near Kassala — after he secured a UN identity card.

"I thought this would be a free country with work and opportunities for education, but it was not so," he said, reflecting both his aspirations and the lack of awareness he shared with many refugees of what awaits them at their destinations. Feeling trapped at the camp, he tried to get to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, but he was caught and sent back. Undaunted, he tried again and made it the second time. Nine months later he was organizing his next move.

In September 2008, he paid smugglers $1,100 to get to Israel via the Sinai. The Bedouin traffickers held him for a month in an effort to squeeze him for another $500, which he raised by contacting friends in Sudan and Egypt, and then released him to cross into Israel not far from where he is detained today.

A Fresh Start in Israel

His timing was good: The ruthless kidnap-torture-and-ransom operation that would victimize thousands of Eritrean refugees in the Sinai by the end of the decade was not yet up and running, and the Israelis were not then blocking access to asylum seekers. Soldiers greeted him when he reached the other side, and within days he was in Tel Aviv ready for a fresh start.

Again he was disappointed. He spent a year trying to find work, traveling from Tel Aviv to Netanya and several other cities, taking day jobs in construction or cleaning, but he could not get a work permit so he had to accept underpaid, off-the-books employment wherever he could find it.

Eventually he landed in Jerusalem, where he spent three years — two of them working as a cleaner at a college after a friend left for Norway and passed on his position. But this, too, was below minimum wage and without benefits, so he barely got by, though he learned Hebrew and did his best to fly below the radar. But it got worse.

© www.hrw.org

Eritreans and Sudanese stand at the perimeter of the Holot "Residency Center" (prison) in Israel's Negev Desert.

When he went to renew his two-month "conditional release" permit, which the Israeli government issues to those it terms "infiltrators" — essentially all those who cross from Sinai — Kifle was summoned to Holot under a new policy, still contested in the Israeli courts, that requires unmarried Eritreans who arrived prior to May 2009 to present themselves for detention once they receive a summons. (This was also applied to thousands of Sudanese refugees and migrants, most of whom have either been deported or opted to leave.)

Back to Detention

Holot was constructed in 2013 as a sort of halfway house, neither a classic prison nor a refugee camp — a barren holding center where hope is crushed and detainees give up their quest for political asylum and just leave the country.

Israeli authorities encourage them to self-deport, either to Eritrea or a third country that will accept them. Only Rwanda and Uganda have done so under unofficial arrangements in which deportees are given short-term Israeli travel documents that are confiscated upon arrival, leaving them in a new country with no papers. Israel initially sweetened the deal by offering cash payments of $3,500, since lowered, to get them to accept.

For those who stay, Holot's gates are open by day, and detainees are permitted to go outside to the parking area where some enterprising residents operate makeshift grills and blare music from boom boxes. But there are no services or activities within the barbed wire fences apart from meals and sleeping quarters. There's nothing to do for the refugees but contemplate their plight.

At first the detainees were required to check in three times per day and at night, but the courts put these regulations in limbo. So the rule now is only once a day, allowing some to hop on buses that stop at the front gate for day trips to Be'er Sheva or even Tel Aviv to run errands or pursue asylum claims. If they don't come back and are caught, as nearly all who go AWOL are, they're sent across the road to a cell in the Saharonim Prison. Kifle knows the place well, as he was sent there for two months last summer when he and other refugees led a protest against their conditions.

Under the law used to justify the round-up — actually an amendment to a 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law aimed at Palestinians — the asylum seekers can be held for 20 months. It's not clear what happens next or if human rights activists can win a legal effort to void this amendment, as they have others. But each time such laws have been challenged in the past, they've simply been rewritten and applied anew.

Israeli advocates who support the refugees are not optimistic. Neither is Kifle.

There are over 35,000 Eritreans in Israel, most of them seeking refugee status. But only four have been granted asylum since the new policy went into effect a year ago. Few have arrived since 2012, when a heavily fortified fence was put up that runs from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea — only 43 in 2013 and 21 by the end of the third quarter of 2014.

Efforts to cleanse Israel of what one member of Prime Mister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party bloc called a "cancer to our body" appear to be accelerating. Most refugees expect Israel to move the benchmark date for detention closer to the present as detainees depart until the majority is gone.

Kifle said he had thought he registered as an asylum seeker when he crossed the border seven years ago, but the government now insists he is a migrant worker. He filed a petition for Refugee Status Determination early in 2014, but he has yet to get a response.

"I always respected the law," he said. "Now I am just waiting for the next thing to happen."

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SWAT Team Shows Up To Elementary School to Promote Police State USA

Arlington, Texas – A fully loaded and equipped SWAT team invaded Webb Elementary School for “Career Day” this week.

The officers weren’t there to raid the school or arrest anyone, but they certainly looked like they were going to so. The SWAT officers were all carrying high-powered weapons and wearing paramilitary gear as if they were about to raid a terrorist organization.

The police proudly bragged about the event on their Facebook page, posting a number of pictures with fully-clad SWAT members standing on a stage in front of small children.

The police say that they were there to “educate” the children, but were these theatrics truly necessary for a career day at an elementary school?

One of the comments on the facebook post by Arlington police summed up the entire premise of such a display:

“Showing up to schools with assault rifles and riot gear. This is very telling of what a police state looks like. Indoctrinating kids and normalizing them to this police state garbage. Good job, Arlington PD.” says Chris Voluntaryist.

Some parents were concerned about the safety of their children, considering the fact that police don’t have a very good reputation with weapons. Even when it comes to simple demonstrations there have been a number of cases where police have accidentally fired weapons, in some circumstances injuring themselves and others.

This specific SWAT team does not have that great of a track record either. Back in 2013 they staged a botched drug raid where they raided an organic farm under the impression that they were growing marijuana.

The raid turned up empty handed and made international headlines as a humorous example of government paranoia and drug war oppression. Instead of drugs the SWAT team discovered a wide variety of herbs, fruits and vegetables that were being grown for private consumption.

Teachers at Webb Elementary will likely never be allowed to tell their students the story about the botched raid on that organic farm where people’s rights were violated, property was destroyed, and blueberries confiscated.

These types of lessons are not allowed in public schools because the schools are tied to the very same institution that the police are, the government. This is why in so many ways, public schools train children to accept, respect, and obey the police state. This point is made blatantly obvious when a gang of government thugs is walking through an elementary school with body armor and M4’s strapped across their chests.

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Is your smartphone turning you into an idiot?

© unknown

Smartphones have made our lives easier and more efficient. They allow us to call people, find directions, and look up virtually anything we want to know within seconds - with a mere touch of the screen.

But are we too reliant on these devices to do things for us? New research indicates that there is a downside to all of this convenience: we are becoming lazier thinkers.

The study, from researchers at the University of Waterloo and published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, suggests that smartphone users who are intuitive thinkers — more prone to relying on gut feelings and instincts when making decisions — frequently use our device's search engine rather than our own brainpower.

In other words, smartphones allow some of us to be even lazier than we would otherwise be.

Gordon Pennycook, co-lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at Waterloo, explains:

"They may look up information that they actually know or could easily learn, but are unwilling to make the effort to actually think about it."

Nathaniel Barr, the other lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at Waterloo, elaborated:

"Decades of research has revealed that humans are eager to avoid expending effort when problem-solving and it seems likely that people will increasingly use their smartphones as an extended mind."

In contrast, those who are analytical thinkers tend to second-guess ourselves and analyze a problem in a more logical sort of way. Highly intelligent people are more analytical and less intuitive when solving problems.

The researchers conducted three studies involving 660 participants. They examined various measures including cognitive style ranging from intuitive to analytical, plus verbal and numeracy skills. Then they looked at the participants' smartphone habits.

Participants in the study who demonstrated stronger cognitive skills and a greater willingness to think in an analytical way spent less time using their smartphones' search-engine function.

Pennycook explained their findings:

"Our research provides support for an association between heavy smartphone use and lowered intelligence. Whether smartphones actually decrease intelligence is still an open question that requires future research."

The researchers pointed out another downside to lazy thinking: avoiding using our own minds to problem-solve might have adverse consequences for aging.

"Our reliance on smartphones and other devices will likely only continue to rise," said Barr. "It's important to understand how smartphones affect and relate to human psychology before these technologies are so fully ingrained that it's hard to recall what life was like without them. We may already be at that point."

****

Does it really take scientific studies to show us that there are many ways smartphones make us lazier and and dumb us down? If we are honest with ourselves, most of us probably are already aware of the not-so-positive impacts these gadgets have on our lives.

Do you recognize any of these habits?

We don't remember phone numbers. Gone are the days when we had to memorize the phone numbers of our close contacts. Now we just go to the contact list in our phone, click on a name, and voila - we've got someone on the line. Tip: Be sure to memorize - or least write down and store - important numbers. If something happens to your phone, you don't want to be stuck contact-less, do you?

We can't do simple calculations in our heads. Whether it is estimating a tip or sales tax, or figuring out if we have enough cash to buy everything in our grocery cart, we've become reliant on a handy tool that comes built in to most smartphones: a calculator. Admit it - you used to be pretty good at doing those simple math problems in your head, . Tip: Don't reach for your phone immediately every time a situation that requires everyday math presents itself. Work out the problem in your head. (Feel free to check your math with your calculator, if you must.)

We can't spell. Autocorrect might make you a lightening-fast texter, but have you developed a dependency on it (and perhaps spellcheck, as well)? Do you take the time to or do you rely on your phone to do the work for you? Tip: Turn off the autocorrect feature on your smartphone. See what happens. (I bet it will force you to slow down and THINK, and will prove just how reliant you've become on your phone to spell for you.)

We have the attention spans of gnats. How often do you quickly lose interest in an article or video you are viewing on your phone? Do you finish most activities you start, or do you get bored easily and seek out something more entertaining? Are you easily distracted? Tip: Force yourself to finish every article you start to read (yes, including this one - if you have made it this far, congratulations!), or every video you begin to watch.

We are oblivious to what is going on around us. If you haven't actually done this to someone, you've likely had someone do it to you: cell phone tunnel vision causes you walk right into people. Or, someone has tried to speak to you, and you don't hear them because you are out in smartphone la-la land and are tuning out (intentionally or not) everything and everyone around you. If you aren't familiar with this phenomenon, be sure to observe the people around you the next time you are standing in line at your favorite coffee shop (I'll bet you a caramel latte that nearly everyone will be looking down at their phones.) Tip: Turn your phone on silent and put it away when you are in public. Pay attention to the people around you, and your surroundings. Email, Facebook, and Twitter can wait.

We don't have as many real-life conversations. If most of the people you interact with live in your phone, you just might be missing out on genuine, face-to-face communication with your fellow humans. And when you ARE fortunate enough to be sitting with a person or people you care about, pay attention to THEM. Tip: Save cyber-conversations for times when you are not in the physical presence of others. The person in front of you should be your priority. And no smartphones during mealtime - put 'em away!

We don't sleep as much, or as well. Sleep experts say that having your smartphone in your bedroom while you try to sleep - even if you aren't actively using it in bed - can interfere with the quality and quantity of your snoozing. Having your phone within reach may tempt you to check your email or social media accounts instead of getting the rest you need. It also can cause you to be hyper-alert to any potential calls or texts that come in. Tip: Don't bring your smartphone to bed with you. Leave it in another room while you sleep.

We miss out on . As previously mentioned, walking around with our faces buried in our phones can create a barrier between us and other people. But it also can place a barrier between us and our environment - it can prevent us from fully experiencing everything the world around us has to offer. Are you engaging with and observing your surroundings, the actual world around you...or the cyber-world of your smartphone?

****

While smartphones do provide us with valuable technology and easily accessible resources, they have downsides of which we should be mindful. As with most things in life, moderation is key. If you find yourself falling behind in any of the areas discussed here, perhaps it is time to take a good look at your relationship with technology and explore ways to find balance.

Additional Resources:

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

Sorry, I Have To Take This: A Story about Breaking Free

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Poroshenko's incompetence played a critical role at Debaltsevo

© AP Photo/ Sergei Chuzavkov

As long lines of shell-shocked Ukrainian troops straggled out of Debaltseve last month after a stinging defeat to the Russian-backed separatists there, the focus was on how the separatists had used the support of Russian-supplied weaponry and support troops to inflict a stinging defeat on Kiev's forces in the key railroad junction town.

However by focusing on the role played by Russia in eastern Ukraine, many analysts have overlooked the extent to which the incompetence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian military high command caused Kiev's Debaltseve debacle. Both before the battle and subsequently, Kiev's political and military leadership seemed completely out touch with the reality of events on the battlefield.

The shape of the front lines after the first Minsk agreement left the Ukrainian military holding a little sliver of land stretching into rebel territory that was surrounded by separatists forces on three sides. Toward the bottom of this sliver of land lay Debaltseve.

Once the separatist forces regained full control of Donetsk airport, they immediately began placing troops and equipment into positions surrounding the several thousand Ukrainian forces at the bottom of the Debaltseve salient.

© Unknown

At this point, the rebels very publicly proclaimed their intention to cut the supply lines into Debaltseve, with the objective of completely surrounding the thousands of Ukrainian troops in the town. It was clear then to even casual observers that Kiev's forces were in a very precarious position.

At this point, Ukraine's high command should have withdrawn its thousands of troops from the Debaltseve salient to Artemivsk and other towns at the top of the salient. This would have created a straight line across the front that would no longer have been surrounded on three sides by separatist troops.

Why Ukraine's leadership did not take this step in late January to pre-empt the separatist encirclement strategy is a mystery. While Kiev would have conceded Debaltseve to the separatist troops, Ukraine's military would have created a new line of demarcation with a straight front that was at no risk of immediate encirclement.

"To keep the bulge in Debaltseve was from a military perspective utterly useless," said Gustav Gressel, an expert on military affairs in Eastern Europe at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "If you have no chance for further offense and having the much less experienced and sophisticated troops, retreating to a line that is much easier to defend should have been the priority," added Gressel.

As the battle for Debaltseve heated up in February, the Ukrainian forces in the city began to come under increasingly sharp attack from separatist forces. Rebel troops were clearly determined to cut the main highway into Debaltseve that was used to resupply Ukrainian troops with ammunition and military hardware.

However, rather than order a controlled withdrawal while the road out of Debaltseve still remained open, the Ukrainian high command ignored reality and ordered its troops to dig in and fight. On about Feb. 10, the rebels managed to capture the tiny town of Logvinovo, a strategic point hugging the highway into Debaltseve, and it was clear that thousands of Ukrainian troops were now surrounded.

While the situation in Debaltseve for Ukrainian troops was becoming untenable, there remained one more chance for Kiev to affect a controlled withdrawal from Debaltseve. During the Minsk II negotiations, Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly spent many hours arguing whether Debaltseve was actually "encircled."

Refusing to bow to reality, Poroshenko declined the opportunity to accept Putin's offer to withdraw Ukrainian forces from Debaltseve under the truce agreement. Poroshenko then compounded this mistake by agreeing to push out the official start of the cease-fire by 48 hours.

Not surprisingly, the separatist forces used this time to tighten the noose on Kiev's forces, and shortly thereafter Ukrainian troops began streaming out of Debaltseve in small disorganized groups across fields and side roads, leaving behind much equipment as well as dead and wounded Ukrainian troops behind.

Sadly, this was not the first time that the Ukrainian high command allowed its troops to be surrounded rather than withdrawing to more defensible lines.

© Unknown

In July, rebel troops surrounded Ukrainian forces in a southern "cauldron" of a narrow sliver of land between Donetsk and Luhansk. The disaster at Ilovaisk was another example of the Ukrainian high command sacrificing its troops by not recognizing in time that they would be surrounded.

Why do Ukrainian troops keep becoming entrapped in these "cauldrons" and what reforms should the Ukrainian military undertake to prevent future "Debaltseve-style" disasters? Gressel believes that Poroshenko should start by firing the current Ukrainian general staff. "I know that the figures at the top posts of the army are pure political appointees who owe their posts to party-affiliation, private ties to the minister, family ties, etc., Their competences played a minor — if any — role," Gressel said.

From there, Gressel told me, the military's command and control and logistics chains need to function properly so that troops in the field can count on being resupplied — something that did not occur in Debaltseve. Western initiatives to send advisers and trainers can also play a critical role in assisting Ukraine's military reforms, and such assistance may be as important, if not more so, than lethal aid.

Military reforms, however, are not alone sufficient. Poroshenko also needs to do a much better job speaking openly to Ukraine's citizens about the conflict. While the Debaltseve debacle was a military setback for Kiev, the defeat was exacerbated by Poroshenko's comical attempt to spin the Debaltseve defeat into a victory.

Asserting that it was he who had ordered his forces to retreat from Debaltseve, Poroshenko claimed that "there was no encirclement, and our troops left the area in a planned and organized manner with all the heavy weaponry."

By all accounts, Poroshenko's statement was patently false. Numerous Western journalists on the scene interviewed fleeing Ukrainian troops who described the withdrawal as anything but planned and organized. Troops spoke of breaking up into small, unorganized groups, many on foot, streaming across fields and forests to escape the separatist encirclement in any way possible.

Not surprisingly, reports of front-line Ukrainian soldiers mocking Poroshenko's claim that there was no "encirclement" were widespread.

Poroshenko's statement indicates a leader either completely removed from the military reality his troops faced or else was simply an attempt to mislead the Ukrainian people. Neither of these possibilities depict the Ukrainian President as a competent and inspiring leader capable of rallying his country and making the reforms needed to turn Ukraine's military into an effective fighting force.

While Ukraine's leadership has the tendency to blame Russia for all its problems, until Kiev sorts out its own house it will continue to suffer further Debaltseve-style setbacks.

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Dead pygmy sperm whale found in waters off Karachi, Pakistan

© WWF - Pakistan

This specimen of the one of the smallest whales species, pygmy sperm, was found by fishermen around 120 nautical miles southwest of Karachi.

This is one of the smallest whales found in the outer continental shelf and considered to be very rare. Known to exist in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans, this species is usually found dead on the shores.

The captain of the boat , Saeed Zaman, caught the pygmy sperm in gillnet used for catching tuna while they were fishing off the shelf area. The whale was enmeshed in the net and died when it was hauled onto the boat.

According to officials of the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), the whale was 8.2 feet long and weighed about 400kg. "It is the first authentic record of its presence in our waters," said Muhammad Moazzam Khan, WWF-Pakistan's technical adviser.

According to officials of the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), the whale was 8.2 feet long and weighed about 400kg. "It is the first authentic record of its presence in our waters," said Muhammad Moazzam Khan, WWF-Pakistan's technical adviser.

Previously, there were two unconfirmed records of this whale's presence in Pakistan after they were found stranded on Sonmiani beach in December, 1985, and dubious observations of a small school off Churna Island, added Khan.

According to him, whales and dolphins are sensitive animals and, in most cases, they die as soon as they become enmeshed in the fishing nets as they are unable to come to surface to breathe. He further pointed out that the pygmy sperm whale feeds on deep water squids and crabs.

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Putin's 8 years of patience with the deaf, dumb, and blind West

As I often emphasize Washington warmongers are driving us to war with Russia, which means also with China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed this out at the security conference in Munich in 2007. He put Washington and Washington's European vassal states on notice that the numerous hostile actions taken toward Russia and other countries were undermining international stability. He made it clear that Russia did not accept Washington's idea that Russia should conform to Washington's will.

Putin speaks in Russian, but translation is provided across the bottom of the video. It is

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The West was deaf. Mike Whitney reminds us that to ignore firm warnings is to cultivate disaster.

How Putin Blocked the U.S. Pivot to Asia

by Mike Whitney

"The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the only constraint on Washington's power to act unilaterally abroad.... Suddenly the United States found itself to be the Uni-power, the 'world's only superpower.' Neoconservatives proclaimed 'the end of history.'"

— Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury

"Don't blame the mirror if your face is crooked."

— Russian proverb

On February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the 43rd Munich Security Conference that created a rift between Washington and Moscow that has only deepened over time. The Russian President's blistering hour-long critique of US foreign policy provided a rational, point-by-point indictment of US interventions around the world and their devastating effect on global security. Putin probably didn't realize the impact his candid observations would have on the assembly in Munich or the reaction of powerbrokers in the US who saw the presentation as a turning point in US-Russian relations. But, the fact is, Washington's hostility towards Russia can be traced back to this particular incident, a speech in which Putin publicly committed himself to a multipolar global system, thus, repudiating the NWO pretensions of US elites. Here's what he said:

"I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue."

With that one formulation, Putin rejected the United States assumed role as the world's only superpower and steward of global security, a privileged position which Washington feels it earned by prevailing in the Cold War and which entitles the US to unilaterally intervene whenever it sees fit. Putin's announcement ended years of bickering and deliberation among think tank analysts as to whether Russia could be integrated into the US-led system or not. Now they knew that Putin would never dance to Washington's tune.

In the early years of his presidency, it was believed that Putin would learn to comply with western demands and accept a subordinate role in the Washington-centric system. But it hasn't worked out that way. The speech in Munich merely underscored what many US hawks and Cold Warriors had been saying from the beginning, that Putin would not relinquish Russian sovereignty without a fight. The declaration challenging US aspirations to rule the world, left no doubt that Putin was going to be a problem that had to be dealt with by any means necessary including harsh economic sanctions, a State Department-led coup in neighboring Ukraine, a conspiracy to crash oil prices, a speculative attack of the ruble, a proxy war in the Donbass using neo-Nazis as the empire's shock troops, and myriad false flag operations used to discredit Putin personally while driving a wedge between Moscow and its primary business partners in Europe. Now the Pentagon is planning to send 600 paratroopers to Ukraine ostensibly to "train the Ukrainian National Guard", a serious escalation that violates the spirit of Minsk 2 and which calls for a proportionate response from the Kremlin. Bottom line: The US is using all the weapons in its arsenal to prosecute its war on Putin.

Last week's gangland-style murder of Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, has to be considered in terms of the larger geopolitical game that is currently underway. While we may never know who perpetrated the crime, we can say with certainly that the lack of evidence hasn't deterred the media or US politicians from using the tragedy to advance an anti-Putin agenda aimed at destabilizing the government and triggering regime change in Moscow. Putin himself suggested that the killing may have been a set-up designed to put more pressure on the Kremlin. The World Socialist Web Site summed up the political implications like this:

"The assassination of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is a significant political event that arises out of the US-Russia confrontation and the intense struggle that is now underway within the highest levels of the Russian state. The Obama administration and the CIA are playing a major role in the escalation of this conflict, with the aim of producing an outcome that serves the global geo-political and financial interests of US imperialism...

It is all but obvious that the Obama administration is hoping a faction will emerge within the Russian elite, backed by elements in the military and secret police, capable of staging a "palace coup" and getting rid of Putin....

The United States is not seeking to trigger a widespread popular revolt. (But) are directed entirely at convincing a section of the oligarchy and emerging capitalist class that their business interests and personal wealth depend upon US support. That is why the Obama administration has used economic sanctions targeting individuals as a means of exerting pressure on the oligarchs as well as broader sections of the entrepreneurial elite...

It is in the context of this international power struggle that one must evaluate Nemtsov's murder. Of course, it is possible that his death was the outcome of his private dealings. But it is more likely that he was killed for political reasons. Certainly, the timing of the killing—on the eve of the opposition's anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow—strongly indicates that the killing was a political assassination, not a private settling of accounts." (Murder in Moscow: Why was Boris Nemtsov assassinated?, David North, World Socialist Web Site)

Just hours after Nemtsov was gunned down in Moscow, the western media swung into action releasing a barrage of articles suggesting Kremlin involvement without a shred of evidence to support their claims. The campaign of innuendo has steadily gained momentum as more Russia "experts" and politicians offer their opinions about who might be responsible. Naturally, none of the interviewees veer from the official storyline that someone in Putin's charge must have carried out the attack. An article in the Washington Post is a good example of the tactics used in the latest PR campaign to discredit Putin. According to Vladimir Gel'man, Political Scientists European University at St. Petersburg and the University of Helsinki:

"Boris Nemtsov, one of the leaders of political opposition, was shot dead nearby the Kremlin. In my opinion, it has all the hallmarks of a political assassination provoked by an aggressive Kremlin-induced campaign against the "fifth column of national traitors", who opposed the annexation of Crimea, war with the West over Ukraine, and further decline of political and civil freedoms in the country. We may never know whether the Kremlin ordered this killing, but given the fact that Nemtsov was one of the most consistent critics not only of the Russian regime as such but also of Putin in person, his dissenting voice will never upset Putin and his inner circle anymore." (What does Boris Nemtsov's murder mean for Russia?, Washington Post)

The article in the Washington Post is fairly typical of others published in the MSM. The coverage is invariably long on finger-pointing and insinuation and short on facts. Traditional journalistic standards of objectivity and fact-gathering have been jettisoned to advance a political agenda that reflects the objectives of ownership. The Nemtsov assassination is just the latest illustration of the abysmal state of western media.

The idea that Putin's agents would "whack" an opposition candidate just a stone's throw from the Kremlin is far fetched to say the least. As one commenter at the Moon of Alabama blog noted:

"Isn't the image of a dead political opponent lying on a bridge overlooked by the Kremlin a bit rich? I mean, short of a dagger lodged between his shoulder blades with the inscription "if found, please return to Mr Putin", I can't think of a more over-egged attempt at trying to implicate the Government. And on the night before an opposition rally Nemtsov hoped to lead. I mean, come on."

While there's no denying that Moscow could be involved, it seems unlikely. The more probable explanation is that the incident is part of a larger regime change scheme to ignite social unrest and destabilize the government. The US has used these tactics so many times before in various color-coded revolutions, that we won't reiterate the details here. Even so, it's worth noting that the US has no red lines when it comes to achieving its strategic goals. It will do whatever it feels is necessary to prevail in its clash with Putin.

The question is why? Why is Washington so determined to remove Putin?

Putin answered this question himself recently at a celebration of Russia's diplomatic workers' day. He said Russia would pursue an independent foreign policy despite pressure in what he called "today's challenging international environment."

"No matter how much pressure is put on us, the Russian Federation will continue to pursue an independent foreign policy, to support the fundamental interests of our people and in line with global security and stability." (Reuters)

This is Putin's unforgivable crime, the same crime as Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and countless other nations that refuse to march in lockstep to Washington's directives.

Putin has also resisted NATO encirclement and attempts by the US to loot Russia's vast natural resources. And while Putin has made every effort to avoid a direct confrontation with the US, he has not backed down on issues that are vital to Russia's national security, in fact, he has pointed out numerous times not only the threat that encroaching NATO poses to Moscow, but also the lies that preceded its eastward expansion. Here's Putin at Munich again:

"I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: "the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee....

Where are these guarantees?"

Where, indeed. Apparently, they were all lies. As political analyst Pat Buchanan said in his article "Doesn't Putin Have a Point?":

"Though the Red Army had picked up and gone home from Eastern Europe voluntarily, and Moscow felt it had an understanding we would not move NATO eastward, we exploited our moment. Not only did we bring Poland into NATO, we brought in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and virtually the whole Warsaw Pact, planting NATO right on Mother Russia's front porch. Now, there is a scheme afoot to bring in Ukraine and Georgia in the Caucasus, the birthplace of Stalin....

... though Putin gave us a green light to use bases in the old Soviet republics for the liberation of Afghanistan, we now seem hell-bent on making those bases in Central Asia permanent.

... through the National Endowment for Democracy, its GOP and Democratic auxiliaries, and tax-exempt think tanks, foundations, and "human rights" institutes such as Freedom House,... we have been fomenting regime change in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics, and Russia herself....

These are Putin's grievances. Does he not have a small point?" "(Doesn't Putin Have a Point?", Pat Buchanan, antiwar.com)

Now the US wants to deploy its missile defense system to Eastern Europe, a system which - according to Putin "will work automatically with and be an integral part of the US nuclear capability. For the first time in history, and I want to emphasize this, there are elements of the US nuclear capability on the European continent. It simply changes the whole configuration of international security.....Of course, we have to respond to that."

How can Putin allow this to happen? How can he allow the US to situate nuclear weapons in a location that would increase its first-strike capability and undermine the balance of deterrents allowing the US to force Russia to follow its orders or face certain annihilation. Putin has no choice but to resist this outcome, just as he has no choice but to oppose the principle upon which US expansion is based, the notion that the Cold War was won by the US, therefore the US has the right to reshape the world in a way that best suits its own economic and geopolitical interests. Here's Putin again:

"What is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, it refers to a type of situation where there is one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making. It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. At the end of the day, this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within...

I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today's world.... the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization..." (Munich, 2007)

What sort of man talks like this? What sort of man talks about "the moral foundations for modern civilization" or invokes FDR in his address?

Putin: "'Security for one is security for all'. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: 'When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.' These words remain topical today."

I urge everyone to watch at least the first 10 minutes of Putin's speech and decide for themselves whether they think the characterization (and demonization) of Putin in the media is fair or not. And pay special attention to Minute 6 where Putin says this:

"We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?" (Vladimir Putin's legendary speech at Munich Security Conference)

While Putin is making this statement, the camera pans to John McCain and Joe Lieberman who are sitting stone-faced in the front row seething at every word uttered by the Russian president. If you look close enough, you can see the steam emerging from McCain's ears.

This is why Washington wants regime change in Moscow. It's because Putin refuses to be pushed around by the United States. It's because he wants a world that is governed by international laws that are impartially administered by the United Nations. It's because he rejects a "unipolar" world order where one nation dictates policy to everyone else and where military confrontation becomes the preferred way for the powerful to impose their will on the weak.

Putin: "Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts...The United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way....And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this — no one feels safe." Vladimir Putin, Munich 2007

Putin isn't a perfect man. He has his shortcomings and flaws like everyone else. But he appears to be a decent person who has made great strides in restoring Russia's economy after it was looted by agents of the US following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He has lifted living standards, increased pensions, reduced poverty, and improved education and health care which is why his public approval ratings are currently hovering at an eye-watering 86 percent. Even so, Putin is most admired for standing up to the United States and blocking its strategy to pivot to Asia. The proxy war in Ukraine is actually a struggle to thwart Washington's plan to break up the Russian Federation, encircle China, control the flow of resources from Asia to Europe, and rule the world. Vladimir Putin is at the forefront of that conflagration which is why he has gained the respect and admiration of people around the world.

As for "democracy", Putin said it best himself:

"Am I a 'pure democrat'? (laughs) Of course I am. Absolutely. The problem is that I'm all alone, the only one of my kind in the whole world. Just look at what's happening in America, it's terrible—torture, homeless people, Guantanamo, people detained without trial or investigation. And look at Europe—harsh treatment of demonstrators, rubber bullets and tear gas used in one capital after another, demonstrators killed on the streets..... I have no one to talk to since Gandhi died."

Well said, Vladimir.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press)

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