David Stuart (born 1965) is an archaeologist and epigrapher specializing in the study of ancient Mesoamerica, especially Maya civilization. He is widely recognized for his work in deciphering the Maya hieroglyphic script, starting at a young age. He is currently Schele Professor of Mesoamerican Art and Writing in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Early life[edit]He is the son of the archaeologist George E. Stuart and the writer Gene S. Stuart. He spent much of his childhood accompanying his parents on archaeological digs and expeditions in Mexico and Guatemala. He developed a close interest in Maya hieroglyphs and decipherment at a young age, reading scholarly works beginning at age 10. Shortly thereafter he made original contributions to the field and began working closely with the Mayanist Linda Schele. He gave his first scholarly paper at the age of 12, at the 1978 Mesa Redonda.
His work on the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs led to a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, at the age of 18. He is the youngest-ever recipient of that award. Stuart has continued to make major contributions in the field of epigraphy, particularly related to the decipherment of the Maya script used by the pre-ColumbianMaya civilization of Mesoamerica. See for example Coe (1992), p. 231 et seq. His insights into the structure and content of Maya hieroglyphic writing was highlighted in the award-winning documentary film "Breaking the Maya Code" (Night Fire Films, 2008).
Stuart received his Ph.D in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University in 1995. At that time he was appointed the Bartlett Curator of Maya Hieroglyphs at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and was a Senior Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Anthropology before beginning at the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. Over the years Stuart has conducted field research at numerous archaeological sites, including Coba, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, Copan, Dos Pilas, La Corona, Calakmul, San Bartolo and Xultun. His work often focuses on the documentation of Maya sculpture and inscriptions. He remains actively engaged as a member of several excavation projects in Guatemala and Honduras.
His publications include Ten Phonetic Syllables (1987), which laid much of the groundwork for the now-accepted methodology of Maya hieroglyphic decipherment. In 2003 he published a volume in the ongoing Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions series (Peabody Museum, Harvard University), devoted to drawings and photographs of sculpture from Piedras Negras, Guatemala. He co-authored Palenque: Eternal City of the Maya (Thames and Hudson, 2008) with his father, George Stuart. His most recent work, The Order of Days (Random House - Harmony, 2011) explores the important role of time and cosmology classic Maya civilization, while also debunking the 2012 phenomenon claim that the Maya viewed the year 2012 as the end of their elaborate calendar.
Stuart is currently the Director of The Mesoamerica Center at The University of Texas at Austin, which fosters multi-disciplinary studies on ancient American art and culture. He also oversees the activities of the Casa Herrera, UT's academic research center in Antigua, Guatemala, devoted to studies in the art, archaeology and culture of Mesoamerica.
Bibliography[edit]Ten Phonetic Syllables (1987)Piedras Negras, Vol. 9, part 1, in Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions series (Peabody Museum, Harvard University), 2003, with Ian GrahamPalenque: Eternal City of the Maya (Thames and Hudson, 2008) with George StuartThe Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth about 2012 (Random House - Harmony, 2011)References[edit]External links[edit]
OK! I’ll cook, I’ve invited a new scientist for you…..so it will be 6 of us. I think you’ve met them at prior events, it’s Dave Stewart the Mayan expert (and youngest ever recipient of the MacArthur grant), he’s known for ‘breaking the Mayan code. And his wife Carolyn Porter, artist and chief fundraiser at UT for the McDonald observatory. With the new airstream setup, she might have special pull at Fort Davis to visit the observatory.
On August 26, 1920, after years of agitating to break down the barriers that stood between them and the ballot box, American women won the right to vote. On the front lines of pickets and protests, champions from every corner of our country banded together to expand this fundamental freedom to women and forge a path toward fairer representation and greater opportunity. As we celebrate 95 years since the certification of the 19th Amendment, let us demonstrate our commitment to the belief that we are all entitled to equal treatment by supporting policies that help women succeed and thrive.
Since this historic achievement, our country has made great progress in building a freer and fairer society, and we continue striving to fully realize justice and equality for all. There is still more to do to secure the promise of our Nation for everyone, including ensuring that women have equal opportunities to participate in the classroom, the economy, the workplace, and our democracy. From day one, my Administration has carried forward the torch of gender equality, working tirelessly to ensure that all of America's daughters have the same rights as her sons.
When women succeed, America succeeds. That is why I am committed to fighting for equal pay for equal work, and why the first bill I signed into law as President was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the time period for employees to file complaints of compensation discrimination. I continue to support passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act because there is no reason why an earnings gap between men and women should persist in the 21st century. Women account for more than half of all workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage, and I have called on the Congress to raise the minimum wage and signed an executive order to raise it to $10.10 for individuals working on new Federal service contracts. I have also proposed expanding overtime protections for certain groups of salaried employees -- many of whom are women -- and worked to ensure all Americans have access to quality, affordable child care while they are on the job or in school. And because no woman should have to worry about being fired from her job for missing a day of work when she is sick, caring for a sick family member, or welcoming a new child into her family, we have supported States, communities, and businesses in expanding policies for paid family leave and paid sick days. Additionally, we have called on the Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act to allow employees to earn sick leave.
Women deserve to make their own health care choices without interference from politicians or insurance companies. The Affordable Care Act expands insurance coverage for vital health services for women, including contraceptive care, prenatal care, and maternal care, and it protects women from being charged more than men simply based on gender.
Finally, every woman should have the chance to dream, grow, and thrive free from intimidation or violence, and my Administration has taken unprecedented steps to end domestic and sexual violence. We convened a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, and launched It's On Us -- a campaign aimed at raising awareness of and preventing sexual assault on college campuses. These are part of our broader effort to make sure that all survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence are supported and that our laws are fully enforced.
Women's equality is a core civil and human rights principle in the United States and around the world. Across America, women are contributing to our economy and our Nation in innovative and exciting ways. From businesses to battlefields, women are vital to the prosperity and security of our country. As we celebrate the last 95 years of progress in advancing women's rights, let us rededicate ourselves to the idea that our Nation is not yet complete: there is still work to do to secure the blessings of our country for every American daughter.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 26, 2015, as Women's Equality Day. I call upon the people of the United States to celebrate the achievements of women and promote gender equality in our country.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fourth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand fifteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fortieth.
Written by Adbusters in May 2002 and pinched from adbusters.org.How Many of You Know How to Watch Television?''How many of you know how to watch television?'' I asked my class one day. After a few bewildered and silent moments, slowly, one by one, everyone haltingly raised their hands. We soon acknowledged that we were all ''experts,'' as Harold Garfinkel would say, in the practice of ''watching television.''
The purpose of our un-TV experiment was to provoke us into seeing television as opposed to merely looking, and to stop the world as the first step to seeing. Here we engage in stopping the world by stopping the television.
For the experiment, students were asked to watch TV consciously. Insofar as this is sort of ''Zen and the art of TV watching,'' I said to them, ''I want you to watch TV with acute awareness, mindfulness and precision. This experiment is about observing television scientifically, with Beginner's Mind, rather than watching television passively with programmed mind. Ordinarily, if you are watching TV you can't also observe and experience the experience of watching TV. When we watch TV we rarely pay attention to the details of the event. In fact, we rarely pay attention.''
Count the Technical EventsIn this particular experimental odyssey, we are going to be exploring how we subject ourselves on a daily basis to the overwhelming sirens' song of TV entertainment (the great electronic cyclops) and, like Homer's Odysseus, we will need to strap ourselves to the mast''in this case, the mast of counting technical events. For 10 minutes simply count the technical events that occur while you are watching any show. This is a TET or Technical Events Test as Jerry Mander discusses it in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. What is a technical event? We've all seen TV cameras in banks and jewelry stores. A stationary video camera simply recording what's in front of it is what I will call ''pure TV.'' Anything other than pure TV is a technical event: the camera zooms up, that's a technical event; you are watching someone's profile talking and suddenly you are switched to another person responding, that's a technical event; a car is driving down the road and you also hear music playing, that's a technical event. Simply count the number of times there is a cut, zoom, superimposition, voice-over, appearance of words on the screen, fade in/out, etc.
Now proceed with these experiments:
Watch any TV show for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.
Watch any news program for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.
Watch television for one half hour without turning it on.
The time requirements in these experiments are extremely important. I would urge you, the reader, to undertake the experiment personally rather than merely going on to read the results.
Anger and Resistance: What's the Meaning of This?!In examining the results of this experiment, one of the first things that consistently comes up is students' anger and resentment at being made to do such a thing''an anger and resentment very different from what comes up, say, in regard to the reading load or the writing requirements of the course. This anger, I think, is quite good and useful''not per se, but insofar as students notice their anger and then inquire into and examine the sources of that anger. For, in studying society, we often unconsciously assume we are studying ''them''''but we are not. We are studying ourselves and we resist that, we dislike that. It makes us uncomfortable and it makes us angry. Socrates wasn't given a medal and a tickertape parade after all. As the Russian existentialist philosopher Shestov said, ''It is not man who pursues truth, but truth man.''
One expression of this anger that comes up repeatedly is ''I wasted 30 minutes of my time.'' Is it possible that this is a very valuable waste of time? Is it possible that ''wasting time'' is a very valuable thing to do in studying society? Pursuing this experience puts us smack in the middle of the infamous Protestant Ethic in a very direct and personal way. We are almost re-creating through verstehen Max Weber's deep intellectual perplexity and fascination with what he saw as Benjamin Franklin's codification of the Protestant Ethic: ''Remember that time is money.'' After some discussion it invariably turns out that all the students admit to having wasted a lot more than a half hour in front of the TV set. So why this anger about watching TV for 30 minutes without turning it on?
Labor in the Mode of RelaxationWhen you turn the TV on, in effect, you turn the world off. The TV is only two feet high or so, yet we are fooled into thinking we are watching life-sized things. How is it that everything on it appears real and life-like?
Technical events produce the illusion of being natural and realistic. They produce the feeling of being non-produced (a good cut is one you don't notice, as the editors say). In the same way, we are unaware that the practice of watching TV is a practice because we have never experienced it as a phenomenon in its own right. Doing the Technical Events Test forces us to notice that watching TV is a practice, an active, ongoing achievement that we accomplish ''for another first time through'' each time. We see what the texture of the experience of watching TV consists of. We are shocked into seeing what it is we've been doing all these years.
Counting the technical events brings about what Thomas Kuhn would call a ''paradigm shift.'' When you focus on the technical events you can't focus on the plot or storyline. You learn very quickly how difficult it is to divide your attention. Either you watch the program or you count the technical events. You are unable to do both at the same time. In terms of the phenomenology of perception, this is a little like the famous demonstration of either seeing-the-vase or seeing-two-profiles, but not seeing both simultaneously in any sustained manner.
In doing the TET, we notice the discrete segments of independent footage that are presented with a rapid-fire quality. As we watch, we, the ''passive'' viewers, apparently put together, synthesize and integrate the scenes: we link, we knit, we chain, we retain the past and anticipate the future. We methodically weave them all together into a coherent narrative. A high-speed filling-in-the-blanks and connecting-the-dots occurs. Our actively synthesizing mind, our labor, goes on while we sit back, relax and absorb. This high-speed integration of often wildly disconnected phenomena (angles, scenes, persons, music) is experienced in the mode of blank and passive absorption. It would seem that our minds are in high gear without our knowing. Mander addresses this pointedly:
This difference between internally generated and imposed imagery is at the heart of whether it is accurate to say that television relaxes the mind.
Relaxation implies renewal. One runs hard, then rests. While resting the muscles first experience calm and then, as new oxygen enters them, renewal.
When you are a watching, absorbing techno-guru, your mind may be in alpha, but it is certainly not ''empty mind.'' Images are pouring into it. Your mind is not quiet or calm or empty. It may be nearer to dead, or zombie-ized. It is occupied. No renewal can come from this condition. For renewal, the mind would have to be at rest, or once rested, it would have to be seeking new kinds of stimulation, new exercise. Television offers neither rest nor stimulation.
Television inhibits your ability to think, but it does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation or renewal. It leads to a more exhausted mind. You may have time out from prior obsessive thought patterns, but that's as far as television goes. The mind is never empty, the mind is filled. What's worse, it is filled with someone else's obsessive thoughts and images.
TV and the Social Construction of RealityThe Technical Events Test dramatically reveals the functions of the political institution of television in (a) training us to shorten our attention span, (b) making ordinary life appear dull, (C) injecting a hypnotic quality into our ordinary awareness and (d) coercing us into its reality.
Television is the quintessential short-term medium. Like jugglers, television lives for the split second. Its relationship to viewers is measured in tiny fractions. Solemn hierarchies of men and women react to overnight program ratings with something approaching nervous breakdowns, because one percentage point can mean $30 million a year. The result of this manic concern is to design programming that will serve attention-getting rather than the humanistic substance that will stay with the viewer. The ratings race serves the advertisers, not the audience.
It is easier to shorten attention spans and increase distraction than to lengthen attention spans, increase concentration, and calm, quiet and still the mind. There is an old Zen analogy that the way to calm, clear and quiet the mind is similar to the way to clear a muddy pool''not by action, by doing, by stirring it up, but by stillness, by letting it be, by letting it settle itself. The function of TV is to create, maintain and constantly reinforce what''in the Zen tradition''is often called ''monkey-mind.'' The question to ask is: What is the good of a jumpy, volatile, scattered and hyper monkey-mind?
Hypnosis UnlimitedSince the emergence of long-term space flight in orbit above the earth, a new physiological phenomenon has arisen among our astronauts. They found that as a result of long-term weightlessness, some rather drastic physical changes began to occur in their bodies. They experienced a marked and dramatic reduction of muscle size. Even their hearts became markedly smaller. The astronauts also experienced a loss of co-ordination abilities '' such as the ability to focus on and follow moving objects with their eyes. All of this seems to be due to taking the human organism outside the experience of gravity. In order to preserve their earthbound physiology in conditions of weightlessness, astronauts need to do two to three hours of custom-designed exercises per day. Perhaps watching TV produces the equivalent mental condition of weightlessness for the human mind, together with the attending shrinkages and deteriorations. The normal, invisible, all-pervasive pressure of mental gravity, of our ordinary, active, inncessntly thinking mind is suspended when we turn on the television.
Coercing Us Into RealityOur culture and education conspire to condition us, to create a reliance on media to reinforce our actions, feelings and self-perceptions. When we seek media confirmation we acknowledge and assume that our personal experiences are not qualified as reality any longer. We lose the drive to pursue direct experience as well as the drive to participate in co-creating reality. We no longer do, we watch, and reality is someone else's creation. As Todd Gitlin has said, it's not until an event (institution, thought, principle, movement, etc.) crosses the media threshold that it takes on a solid reality for us. Stretched out across our world is the media membrane, over the threshold of which''and only over the threshold''lies legitimate, confirmed reality, and though we don't have to believe what the media tell us, we can't know what they don't tell us.
TV Without SoundJust as Charles Tart talks about us being caught up in a consensus trance, we can talk about a narrative trance, a narrative-consciousness. We have been programmed to become narrative subjects, subjected to the developmental narrative mode, intertwined with the storyline. In the TET we're suspending our narrative consciousness and hence de-stabilizing the narrative subject. We identify not with a character, nor with the omniscient author, but with the camera. During usual viewing, however, our eyes do not see what is actually there because our narrative-trained mind overrides our eyes. We don't see with our eyes, we see with our programming, and we are programmed to see stories. TV programs are made so that we don't notice the ''technical events,'' the details '' so that we don't pay attention. We are programmed to be unaware of the programming, the non-narrative structure and possibilities of that structure. To watch TV programs is to be lifeless and unresisting. This is the state that allows the commercials to take full effect and operate our minds for us.
The Nature of the NewsAs a usual daily routine, only the unusually tragic or triumphant is shown''not the ordinary routines and day-to-day reality of our lives. It is true that the news show has fewer technical events. There is a good reason for this. With fewer technical events the news show appears realistic relative to other shows in the TV environment. Further, it appears super-realistic relative to the commercial shows in this environment. As earlier, we witnessed the joining of technical events in a coherent narrative. Here, we witness the reduction of worldly events into a narrative.
The problem is not that TV presents us with entertaining subject matter, but that TV presents all subject matter as entertaining. This transcends TV and spills over into our post-TV life experiences. TV trains us to orient toward and tune in to the entertainment quality of any experience, event, person. We look for that which is entertaining about any phenomenon rather than qualities of depth, social significance, spiritual resonance, beauty, etc. In this sense TV doesn't imitate life, but social life now aspires to imitate TV.
Further, we become greedy. Not greedy in the traditional sense in reference to material wealth, rather, we experience a greed to be entertained. It's not just a need for entertainment, but a downright greed for entertainment, and it becomes a 24-hour obsession. In the absence of entertainment, we usually entertain ourselves with plans for future entertainment.
As one formula puts it, Media Power = Political Power Squared The TV has shown us that politicians can't be trusted but TV can. That is, according to Joshua Meyrowitz in No Sense of Place, implicit in showing us this about politicians is the message, ''We who are showing you this, the TV, can be trusted.'' We can trust TV, and the institution of TV, to reveal how politicians and the institution of politics can't be trusted.
Discoveries About SelfTV has become such a mechanical friend, such a substitute for social interaction, that one's solitude becomes acutely magnified, doubly experienced and doubly reinforced if one is deprived of its glowing, life-like presence (as if one wouldn't still be alone if it were on). If one is alone in one's room and turns on the TV, one actually doesn't feel alone anymore. It's as if companionship is experienced, as if communication is two-way. We have achieved a new level of isolation, solipsism and withdrawal. ''It's just an object when it's turned off,'' hundreds of students have bemoaned. When it is turned off it more clearly reveals itself as an object, as an appliance''rather than as a friend, a companion. It is shocking after all these years to discover this. Mander captures the phenomenology of the situation well:
Television is watched in darkened rooms '... it is a requirement of television viewing that the set be the brightest image in the environment or it cannot be seen well. To increase the effect, background sounds are dimmed out just as the light is. An effort is made to eliminate household noises. The point, of course, is to further the focus on the television set. Awareness of the outer environment gets in the way'... . Dimming out your own body is another part of the process. People choose a position for viewing that allows the maximum comfort and least motion '... thinking processes also dim. Overall, while we are watching television, our bodies are in a quieter condition over a longer period of time than in any other of life's nonsleeping experiences. This is true even for the eyes '... the eyes move less while watching television than in any other experience of daily life.
Almost every household's living room is arranged around the television set. As a weight room is arranged for weight training, our living rooms are arranged for TV training. The furniture is purposely arranged for the transcendent practice of ''watching TV,'' rather than for the immanent, human practice of communication or interaction. The interior design of the average American living room with its lines of attention, hierarchy, and transcendent TV is very similar to the interior design of the average American church with its transcendent altar, lines of homage and gestures of genuflection.
TV and the Illusion of KnowingMarshall McLuhan says TV opens out onto an electronic global village. It would seem, rather, that it gives us only the illusion of being. It reinforces security by presenting danger, ignorance by presenting news, lethargy by presenting excitement, isolation by promising participation. The media confines reality to itself. And it limits knowledge by giving the illusion of knowledge. In the same way that the most effective way to deflect, diffuse and terminate a social movement is to announce that it has been achieved (the feminist movement must contend with this on an almost daily basis), the most effective way to deflect inquiry is to present it as fulfilled. TV acts in this guise as a thinking presentation device which offers non-experience as experience and not-knowingness as knowing.
In the words of Mat Maxwell, ''Television becomes the world for people'... . The world becomes television.'' The overall and cumulative effect of the media is to heighten our insensitivity to reality. Rather than breaking the chains of ignorance, political domination and illusion in our Platonic cave, something insidiously similar yet different is going on. Instead of actually turning away from the shadows to see the realities, instead of actually leaving the darkness of the cave and going up into the sunlight, we merely watch an image of ourselves doing this, we fantasize about doing it and think it's the same.
Smith Mundt Act - A reminder that you are living in a Smith-Mudt Act repealed media landscape
NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]
Propaganda in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Propaganda in the United States is propaganda spread by government and media entities within the United States. Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to influence opinions. Propaganda is not only in advertising; it is also in radio, newspaper, posters, books, and anything else that might be sent out to the widespread public.
Domestic[edit]World War I[edit]The first large-scale use of propaganda by the U.S. government came during World War I. The government enlisted the help of citizens and children to help promote war bonds and stamps to help stimulate the economy. To keep the prices of war supplies down, the U.S. government produced posters that encouraged people to reduce waste and grow their own vegetables in "victory gardens." The public skepticism that was generated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Committee on Public Information would lead the postwar government to officially abandon the use of propaganda.[1]
World War II[edit]During World War II the U.S. officially had no propaganda, but the Roosevelt government used means to circumvent this official line. One such propaganda tool was the publicly owned but government funded Writers' War Board (WWB). The activities of the WWB were so extensive that it has been called the "greatest propaganda machine in history".[1]Why We Fight is a famous series of US government propaganda films made to justify US involvement in World War II.
In 1944 (lasting until 1948) prominent US policy makers launched a domestic propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the U.S. public to agree to a harsh peace for the German people, for example by removing the common view of the German people and the Nazi party as separate entities.[2] The core in this campaign was the Writers' War Board which was closely associated with the Roosevelt administration.[2]
Another means was the United States Office of War Information that Roosevelt established in June 1942, whose mandate was to promote understanding of the war policies under the director Elmer Davies. It dealt with posters, press, movies, exhibitions, and produced often slanted material conforming to US wartime purposes. Other large and influential non-governmental organizations during the war and immediate post war period were the Society for the Prevention of World War III and the Council on Books in Wartime.
Cold War[edit]During the Cold War, the U.S. government produced vast amounts of propaganda against communism and the Soviet bloc. Much of this propaganda was directed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, who himself wrote the anti-communist tract Masters of Deceit. The FBI's COINTELPRO arm solicited journalists to produce fake news items discrediting communists and affiliated groups, such as H. Bruce Franklin and the Venceremos Organization.
War on Drugs[edit]The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, originally established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988,[3][4] but now conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998,[5] is a domestic propaganda campaign designed to "influence the attitudes of the public and the news media with respect to drug abuse" and for "reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States".[6][7] The Media Campaign cooperates with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other government and non-government organizations.[8]
Iraq War[edit]In early 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense launched an information operation, colloquially referred to as the Pentagon military analyst program.[9] The goal of the operation is "to spread the administrations's talking points on Iraq by briefing ... retired commanders for network and cable television appearances," where they have been presented as independent analysts.[10] On 22 May 2008, after this program was revealed in the New York Times, the House passed an amendment that would make permanent a domestic propaganda ban that until now has been enacted annually in the military authorization bill.[11]
The Shared values initiative was a public relations campaign that was intended to sell a "new" America to Muslims around the world by showing that American Muslims were living happily and freely, without persecution, in post-9/11 America.[12] Funded by the United States Department of State, the campaign created a public relations front group known as Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The campaign was divided in phases; the first of which consisted of five mini-documentaries for television, radio, and print with shared values messages for key Muslim countries.[13]
NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act[edit]The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]
Ad Council[edit]The Ad Council, an American non-profit organization that distributes public service announcements on behalf of various private and federal government agency sponsors, has been labeled as "little more than a domestic propaganda arm of the federal government" given the Ad Council's historically close collaboration with the President of the United States and the federal government.[17]
International[edit]Through several international broadcasting operations, the US disseminates American cultural information, official positions on international affairs, and daily summaries of international news. These operations fall under the International Broadcasting Bureau, the successor of the United States Information Agency, established in 1953. IBB's operations include Voice of America, Radio Liberty, Alhurra and other programs. They broadcast mainly to countries where the United States finds that information about international events is limited, either due to poor infrastructure or government censorship. The Smith-Mundt Act prohibits the Voice of America from disseminating information to US citizens that was produced specifically for a foreign audience.
During the Cold War the US ran covert propaganda campaigns in countries that appeared likely to become Soviet satellites, such as Italy, Afghanistan, and Chile.
Recently The Pentagon announced the creation of a new unit aimed at spreading propaganda about supposedly "inaccurate" stories being spread about the Iraq War. These "inaccuracies" have been blamed on the enemy trying to decrease support for the war. Donald Rumsfeld has been quoted as saying these stories are something that keeps him up at night.[18]
Psychological operations[edit]The US military defines psychological operations, or PSYOP, as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.[19]
The Smith-Mundt Act, adopted in 1948, explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at the US public.[20][21][22] Nevertheless, the current easy access to news and information from around the globe, makes it difficult to guarantee PSYOP programs do not reach the US public. Or, in the words of Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003, in the Washington Post:
There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.[23]
Agence France Presse reported on U.S. propaganda campaigns that:
The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.[24]
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the document referred to, which is titled "Information Operations Roadmap." [22][24] The document acknowledges the Smith-Mundt Act, but fails to offer any way of limiting the effect PSYOP programs have on domestic audiences.[20][21][25]
Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." Truth from These Podia,[26] as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq war was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth.[22]
See also[edit]References[edit]^ abThomas Howell, The Writers' War Board: U.S. Domestic Propaganda in World War II, Historian, Volume 59 Issue 4, Pages 795 - 813^ abSteven Casey, (2005), The Campaign to sell a harsh peace for Germany to the American public, 1944 - 1948, [online]. London: LSE Research Online. [Available online at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000736] Originally published in History, 90 (297). pp. 62-92 (2005) Blackwell Publishing^National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988 of the Anti''Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub.L. 100''751, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, footnote 6, page 3 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 (Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999), Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, pp. 9''10 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006, Pub.L. 109''469, 120 Stat. 3501, enacted December 29, 2006, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 1751^Barstow, David (2008-04-20). "Message Machine: Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand". New York Times. ^Sessions, David (2008-04-20). "Onward T.V. Soldiers: The New York Times exposes a multi-armed Pentagon message machine". Slate. ^Barstow, David (2008-05-24). "2 Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort". New York Times. ^Rampton, Sheldon (October 17, 2007). "Shared Values Revisited". Center for Media and Democracy. ^"U.S. Reaches Out to Muslim World with Shared Values Initiative". America.gov. January 16, 2003.
Prominent #BlackLivesMatter activist DeRay McKesson retweeted a comment about the dramatic on-air murder of two TV station employees that criticized ''whiteness'' for calling the shooter a ''disgruntled employee'' and then added his own comments, which he later deleted.
In his initial tweet about the shocking murders, DeRay posted a simple and respectful message naming the victims.
Quickly, however, activist McKesson began insinuating a racial angle to the crime before it had become clear that there was a racial angle.
That tweet came from Kwame Rose, whose bio on Twitter describes him as a ''Social Activist. Hip Hop Artist. Blogger. Speaker. Concerned Resident of Baltimore City.''
DeRay''who gained fame as social media activist and inserted himself into the Baltimore and Ferguson riots''then reportedly added his own comments. The tweet by DeRay has been removed from his Twitter timeline.
The ''disgruntled employee''''who the tweet suggests would be called a terrorist, if not for ''whiteness''''turned out to be black former employee Vester Lee Flanagan II, aka Bryce Williams. Williams recorded the murders, posted them on social media, and later killed himself.
Rose followed up:
The Black Lives Matter movement often complains about media coverage that it claims is anti-black and racist.
''The (Charleston) church shooting was the tipping point'...but my anger has been building steadily'...I've been a human powder keg for a while'...just waiting to go BOOM!!!!'' ABC News is playing peek-a-boo with Vester Lee Flanagan's (AKA Bryce Williams') Unabomber-esque manifesto he sent them before tracking down and murdering Alison Parker and Adam Ward in front of two cameras this morning. According to this ABC post, Flanagan/Williams fingers Dylann Roof as the spark that touched off this pathetic explosion, but anyone claiming to admire the work of Eric Harris, Dylann Klebold and Seung''Hui Cho wasn't running on a full tank to begin with . . .
In an often rambling letter to the authorities, and family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Williams calls it a ''Suicide Note for Friends and Family.''
He says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at workHe says he has been attacked by black men and white femalesHe talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man''Yes, it will sound like I am angry'...I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace'....''
How's this for a feeling of peace?
''As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE '...(deleted)!!!''
ABC and police are reportedly trying to authenticate the screed, but the complaints jibe with those he posted to his Twitter account and comments made by station employees regarding the now dead ''disgruntled'' employee. But as in all of these cases, the information will be released. Let's see it sooner rather than later and look the psychosis directly in the eye and see Flanagan/Williams for the sick specimen he was.
Lessons From the Murders of TV Journalists in the Virginia Shooting - NYTimes.com
The slaying of two journalists Wednesday as they broadcast live to a television audience in Virginia is still seared on our screens and our minds, but it's a moment not only to mourn but also to learn lessons.
The horror isn't just one macabre double-murder, but the unrelenting toll of gun violence that claims one life every 16 minutes on average in the United States. Three quick data points:
' More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides every six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
' More Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in American history.
' American children are 14 times as likely to die from guns as children in other developed countries, according to David Hemenway, a Harvard professor and author of an excellent book on firearm safety.
Bryce Williams, as the Virginia killer was known to viewers when he worked as a broadcaster, apparently obtained the gun used to murder his former co-workers Alison Parker and Adam Ward in response to the June massacre in a South Carolina church '-- an example of how gun violence begets gun violence. Williams may have been mentally disturbed, given that he videotaped Wednesday's killings and then posted them on Facebook.
''I've been a human powder keg for a while '... just waiting to go BOOM!!!!,'' Williams reportedly wrote in a lengthy fax sent to ABC News after the killings.
Whether or not Williams was insane, our policies on guns are demented '-- not least in that we don't even have universal background checks to keep weapons out of the hands of people waiting to go boom.
The lesson from the ongoing carnage is not that we need a modern prohibition (that would raise constitutional issues and be impossible politically), but that we should address gun deaths as a public health crisis. To protect the public, we regulate toys and mutual funds, ladders and swimming pools. Shouldn't we regulate guns as seriously as we regulate toys?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has seven pages of regulations concerning ladders, which are involved in 300 deaths in America annually. Yet the federal government doesn't make what I would call a serious effort to regulate guns, which are involved in the deaths of more than 33,000 people in America annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (that includes suicides, murders and accidents).
Gun proponents often say things to me like: What about cars? They kill, too, but we don't try to ban them!
Cars are actually the best example of the public health approach that we should apply to guns. Over the decades, we have systematically taken steps to make cars safer: We adopted seatbelts and airbags, limited licenses for teenage drivers, cracked down on drunken driving and established roundabouts and better crosswalks, auto safety inspections and rules about texting while driving.
This approach has been stunningly successful. By my calculations, if we had the same auto fatality rate as in 1921, we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually from cars. We have reduced the fatality rate by more than 95 percent.
Yet in the case of firearms, the gun lobby (enabled by craven politicians) has for years tried to block even research on how to reduce gun deaths. The gun industry made a childproof gun back in the 19th century but today has ferociously resisted ''smart guns.'' If someone steals an iPhone, it requires a PIN; guns don't.
We're not going to eliminate gun deaths in America. But a serious effort might reduce gun deaths by, say, one-third, and that would be 11,000 lives saved a year.
The United States is an outlier, both in our lack of serious policies toward guns and in our mortality rates. Professor Hemenway calculates that the U.S. firearm homicide rate is seven times that of the next country in the rich world on the list, Canada, and 600 times higher than that of South Korea.
We need universal background checks with more rigorous screening, limits on gun purchases to one a month to reduce trafficking, safe storage requirements, serial number markings that are more difficult to obliterate, waiting periods to buy a handgun '-- and more research on what steps would actually save lives. If the federal government won't act, states should lead.
Australia is a model. In 1996, after a mass shooting there, the country united behind tougher firearm restrictions. The Journal of Public Health Policy notes that the firearm suicide rate dropped by half in Australia over the next seven years, and the firearm homicide rate was almost halved.
Here in America, we can similarly move from passive horror to take steps to reduce the 92 lives claimed by gun violence in the United States daily. Surely we can regulate guns as seriously as we do cars, ladders and swimming pools.
A man claiming to be Bryce Williams called ABC News over the last few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story and wanted to fax information. He never told ABC News what the story was.
This morning, a fax was in the machine (time stamped 8:26 a.m.) almost two hours after the shooting. A little after 10 a.m., he called again, and introduced himself as Bryce, but also said his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan, and that he shot two people this morning. While on the phone, he said authorities are ''after me,'' and ''all over the place.'' He hung up. ABC News contacted the authorities immediately and provided them with the fax.
In the 23-page document faxed to ABC News, the writer says ''MY NAME IS BRYCE WILLIAMS'' and his legal name is Vester Lee Flanagan II. He writes what triggered today's carnage was his reaction to the racism of the Charleston church shooting:
ABC News
PHOTO: Vester Lee Flanagan II, the suspect in the Virginia shootings of a news reporter and cameraman, faxed a 23-page document to ABC News.
''Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15'...''
Sources say Flanagan's firearm was legally purchased from a Virginia gun store.
''What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims' initials on them."
It is unclear whose initials he is referring to. He continues, ''As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE '...(deleted)!!!'' He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act.
ABC News
PHOTO: Vester Lee Flanagan II, the suspect in the Virginia shootings of a news reporter and cameraman, faxed a 23-page document to ABC News.
Later in the manifesto, the writer quotes the Virginia Tech mass killer, Seung Hui Cho, calls him ''his boy,'' and expresses admiration for the Columbine High School killers. ''Also, I was influenced by Seung''Hui Cho. That's my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got'...just sayin.'"
Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that in his attack, Flanagan used a Glock 19 -- a firearm similar to one that Cho used in his mass attack.
In Flanagan's often rambling letter to authorities, family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Flanagan calls it a ''Suicide Note for Friends and Family."
He says he has been attacked by black men and white femalesHe talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black manHe says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at workA source with direct knowledge of his complaints against the station said a pair of tweets sent today and attributed to him accurately reflect previous complaints he lodged against the two people he killed today. These are the two Tweets: ''Alison made racist comments,'' and, ''Adam went to hr on me after working with me one time!!!''Nowhere in the document does he make specific threats against anyone from WDBJ.
In his manifesto, he says he encountered "nasty racist things" while working at WDBJ-7 in Roanoke, and that drove him to sue the station. "I marched down to the courthouse and sued WDBJ7 by myself and they settled! HA!"
He continues: "I can remember one day in particular... leaving the courthouse... feeling overwhelmed... confused... even some fear. But by golly I knew I HAD to fight. ... They truly f----d with my life and caused an awful chain of events." He says he even killed his cats in a forest "because of them."
Flanagan says that, "Hell yeah, I made mistakes," noting that he "should not have been so curt" with photographers in Roanoke. "[B]ut you know why I was? The damn news director was a micromanaging tyrant!!"
And, he writes, "the photogs were out to get me at WDBJ7... one went to HR after only working with me one time... the chief photog told his troops to [record video of] me if they saw be doing something wrong."
Flanagan then suggests that, after leaving WDBJ-7, he was offered a job at a station in Pennsylvania, but WDBJ-7 persuaded the Pennsylvania station to rescind the offer.
"I got to the point, this time around, where I wasn't even looking for a job. I don't need to deal with workplace bullies anymore. THAT is what lawmakers need to focus on," he adds.
ABC News
PHOTO: Vester Lee Flanagan II, the suspect in the Virginia shootings of a news reporter and cameraman, faxed a 23-page document to ABC News.
''Yes, it will sound like I am angry," he writes in his manifesto. "I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace....''
''The church shooting was the tipping point'...but my anger has been building steadily...I've been a human powder keg for a while'...just waiting to go BOOM!!!!''
He chronicles the "tough times" he's faced, including some "financial crashes." He says he used to work as a male escort but, "I am proud of it" because he "made thousands."
"[I] tried to pull myself up by the bootstraps," but, "The damage was already done and when someone gets to this point, there is nothing that can be said or done to change their sadness to happiness. It does not work that way. Meds? Nah. It's too much."
"And then, after the unthinkable happened in Charleston, THAT WAS IT!!!"
"Yeah I'm all f----- up in the head," he concedes.
Alleged Gunman's Manifesto: I Was Attacked For Being A Gay, Black Man CBS DC
ROANOKE, Va. (CBSDC/AP) '-- The alleged gunman who killed a Virginia TV reporter and cameraman during a live news report said in a 23-page manifesto faxed to ABC News that he committed the act in reaction to the racism of the church shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left nine black parishioners dead.
Vester Lee Flanagan II '' who went by the name Bryce Williams '' was a former co-worker of reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward at WDBJ-TV in Roanoke. Virginia authorities say he was the gunman who fatally shot Parker and Ward during a live news report around 6:45 a.m.
Flanagan died of a self-inflicted gun-shot wound.
Flanagan titled the document ''Suicide Note for Friends and Family.''
''Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15,'' he wrote in the manifesto, according to ABC News. ''What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims' initials on them.''
Flanagan did not say which victims he was referring to.
In the manifesto, Flanagan claims he was attacked for being a gay, black man, and that he suffered racial and sexual discrimination at work.
''Yes, it will sound like I am angry'...I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace,'' he wrote.
The manifesto continued, ''The church shooting was the tipping point'...but my anger has been building steadily'...I've been a human powder keg for a while'...just waiting to go BOOM!!!!''
Flanagan also said in the note that Virginia Tech shooter, Seung Hui Cho, was ''his boy'' and mentioned the Columbine High School shooting.
''Also, I was influenced by Seung-Hui Cho. That's my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got'....just sayin,'' he wrote.
Flanagan added that Jehovah told him to act.
Jeffrey Marks, WDBJ's president and general manager, said Flanagan had to be escorted by police out of the station when he was fired. Marks described him as ''an unhappy man'' and ''difficult to work with,'' always ''looking out for people to say things he could take offense to.''
''Eventually after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. He did not take that well,'' Marks explained.
Video posted hours after the shooting on Bryce Williams' Twitter account and Facebook page showed an outstretched arm holding the handgun and firing repeatedly at Parker as she tried to run away.
The shooter appeared to walk up to the victims and stand a few feet away from them while holding the weapon. The three, in the midst of a live TV interview, do not seem to notice the gunman, who doesn't start shooting until Ward points the camera at Parker.
Ward was engaged to a producer at the station, Melissa Ott, who was celebrating her last day on the job and was in the control room, watching it live, as the shooting unfolded, Marks said.
Tweets posted on Williams' Twitter account Wednesday described workplace conflicts with both victims. They say Williams filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Parker, and that Ward had reported Williams to human resources.
Marks said Williams alleged that other employees made racially tinged comments to him, but said his EEOC claim was dismissed and none of his allegations could be corroborated.
''We think they were fabricated,'' Marks said.
''This gentleman was disturbed at way things had turned out at some point in his life. Things were spiraling out of control,'' Franklin County Sheriff W.Q. ''Bill'' Overton Jr. said at a news conference.
Both the victims were romantically involved with other employees at the station, according to Parker's boyfriend, WDBJ anchor Chris Hurst. He wrote online that they hadn't shared their relationship publicly but ''were very much in love.'' He said they had just moved in together and wanted to get married. ''I am numb,'' he said.
The shooting happened around 6:45 a.m. at Bridgewater Plaza in Franklin County, as Parker interviewed Gardner about the upcoming 50th anniversary festivities for Smith Mountain Lake, a local tourism destination.
Ward, 27, graduated from Virginia Tech and was engaged to a producer at the station, Melissa Ott, said WDBJ spokesman Mike Morgan.
''Adam was our go-to guy. He pretty much was available to do anything that we asked,'' Morgan said. ''He did live shots during our morning show for several years.''
Parker had just turned 24 and had joined the station as an intern after attending James Madison University, where she was the editor of the school's newspaper, The Breeze. According to her Facebook page, Parker spent most of her life outside Martinsville, Virginia. She was an avid kayaker and attended community theater events in her spare time.
The station is based in Roanoke, Virginia, and serves the southwest and central part of the state. The shootings happened at a mall just off Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta, about 25 miles southeast of Roanoke.
(TM and (C) Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Turkey is a beautiful land, rich in resources, with many highly intelligent and warm people. It also happens to have a President who seems intent on destroying his once-proud nation. More and more details are coming to light revealing that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, variously known as ISIS, IS or Daesh, is being fed and kept alive by Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan, the Turkish President and by his Turkish intelligence service, including MIT, the Turkish CIA. Turkey, as a result of ErdoÄan's pursuit of what some call a Neo-Ottoman Empire fantasies that stretch all the way to China, Syria and Iraq, threatens not only to destroy Turkey but much of the Middle East if he continues on his present path.
In October 2014 US Vice President Joe Biden told a Harvard gathering that ErdoÄan's regime was backing ISIS with ''hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons'...''Biden later apologized clearly for tactical reasons to get ErdoÄan's permission to use Turkey's Incirlik Air Base for airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, but the dimensions of ErdoÄan's backing for ISIS since revealed is far, far more than Biden hinted.
ISIS militants were trained by US, Israeli and now it emerges, by Turkish special forces at secret bases in Konya Province inside the Turkish border to Syria, over the past three years.ErdoÄan's involvement in ISIS goes much deeper. At a time when Washington, Saudi Arabia and even Qatar appear to have cut off their support for ISIS, they remaining amazingly durable. The reason appears to be the scale of the backing from ErdoÄan and his fellow neo-Ottoman Sunni Islam Prime Minister,Ahmet DavutoÄlu.
Nice Family Business
The prime source of money feeding ISIS these days is sale of Iraqi oil from the Mosul region oilfields where they maintain a stronghold. The son of ErdoÄan it seems is the man who makes the export sales of ISIS-controlled oil possible.
Bilal ErdoÄan owns several maritime companies. He has allegedly signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. The Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil wells. Bilal ErdoÄan's maritime companies own special wharfs in Beirut and Ceyhan ports that are transporting ISIS' smuggled crude oil in Japan-bound oil tankers.
G¼rsel Tekin vice-president of the Turkish Republican Peoples' Party, CHP, declared in a recent Turkish media interview, ''President ErdoÄan claims that according to international transportation conventions there is no legal infraction concerning Bilal's illicit activities and his son is doing an ordinary business with the registered Japanese companies, but in fact Bilal ErdoÄan is up to his neck in complicity with terrorism, but as long as his father holds office he will be immune from any judicial prosecution.'' Tekin adds that Bilal's maritime company doing the oil trades for ISIS, BMZ Ltd, is ''a family business and president ErdoÄan's close relatives hold shares in BMZ and they misused public funds and took illicit loans from Turkish banks.''
In addition to son Bilal's illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, S¼meyye ErdoÄan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who ErdoÄan seems hell-bent on toppling.
Turkish citizen Ramazan BaÅol, captured this month by Kurdish People's Defence Units,YPG, as he attempted to join ISIS from Konya province, told his captors that said he was sent to ISIS by the 'Ä°smail AÄa Sect,' a strict Turkish Islam sect reported to be tied to Recep ErdoÄan. BaÅol said the sect recruits members and provides logistic support to the radical Islamist organization. He added that the Sect gives jihad training in neighborhoods of Konya and sends those trained here to join ISIS gangs in Syria.
According to French geopolitical analyst, Thierry Meyssan, Recep ErdoÄan ''organised the pillage of Syria, dismantled all the factories in Aleppo, the economic capital, and stole the machine-tools. Similarly, he organised the theft of archeological treasures and set up an international market in Antioch'...with the help of General Beno®t Puga, Chief of Staff for the Elys(C)e, he organised a false-flag operation intended to provoke the launching of a war by the Atlantic Alliance '' the chemical bombing of la Ghoutta in Damascus, in August 2013. ''
Meyssan claims that the Syria strategy of ErdoÄan was initially secretly developed in coordination with former French Foreign Minister Alain Jupp(C) and ErdoÄan's then Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄlu, in 2011, after Juppe won a hesitant ErdoÄan to the idea of supporting the attack on traditional Turkish ally Syria in return for a promise of French support for Turkish membership in the EU. France later backed out, leaving ErdoÄan to continue the Syrian bloodbath largely on his own using ISIS.
Gen. John R. Allen, an opponent of Obama's Iran peace strategy, now US diplomatic envoy coordinating the coalition against the Islamic State, exceeded his authorized role after meeting with ErdoÄan and ''promised to create a no-fly zone >> ninety miles wide, over Syrian territory, along the whole border with Turkey, supposedly intended to help Syrian refugees fleeing from their government, but in reality to apply the Jupp(C)-Wright plan >>. The Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet DavutoÄlu, revealed US support for the project on the TV channelA Haberby launching a bombing raid against the PKK.'' Meyssan adds.
There are never winners in war and ErdoÄan's war against Syria's Assad demonstrates that in bold. Turkey and the world deserve better. Ahmet DavutoÄlu's famous ''Zero Problems With Neighbors'' foreign policy has been turned into massive problems with all neighbors due to the foolish ambitions of ErdoÄan and his gang.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine ''New Eastern Outlook''.
"Up to three-quarters of the oil supply in Israel was reported from Iraqi Kurdistan, a Financial Times report said Sunday. Between May and August 11, 19 million barrels of oil from Kurdistan were imported by Israel, the equivalent of $1 billion." (thanks Amir)
It is true that some supporters of Hizbollah are accusing one faction (not all) of the protesters and organizers of ties to an American conspiracy. But it is also true that March 14 supporters, journalists, and officials are also accusing the entire protest movement of being a Hizbollah conspiracy. This Hariri journalist in An-Nahar is quite explicit. Conspiracy theories go both ways, in Lebanon and elsewhere.
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Transport ministers are set to discuss security measures at train stations at their next meeting in October, after a gunman boarded the international high-speed Thalys train in Brussels.
The European Commission on Monday (24 August) said it wants security to be a top issue at the October meeting and is willing to propose new legislative measures, if necessary.
''We have shown that we are politically willing to discuss potential legislative measures at the Transport Council in October,'' Jakub Adamowicz, a commission spokesman, told reporters in Brussels.
But the commission said any EU-level response to the foiled attack cannot undermine the Schengen passport-free travel between the 26 participating member states.
''We have to take measures which are necessary but we don't want to overreact, which could turn out to be counter-productive, so we have to respect proportionality'', said Adamowicz.
Ayoub el-Khazzani, a 26-year old Moroccan, boarded the Thalys train armed with AK-47 assault rifle and automatic pistol on Friday at the Midi station in Brussels.
Passengers wrestled the suspected Islamist to the ground as he was loading the assault rifle after the train crew barricade itself in an adjoining staff room.
Thalys noted that two of its agents had also assisted in taking down el-Khazzani.
Adapting SchengenCharles Michel, Belgium's prime minister, has since called for an emergency meeting with France, Germany and the Netherlands.
His office said the talks would revolve around ideas on "how to reinforce anti-terrorist measures, notably identity and baggage controls''.
Michel in a tweet was quoted as suggesting that new border control rules may need to be adopted despite the Schengen rules.
His spokesperson Frederic Cauderlier told this website that the controls won't undermine Schengen but must be adapted to confront the reality of terrorism.
''Yes to the free movement of people but No to free movement of people armed with Kalashnikovs,'' he said.
Cauderlier said neighbouring countries like Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands ''tell us the same thing, they are conscious that we must reinforce border control checks. But let me very clear, we do not question Schengen.''
He said borders won't be closed and no X-ray machines will be installed at train stations. Instead, he said only spot-check controls will be imposed.
''It is impossible for us to check the IDs of every passenger in trains or planes inside the Schengen zone,'' he said.
Sensitive issueHe said French-Belgian cooperation will also get a boost, including sending in more police patrols in Paris and Brussels stations.
The issue of identity checks is sensitive given the strict EU rules on free movement.
Systematic border control checks are outlawed but member states can, in case of serious threat to internal or public security, reintroduce them for a period of up to 30 days.
''Security checks that are conducted for the purpose of railway security can be compatible within the Schengen framework if they do not have an effect equivalent to border checks,'' said EU commission spokesperson Christian Wiegand.
Asked to specify, Wiegand said any police border checks must be targeted on known actions.
He said ID checks on trains are possible but only ''if they do not have an equivalent to border checks.''
PARIS/ALGECIRAS, Spain A gunman who attacked passengers on a high-speed train in France two days ago is "dumbfounded" at having been taken for an Islamist militant and says he only intended to rob people on board because he was hungry, his lawyer said on Sunday.
As details emerged of the gunman's early adult life in Spain, lawyer Sophie David said her client -- now in detention near Paris -- also looked ill and malnourished.
French and Spanish sources close to the case have identified him as a 26-year-old Moroccan named Ayoub el Khazzani who was known to European authorities as a suspected Islamist militant.
"(I saw) somebody who was very sick, somebody very weakened physically, as if he suffered from malnutrition, very, very thin and very haggard," David told BFMTV.
"He is dumbfounded by the terrorist motives attributed to his action," she added.
David said the man was barefoot and wore only a hospital shirt and boxer shorts for the police interrogation in Arras, northern France, where the train stopped after the incident.
The Moroccan told David he had found the Kalashnikov he had taken onto the train in a park near the Gare du Midi rail station in Brussels where he was in the habit of sleeping.
"A few days later he decided to get on a train that some other homeless people told him would be full of wealthy people traveling from Amsterdam to Paris and he hoped to feed himself by armed robbery," David said.
The lawyer said the Moroccan had untreated wounds on his face when he spoke to her through an interpreter. He also told David he did not think he had fired any shots before his gun jammed.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Saturday there had been "several shots" before the Moroccan was subdued by the passengers, who included three Americans.
Of the two passengers injured in Friday's incident, only one remained in hospital on Sunday, according to an update from the authorities -- a Franco-American who was hit by a bullet and was in a serious but stable condition.
Cazeneuve said the man in custody, whom he did not name, had been "identified by the Spanish authorities to French intelligence services in February 2014 because of his connections to the radical Islamist movement".
ARRESTS FOR DRUG OFFENCES
Khazzani is believed to have lived in Spain for his early adult life and was arrested at least once for drug trafficking, according to Reuters sources. Some Spanish newspapers said he may have been radicalized while in prison.
Spanish security sources say Khazzani lived in Madrid between 2007 and 2010 before moving to the southern Spanish port of Algeciras. A community leader in the city told Reuters he had lived there with his family in El Saladillo, a neighborhood plagued by high unemployment and drug-related crime.
According to the Spanish security sources, he traveled to France in 2014 and went to Syria. French security sources said he went to Berlin airport for a flight to Istanbul on May 10 this year. Turkey is a preferred flight destination for would-be jihadists heading for Syria.
At the mosque in El Saladillo, Kamal Cheddad, President of the Muslim Community for the south of the city, said he knew the young Moroccan, although the family did not attend the local mosque which Cheddad presides over.
"He was an ordinary young man, he played football, went fishing, he worked to make a living," Cheddad said.
(Additional reporting by Sarah White; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Mark Moogalian and Isabella Risacher. Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old American professor at the Sorbonne, was one of those who tackled the Moroccan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Mark Moogalian was on the train with his wife Isabelle Risacher who is "currently working with Rothschild."
The video taken on the French train was filmed by Ahmed Meguini.
Ahmed Meguini ''¸ (@Meguini) | Twitter.Ahmad Meguini is an agent of the US-Israeli security services, according to researcher Michel Dakar.Ahmed Meguini is reportedly a Zionist promoting the clash of civilisations (the West against Moslems).L'int(C)rªt de creuser le cas Ahmed Meguini (ou Menghini).
There would appear to be TWO Ayoub el-Khazzanis - the one described as being a terrorist and the one described as being a small, malnourished, poorly educated petty criminal who did not attend the mosque.Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, says El-Khazzani was in the toilet when a French citizen trying to use the toilet encountered him.France train attack
A 28-year-old French banker Damien A., 28, was the first to tackle 'the gunman', Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said.
Mark Moogalian, a 51-year-old American professor at the Sorbonne, also tackled the Moroccan.http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Mark Moogalian was on the train with his wife Isabelle Risacher who is "currently working with Rothschild."
The French passenger who tried to disarm Khazzani described him as "small, slim, not very strong."
El-Khazzani says he did not fire any shots before he was disarmed.When he lived in Spain, El-Khazzani did not attend the local mosque.Train gunmanThe well nourished El-Khazzani El-Khazzani's lawyer, Sophie David, says of El-Khazzan: "He has been homeless since his identity documents were stolen in Brussels. "(He is) very sick, somebody very weakened physically, as if he suffered from malnutrition, very, very thin and very haggard."El-Khazzani's lawyer says El-Khazzani had been sleeping rough in a park near the Gare du Midi rail station in Brussels. Le Parisien reports that El-Khazzani spoke Arabic and knew a few words of French, and was being assisted by a translator in police questioning.The family lived from collecting and selling waste. France train attackReportedly, El-Kazzani, in the past six months, has travelled in Spain, Andorra, Belgium, Austria and Germany and has passed through France.
An official linked to Spain's anti-terrorism unit told the Associated Press that El-Kazzani had travelled to Syria and returned to France.On 10 May 2015, German security services identified him boarding a flight from Berlin to Istanbul.France train attack
In 2003, the Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani (above), moved to the southern Spanish port of Algeciras.
He came to the attention of the police and intelligence agencies.
One newspaper said he had been arrested for drug trafficking and placed under surveillance.
dailymail
At this point he may have been recruited by the CIA and its friends.
dailymail
In a surprisingly empty compartment (on a very crowded train) Spencer Stone decided to confront the man with the AK 47.
"The gunman had burst out of a toilet cubicle on the train and fired his handgun once, wounding one man, before the weapon jammed, giving his would-be victims their chance to pounce."
dailymail
The Moroccan had managed to take a handgun, an AK-47 machine gun, knives and nine magazines of bullets onto the train.
.Spencer Stone leaving hospital after his neck was slashed.
Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler. Did they all know each other before they got on the train? Who took the photo?The Moroccan 'gunman' Ayoub El-Qahzzani, involved in the French train incident, has been linked to a group involved in an incident in Verviers in Belgium in January 2015.Belgian anti-terror raid in Verviers leaves two dead.
The CIA and NATO have a long history of carrying out terrorist attacks in Belgium.
In 1984, a squad of US Marines was parachuted into Belgium, and met by a member of the Belgian military intelligence.
Weapons and ammumition were stolen. A belgian police officer was murdered.In 1991, a Belgian Senate investigation proved that this attack was the work of the American and Belgian military.
FASCIST TERRORISM IN EUROPE.El-Qahzzani reportedly fought for the CIA against the Assad government in Syria.
French newspaper La Voix du Nord said that Spanish authorities had warned the French about El-Qahzzani.
It is possible that, at the time of the incident on the French train, he was under surveillance by, or under the control of, the security services.
Photo by Christina Cathleen Coons, a 'social worker' from New York, who is traveling in France and was on the train. Photo via Freedom Film LLC, Paramus, New Jersey. Freedom Film LLC 18 August. My trip across the world isn't done yet! amsterdam'¬ to 'ªberlin'¬ ... to'ª 'Thailand'¬ ... On 21 August 2015, what looks like a false flag operation took place on a train in France.The large number of photographs of the incident could suggest that this is a psy-op.
French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade The French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade was on the train.He reportedly cut his hand while breaking the glass on the emergency alarm.
The official story is:A 'hero' US airman and his friends disarmed a Moroccan 'terrorist' as he 'opened fire' with an AK-47 on train passengers in France.
Anthony Sadler, from Pittsburg, California, Alek Skarlatos from Roseburg, Oregon, and Chris Norman, a British man living in France
The official story is:
The attack was stopped by US Air Force airman Spencer Stone, Oregon National Guard member Alek Skarlatos, 22, Anthony Sadler, from California, and British national Chris Norman.
Stone 'was cut in the neck' but his injuries are not life-threatening.
Stone
The official story is:
The 26-year-old Moroccan national was known to the security services.
The Moroccan got on the Amsterdam to Paris train in Brussels.
(Belgian journalist Marin Buxant Tweeted that 'the US Marines' were on leave in Brussels when they spotted the man and followed him on the train.)
The official story is:
US airman Spencer Stone spotted the Moroccan acting suspiciously and heard him trying to arm his weapon in the toilet.
The Moroccan, Ayoub el-Qahzzani, 'had at least nine full magazines of ammunition holding almost 300 rounds.'
Stone and his helpers wrestled the Moroccan to the ground.
(El Pais claimed that the Moroccan had recently been in Syria, where the CIA employs Moroccans to fight against Assad.)
...
Video footage shows the Moroccan lying on the floor, with his hands and feet tied up.
The video shows an AK-47 on a seat and 'blood stains' on the windows.Anthony Sadler, from California, says:
'We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle.'
Sadler says that a gunman entered the train carriage.
Sadler says: 'As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek (Oregon National Guard member Alek Skarlatosjust) yells: "Spencer, go!"
'Spencer (airman Spencer Stone) makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.'
'The gunman never said a word.'
Alek Skarlatos says:
'Spencer ran a good ten metres to get to the guy..."
The Moroccan on the platform of the station in Arras in Northern France. Photo by Christina Cathleen Coons, a social worker from New York, who is traveling in France and was on the train. Photo via Freedom Film LLC, Paramus, New Jersey.
The incident on the French train is almost certainly the work of the security services.
On 30 January 2010, we learnt that NATO generals devised Operation Cage (Cage probe deepens with Poyrazk¶y indictment) which included the idea of detonating explosives during school field trips to military museums in Turkey. The intention was to kill lots of kids.The UK's General Frank Kitson reportedly developed the idea of the 'pseudo gang'.
(General Frank Kitson: Trail Blazing Fake Terrorism)The pseudo gang works for the military but pretends to be a bunch of terrorists.
The idea of the 'pseudo gang' is to murder innocent civilians and then blame the murders on the people that the military wants to discredit.
Pseudo gangs have been used in Vietnam, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, the Philippines, Kenya, Malaya, Northern Ireland, Iraq, London, Madrid, New York and many other places.
The top researcher on 'NATO-CIA terrorism' is Dr. Daniele Ganser, a Swiss historian and Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Ganser is the author of NATO's Secret Armies - Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe.Let us remember:
In 1984, a squad of US Marines was parachuted into Belgium, and met by a member of the Belgian military intelligence. (NATO, Gladio and the strategy of tension. N.A.T.O stay behind.:)They hid for a fortnight before attacking the police station in Vielsalm. Weapons and ammumition were stolen. A belgian police officer was murdered.
In 1991, a Belgian Senate investigation proved that this attack was the work of the American and Belgian military.
Further attacks took place in Belgium. More arms and ammunition were stolen in these attacks. This stolen weaponry was handed over to fascist groups.
Around this time in Belgium, extremists were carrying out the so-called Brabant Massacres.
These were a group of attacks over a period of two years.
Groups of armed men would burst into restaurants and supermarkets and start shooting.
For example, on 9 November 1985, armed hooded men entered a supermarket and opened fire.
Eight people were killed.
Belgian soldiers roasting a boy. The Belgian military has been linked to massacres carried out in Belgian supermarkets in the 1980s.An official report published on the Brabant Massacres in 1990 concluded that the killers were linked to people in the government.
"According to the report, the killers were members or former members of the security forces - extreme right-wingers who enjoyed high-level protection and were preparing a right-wing coup." (NATO's Secret Armies, pg 145)It should be noted that "The Supermarket massacres occurred during the period when the U.S. was pushing a plan to base the Euro-Missiles (nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles) in different European countries..."
"The Belgian Parliament, which investigated the incidents, felt that they were another attempt to sow confusion and fear among the populace, thereby generating public outcries for a law-and-order government which would be amenable to the Euro-Missiles."
Belgian nobleman Benoit de Bonvoisin has been linked to the supermarket massacres. ~~~~Read more:http://www.dailymail.Fusillade dans un Thalys : un "drame terrible" (C)vit(C) selon Bernard Cazeneuve | France infoUn residente en Espa±a, autor del atentado en el tren franc(C)s | Internacional | EL PASFrance train attack victim fought to save life of passenger shot in the neck, say witnessses - TelegraphOregon National Guard member helped bring down shooter aboard Paris-bound train | OregonLive.comMen describe dramatic moment they overpowered train gunman - ITV News
LUNCH WITH THE FT -KIM JONG-UNNorth Yorkshire Police Civil Action AgainstCitizen Journalists
WASHINGTON '-- The attempted attack by an armed man aboard a high-speed train in Europe has raised new concerns in the United States about the vulnerability of rail passengers and whether current security measures are adequate.
Unlike airports, which are guarded with multiple layers of security '-- including airport police and Transportation Security Administration personnel operating metal detectors and full-body scanners '-- most railroad stations have minimal scrutiny for those boarding trains.
Larger stations have armed Amtrak police officers, often with bomb-sniffing dogs. Passengers and baggage are randomly searched at some of the major rail hubs, such as Union Station in Washington and Pennsylvania Station in New York.
''Passengers failing to consent to security procedures will be denied access to trains,'' Christina E. Leeds, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said in an email Saturday.
Most smaller stations, however, lack any type of armed presence or security screening.
Armed military personnel are also assigned to patrol Pennsylvania Station. And at Union Station, large-screen monitors carry nonstop security warnings with requests for passengers to report suspicious activity.
Even so, these measures would hardly have been a guarantee against the kind of attack that was attempted on Friday in Europe, where screening of passengers at rail stations is also far less stringent than at airports.
The assault, on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, was largely thwarted when three Americans wrestled a man to the ground who was armed with an AK-47 rifle, a handgun and a box cutter. The authorities described the man as a 26-year-old Moroccan.
In the United States, Amtrak has a police force of about 500 officers. Smaller commuter rail services also have police forces, which randomly patrol passenger cars, particularly during rush hours or on special occasions, such as concerts or sporting events.
Since the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004, the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration have made rail security a priority. Similar attacks in London and Mumbai also focused more attention on the railroads.
The T.S.A. has created a number of security teams called Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response, or VIPR, squads, assigned to patrol transportation hubs such as train and bus stations. According to the agency, the teams work with local and state and transportation officials to prevent terrorist attacks.
Most days, members of the squads can be seen patrolling Washington's Union Station during rush hours. The teams consist of security inspectors, who may help screen passengers and luggage; behavior detection officers, who blend in with crowds to watch for suspicious activity; and explosives experts, according to the T.S.A.
According to the agency's most recent budget documents, there are 31 teams that conducted more than 7,000 operations last year, including security patrols at train stations.
Still, security experts say trains remain vulnerable to terrorist attacks. A 2011 report by the Department of Homeland Security found security gaps at many Amtrak stations. Congress and security experts have long debated whether to institute screening systems at railroad stations similar to those at airports, but plans have gone nowhere '-- largely because of cost and resistance from passengers.
Amtrak, particularly on its high-speed train, the Acela, has cut into the airlines' share of passengers in the busy Northeast corridor because of frustrations with airport screenings. Between New York and Washington, Amtrak said, 75 percent of travelers go by train, a share that has grown steadily since the Acela began service in 2000 and airport security tightened after 2001.
Before that, Amtrak had just over a third of the business between those cities.
EU to review rail security after foiled Thalys attack | EurActiv
The European Union will review railway security on high-speed international lines after last week's foiled attack in France. But officials warned on Monday (24 August) against overreaction.
EU transport ministers are likely to discuss the issue when they next meet in early October, according to spokespeople for the European Commission and for the Council of the EU, which runs ministerial meetings among the member states.
Commission spokesman Jakub Adamowicz told reporters that security issues would be reviewed after passengers subdued a gunman onboard the Amsterdam-Paris Thalys express last Friday.
Asked about suggestions that travellers might be have to submit to identity or security checks before boarding trains such as the Thalys, Adamowicz was cautious, however. A working group of national and EU officials as well as industry representatives, set up in 2012, had so far seen only "moderate interest" in major changes, he said.
"It's a question of proportionality for each mode of transport," Adamowicz said when asked whether airline-style bag checks might be introduced - as they already are for travellers on passenger trains using the tunnel between France and Britain.
Tighter security would slow boarding and create costs and logistical problems. It was important, Adamowicz said, to avoid a "hyperactive" response that might prove "counterproductive".
More screens, more millennials?By Zach NobleAug 25, 2015Millennials already work, date and sleep surrounded by glowing screens. Now one company says a few more screens could be the key to getting millennials to stay in the federal workforce.
Oblong Industries' six-screen, wand-directed setup called Mezzanine is based on the futuristic technology that CEO John Underkoffler created for the movie ''Minority Report.''
''You really have to see it to understand,'' said Michael Friedel, the company's federal director.
It's more than a videoconferencing tool, he added. It's part of a bigger ''office of the future'' movement that will help workers collaborate in meaningful ways.
A typical Mezzanine room has six screens, a few dozen motion sensors installed on the ceiling and a Dell server.
Three of the screens display a variety of content: colleagues calling in from other locations, prepared slides and, most interesting, the data from apps running on connected devices. Mezzanine is about as agnostic as it can be, and basically any tablet, smartphone or laptop anyone brings into a room can be shared on screen with the whole team.
The other three screens function as ''cork boards.'' Users can take snapshots on the main screens, then whip them over to the cork boards to be rearranged, analyzed and saved.
The finished product is part Wii, part Skype, part detective show thumbtacks-and-string.
Mezzanine is sold as an appliance, not as an enterprise service. ''The ability to get this data visibility with zero integration services [is] huge,'' Friedel said.
He also said Mezzanine and other office-transforming tools could provide the ''wow'' factor the government needs to attract young techies.
''The government is so regulated and policy-bound, things always seem like they're generations behind,'' Friedel said. ''When it comes to recruiting and retaining people and talent, you've got to have some modern tools for them.''
One of the Navy's commands recently purchased Mezzanine rooms, and he recalled the commander saying, '''We have a heck of a time getting people to come to [rural America] to work for the Navy, and if they're there, we have a tough time keeping them because we're just laden in these old processes and stovepiped systems.'''
Friedel added that the commander ''saw the ability to be able to offer modernized tools that would actually attract younger people to come into the service.''
Jennifer 'ner, Oblong's communications director, said her favorite quote came from Ian Rogers before he sold Beats Music to Apple: "When someone comes to your office to learn your vision of the future, it's crucial they feel like they've walked into the future, not the past."
''It would be nice to think that it was because he brought the Apple executives into his Mezzanine conference room that he sold his company for $3 billion,'' 'ner said. ''But I'm sure there were some other contributing factors.''
There are other barriers to attracting and keeping millennials in government jobs -- for instance, the management culture and cumbersome hiring procedures -- but for Friedel, technology is the main one.
Millennials carry reams of data in their pockets, he said, and they expect to be able to share that data seamlessly.
''As you see more and more young people come into the government ranks, let's face it, there isn't [anybody who's] not walking around with these things,'' he said, brandishing an iPhone. ''They expect tools to be at their fingertips, and they expect it to be easy to do this stuff.''
About the Author
Zach Noble is a staff writer covering cloud, big data and workforce issues. Connect with him on Twitter: @thezachnoble.
CYBER!
Army cyber training, an $850M comms contract, DOJ seeks a CISO and more
Army cyber training, an $850M comms contract, DOJ seeks a CISO and moreBy FCW StaffAug 24, 2015Applications for Army cyber specialists due Aug. 31Soldiers have until Aug. 31 to apply for a year's worth of training to be cyber operations specialists.
The main task of such specialists, the Army said, is to "provide offensive and defensive cyberspace operations in support of the full range of military operations by enabling actions and generating effects across all domains."
The first phase of the training takes place in Pensacola, Fla., and the second at the Army's Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Ga.
DOJ Criminal Division seeks a CISOThe Justice Department is looking for a career fed to take up the post of chief information security officer in its Criminal Division. It looks like a position for someone with an interest in protecting sensitive information -- the Criminal Division investigates and prosecutes crimes, working with the U.S. attorneys across the country.
According to the job posting, the principal duties are "implementing departmentwide and division security policies, technologies, standards, and procedures essential to the security of the [IT] infrastructure and applications; and provide oversight to the program to ensure compliance divisionwide." The CISO is also the primary adviser on data breaches and cyberattacks.
The job is graded at the GS-15 level, and pay ranges from $126,245 to $158,700. Applications are due by Sept. 7.
Navy awards MIDS contracts worth $850MTwo companies have won Navy contracts worth more than $850 million to produce and maintain the Multifunctional Information Distribution System Low Volume Terminal, Washington Technology reports.
MIDS provides secure digital data and voice communications capabilities for Navy, Air Force and Army platforms. The winners -- ViaSat and Data Link Solutions -- have won similar contracts in the past to repair and modernize MIDS.
DISA appoints vice directorAir Force Maj. Gen. Sarah Zabel became the new vice director at the Defense Information Systems Agency on Aug. 12, said DISA spokeswoman Cindy Your. The move gives new DISA Director Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn a deputy with whom to build policy.
Zabel comes to DISA from the office of the Air Force CIO, where she was director of cyberspace strategy and policy. C4ISR & Networks was the first to report the appointment.
About the Author
Connect with the FCW staff on Twitter @FCWnow.
Words Metter
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Changes Definition Of ''Nude'' After One Person Complains It's A Racist ''Microaggression'' | Weasel Zippers
Until recently, anyone searching the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the word would have come across the following
' having no clothes on
' of or involving people who have no clothes on
' having the color of a white person's skin
To Luis Torres, the third definition wasn't just wrong. It was racist: a ''micro aggression'' toward people of color.
So Torres, an incoming sophomore at Ithaca College, started an Internet campaign called Nude Awakening to shame Merriam-Webster and coax it into changing its entry.
''This is something small that most white people, myself included, take for granted,'' he told Mic.com. ''I started doing research around Band-Aids, which led to nude fashion, which led to me discovering the Merriam-Webster definition of nude. It blew my mind that an academic source was perpetuating this same racism.'' ['...]
Merriam-Webster withered under the pressure. Some time this month, the dictionary quietly changed its entry for ''nude'' to something more palatable. Gone was the reference to ''a white person's skin,'' replaced by the following:
1. lacking something essential especially to legal validity
2
a : devoid of a natural or conventional covering; especially : not covered by clothing or a drape
b (1) : having a color (as pale beige or tan) that matches the wearer's skin tones (2) : giving the appearance of nudity
Sinds hackers deze week de gegevens van miljoenen gebruikers van datingsite Ashley Madison hebben vrijgegeven is heel Amerika in rep en roer. Terwijl we in Nederland zo onze eigen problemen met hackers hadden de afgelopen dagen, rijst de vraag of Nederlandse Second Love gebruikers zich inmiddels ook zorgen moeten gaan maken over hun privacy (en huwelijk).
De hackers van Ashley Madison die opereren onder de naam 'Impact Team' bemachtigden vorige maand de gegevens van ruim 39 miljoen hoofdzakelijk Amerikaanse en Canadese gebruikers van de site. Deze week werd de lijst met namen, emailadressen, persoonlijke-, bericht- en creditcardgegevens van bijna al deze leden openbaar gemaakt. RTL nieuws ontdekte vanochtend dat er ook bijna 600 Nederlanders op de site actief waren.
Life is short. Have an affair.Net als de controversile Nederlandse datingsite Second Love is Ashley Madison een site die vreemdgaan stimuleert onder de pay-off: ''Life is short. Have an affair.'' Het bedrijf adverteert met commercials waarin aangemoedigd wordt om je ingekakte huwelijk weer wat nieuw leven in te blazen door een affaire met een nieuwe liefde te beginnen. Mannen betalen om lid te worden van de site, vrouwen kunnen gratis een account aanmaken.
E(C)n van de onthullingen die de hack in elk geval aan het daglicht heeft gebracht is dat het overgrote merendeel van de 39 miljoen leden man zijn. Op basis van de lijst van 35 miljoen leden die tot nu toe gepubliceerd is, zijn 28 miljoen daarvan mannen. Volgens de hackers is het feitelijke percentage mannen op de site nog hoger '' ruim 90% '' omdat veel mannen zich online voordoen als vrouw.
Huwelijken, carri¨res en levens aan diggelenDe hack heeft in Amerika inmiddels voor behoorlijk wat ophef gezorgd omdat er onder de gepubliceerde accounts ook een flink aantal bekende politici, activisten, militairen of andere gezaghebbenden in een publieke functie zitten. Er werden bijvoorbeeld alleen al 15.000 mensen op de lijst gevonden met een email adres dat terug te leiden valt naar het Witte Huis. Washington bleek sowieso de sterkst vertegenwoordigde stad op de website. Op QZ verscheen vandaag een artikel waarin tips worden gegeven hoe je het beste om kunt gaan met een collega of bekende die op de lijst voor komt.
Getroffenen van de hack die dapper genoeg zijn om in de media te reageren laten weten dat de gevolgen vaak verregaand zijn. Van huwelijkscrises met je nietsvermoedende man of vrouw tot nog veel schrijnender gevallen, bijvoorbeeld homofielen die inmiddels niet langer in de VS wonen en bang zijn om in hun eigen land gelyncht te worden op grond van hun seksuele voorkeur. Verwacht wordt dat er de komende maanden in ieder geval een enorme toename van het aantal echtscheidingen zal zijn in de VS. Aan de andere kan zijn er ook mensen die beweren dat de hele situatie uiteindelijk alleen maar voor meer publiciteit en dus meer leden gaat zorgen:
Grootste privacyschending ooitAls een paal boven water staat dat de hack nu al (C)(C)n van de meest grove privacyschendingen in de geschiedenis van het internet is. Ongeacht je mening over buitenechtelijke relaties is het ronduit alarmerend dat een hackerscollectief bij machte is om op deze wijze de levens van miljoenen mensen te be¯nvloeden laat staan vernielen. De Amerikaanse FBI en Canadese autoriteiten nemen de zaak dan ook zeer hoog op en laten weten de hack samen te onderzoeken.
Over de motieven van de hackers wordt op dit moment overigens nog aan alle kanten gespeculeerd. De meesten gaan er vanuit dat de hackers moraalridders zijn die vreemdgangers voor het blok wilden zetten, maar het lijkt er op dat de groep het eerder op het moederbedrijf van Ashley Madison, Avid Life Media voorzien heeft. Zo maakten zij eerder al bekend het niet eens te zijn met de kosten die in rekening worden gebracht om je Ashley Madison profiel geheel te verwijderen (dat kostte $19). Sinds de hack bekend werd zijn die kosten komen te vervallen. Daarnaast is de beveiliging van de site onvoldoende zeggen ze, en wordt je account nooit helemaal verwijderd. Volgens de hackers ligt de schuldvraag dan ook bij Ashley Madison zelf:
Sta je op de lijst? Dan is dat de schuld van Avid Life Media. Zij hebben tegen je gelogen. Sleep ze voor de rechter en claim een schadevergoeding. Ga daarna verder met je leven. Leer van deze ervaring en herstel de schade.
Second Love ook kwetsbaar voor hackersOndertussen komen Nederlandse vreemdgangers met de schrik vrij, want zo bekend was Ashley Madison tot nu toe in Nederland niet. Het Nederlandse alternatief, Second Love, is met ruim 500.000 actieve accounts echter w(C)l een kwetsbaar doelwit van hacks zoals deze. En dus rijst de vraag of Nederlandse gebruikers van de site zich op dit moment al zorgen moeten gaan maken.
Second Love was vandaag niet bereikbaar voor commentaar, maar in een korte reactie op NRC laat mede-eigenaar Erik Drost gisteren weten dat mensen zich wat hem betreft geen zorgen hoeven te maken. Zijn site schreef de afgelopen jaren 610.000 nieuwe accounts bij waarvan er inmiddels ook alweer 123.000 verwijderd zijn. Het is niet duidelijk of Second Love de afgelopen dagen een sterke toename van het aantal verwijderde accounts ziet als gevolg van de Ashley Maddison hack. Ook over de kans op een mogelijke hack op Second Love laat hij zich tamelijk vrijblijvend uit:
Er is altijd een risico op een hack. Als ze het Witte Huis kunnen hacken, kunnen wij ook gehackt worden. Wij doen er alles aan om zo veilig mogelijk te zijn natuurlijk, maar 100 procent garantie van gegevens is onmogelijk. We adviseren gebruikers dan ook altijd om een anonieme naam en een anoniem e-mailadres te gebruiken.
Vorig jaar werd duidelijk dat Second Love inderdaad bepaald niet hacker-proof is, toen bekend werd dat via een lek op de site vrij makkelijk te achterhalen viel of een bepaald emailadres zich op de site geregistreerd had. Redacteuren van Nu.nl ontdekten dat op basis van een cijfer in de URL precies kon worden gecontroleerd of een bepaald emailadres gekoppeld was aan een Second Love account. Nadat zij over het lek publiceerden, werd deze direct gedicht.
Alles is te hackenIs het verstandig om deze week je account op Second Love dan toch maar te verwijderen? Waarschijnlijk is het verstandig om op het internet ¼berhaupt geen dingen te zetten waarvan je zou willen dat ze voor altijd priv(C) blijven. Of het nou gaat om een naaktfoto via Whatsapp of een flirt met een collega via Twitter DM. Als Erik Drost van Second Love in (C)(C)n ding volledig gelijk heeft dan is het dat lles gehackt kan worden. Al is zijn site duidelijk een aantrekkelijkere prooi voor hackers dan sommige anderen.
Wil je toch de ruimte houden om bepaalde relationele nevenactiviteiten online te ontplooien, zorg dan dat je op datingsites of sociale netwerken een account onder een fake naam en mailadres aan maakt, net zoals eind jaren 90, in de begindagen van het internet, heel gebruikelijk was. Of knoop gewoon ouderwets een praatje aan met iemand die je tegenkomt in de kroeg. Wel zo discreet.
Yes, it is true. Ashley Madison was not hacked - the data was stolen by a woman operating on her own who worked for Avid Life Media. The reason that I am so late to the second act of the Ashley Madison affair is that, without a supercomputer, it has taken over a week to finish the analysis of the massive data dumps that the perpetrator has so generously provided us with.
A hacker is someone who uses a combination of high-tech cybertools and social engineering to gain illicit access to someone else's data. But this job was done by someone who already had the keys to the Kingdom. It was an inside job.
More about the Ashley Madison leak
In my first IBTimes UK article about Act One of the Ashley Madison Affair, I alleged that the group of hackers claiming responsibility for the "hack" simply did not exist. I gleaned this information from reliable sources within the Dark Web '' which have yet to fail me. I also claimed that it was the act of a single person.
Any adept social engineer would have easily seen this from the wording in the first manifesto published by the alleged hacking group. I was one of the first practitioners of social engineering as a hacking technique and today it is my only tool of use, aside from a smartphone '' in a purely white hat sort of way. But if you don't trust me, then ask any reasonably competent social engineer.
Lone female operativeToday, I can confidently claim that the single person is a woman, and has recently worked within Avid Life Media. I have provided IBTimes UK background information and pertinent elements of the woman's data dump to prove both my access to the data and also to confirm elements of my research, under the strict conditions that it is to be referenced and then destroyed. The data I provided included such delicate material as the decoded password hash tables of every Avid Life and Ashley Madison employee, which I have also now destroyed.
How did I come to this conclusion? Very simply. I have spent my entire career in the analysis of cybersecurity breaches, and can recognise an inside job 100% of the time if given sufficient data - and 40GB is more than sufficient. I have also practiced social engineering since the word was first invented and I can very quickly identify gender if given enough emotionally charged words from an individual. The perpetrator's two manifestos provided that. In short, here is how I went about it.
How did I discover that it was an inside job? From the data that was released, it was clear that the perpetrator had intimate knowledge of the technology stack of the company (all the programs being used). For example, the data contains actual MySQL database dumps. This is not just someone copying a table and making into a .csv file. Hackers rarely have full knowledge of the technology stack of a target.
Strange filesMore important, large companies are heavily departmentalised, in spite of having centralised databases. When a hacker gains access to any corporate data, the value of that data depends on which server, or sometimes a single person's computer, that the hacker gains access to. For example: the personnel work scheduling for equipment maintenance will normally exist only on the workstation of the maintenance manager.
Likewise, the data for options for stock shares in a company, an extremely private set of data, will exist only in a private file on the workstation of the VP of Finance, or the CEO, or possibly both. It would require an equal amount of work to gain access to the personnel schedule for maintenance as it would to acquire a list of potential corporate owners. Hackers don't have all the time in the world, so they pick and choose wisely. Among the data that the perpetrator released is the following:
An office layout for the entire Ashley Madison offices. This would normally exist only in the office of personnel management, the maintenance department, and possibly a few other places. It would certainly not be in the centralised database. Neither would it be of much value to the average hacker.Up to the minute organisation charts for every Avid Life division. This might be of value to certain hackers, but considering the hacker had already made off with everyone's credit card info, billions of dollars worth of blackmail information, every private email of the CEO (fascinating, by the way), and everything else of value, it would seem odd to dig up the organisation charts as well.A stock option agreement list, with signed contracts included. The hacker would have had to gain access to the private files of the CEO or the VP of Finance to obtain this material '' a job requiring as much time to implement as a hack of the centralised database. Again, of what value would this be considering the hacker had already made off with potentially billions.IP addresses and current status of every server owned by Avid Life '' of which there were many hundreds scattered around the world. Why any hacker would trouble themselves with such a task, considering what was already taken, is mind boggling.The raw source code for every program Ashley Madison ever wrote. This acquisition would be a monumental task for any hacker and, unless the hacker planned on competing with Ashley Madison, has no value whatsoever.These are just a few of the many strangely included files that would take even a top notch hacker years to gather, and seem to have little or no value. Any reasonable cybersecurity expert would come to the conclusion that only someone on the inside, who could easily gain all of the files through deception and guile, could have done the job.
More about Ashley Madison hack
If we include the fact that the perpetrator's two manifestos clearly state a strong personal dislike of the VP of Information Technology (whom the perpetrator referenced as having made specific comments in the past) and the CEO, and specifically names employees that are liked and are doing a good job, then it seems, without a shadow of doubt, to be an open and shut case.
As to gender of the perpetrator, there were a number of telling signs in the manifestos. The most telling was a statement calling men "scumbags" (for those readers that don't speak American/Canadian English, this is a word that only a woman would ever use to describe men). In a separate section, the perpetrator describes men as cheating dirtbags. I think in any language this would suggest that a woman is speaking.
If that fails to convince you, then this must: In the first manifesto two names of male members were released. In describing one of them the perpetrator states the he "spitefully" joined Ashley Madison the day after Valentine's Day. Anyone who ever had a significant other knows that women rate Valentine's Day higher than Christmas, and men think so little of it that they have to remind each other the day is nearing. To call an act the day after Valentines Day "spiteful", is a thought that would enter few men's minds. If this does not convince you then you need to get out of the house more often.
I must, at this point, thank my lead data analyst, Jacque Donahue, for working 24-hours-a-day for the past few days helping analyse more than 40GB of data.
Who is John McAfee?
John McAfee is one of the most influential commentators on cybersecurity anywhere in the world. His new venture '' Future Tense Central '' focuses on security and personal privacy-related products.
McAfee provides regular insight on global hacking scandals and internet surveillance, and has become a hugely controversial figure following his time in Belize, where he claims to have exposed corruption at the highest level before fleeing the country amid accusations of murder (the Belize government is currently not pursuing any accusations against him).
The coming hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin is expected to be calmer than normal, but that doesn't mean the East Coast is off the hook, according to a forecast issued today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.
There's a 70% chance that the hurricane season in the Atlantic will spawn six to 11 named storms between June 1 through Nov. 30, and of those named storms, three to six could become hurricanes, including up to two major hurricanes of categories 3 to 5 during the season, forecasters said.
The main factor that is expected to suppress storms this season this year is the phenomenon known as El Ni±o, the cyclic warming of the ocean off the western coast of South America that is already affecting wind and pressure patterns, said forecasters, noting that it is expect to get stronger and last through the hurricane season.
A below-normal season does not mean the East Coast is off the hook, NOAA officials emphasized.
In the past, even below-normal seasons have produce catastrophic impacts to communities. For example, in 1992, there were only seven named storms, but the first storm was Andrew -- a Category 5 hurricane that devastated southern Florida.
The U.S. has not been hit with a major hurricane in nearly a decade, the longest ever since scientists began keeping official records in 1851. The last record of eight years happened from 1861 to 1868. During the current "hurricane drought," many people along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts have let their guard down, so it's a good time to review important things to know in case a tropical cyclone makes landfall in your area.
ABC News
PHOTO: NOAA's break down of storms for 2015 Hurricane Season
National Hurricane Preparedness Week, May 24 to 30
If you live in an area prone to tropical cyclones, here are some tips to keep in mind.
The preliminary hazards from hurricanes are storm surge flooding, destructive winds, tornadoes and high surf and rip currents.
Storm surge is dangerous because a mere six inches of fast moving flood water can knock over an adult. It takes only 2 feet of rushing water to carry away most vehicles -- including large trucks and SUV's.
Strong winds of a hurricane can cause widespread destruction, hundreds of miles inland, including power outages and downed trees. Tornadoes are also common with tropical systems that make landfall. In recorded history, almost every tropical storm and hurricane that has come on shore in the U.S. has produced a tornado.
Strong winds of a tropical cyclone can also cause dangerous waves that pose a significant hazard to mariners and coastal residents and visitors. When the waves break along the coast, they can produce deadly rip currents, even a large distance from the storm.
NOAA/Getty Images
PHOTO: In this handout provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from the GOES-East satellite, a weather system travels up the Atlantic coast of the United States pictured on Aug. 4, 2014.
How to Prepare for the 2015 Hurricane Season
The most important step is to identify your hurricane risk. Do you live in an evacuation zone? If so, you need to plan on where you and your family would ride out the storm if you are told to evacuate.
Most people only need to evacuate a few miles from the coast to avoid the dangers of storm surge. Find a friend or relative that lives outside the storm surge evacuation zone and have a plan to ride out the storm with them.
You should also establish a family communications plan in case you are not together when you need to evacuate.
POPE-In September 2015, Agenda 21 Will Be Transformed Into The 2030 Agenda
If you didn't like ''Agenda 21'", then you really are not going to like ''The 2030 Agenda''. Next month, the United Nations is going to launch ''The 2030 Agenda'' at a major conference that will be held from September 25th to September 27th in New York City. The Pope is actually traveling to New York to deliver an address which will kick off this conference. Unlike Agenda 21, which primarily focused on the environment, the 2030 Agenda is truly a template for governing the entire planet. In addition to addressing climate change, it also sets ambitious goals for areas such as economics, health, energy, education, agriculture, gender equality and a whole host of other issues. As you will see below, this global initiative is being billed as a ''new universal Agenda'' for humanity. If you are anything like me, alarm bells are going off in your head right about now.
This new agenda is solidly rooted in a document known as ''Agenda 21'" that was originally adopted by the United Nations back in 1992. The following comes from Wikipedia'...
The full text of Agenda 21 was made public at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit), held in Rio de Janeiro on June 13, 1992, where 178 governments voted to adopt the program. The final text was the result of drafting, consultation, and negotiation, beginning in 1989 and culminating at the two-week conference.
Since that time, Agenda 21 has been modified and amended numerous times. Noteworthy changes occurred in 1997, 2002 and 2012.
But now the UN's sustainable development program is being given an entirely new name, and the scope of this agenda is being broadened dramatically. The following is what the official United Nations website has to say about it'...
The United Nations is now in the process of defining Sustainable Development Goals as part a new sustainable development agenda that must finish the job and leave no one behind. This agenda, to be launched at the Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, is currently being discussed at the UN General Assembly, where Member States and civil society are making contributions to the agenda.
Just a few days ago, the core document for the 2030 Agenda was finalized. When what is in this document starts getting out, it is going to create a huge stir among Americans that are concerned about the ambitions of the globalists. The following comes from the preamble of this document'...
This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.
All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets which we are announcing today demonstrate the scale and ambition of this new universal Agenda. They seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals and complete what these did not achieve. They seek to realize the human rights of all and to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental.
As you can see, this is not just a plan to fight climate change.
This is literally a blueprint for transforming global society.
The core of the plan is a set of 17 specific goals'...
Goal 1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
Many of those sound very good.
After all, who wouldn't want to ''end poverty'' or ''halt biodiversity loss''?
But as you read through that list, ask yourself what forms of human activity would be excluded from it.
Personally, I have a hard time coming up with much of anything.
As I discussed earlier this week, the globalists want to use ''sustainable development'' as an excuse to micromanage the lives of every man, woman and child on the entire globe.
We are told that individual liberty and freedom are ''dangerous'' because when everyone just runs around doing whatever they want it is ''bad for the planet''.
For example, one of the goals of the sustainable development crowd is to push the human population into giant ''megacities'' and to allow nature to recapture much of what has already been settled by humanity.
The following map that comes from America 2050 is one example of what they want to do. A recent piece by Dave Hodges alerted me to this map, and it shows what the United States may look like in a few decades if the globalists have their way'...
And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Eventually, the globalists want to fundamentally transform virtually everything about our society. This includes our economy, our government, our entertainment, our social interactions, our families and even our religious beliefs.
So don't let all of the nice language fool you.
This ''new universal Agenda'' is far, far more dangerous than Agenda 21 ever was, and it is a giant step forward into a one world system governed by bureaucratic control freaks.
Out There
White supremacist convicted in plot to kill Obama with 'death ray' device | US news | The Guardian
'Glendon Scott Crawford was a terrorist who attempted to acquire a weapon of mass destruction and to use it to kill innocent members of the Muslim community,' a prosecutor said on Friday. Photograph: Skip Dickstein/AP
A New York white supremacist was convicted by a federal jury on Friday of plotting to use a remote-controlled radiation device he called ''Hiroshima on a light switch'' to harm Muslims and President Barack Obama.
After less than three hours of deliberation in US district court in Albany, New York, the jury unanimously found Glendon Scott Crawford guilty of all three charges against him.
Crawford, 51, wearing a gray suit and eyeglasses, showed no emotion as judge Gary Sharpe read the verdict.
He was convicted of use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to build and use a radiological dispersal device. He was also convicted of distributing information with respect to a weapon of mass destruction.
''Glendon Scott Crawford was a terrorist who attempted to acquire a weapon of mass destruction and to use it to kill innocent members of the Muslim community,'' said Richard Hartunian, US attorney for the northern district of New York.
Related:Men built X-ray gun to shoot Israel opponents '' FBI
Hartunian credited the public with giving tips to law enforcement that led to an investigation of Crawford.
At his sentencing on 15 December, Crawford faces a mandatory minimum of 25 years to life in prison and a $2m fine for the radiological dispersal device charge, up to life in prison for the weapon of mass destruction charge and up to 20 years in prison for the distribution of information charge.
In the trial's closing arguments, assistant US attorney Rick Belliss said the scheme was ''very real, very viable and very deadly''.
Crawford, 51, is a Ku Klux Klan member from Galway. The KKK is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an American hate group.
Summing up the five-day trial, Belliss played videotapes in which Crawford said he planned for decades to create the device and unleash it on his enemies '' Muslims and the White House. Belliss said one target was ''a certain liberal politician'' who Crawford said was in the White House.
Defense lawyer Kevin Luibrand told jurors Crawford had been entrapped by the government, and he blamed undercover Federal Bureau of Investigations agents for creating the device.
In his closing argument, Luibrand said if ''Crawford is guilty of anything, it is proliferating information'' but said the government was responsible for creating what the media dubbed the ''death ray'' machine.
Crawford went to North Carolina to discuss funding his project with Chris Barker, KKK imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights, who turned out to be cooperating with the FBI.
Belliss held up a glass-enclosed metal ''X-ray tube'' that he said was similar to the device, saying it was proof that Crawford did ''more than hand out pamphlets''.
Luibrand also played several video clips of meetings between two undercover FBI agents and Crawford, who admitted he did not have the technical knowledge to make or operate such a device.
''The government is not allowed to encourage someone to commit a crime,'' Luibrand said.
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 2 Table of Contents 1. Regional Airports ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Hellinikon .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 3. Astir Vouliagmenis .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 4. Afandou Rhodes ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 5. Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator (DESFA) .............................................................................................................................................................................. 8 6. Piraeus Port Authority S.A (OLP) .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 9 7. Thessaloniki Port Authority S.A (OLTH) .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11 8. TRAINOSE S.A. & EESSTY S.A (ROSCO) .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 9. Athens International Airport S.A (AIA) ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 10. Poseidi Chalkidiki .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 11. Markopoulo Equestrian Centre .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16 12. Eauction II, III, IV ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 13. Marinas ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 18 14. Egnatia Motorway S.A ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 20 15. Hellenic Petroleum S.A (HELPE) ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 22 16. OTE S.A. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 22 17. Public Power Corporation (PPC) ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 23 18. Thessaloniki Water Supply & Sewerage S.A. (EYATH) ............................................................................................................................................................................ 24 19. Athens Water Supply & Sewerage S.A (EYDAP) ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 24 20. Public Gas Corporation (DEPA) ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 21. Hellenic Post S.A (ELTA) .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 22. Other Real Estate Tenders ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26 23. Real Estate Monetisation ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 3 1. Regional Airports 14 Regional Airports divided into two clusters of 7 airports each Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Long-term (40+10 years) concession Financial Advisors: - Citi Bank - EFG Eurobank Legal Advisors: - Norton Rose - Drakopoulos & Vasalakis - YourLegalPartners Technical Advisors: - Doxiadis - Tender awarded (December 2014) to the consortium of Fraport - Slentel for '¬1.2bn, plus 28.5% EBITDA sharing, plus '¬23mn annual payments - Concession agreement and tender process approval by the Court of Audit (January 2015). Next Steps 1. Written permission of entry (άδεια ειÏÏδÎÏ ) from the HCAA to the specifically designated investor's team to access the airports for the relevant site visits (HCAA; asap). 2. Signing of Act of Ministerial Cabinet (ΠΥΣ) for the co-signing of the Concession Agreement (CA) on behalf of the HR (Ministerial Cabinet; asap). 3. Submission by the Preferred Bidder of all relevant pending appendices to the CA (ie Financial model, principal terms of planning and construction) before its signing and finalization (Preferred Bidder; asap). 4. Signing of each CA (HRADF, Preferred Bidder; September 2015). 5. Preparation, submission and approval of the CA from EU Commission (preparation and submission will be initiated before signing of the CA; approval has to be acquired before Parliament Ratification) (EU Commission; November 2015). 6. Parliament Ratification of CA (Hellenic Parliament). 7. Delivery of Airports (HCAA, Preferred Bidder). 8. Concession Commencement Date (Preferred Bidder).
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 4 5July 2015HCAA permission3Delivery of airportsMinisterial Cabinet ActAugust 2015Submission of appendicesSeptember 2015Signing of CAsApproval by EU CommissionNovember 2015January 2016March 2016Parliament RatificationCCD
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 5 2. Hellinikon Former Athens Airport. 6.000.000 sq.m seafront real estate. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 100% shares of Hellinikon S.A. which will get ownership of 30% of the property and have the right to develop (surface) and manage 100% of the property for 99 years Financial Advisors: - Citi Bank - Piraeus Bank Legal Advisors: - Watson, Farley Williams - Fortsakis, Diakopoulos, Mylonogiannis and Partners Technical Advisors: - Decathlon LAMDA Development has signed the contract on November 14th 2014. Financial closure is expected after the fulfilment of several conditions precedent. Long stop date is within two years hence on 14th November 2016. Total financial consideration of '¬915mil. Next Steps 1. A coordinator to be appointed by a Prime Minister's decision, to implement the project in liaison with HRADF and Hellinikon SA, to coordinate all governmental efforts/ministries for the timely implementation of all prerequisites until financial closing (asap) 2. Fulfillment of conditions precedent, requiring the support from the Government: · Delivery of the Site vacant · Granting of casino licenses · Presidential Decree approving integrated development plan · Ministerial Decisions approving urban plan study · Entry into force of a legislative act for the establishment of an organisation which will undertake the management and operation of all areas, infrastructure, works and equipment of common use within the Site and the exclusive collection and management of any reciprocal duties or similar charges · Partition of the Site in accordance with a partitioning diagram, the Integrated Development Plan and the Joint Ministerial Decisions for the urbanisation · Transfer to Hellinikon SA of rights in rem on the Site in accordance with the Integrated Development Plan and the Ministerial Decisions for the urbanisation · Ratification of the SPA by the Greek Parliament
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 6 3. Astir Vouliagmenis Hotel Complex of Astir Palace Vouliagmeni SA including Marina Subsidiary Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 81,122,156 shares of Astir Palace SA. Tender Run by NBG S.A. Financial Advisors: - Piraeus Bank Legal Advisors: - Potamitis Vekris Technical Advisors: - Decathlon JERMYN has signed the contract on September 17th 2014 with a consortium of Turkish and Arabic investors. The Council of State has rejected the proposed Presidential Decree for the development of the site and a revised development plan is being drafted for review by the Council of State Main Issues to be addressed: · Agreement on the new proposed ESCHADA development plan Next Steps: · Preparation of ESCHADA & SMPE · Approval of the draft PD on ESCHADA by the Council of State · Following a positive recommendation from the Board of Directors of HRADF and ETAD, signing of a notarial act for addressing the legal impediments that prohibit the transfer of a majority shareholding of the listed company Astir Palace Vouliagmeni to the Preferred Bidder, as well as for the extension of special beach and shoreline rights to the Preferred Investor Expected closing date: 30.06.2016
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 7 4. Afandou Rhodes Golf and Tourist development in two properties in the Afantou area of the island of Rhodes Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 100% shares of 2 or more SPVs set up by HRADF for each property (Golf Afantou & Southern Afantou) to be acquired by M.A. Angeliades (Preferred Investor for Property A) and T.N. Aegean Sun Investment Limited (Preferred Investor for Property B) Financial Advisors: - Piraeus Bank Legal Advisors: - Potamitis Vekris Technical Advisors: - Decathlon The tender has been approved by the Court of Auditors and the development plan has been signed off by the Council of State (draft Presidential Decree). However, an amendment is needed to correct the total area of the property and a new draft Presidential Decree must be approved and signed off by the Council of State. Main Issues to be addressed: · Adjourn of the Central Administration Council for the approval of the revised Presidential Decree and forwarding and resubmitting it to the Council of State Next Steps: · Approval of the revised Presidential Decree (ESCHADA) by the Council of State · Financial closing of the transaction upon completion of specific conditions precedents as per below: - approval and publication of ESCHADA in Government Gazette, - SPV's acquisition for a period of fifty (50) years of the right to use the seashore and the beach in front of each Property - Rescission of prohibition provided for by article 25 of Law 1892/1990. Expected closing date: 31.12.2015
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 8 5. Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator (DESFA) DESFA, DEPA's wholly-owned subsidiary, owns and operates the regulated high pressure gas transport network and LNG re-gasification facilities in Greece. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 66% (31% HRADF - 35% HELPE) of DESFA's shares to the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan ("SOCAR") through a public tender offer Financial Advisors: - Alpha Bank - UBS - Rothschild Legal Advisors: - Koutalidis Law Firm - Clifford Chance - SPA and SHA signed on 21.12.2013 - The transaction is currently reviewed by DG Comp, which has concerns regarding the acquisition of a majority stake in DESFA - SOCAR to provide additional assurances that the acquisition of 66% of DESFA shall not lead to a market foreclosure - Alternative option is SOCAR to acquire 49% of DESFA, by divesting either to the Hellenic Republic or to a third entity of at least 17% of SOCAR's future stake in DESFA. - Expecting SOCAR's feedback on the preferred transaction structure. - DG Comp approval and fulfillment of other conditions precedents. - Completion of the transaction(s).
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 9 6. Piraeus Port Authority S.A (OLP) The largest Port Authority of Greece. OLP S.A. has a long-term concession agreement with the HR for the use of the Port until 2052 and is listed on the Athens Exchange. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 67% of share capital of Piraeus Port Authority S.A.: - 51% settled at closing - Additional 16% settled 5 years following closing subject to completion of mandatory capex HRADF currently holds 74% of the shares. Financial Advisors: - Morgan Stanley - Piraeus Bank Legal Advisors: - Freshfields - AKL Technical Advisors: - HPC - Marnet Currently in second phase Five Investors preselected · APM · COSCO · ICTSI · Ports America Group · Utilico Full documentation package (including the new concession agreement) submitted to investors and comments received by on January 2015 Main Issues to be addressed 1. Finalize the concession agreement for OLP based on the framework already agreed and the document disseminated to investors in December 2014. (critical, asap): a. Ministry of Shipping & Finance b. OLP 2. Staffing of ports' regulatory authority & preparation necessary Presidential Decree to allow the regulator to properly function(October 2015): a. Ministry of Shipping 3. Specification/separation of administrative & other responsibilities/competences that should be removed from OLP and be transferred to the Hellenic Republic/Port Regulatory Authority (by end of October 2015): a. Ministry of Shipping Next Steps 1. Update of Financial Vendor Due Diligence asap 2. Finalization of Agreements (Concession Agreement, Share Purchase Agreement & Shareholders' Agreement) by end of October 2015 3. Binding offers are expected in November 2015 4. Submission to Court of Audit (December 2015) 5. Parliament Ratification* * The timing of this action is subject to change in order to comply with applicable merger control obligations
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 10 * The timing of this action is subject to change in order to comply with applicable merger control obligations February2014Launch of 2ndphaseSubmission to Court of AuditPrequalificationSubmission of Binding OffersParliament Ratification *June2014Update VDDAugust2015Expression of interest3October2015November2015December2015February2016Issuance of PDFinaliseCAFinaliseagreementsDivision of responsibilities
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 11 7. Thessaloniki Port Authority S.A (OLTH) The second largest Port Authority of Greece. OLTH S.A. has a long-term concession agreement with the HR for the use of the Port until 2051 and is listed in Athens Exchange. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 67% of share capital of Thessaloniki Port Authority S.A. HRADF currently holds 74% of the shares. Financial Advisors: - Morgan Stanley - Piraeus Bank Legal Advisors: - Freshfields - AKL Technical Advisors: - HPC - Marnet Currently in second phase. Eight Investors preselected · APM · Deutsche Invest · ICTSI · Duferco Particiption · Mitsui & Co · P&O Steam Navigation · Russian Railways JSC / GEK TERNA S.A. · Yilport Holding Investors given access to the VDR but yet to full documentation package Main Issues to be addressed 1. Redrafting of the concession agreement based on the OLP precedent work by the relevant authorities (critical, by end of September 2015): a. Ministry of Shipping & Finance b. OLTH 2. Staffing of ports' regulatory authority & preparation necessary Presidential Decree to allow the regulator to properly function(October 2015): a. Ministry of Shipping 3. Specification/division of administrative & other responsibilities/competences to be removed from OLTH and transferred to the Hellenic Republic/Port Regulatory Authority (by end of October 2015): a. Ministry of Shipping Next Steps 1. Access & effect changes in the transaction settlement - sale of 51% at closing + additional 16% five years after closing subject to completion of mandatory capex (asap) 2. Update of Financial Vendor Due Diligence by end of September 2015 3. Finalize company Business Plan by October 2015 4. Management Presentations & Site Visits in October 2015 5. Finalize Port Master Plan by December 2015 6. Finalization of Agreements (Concession Agreement, Share Purchase Agreement & Shareholders' Agreement) 7. Binding offers
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 12 * The timing of this action is subject to change in order to comply with applicable merger control obligations April2014Expression of InterestJune2014August2015September 2015October 2015December 2015January 2016February 2016March 2016June2016PrequalificationLaunch of 2ndphaseIssuance of PDUpdate RFPFinal draft of CAUpdate VDDFinaliseBPSite visits & mgmtpresent.Division of responsibilitiesFinaliseMaster PlanFinaliseagreementsSubmission of Binding OffersSubmission to Court of AuditParliament Ratification *
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 13 8. TRAINOSE S.A. & EESSTY S.A (ROSCO) TRAINOSE is engaged in the provision of traction services for the rail transportation of passengers and freight, the development, organization and exploitation of urban, suburban, regional, extra-urban and international railway transportation of passengers and freight, as well as bus transportation or combined transportation of passengers and freight and the provision of logistics services of any nature. EESTYY, is a newly established (2013) company. Today, the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund owns 100% of the share capital of EESSTY. EESSTY provides rolling stock maintenance and availability services to train operating companies. Privatization Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 100% of share capital of TRAINOSE S.A Sale of 100% of share capital of EESSTY S.A Financial Advisors: - IBG - Kantor Legal Advisors: - Bernitsas - Hogan Lovells (currently under negotiation) Technical Advisors: - Louis Berger Currently both tenders are in the 2nd phase TRAINOSE Three prequalified investor schemes: · SNCF France, · Grup Feroviar Roman (GFR), · Russian Railways ''GEKTERNA EESSTY Three prequalified investor schemes: · ALSTOM-DAMCO · RZD-GEKTERNA · SIEMENS Main Issues to be addressed in the course of the tender procedure 1. Signing of the Assumption Agreement between the HR and Eurofima for Rolling Stock acquired by OSE with Eurofima financing. Transfer of RS from OSE to the HR. (Ministry of Finance/Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Networks '' by September 2015) 2. HR to submit the 2015-2019 PSO Agreement to the Court of Auditors for approval. Then to Parliament for PSO approval by the Joint Economic Affairs Committee. Following the above signing of the new PSO by HR and TRAINOSE. (Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Networks '' by September 2015) 3. Finalization of key transaction agreements (by November 2015): a. Rolling Stock Lease Agreement (GAIAOSE '' TRAINOSE) b. 10 year Maintenance Agreement (TRAINOSE '' EESSTY) c. SPAs. Key stress points: § Environmental issues concerning past and existing contamination of maintenance depots/workshops and who will bear the risk and restoration costs. (Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Networks/Ministry of Finance) § TRAINOSE Debt write off/ closing of the State Aid files on TRAINOSE and OSE with the EC. (Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Networks/Ministry of Finance) · Ministry to proceed with a PPP or SLA model for the provision of railway
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 14 infrastructure restoration and maintenance according to the provisions of the PSO and track access contract (Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Networks) · GAIOSE to proceed with valuation and technical assessment of rolling stock not leased by TRAINOSE (determine exploitation and usage of remaining RS). GAIAOSE to tender "cold storage" maintenance contract (valuation of the Rolling Stock not in use by TRAINOSE/"Cold Storage" maintenance). (Ministry of Transport ''GAIOSE) Next Steps · Submissions of Binding Offers by December 2015. 3a3b3cIn progress2ndphaseSeptember 2015November 2015Finalization of transaction agreements Submission of Binding OffersDecember 2015Transfer of RS from OSE to HRSubmission of PSO AgreementAssumption Agreement
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 15 9. Athens International Airport S.A (AIA) The main Airport of Greece, located in Athens. AIA was established in 1996 as a Public-Private Partnership with a 30-year concession agreement that grants to AIA the right to use the airport site for the purpose of the ''design, financing, construction, completion, commissioning, maintenance, operation, management and development of the airport'' until 2026. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 30% of shares and extension of concession. The privatisation method to be decided. HRADF holds 30% of the shares of AIA and the right to extend the duration of the concession agreement for 20 more years (i.e. up to 2046). The Hellenic Republic holds 25% Financial Advisors: - BNP - NBG Legal Advisors: - Potamitis-Vekris - Clifford Chance Independent Valuator for the extension: - ICF International Under Preparation Options assessed include trade sale and IPO Next Steps · HRADF BoD to formally decide on re-launching the process a. Negotiations with AIA concerning the terms of the extension of the concession agreement b. Negotiations with the current shareholders concerning the sale of shares · Launch of a tender for the sale of shares (up to December 2015) · Expression of interest (February 2016) August 2015HRADF BoDto launch process1aDecember 2015Launch of tender for saleFebruary 2016Expression of Interest1b
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 16 10. Poseidi Chalkidiki Tourist development Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 100% shares of an SPV which will hold ownership and surface rights over the property Financial Advisors: - Alpha Bank - Alpha Astika Akinita Legal Advisors: - Bahas-Grammatidis Technical Advisors: - Decathlon Ongoing tender. Next Steps: · Approval of ESCHADA by Central Administration Council (SMPE consultation has been concluded and SMPE approved by DIPA) · Submission of draft PD to the Council of State for approval and issuance of the relevant ESCHADA PD from the competent Ministries · Finalization by HRADF of the SPA and amendments of certain terms of the RfP · Recording of the area of the old sea shore by the local property authority and transfer of it to HRADF through an Interministerial Decision Expected closing date: 31.12.2015 11. Markopoulo Equestrian Centre Athletic development Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Concession Agreement of the right of use and exploitation for a 40 year period with the possibility of extension Financial Advisors: - Alpha Bank - Alpha Astika Akinita Legal Advisors: - KG Law Firm Technical Advisors: - ASPA Financial offers have been submitted and after a clarifications period, two bidders remain Main Issues to be addressed: · Award of the contract (HRADF BoD) Next Steps: ' Approval of the Concession Agreement by the Court of Auditors · SMPE Approval by DIPA · Approval of ESCHADA by Central Administration Council (SMPE consultation has been concluded) · Submission of PD to Council of State Expected closing date: 31.03.2016
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 17 12. E-auction II, III, IV Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of properties through the e- auction platform Project Advisors for e- auction II and III, legal and technical: - ETAD E auction IV and forth : - KLC Legal Advisors - ETAD Technical Advisors Signing of contracts Contracts to be signed by HRADF: - 18, Florinis st, Athens - Plytra, Prefecture of Lakonia - Former Magistrate of Paramythia - Former Magistrate of Messinia - Plaka properties Expected closing date: 30.09.2015
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 18 · Marinas Alimos Marina and remaining Tourist Ports in HRAF's portfolio Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Long-term (40 years) concession of the marinas To be selected and appointed The tender processes of Alimos cluster and Chios completed without any investor interest Main Issues to be addressed · Main concerns of the prequalified parties: a. uncertainty whether ENFIA is applied in concessions (Clarity is needed by Mininstry of Finance) b. mooring of foreign flag yachts over 12 months (Legislation needed from Ministry of Tourism) c. eviction of existing tenants/non-paying users (Alimos Marina) d. objections by municipalities (Tripartite Agreement on the issue of Alimos Pool) Next Steps · Selection and appointment of advisor team (December 2015) · HRAF decision on privatization model for the tourist ports in its portfolio (in clusters or on an individual basis; relative timing) going forward · New tenders for the Tourist Ports in HRAF's portfolio
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 19 Marina of Pylos Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Long-term (40 years) concession of the marinas Financial Advisors: - IBG Legal Advisors: - KLC Technical Advisors: - ROGAN & Associates Currently in 2nd phase of tender process 8 prequalified investors Main Issues to be addressed 1. Main concerns of the prequalified parties: · uncertainty whether ENFIA is applied in concessions (Clarity is needed by Ministry of Finance) · mooring of foreign flag yachts over 12 months (Legislation needed from Ministry of Tourism) 2. Finalize Strategic Environmental Study for Pylos Marina (Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Environment) Next Steps · Finalization of Concession Agreement by November 2015 · Submission of Binding Offers by December 2015 In ProgressNovember 2015Finalization of Concession AgreementDecember 2015Submission of Binding offers2ndphaseJanuary 2016March 2016Submission to Court of AuditPresidential Decree
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 20 14. Egnatia Motorway S.A A 648km fully constructed toll motorway in Northern Greece linking Igoumenitsa to Turkish borders and three Vertical Axes to the motorway Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Long-term (35 years) concession of Egnatia Motorway and three Vertical Axes The contracts of the advisors have lapsed and the Fund is planning to launch a Tender to engage advisors for the Project Under Preparation 1. HRADF to hire advisors (September 2015). 2. Egnatia SA to confirm status of implementation of the JMD for the Construction of toll stations and other actions planned with decision 6686/14.11.2014 (11 new stations, systems upgrade, hybrid system etc). 3. The Egnatia SA Board of Directors to take a formal decision on the implementation of all actions of the JMD 6686/14.11.2014 with updated timetable to be agreed by the Fund (asap). 4. Egnatia SA to deliver the updated traffic model of the Motorway by September 2015. 5. Issuance of a Joint Ministerial Decision (Ministry of Infrastructure and Ministry Finance) setting out tolling policy for all stations of the Motorway (including stations of JMD 6686/2011) by November 2015, in form agreed with the Fund. JMD with immediate effect as of completion of each toll station. 6. Hellenic Republic (Ministry of Infrastructure) to produce cost-benefit analysis necessary for filings to DG Comp (prior to the commencement of 2nd phase) and DG Regio. 7. Hellenic Republic (Ministry of Infrastructure) to produce the necessary study and analysis necessary for filing to DG Move for licensing the Egnatia Motorway tolling policy. 8. Hellenic Republic to communicate the legal solution agreed with DG Comp for establishment of tolls on the two co-financed vertical axes in order to avert illegal state aid complications. 9. Hellenic Republic to assist Egnatia SA to agree with Piraeus Bank on a debt restructuring scheme for the existing bond loan in default.
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 21 6789August 2015HRAF to hire advisorsSeptember 2015November 2015Issuance of JMD to set tolling policyImplementation of JMD 6686updated traffic model
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 22 15. Hellenic Petroleum S.A (HELPE) Hellenic Petroleum S.A is the leading oil refiner and distributor in Greece and a significant player in the Southeast European market. It operates three refineries in southern and northern Greece which cover approximately 2/3 of the country's refining capacity Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues HRADF holds 35% of the shares. Financial Advisors: Legal Advisors: Alternative options are being evaluated incl. strategic investor, sale of shares through ABB process. - HRDAF to proceed with the engagement of advisors to evaluate alternative strategic options and provide recommendations. - Strategic analysis of options to be presented to HRADF BoD (November 2015). 16. OTE S.A. Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE S.A.) is the largest telecommunications provider in the Greek market, and, together with its subsidiaries, forms one of the leading telecom groups in Southeastern Europe. OTE is among the five largest listed companies, with respect to capitalization, in the Athens Stock Exchange. OTE is also listed in London Stock Exchange (LSE) Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues HRADF currently does not hold OTE shares or the voting rights. Hellenic Republic holds 6% of share capital and 10% of the voting rights. Deutsche Telekom holds 40% of the shares while the rest is free floated Assessment of possible privatization. 1. Agreement between Hellenic Republic and Deutsche Telekom AG for the transfer of OTE shares to HRADF and amendment of the Shareholders' Agreement (which was ratified by law 3676/2008): Ministry of Finance/General Secretariat of Public Property, September 2015 2. Hellenic Republic to decide on the percentage of shares to be transferred to HRADF and, if needed, proceed to an arrangement with IKA, according to their agreement dated 04.03.2009: Ministry of Finance/General Secretariat of Public Property, October 2015. 3. Transfer of shares to HRADF through a decision of the Interministerial Committee for Asset Restructuring and Privatization: ICARP, October 2015.
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 23 17. Public Power Corporation (PPC) PPC is the incumbent power producer and electricity supply company in Greece. PPC currently holds assets in lignite mines, power generation, transmission and distribution. PPC's current power portfolio consists of conventional thermal and hydroelectric power plants, as well as RES units. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 17% of PPC's shares, potentially in 2016. Financial Advisors: n/a Legal Advisors: n/a According to Cabinet Act 15/24.7.2013: - Sale of ADMIE (the Independent Transmission System Operator) by PPC underway - Spin-off of about 30% of production capacity to ('Mikri DEI') to follow - Engagement of advisors to HRADF - Strategy to be determined by HRADF's BoD end 2016.
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 24 18. Thessaloniki Water Supply & Sewerage S.A. (EYATH) EYATH SA has the exclusive right to provide water and sewerage services in the Greater Thessaloniki Area through a 30-year exclusive concession agreement with the Hellenic Republic, effective from 2001. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 23% of share capital. HRADF currently holds 74% of the shares. Previous privatization attempt for the sale of 51% was put on hold based on the decision by the Council of State regarding the similar privatisation of EYDAP. According to the Court decision, the state should retain at least 50% plus 1 share in EYDAP, so only a minority stake can be sold. Next Steps · HRADF to engage advisors · Assessment of alternative options for the sale of 23% of the shares · Improvement of the regulatory framework and adoption of a revised Concession Agreement by the Company and the HR 19. Athens Water Supply & Sewerage S.A (EYDAP) EYDAP has the exclusive right to offer water and sewerage services in the Greater Attica Area. The term of this right, as well as its renewal, is regulated by a a 20-year Agreement signed by the Hellenic Republic and EYDAP in 1999. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Sale of 11% of the shares. HRADF holds 27% of the shares. According to decision by the Council of State concerning the legality of the transfer of the shares to the HRADF, the transfer of 34,0033% of EYADAP shares has been canceled. Therefore, HRAADF owns 27% of EYDAP shares and the HR 34%. According to the Court decision, the state should retain at least 50% plus 1 share, so only a minority stake can be sold. Main Issues to be addressed 1. HR and HRADF to request return of capital to shareholders, as provided in corporate law. 2. HRADF to engage advisors.
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 25 20. Public Gas Corporation (DEPA) DEPA is the incumbent natural gas importer and distributor. It sources gas from a number of suppliers through long-term supply contracts and provides approximately 90% of the gas consumed in the country. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues HRADF holds 65% of the shares. HELPE holds the rest 35% of the shares Main Issues to be addressed · Assessment of alternative options and re-launch a new process. 21. Hellenic Post S.A (ELTA) Hellenic Post is the leading postal service provider in the Greek market and a member of the Universal Postal Union. Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues HRADF holds 90% of the voting rights Financial Advisors: - Lazard - PWC Legal Advisors: - KLC Law Firm Alternative options are being evaluated '' Strategic review is carried out by PwC Main Issues to be addressed Evaluation of strategic actions to restore profitability and address funding needs. Next Steps · HRDAF BoD to discuss the findings of the strategic review carried out by PwC and take decision on strategic actions. · Changes in management and implementation of restructuring plan
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 26 22. Other Real Estate Tenders Assets Initial Offers and Submission of Documents Deadline - Issues i. E-auction V (15 properties) '' sale of land plots and buildings in Argos, Veroia, Stylida, Kefalonia and Rhodes island, Nafplion, Chalkidiki, Mesinia and Athens. Bids to be received by 24.11.2015
Asset Development Plan July 2015 | Page 27 23. Real Estate Monetisation Privatisation Method Advisors Current Status Next Steps '' Main Issues Monetisation of real estate portfolio in an effort to bring forward proceeds from real estate exploitation Financial Advisors: - UBS (Phase A) - UBS, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas (Phase B) Legal Advisors: - Koutalidis Law Firm - Norton Rose UK In July 2014, the Financial Advisor (UBS) delivered the final report presenting: - a review of the various monetization options initially considered - a summary of the Eurostat Framework - a possible application of the potential monetisation together with an initial termsheet - indicative third party costs (excluding the lead arrangers and HRADF legal counsels) - the proposed timetable for the intended monetisation The report was presented to HRADF BoD and to the representatives of ECB, IMF, ESM and it was agreed that the proposed structure would be discussed with Eurostat (Hellenic Statistical Authority). In January 2015, we received final response from Hellenic Statistical Authority. Main Issues to be addressed: - Finalisation of discussion with ELSTAT - Decide on the appropriate structure of the deal (securitization with the upside received by non-profit organization VS establishment of an SPV) - Finalisation of the proposed portfolio (mixture of income generating assets versus land assets) and enhancement of HRADF's portfolio If the appropriate structure is the establishment of an SPV, we would probably need to enhance or change the group of advisors i. Pilot to be launched Q1-Q2 2016 (pending confirmation by BoD) ii. Follow up projects 2016-2017
Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund Asset Development Plan (Greek Privatization Plan) Leaked (PDF) | American Everyman
The privatization plan concocted by the Troika's International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank has been leaked online. It includes a vast array of nationally owned businesses, infrastructure and public services including:
airportsgas transmission systems (pipelines) (keep in mind: the Turkish Stream gas pipeline)golf courseshotelsshipping portsrailwaysmarinasmotorways (toll roads)oil refineriesvarious ''other real estate tenders'' in Argos, Veroia, Stylinda, Kefalonia, Nafplion, Chalkidiki, Mesinia and Athenstelecommunication servicesthe public power service (electric services)public gas servicesthe postal servicesand two water supply servicesIt's called the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund Asset Development Plan (PDF) and essentially, it's the selling off of nearly all of the potentially profitable government functions of Greece.
Small government libertarians should be quite thrilled upon reading this plan. It's like a Milton Friedman wet dream.
Telecom, public power, public gas services, the post office, ports, roads, railways and even the end-all-be-all of the privatization endgame'... selling off the water services.
The water privatization plan is causing a bit of a ruckus over in Greece. As well it should.
You can see now why the MSM only mentions the airports being privatized. A comprehensive list like this makes it clear what the game plan really is: the privatization of the Greek government as a whole. This is the plan for Greece. This is the plan for the US in the end. We just happen to be heading in that direction in little baby steps (I guess because they haven't succeeded in rounding up all the guns yet)
I suppose it's no wonder that Alexis Tsipras took a powder before the full details of this betrayal went public. Talk about a sell-out, this guy literally sold off his entire country to foreign vulture capitalists and once it's finished, the cost that will be imposed on the Greek people will go WAY beyond anything they can anticipate via the accompanying crippling austerity plan.
You should download that privatization plan PDF. Chances are, it wont be up for long.
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Filed under: Alexis Tsipras, class warfare, disaster capitalism, Economic Crisis ie. Disaster Capitalism, economic terrorism, Fascism, Fascism², Globalization, Greek Elections 2015, Greek referendum, Libertarians and Neoliberals, Neoliberalizing Greece, Public Private Partnership, Scott Creighton, Syriza, Yanis Varoufakis
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a news conference after a meeting with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow, Russia, August 17, 2015.
Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday the United States has been sending "signals" that it wants to start mending ties with Moscow, badly strained over the past year and a half by the conflict in Ukraine.
The United States and European Union slapped economic sanctions on Russia last year after its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and support for a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow, which denies arming the rebels, responded with its own counter-sanctions against Western countries.
But Russia and the United States have still cooperated in some other areas, notably in helping to broker a landmark nuclear deal last month with Iran.
Lavrov made clear Moscow was open to further dialogue, though it would also not "beg" for better ties.
"But if we receive a proposal to start, even gradually, restoring these channels, mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation that have been frozen by our American partners, I am sure ... we will agree to restore these channels," he said.
"We are already getting such signals from the Americans, though for now not very clear," Lavrov told a youth meeting.
As well as the Ukraine conflict, in which more than 6,500 people have been killed since April 2014, Washington and Moscow are at loggerheads over the Syrian crisis, human rights and trade and security issues.
However, Lavrov said last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin would "consider constructively" any request for a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama when he travels to New York next month for the U.N. General Assembly.
Also last week, Putin said at a meeting with U.S. boxing champion Roy Jones Jr.: "We have had different kinds of relations at different times, but whenever America and Russia's higher interest demanded it, we always found the strength to build relations in the best possible way."
(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Nato begins an airborne training exercise on August 24 in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy and Romania, the largest such combined airborne training on the continent since the end of the Cold War.
As part of Exercise Swift Response 2015, which is being held from August 20 to September 13, Bulgaria is hosting a simulation of an airborne assault with paratroopers and landing of equipment.
This is to take place around the Tenevo and Balchik airfields and at the Novo Selo training ground in Bulgaria.
About 400 military personnel from the US, Italy and Bulgaria will be involved, using 12 C-130 aircraft, and 12 helicopters.
Bulgaria's Defence Ministry said that south of Yambol, near the villages of Tenevo and Karavelovo and near Balchik municipality, there would be night flights at various heights. It was possible that residents would be bothered by the noise of the aircraft, the ministry said.
The US Army Europe said that Swift Response 2015 was designed to integrate multiple Allied nations' high-readiness forces to operate as a cohesive team and demonstrate the Alliance's capacity to rapidly deploy and operate in support of maintaining a strong and secure Europe.
The exercise is taking place in Germany, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy; and includes more than 4800 Soldiers from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Swift Response 15 will include simultaneous airborne joint forced entries in to Germany's Hohenfels Training Area and Bulgaria's Novo Selo Training Area with follow-on training at both locations. The exercise will conclude in early September with multinational platoon and company live fire at the Grafenw¶hr Training Area.
The US contingent will be led by headquarters elements from the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps and the 4th Infantry Division Mission Command Element, and will include the Europe-based 173rd Airborne Brigade, and the US-based 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division.
Swift Response 15 marks the first time the 82nd Airborne Division has operated in Europe since supporting NATO operations in Kosovo in 1999. The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne will assume responsibilities as the Army's Global Response Force (GRF) from the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne at the end of the year, with the mission of being able to deploy anywhere in the world within 96 hours of notification.
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
The Serengeti-Ngorongoro southern circuit, a key migration route, is another tourist hotspot. It receives 300,000 visitors a year, spending $500 million in total on trips to the 300-kilometer stretch between Arusha and Serengeti, Tanzania.
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
Of the countries who submitted data, 14 generated a total of approximately $142 million in entrance fees to protected parks, bolstering the coffers of various conservation initiatives. Around half of operators contribute to anti-poaching projects, and governments are taking steps to counter the elevated threat in recent years.
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
UNTWO worked out that across the continent, the average wildlife tour lasts 10 days, has six participants and costs $433 per day. It also found that France, the UK, the U.S., Germany and Portugal are the biggest long-haul markets for Africa.
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
Big beasts, big business: The countries cashing in on wildlife tours
Globally there were 12 million wildlife tourism trips in 2013 (the last full year of data available), and numbers are rising 10% annually, suggesting positive signs for the industry -- should it counter the existential threats to it, such as "the dramatic increasein poaching and illicit trade of wildlife products since 2005," which "threatens to undermine conservation achievements," according to UNTWO.
IRS
Obama IRS Found Hiding Another Lois Lerner Email Account As Abuse Scandal Continues'...
Meghan Curry estimates she'll need 4,000-5,000 calories per day to fuel her ascent of El Capitan. That's a lot of bugs. Photo: Courtesy of Meghan Curry
Nothing satisfies at the end of a long day of climbing like a handful of meal worms. Or at least that's the case for bugs-as-food proponent Meghan Curry. This September, the 29-year-old El Paso entomologist is putting her money (and her meal worms) where her mouth is. She plans to solo climb El Capitan eating nothing but insect-based foods.
Technically the trip up El Cap is just a two-week-long PR stunt'--more about eating worms than placing gear. It's Curry's play to get the outdoors set onboard with bugs as the conversation about their viability as a sustainable protein replacement for livestock gets underway in the U.S. ''It's something the edible insect industry hasn't done yet,'' she says, ''but these are people that are adventurous by nature and sustainability-minded.''
Photo: Courtesy of Meghan Curry
You won't see Curry stuffing her face with whole insects during her climb, which she expects to tak ten-to-14 days. Rather, she's utilizing pre-made bug-flour bars and cookies, and cricket-based fruit leathers. She anticipates needing between 4,000 and 5,000 calories per day during her climb, which shouldn't be a problem. Crickets offer 31 grams of protein per 200-calorie serving, which is more than salmon, chicken, beef, and eggs. They also offer 7.2 grams of fiber, something that most protein sources don't offer at all. Plus, cricket flout is light. Carrying them won't be nearly the burden that packing other protein might be.
''What she's doing is she's making a statement that these are powerful foods. These are foods that can get you up a mountain,'' says Lee Cadesky, founder of C-fu Foods. Cadesky is hoping to bring a tofu-like bug-based product to market later this year, and he'll be providing Curry with cans of bug chili and spaghetti with bug marinara for her ascent. Several companies, including San Francisco's Bitty Foods and Ontario's Next Millennium Farms, are donating bug-based foods to Curry for her trip.
Curry is a longtime climber and general bug lover. After receiving a graduate degree in entomology (the study of insects), she decided to pursue a career in entomophagy, or the consumption of insects. ''I believe that insects are a really awesome tool we can use to feed the 9 billion people we're going to have on this planet by 2050,'' she says. She runs the website Bug Vivant, where the bug-curious can get recipes and buying and cooking advice. Her ultimate goal is to someday open up an edible wax worm production company.
Pizza with extra insects. Photo: Courtesy of Meghan Curry
''Wax worms are probably my favorite treat,'' Curry says. ''They have this buttery, honey, subtle flavor.'' She adds that there's also a gap in the wax worm market. While food-grade crickets have become pretty easy to get, wax worms can be harder to find.
Curry will be tweeting updates from the climb as well as sharing videos of both the pitches she's climbing and the foods she's eating. While her stunt immediately seems like it's just one step removed from those reality shows where a survival celeb sticks a whole, wriggling centipede in his mouth for shock value, Curry promises this won't be the way her videos go down. Her videos will be tasteful: No wriggling, no wincing, shirtless adventure dude, no hype. Just climb, eat, repeat, until she gets to the top.
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The Iran deal: The ultimate argument in favor of it - POLITICO
That's the provocative argument coming from Obama administration officials and other backers of the deal as they promote it before a crucial vote in Congress next month.
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In meetings on Capitol Hill and with influential policy analysts, administration officials argue that inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities under the deal will reveal important details that can be used for better targeting should the U.S. decide to attack Iran.
''It's certainly an argument I've heard made,'' said Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. ''We'll be better off with the agreement were we to need to use force.''
Schiff has already announced his support for the Iran deal. But the argument could be useful as the administration tries to persuade centrist Democrats with a hawkish view of Iran to support the agreement, which provides relief from sanctions for Iran in return for curbs and inspections of its nuclear program. Congress is expected to vote on the deal next month.
Obama officials rarely discuss the concept in public, partly out of concern over long-standing tensions between Iran's clerical regime and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will monitor Iran's nuclear complex under the deal. Iranian officials have often accused IAEA inspectors of being Western agents.
''I can certainly understand why the Iranians wouldn't like that argument,'' Schiff said. ''But then the Iranians have made a lot of arguments that we don't like.''
On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that the IAEA has privately agreed to allow Iran to conduct its own environmental sampling, under agency supervision, at a sensitive military base where Tehran is thought to have conducted past nuclear weapons research. The details of the agreement are unclear, but such an arrangement would reflect Iran's deep suspicion of the IAEA and its concerns that the United Nations agency's inspections might benefit American war planners.
While U.S. officials are guarded in their discussion of military options, ''it's been on their minds for some time,'' said one person who has spoken often with the administration's Iran policymakers.
Analysts said the military benefits of having a clearer view of Iran's program is an undeniable feature of the agreement.
''If you want to bomb the program, you should be superexcited about this deal,'' said Austin Long, a professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs who studies U.S. military options against Iran. ''The more you know about Iran's nuclear program and the industrial infrastructure behind that program, the better you will be able to target it.''
Although the U.S. is already well aware of Iran's major nuclear sites, such as its uranium enrichment plants at Fordow and Natanz, Pentagon planners lack detailed knowledge about the country's ''supply chain'' '-- facilities that build essential components like centrifuges as well as its uranium mines and mills.
''These are exactly the kind of things you would want to destroy, so you don't just cripple their ability to enrich uranium'' but also Iran's ability to reconstitute their enrichment program, Long said.
The White House has aired the argument once '-- drawing a furious Iranian response. In a July 17 briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest said ''the military option would be enhanced'' by the deal, adding that U.S. and Israeli targeting decisions ''would be significantly informed '... based on the knowledge that has been gained in the intervening years through this inspections regime.''
Iran quickly filed a formal complaint about Earnest's remarks with the IAEA expressing ''grave concern.'' It accused the U.S. of breaching the deal with a threat, and warned against ''any attempt aimed at obtaining its confidential information.''
The July 14 nuclear deal sets up intrusive inspections and monitoring regime that will be managed by the IAEA, which will assign up to 150 inspectors to the country full time. They will have round-the-clock access to Iran's nuclear facilities, and a mandate to investigate suspected secret nuclear sites. Iran must also describe the entirety of its nuclear program to the IAEA in much greater detail than it has to date. Under IAEA procedures, and the text of the nuclear deal, the U.S. will have access to that information.
Tehran's suspicions about Western spying and espionage were a major hurdle in the nuclear talks. Iranian officials have charged that the IAEA collaborates with Western intelligence agencies, saying that they pass information to the U.S. and Israel that has facilitated sabotage of Iran's program and even led to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists.
After a mysterious 2012 power outage at Fordow and Natanz, for instance, Iran's nuclear chief warned ''terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency.'' And when an atomic scientist was murdered earlier that year, one Iranian official complained that people ''who came to Iran under the pretext of inspecting the country's nuclear facilities have identified Iranian scientists and given their names to the terrorist groups.''
On Monday, Iran's deputy foreign minister said that Iran's intelligence service would have to approve any IAEA inspectors seeking access the country. The nuclear deal already states that Iran ''will generally allow the designation of inspectors from nations that have diplomatic relations with Iran,'' apparently excluding Americans from the IAEA team.
The IAEA's Iran Task Force had an initial full-time staff of 50 inspectors when it was created in 2012. The nuclear agreement envisions a team roughly triple that size, between 130 and 150. The task force includes technical experts, intelligence analysts and nuclear weapons specialists based in Vienna, where the atomic watchdog agency is headquartered.
New insight into Iran's program isn't the only benefit seen by U.S. military and intelligence officials, who worked closely with Secretary of State John Kerry's negotiating team to help shape a deal to their liking.
For instance, the deal requires Iran to stop enriching uranium at Fordow, a facility buried more than 200 feet under mountain rock that presents a challenging target. Iran's other enrichment facility at Natanz is also underground '-- but not as deep and thus far more vulnerable to American bunker-buster munitions.
Intrusive IAEA inspections also allow intelligence officials to worry less about keeping watch over Iran's known nuclear sites, allowing them to focus on the hunt for any nuclear activity Iran might be conducting in secret.
Multiple intelligence arms of the U.S. government are focused on Iran, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA's Iran operations division.
Schiff said he is urging his undecided colleagues to read a classified assessment prepared for Congress by U.S. intelligence agencies, which he said gives him confidence in the ability of U.S. spy agencies to catch Iran in the act of cheating.
He said that Washington would be stepping up cooperation with allies to monitor Iran beyond the declared scope of the nuclear deal's IAEA inspections.
That point was echoed by Ami Ayalon, a former chief of Israel's Shin Bet security service, in a recent interview with POLITICO.
''I know something about the American [intelligence] capabilities, and I can tell you that some specific areas, we can improve them with some specific capabilities that we have,'' Ayalon said. ''I believe that we can reach the point at which, if we share our intelligence '... we shall know almost everything that is happening at every site every moment in Iran.''
War on Men
Small Man Syndrome: Scientists Say Small Men More Likely To Resort To Violence
Small Man Syndrome: Scientists Say Small Men More Likely To Resort To ViolenceHTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 P3P: CP='NO P3P' Vary: Accept-Encoding X-UA-Compatible: IE=edge,chrome=1 Content-Encoding: gzip Cache-Control: max-age=300 Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2015 14:33:09 GMT Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive Connection: Transfer-Encoding
Drone Nation
North Dakota cops will be first in nation to use weaponized drones
North Dakota's Bill 1328 was supposed to be cut and dry. "In my opinion there should be a nice, red line: drones should not be weaponized. Period," Rep. Rick Becker (R-Bismarck), the bill's original sponsor, told a committee hearing back in March, per The Daily Beast. That was going to happen too, at least until an industry lobbying firm got involved. Now, law enforcement agencies in North Dakota are legally allowed to arm their UAVs with any manner of weapons, so long as they aren't "lethal".
The bill was, in fact, originally designed to strictly limit law enforcement's ability to weaponize drones. It also demanded that police obtain a search warrant from a judge before employing drones in an investigation. However, a rep from the North Dakota Peace Officer's Association then amended the bill -- at the behest of the state house committee, no less -- to limit only "lethal weapons." Anything classified as "less than lethal" is now allowed. That means cops can outfit their UAVs with everything from rubber bullets, pepper spray and Tasers to tear gas and sound cannons. And, as The Guardian points out, "less than lethal" police Tasers have already killed 39 Americans this year alone.
'When you're not on the ground, and you're making decisions, you're sort of separate," bemoaned Becker back in March. "Depersonalized." Given that law enforcement officials have already killed some 774 Americans this year, a future Good Kill-like scenario featuring your neighborhood police feels all too real.
Atlanta police officers with an unarmed UAV during last year's Ferguson protests - Image Credit: Associated Press
Not so, Grand Forks County Sheriff Bob Rost told The Daily Beast. "It was a bad bill to start with," Rost said. "We just thought the whole thing was ridiculous." He also took umbrage with the fact that he'd need a search warrant to use his county's drone when searching for evidence, clearly misunderstanding the core concept behind how search warrants work.
And it wasn't just law enforcement that had a hand in castrating this bill. North Dakota's Department of Commerce, the director of the University of North Dakota's drone major program and various economic groups that would benefit from lax regulation testified against it. The reason for this, according Keith Lund of the Grand Forks Regional Economic Development Corporation, is simple.
"It's really all about the commercial development, which is where all of this is heading," Lund said during the hearing in March. "If [a law] is somehow limiting commercial, law enforcement development... that is a negative in terms of companies looking and investing in opportunities in the state of North Dakota." Because who needs civil liberties when there's money to be made by the UAV industry?
...English schoolkids are among the world's unhappiest, according to a new study.
Nearly 40% of English schoolkids aged 10 to 12 say they have been physically bullied in the past month.
BULLIED BRIT KIDS
The Good Children 2015 report, published this month by the University of York, examined 53,000 children's wellbeing across 15 countries, including South Korea, Romania, Colombia, Uganda, Ethiopia and Algeria.
The report ranked England 14th for life satisfaction, ahead of South Korea.
Only 1% of 10 to 12-year-olds in Romania said they are unhappy with their life 'as a whole'.
BULLIED BRIT KIDS
...
One of the problems in England is that the government ministers in charge of education have often been regarded as being 'bullies' or worse.
Among those who have been in charge of education are:
Margaret Thatcher
Sir Keith Joseph, Bt
Rhodes Boyson.
Kenneth Clarke
David Laws.
Part of the problem is the 'sick' culture in Britain.
In Britain, those who bully children tend to be rewarded, while the 'whistleblower kids' tend to be ignored.
MI6 deputy boss PETER HAYMAN abused children but was given a knighthood
JIMMY SAVILE abused children but was given a knighthood..
Boy, 12, 'bullied for being a cheerleader' kills himself..SARAH HARRIS in the dailymail reports on what she calls innocuous playground taunts.She and the 'Jewish led' Manifesto Club are against the 'recording' of the names of bullies.
Boy, 12, 'bullied for being a cheerleader' kills himself..Aangirfan believe that one of the reasons why so many UK schools perform badly is because of low standards of behaviour.
It is easy to spot the children with personality disorders - the future Hitlers and Netanyahus.
You just have to listen to how they address their fellow human beings.
Such children need help.
Often the bullies are totally unaware that what they are doing is wrong.
Bullied to death in school.The Mail lists some of the 'innocuous' taunts:B called another child an 'African rat'.
C called his teacher 'Jimmy Savile'.
C said the teacher was an Australian faggot and a pikey.
C said the teacher rapes babies.
D called a girl an 'Egyptian bitch'.'
E called another child 'fat' and 'gay'.F called a girl a 'fat bucket of KFC'.
G called another child a retard.
'Hasbara' journalist Brendan O'Neill.
Aangirfan believes that most of the trolls are Crypto-Jews and Nazis.
The Manifesto Club has been linked to Cryto-Jews.
The Manifesto Club says "We support free movement across borders."Brendan O'Neill co-founded the Manifesto Club
In the Daily Telegraph online, thereisagod commented on an article by Brendan O'Neill entitled:Murdoch, Jews, lizards, Lefties and Leveson: the spread of British conspiracy politics. - Brendan O'Neill - 27 Nov 2012
The Comment:
"Creating powerful twilight language such as 'conspiracy theories' is just another method currently used for closing down debate on sensitive subjects by creating taboos that allow the media and politicians to avoid answering reasonable questions...
"Real power is NEVER challenged by the press nor our so-called representatives in parliament.
"People understand that the trust agreement between MP's and those that supposedly appoint them (i.e. us) is broken.
"We understand that our interests are served only when these interests coincide with corporate/banking interest.
"Do the public really wish for perpetual war?
"This is exactly what we get..."
Hasbara Bingo! | The Palestine Poster Project Archives...
Hasbara means Israeli propaganda, and it is often produced by crypto-Jews.
Brendan O'Neill is a Telegraph hasbara blogger, according to Jews sans frontieres.
So, what did O'Neill write in his Telegraph blog?
"In the current issue of the New Statesman, Peter Wilby slams the Daily Mail for spreading a 'conspiracy theory' about the Leveson Inquiry.
"He says the Mail's claim that... Common Purpose has effectively infiltrated Leveson, with an eye for achieving its long-standing goal of muzzling the press...
"The Mail might as well have published an article about 'ten-foot lizards' controlling Leveson, says Wilby.
"Yet flick forward a few pages, and there is Mr Wilby again heaping praise upon Labour MP Tom Watson's book Dial M for Murdoch...
"It describes how Murdoch's 'invisible networks' created a 'shadow state' in Britain, which controlled virtually every aspect of public life.
"You know what the sounds like?
"Yep, a big fat conspiracy theory...
"So one starts to fantasise that there must be a tiny but unbelievably influential clique of lizards/Jews/bankers/annoying Lefties/Murdoch drones...
"Isn't it time we grew up?
"Murdoch did not control Britain from a yacht in the Mediterranean. And Leveson is not a plot..."
The man who speaks for the BBC?
Some more comments on O'Neill's article:
piecrust71
"Brendan O'Neill
"I assume, then, that you consider yourself to be a 'coincidence theorist' or just a mere Liberal Fascist?
"And that the BBC inquiry into Jimmy Savile scandal 'to stay secret' is not people in power conspiring?"crimsonking
"The flavour of the current epoch is that the innocent are guilty and the guilty (if you are powerful) innocent.
"Examples are Savile, Smith, Hillsborough Disaster, The Cardiff Three, MPs expenses, Blairs lies on Iraq etc....
"And their is no point havng anti-corruption units to deal with the sorry mess if they are corrupt themselves.
"Nobody believes or trusts anybody anymore. Democracy has had its day.........Can you hear the boots marching."
Tubby_Isaacs
"Glad we've had Leveson to put to bed the idea that News International had a hold over politicians and police officers. Almost as silly as the idea that the security services were plotting against Harold Wilson..."
It looks as if there is a Zionist-Nazi-Robber-Baron plan to control the world by a policy of divide and rule?
Ministry of Truth
MSNBC Moves Al Sharpton's 'PoliticsNation' to Sundays - Hollywood Reporter
MSNBC is moving reverend and talk-show host AlSharpton'sPoliticsNation to Sundays, network president Phil Griffin said in a memo on Wednesday. Its last weekday airing will be on Sept. 4.
"After four terrific years '' or as Reverend Sharpton said, 'a full first term' '' PoliticsNation is ready for its next chapter. Beginning on Sunday, October 4, the show will move to Sunday mornings at 8:00 am," Griffin wrote.
The show has aired at 6 pm ET on weekdays and will now move from five days a week to one day a week.
"I want to congratulate Al and his team. For four years they have done a terrific job bringing his voice and a big spotlight to issues of justice, civil rights and equality. And as many of you know, The Rev never missed a show. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do with a Sunday morning newsmaker program."
Sharpton tweeted: "That new Politics Nation w/ Al Sharpton will premiere on my birthday weekend. I am honored with now being a Sunday Morning TV host, Great!!"
The one-hour Politics Nation began airing on MSNBC in August 2011. It will air its first Sunday edition Oct. 4 at 8 a.m.
VIDEO-CLIPS-DOCS
VIDEO-Walmart to stop selling AR-15s and similar guns August 26
Walmart(WMT) spokesman Kory Lundberg said the move is in response to slumping demand.
Generally speaking, gun sales have been strong this summer. The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted 1.6 million background checks in July for all gun sales, not just semiautomatic weapons. That's up from 1.4 million total checks in July of 2015.
Background checks aren't a direct indicator of gun sales, since they are not required for some sales at trade shows and between individuals. But they are a good barometer for the market.
AR-15s have been used in mass shootings including Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., and gun control advocates have long been fighting to restrict the sale of these weapons.
Related: NRA sues Seattle over $25 gun tax
Walmart made the announcement on the same day that two television journalists were murdered on live television by a man wielding a handgun, but the retailer did not mention the shootings.
Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon had indicated he might do this in a June 23 interview with CNNMoney.
"Our focus in terms of firearms should be hunters and people who shoot sporting clays, and things like that," said McMillon in June. "So the types of rifles we sell, the types of ammunition we sell, should be curated for those things."
When asked at the time if he would curtail sales of semiautomatic guns, McMillon said "yes."
"We want to serve people who hunt and fish and we want to have a great sporting goods department," he said.
Related: Gun violence costs taxpayers $500 million
CNNMoney (New York)August 26, 2015: 6:22 PM ET
VIDEO-State of Emergency Declared in Ferguson on Anniversary of Michael Brown's Death: Forum | KQED Public Media for Northern CA
Tue, Aug 11, 2015 -- 9:00 AMTue, Aug 11, 2015 -- 9:00 AM
Download audio (MP3)Scott Olson/Getty Images
Demonstrators march from the location where Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri to mark the first anniversary of his death on August 8, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Demonstrators march from the location where Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri to mark the first anniversary of his death on August 8, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri
A state of emergency has been declared in Ferguson, Missouri after police shot and critically injured an 18-year-old on the first anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown. A weekend of mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for more police accountability continued Monday on the steps of St. Louis County Courthouse. We'll get an update on the news out of Ferguson and discuss where the #blacklivesmatter and similar movements against police use of force stand a year after their genesis.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
Abby Phillip, reporter, Washington PostBrandon Ellington Patterson, fellow, Mother JonesCat Brooks, Founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project, which held a vigil for Michael Brown recently. Brooks is also a member of Black Lives Matter Bay Area.Eva Paterson, President and co-founder of the Equal Justice Society and co-founder of the California Coalition for Civil RightsPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Please ensure that all comments adhere to our community guidelines. We reserve the right to edit or remove comments that do not follow these guidelines. Also, please note that your comments could be read on air. We may edit them for clarity or brevity, and we will use only your first name to identify you on the air.
VIDEO-Rule 48: the arcane NYSE rule to tame a wild market
Full text of Rule 48, Exemptive Relief'--Extreme Market Volatility Condition(a) In the event that extremely high market volatility is likely to have a Floor-wide impact on the ability of DMMs to arrange for the fair and orderly opening, reopening following a market-wide halt of trading at the Exchange, or closing of trading at the Exchange and that absent relief, the operation of the Exchange is likely to be impaired, a qualified Exchange officer may declare an extreme market volatility condition with respect to trading on or through the facilities of the Exchange.
(b) In the event that an extreme market volatility condition is declared with respect to trading on or through the facilities of the Exchange, a qualified Exchange officer shall be empowered to temporarily suspend at the opening of trading or reopening of trading following a market-wide trading halt: (i) the need for prior Floor Official or prior NYSE Floor operations approval to open or reopen a security at the Exchange (Rules 123D(1) and 79A.30); and/or (ii) applicable requirements to make pre-opening indications in a security (Rules 15 and 123D(1)).
(c) A suspension under section (b) of this Rule is subject to the following provisions:
(1)(A) Before declaring an extreme market volatility condition, the qualified Exchange officer shall consider the facts and circumstances that are likely to have Floor-wide impact for a particular trading session, including volatility in the previous day's trading session, trading in foreign markets before the open, substantial activity in the futures market before the open, the volume of pre-opening indications of interest, evidence of pre-opening significant order imbalances across the market, government announcements, news and corporate events, and such other market conditions that could impact Floor-wide trading conditions.
(B) Such review shall be undertaken in consultation with relevant officers of NYSE Market and NYSE Regulation, as appropriate. Following the review, the qualified Exchange officer or his or her designee shall document the basis for declaring an extreme market volatility condition.
(2) The qualified Exchange officer will, as promptly as practicable in the circumstances, inform the Securities and Exchange Commission staff that an extreme market volatility condition has been declared, the basis for such declaration, and what relief has been granted.
(3) An extreme market volatility condition may only be declared before the scheduled opening or reopening following a market-wide halt of securities at the Exchange.
(4) A declaration of an extreme market volatility condition shall be in effect only for the particular opening or reopening for the trading session on the particular day that the extreme market volatility condition is determined to exist. The Exchange may declare a separate extreme market volatility condition on subsequent days subject to sections (b)(1) through (b)(3) above.
(5) A declaration of extreme market volatility shall not relieve DMMs from the obligation to make pre-opening indications in situations where the opening of a security is delayed for reasons unrelated to the extreme market volatility condition.
(d) For purposes of this Rule, a "qualified Exchange officer" means the Chief Executive Officer of ICE, or his or her designee, or the Chief Executive Officer of NYSE Regulation, Inc., or his or her designee.
Action News anchor Monica Malpass was on assignment Wednesday to interview President Barack Obama one-on-one at the White House.They discussed several topics, including the shooting of two TV news staffers during a live report in Virginia.
A reporter, 24-year-old Alison Parker, and a photographer, 27-year-old Adam Ward, died in the shooting.
The suspect, 41-year-old Vester Flanagan, who went by the name Bryce Williams when he was also an on-air reporter, died from a self-inflicted gunshot a few hours later."It breaks my heart every time you read or hear about these kids of incidents," President Obama said.
"What we know is that the number of people who die from gun-related incidents around this country dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism," the president continued.
Monica also talked with President Obama about the recent agreement the U.S. and other countries made with Iran, to dismantle its nuclear program.
Her reports will continue Thursday evening on Action News.
(Copyright (C)2015 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.)
VIDEO-Scarborough: Pro-Biden White House Sending Message to Justice Department About Hillary? | MRCTV
Has there ever been anything quite like this in the history of American politics? It's one thing for a president to encourage his veep's presidential ambitions. It's entirely another for a president to put his 800-lb. thumb on the political scales by suggesting to his Justice Department that he'd like it to launch an investigation of the veep's main rival.
Today's Morning Joe was agog today at Obama press sec Josh Earnest's unequivocal pro-Biden statement of yesterday, in which Earnest said Obama considers his choice of Biden as veep the "smartest decision he's ever made in politics" and extolled Biden's "aptitude for the top job." That led Joe Scarborough to make the following observation, which should make the blood run cold in the veins of Hillary Clinton and her suppporters: "boy, the White House yesterday, they sent a strong, strong message to Hillary Clinton . . . you wonder whether they're sending a message to the Justice Department as well."
VIDEO-Jorge Ramos: The Job of Journalists Is to 'Denounce' Trump | MRCTV
[See NewsBusters for more.] Fresh from his confrontation with Donald Trump on Tuesday night, activist reporter Jorge Ramos appeared on ABC and CBS to pitch the idea that it's the job of journalists to openly oppose the candidate's positions. On Good Morning America, Wednesday, he asked colleague George Stephanopoulos, "We have to denounce that he wants to deny citizenship to children being born here." He added, "They're citizens, just like [Trump's children], and it is impossible to build a 1900-mile wall... So that's the kind of questions that I was asking Mr. Trump." Of course, those were statements and not questions. Lobbying for more subjectivity in the press, Ramos declared, "...I think the best journalism happens when you take a stand... We are not only required, but we are forced to take a stand."
VIDEO-Daniel Castro Internet Things Connected | Video | C-SPAN.org
Keynote: Using IoT to Drive a New Wave of Government ProductivityThis keynote will discuss a national strategy for IoT; federal, state and'... read more
Keynote: Using IoT to Drive a New Wave of Government ProductivityThis keynote will discuss a national strategy for IoT; federal, state and local use cases on IoT programs and the benefits such as addressing the water supply in California; as well as security and privacy implications from the Hill. close
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People in this videoMore PeopleHosting OrganizationMore Videos FromGovLoop: The Internet of Things: Connected GovernmentClips from This VideoView all clips from this videoRelated VideoAugust 25, 2015Government Use of the Internet of Things, Part 2Representatives from the technology sector and federal, state, and local governments discussed the use of smart'...
December 2, 2010Do-Not-Track LegislationWitnesses examined the feasibility of establishing a mechanism that provides Internet users a simple and universal'...
August 12, 2015CybersecurityFormer Navy Secretary Richard Danzig talked about the nature of cybersecurity and cyber threats in the modern national'...
August 5, 2015Senator Wyden on Cybersecurity LegislationSenator Wyden (D-OR) spoke about the status of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) and argued that the'...
VIDEO-James Holmes formally sentenced to life plus 3,318 years - CNN.com
People visit the roadside memorial set up for victims of the massacre on Monday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Visitors pray around a cross at the memorial across the street from the theater on Saturday, July 28.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Jeremy Blocker displays a new tattoo honoring the victims.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Members of Alex Sullivan's family embrace at a memorial across the street from the Century 16 movie theater on Thursday, July 26.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Hello Kitty-themed flowers are sent to shooting victim Micayla Medek's funeral Thursday in Denver.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Pallbearers carry Micayla Medek's coffin during her funeral at the New Hope Baptist Church on Thursday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
People visit a memorial across the street from the Century 16 movie theater on Thursday, July 26, in Aurora, Colorado.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Angella Aquilis, left, and Maria Olivas mourn together at a makeshift memorial across the street from the Century 16 movie theater Wedesday, July 25.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Yvonne Amaro, 9, prays for those injured and killed as she visits the memorial on Wednesday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Carrie Hensley, left, and Hailee Hensley mourn together on Wednesday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Kevin Flynn, left, Aurora Police top brass division chief, and Cmdr. Jack Daluz visit the makeshift memorial.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A couple embraces as "Dark Knight Rises" star Christian Bale and his wife, Sandra Blazic, wait to place flowers at the memorial on Tuesday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Bale places flowers at the memorial while other mourners look on.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Visitors pay tribute Tuesday, July 24, at the makeshift memorial.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A cross stands at the makeshift memorial for victims across the street from the Century 16 theater on Tuesday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Greg Zanis of Aurora, Illinois, carries two of the 12 crosses he made for a makeshift memorial to the victims of last weekend's mass shooting at the Century 16 movie theater on Sunday, July 22.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Greg Zanis writes the names of the victims of last weekend's mass shooting on the crosses before erecting them at the memorial across from the Century 16 movie theater on Sunday. Zanis, a carpenter, drove all night from Illinois to deliver the crosses.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Parishioners pray during morning Mass, remembering victims of the theater shooting, at the Queen of Peace Catholic Church on Sunday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Angie Terry of Alabama prays next to a white wooden cross erected for victims.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A man pauses before the crosses at the memorial near the Century 16 movie theater on Sunday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
President Barack Obama embraces Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper as Sen. Mark Udall, left, and Sen. Michael Bennet look on during a visit to the University of Colorado Hospital on Sunday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Mourners bow their heads in prayer during the vigil for the victims of the Aurora shooting.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A woman is overcome with emotion during the vigil.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Tiffany Garcia, right, and her 6-year-old daughter, Angelina Garcia, cry on Saturday, July 21, as they look at a memorial for the victims of Friday's shooting.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
People pray at a cross erected at the makeshift memorial across the street from the Century 16 theater on Saturday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Family, friends and former classmates of movie theater shooting victim A.J. Boik gather for a memorial service at Gateway High School on Saturday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Boik and his girlfriend were at the midnight showing of 'The Dark Knight Rises' when a gunman killed Boik and 11 other people.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Movie theater shooting victim A.J. Boik's girlfriend, Lasamoa Croft, center, embraces his mother during the memorial service.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Eman Alexander, 17, pins a ribbon on his shirt while joining family, friends and former classmates to honor shooting victim A.J. Boik.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Denise Toepel of Denver sheds tears while visiting a makeshift memorial across the street from the Century 16 movie theater on Saturday, July 21.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Handwritten signs decorate the makeshift memorial across from the Century 16 movie theater on Saturday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Gerald Wright, 24, relights candles that have blown out at the victims' memorial across from the movie theater.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Aviation Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Jajuan Mangual lowers the American flag on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush to half-mast on Saturday. One U.S. Navy sailor was killed in the shooting and another injured.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Two women mourn near the theater on Saturday.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Alicia Prevette, left, and Paul Stepherson attend a vigil for the victims Friday at the Century 16 movie theater.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A woman lights a candle at a makeshift memorial where the victims of the massacre are mourned.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Mourners hold hands at a vigil near the theater.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Mourners hug as they grieve the loss of the victims.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A group of teenagers stand behind a sign that reads "Strength."
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Dara Anderson, left, and Monique Anderson cry during a candlelight vigil across the street from the crime scene.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A woman holds a lit candle at a makeshift memorial.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Marietta Perkins of Denver prays for victims and their families.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Lonnie Delgado, right, hugs Heaven Leek during a prayer.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A mourner grieves on the curb during a memorial service.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
People hug during a vigil for the victims.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Handwritten consolation letters lie beneath flowers at a makeshift memorial.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Nathan Mendoza, left, and Melissa Clark sit on the grass during a vigil.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Flags, flowers and candles make up a memorial site.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
Two mourners sit on the ground at a vigil.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A sign prevents moviegoers from wearing masks or bringing in props to the AMC Arapahoe Crossing 16 movie theater in Aurora.
Colorado massacre: Mourning the victims
A woman looks at a makeshift memorial after attending a candlelight vigil.
VIDEO-Virginia gunman was told by TV station to seek medical attention, memos say | US news | The Guardian
Flanagan was 'quick to take offense from co-workers', says former boss.
Vester Flanagan, the gunman who killed two journalists in Virginia, was told by his bosses to seek medical help after colleagues at the television station where he worked with his victims repeatedly complained about him, according to memos obtained by the Guardian.
Vester Flanagan documentSeveral flare-ups were detailed in internal messages from Dan Dennison, then the news director of WDBJ7, that were sent to Flanagan and copied to senior colleagues. Flanagan on Wednesday morning shot dead reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward.
Flanagan, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound later on Wednesday, was reprimanded for ''lashing out'' at a colleague and for his ''harsh language'' and ''aggressive body language'' while working as a reporter.
By then he had been told to contact employee assistance professionals at the company Health Advocate. ''This is a mandatory referral requiring your compliance,'' Dennison told Flanagan on 30 July 2012. ''Failure to comply will result in termination of employment.''
On Christmas Eve that year, Dennison emailed colleagues to say he had just warned Flanagan that he had one final chance to save his job. ''I'm not entirely sure where his head is at,'' said Dennison. Flanagan was fired three months later.
As he sued the station over his dismissal, Flanagan blamed everyone but himself. ''My entire life was disrupted after moving clear across the country for a job only to have my dream turn into a nightmare,'' he said, in a letter to a judge.
Flanagan's rapid downfall at WDBJ7 is detailed in a series of candid memos obtained by the Guardian. Dennison, his boss, began sending internal messages about Flanagan's behavior in May 2012, just two months after Flanagan began working at the station in southern Virginia. He appeared on screen under the name Bryce Williams.
''On three separate occasions in the past month and a half you have behaved in a manner that has resulted in on or more of your co-workers feeling threatened or uncomfortable,'' Dennison told Flanagan.
The memo, addressed to Bryce Williams, said he had ''used verbal and body language that left co-workers feeling both threatened and extremely uncomfortable'' during a heated argument inside a live station truck.
The other instances involved Flanagan pressuring his accompanying photographer to record an interview in a certain way, forcefully repeating his demands in a way that made both the photographer and the interviewee uncomfortable.
''I'm not trying to be an asshole but the shaky video isn't going to work,'' he purportedly told the photographer before demanding that they redo the interview.
In the second memo, sent 30 July 2012, Dennison told him: ''You have been the common denominator in these and other incidents outlined previously '... It seems that you are taking the actions of many of the photographers quite personally and misinterpreting their actions or works.''
In a July performance review, a boss rated his ability to work with his co-workers as ''unacceptable''. ''The area where Bryce must make immediate improvement is with photographers. The issue is well-documented and has been discussed.''
In November, however, Flanagan was reprimanded once again '' this time for wearing a sticker of President Obama while standing in line to vote in that year's general election. Dennison told him he had clearly breached not just company regulations but also ''standard journalistic ethics''. The news director wrote that they were ''fast reaching the point'' where Flanagan's violations of policy ''could mean termination''.
By December, Flanagan had a meeting with his bosses in which he said ''maybe it's time for me to go''. Dennison said that was his decision but they were willing to give him one more try, according to the email.
Related:Virginia TV shooter Vester Lee Flanagan was a 'disturbed' and 'unhappy man'
Yet Flanagan was fired in February 2013 due to ''unsatisfactory job performance and inability to work as a team member'', according to his notice of termination.
His last day at work was recorded in exhaustive detail in another series of memos. Flanagan met with Dennison and another boss in his office. There Flanagan was informed he would be terminated. When he was presented with the severance package, Flanagan reportedly became angry and called it ''bullshit''.
A second memo detailing his termination records Flanagan as yelling: ''I'm not leaving, you're going to have to call the f###ing police [sic],'' Flanagan reportedly said, according to the memo. ''Call the police. I'm not leaving. I'm going to make a stink and it's going to be in the headlines.''
Flanagan then stormed out of the room and slammed the door, at which point Dennison decided to call the police.
When police arrived to escort him out of the building, Flanagan refused. The officers approached Flanagan and tried to remove the desk phone from his hand, repeatedly asking him to leave.
Flanagan then threw a hat and a small wooden cross at Dennison, reportedly saying: ''You need this.''
As police escorted him out of the newsroom, he told an officer, according to the memo: '' You know what they did? They had a watermelon back there for a week and basically called me a n----- [sic].''
The memos were filed to a court in Roanoke, Virginia, as part of a civil lawsuit filed by Flanagan against the station in March 2014. He alleged racial and sexual discrimination, which the station denied. The case was dismissed later that year.
In May, Flanagan had sent a letter to Roanoke city general district court judge Francis Burkhart in which he claimed to be the victim of a ''carefully orchestrated'' attempt by the photography staff to have him ''ousted'' from the station.
He said he was upset that a staff photographer had reported him to the office's human resources department after working with him only once. On Twitter earlier this month, Flanagan named Ward as the photographer whom he believed had reported him to HR.
Flanagan also claimed ''racial harassment'', citing an incident in which he believed members of the newsroom deliberately placed a watermelon in his view. He said employees would make the fruit appear in different places around the newsroom.
''This was not an innocent incident,'' Flanagan wrote. ''The watermelon was placed in a strategic location where it would be visible to newsroom employees.
''What I encountered while employed at WDBJ-7 was nothing short of vile disgusting and inexcusable,'' Flanagan wrote in the filing to Burkhart, which requested a trial by jury that he said should be entirely composed of African American women.
''Your Honor, I am not the monster here,'' he said. ''I get along with my current co-workers '... [T]hat sure doesn't sound like the monster I was painted to be.''
Vester Flanagan memos Memos obtained by the Guardian show Vester Flanagan was told by his bosses to seek medical help after colleagues repeatedly complained about him.
VIDEO-X22 Report: World War III Will Be Used To Cover Up The Central Bank Economic Collapse | American Everyman
If we can use the measuring stick of the unabashed, psychotic, sickening war pimping coming from the likes of this psychotic SFB, then Yes I'd say something's up!
BTW, note the nerve of this tinpot (no, not Slobbo, I mean the dicktater) for using my name, in vain & without paying me royalties, yet.
This morning, it was reported that some 50 North Korean submarines stationed around the peninsula and visible to Western radar systems suddenly vanished, suggesting that the leader Kim Jong Un is preparing his forces for pre-emptive strike in the event that talks between the two nations fail.
President Barack Obama delivers a speech August 5, 2015 at American University in Washington, DC. President Obama spoke about the nuclear deal reached with Iran.
President Barack Obama is putting people on notice: He's back from vacation feeling "refreshed, renewed, recharged" '-- and "a little feisty."
He immediately showed his feisty side.
At a Democratic fundraiser Monday night in Nevada, Obama declared himself ready for the challenges he faces this fall in dealing with a Republican Congress that disagrees with him on the budget, energy policy, education and much more.
Obama said that as he'd ridden to the fundraiser with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, they'd done some reminiscing and spent some time "figuring out how we are going to deal with the crazies in terms of managing some problems."
Read MoreObama unveils clean energy plan
He didn't identify exactly who the two of them had defined as "crazies."
But Obama spoke at length about his differences with the GOP Congress. And he lamented that "too often, our political debates are not about what's best for the country but what's best for the next election."
If the country is to remain a strong world leader, he said, it needs "not just a president who, after a few gray hairs, seems to know what he's doing, but we also need a Congress that functions."
Obama also looked beyond the immediate challenges to simpler times down the road.
He said that since neither he nor Reid is seeking re-election next year, the two off them had talked about "riding off into the sunset together."
Earlier Monday, Obama spoke at a green energy conference where he accused fossil fuel interests and other critics of his energy policies of trying to restrict consumers from accessing solar, wind and other renewable sources in order to protect the status quo.
Read MoreWhite House: Obama briefed on markets
"That's not the American way," Obama said. "This is about the past versus the future. America believes in the future."
The president also questioned the ideological consistency of those who champion free-market solutions - except when the free market is pointing to the wisdom of renewable energy. He singled out billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who are major donors to Republican political candidates.
"It's one thing if you're consistent in being free market," Obama said. "It's another thing when you're free market until it's solar that's working and people want to buy and suddenly you're not for it anymore. That's a problem."
Obama said the economics are now such that "solar isn't just for the green crowd any more, it's for the green-eyeshade crowd too."
Fossil fuel and utility interests have been working at the state level and elsewhere to undercut clean energy policies with arguments that the matter should be left to the free market.
VIDEO-Video shows Philadelphia police officer pressuring driver for donation
A Philadelphia patrolman who appears to be pressuring a driver to support a police fundraiser or have his car towed in a video released last week has been placed on desk duty, police said. Officer Matthew Zagursky embarrassed the police department and may have committed a crime, Commissioner Charles Ramsey said. On the video, the officer asks: "You and your friend got any money to buy these thrill show tickets? Either you buy these or I take your car. 'Cause it's unregistered. Ten bucks each, man."The uniformed officer balks at the driver's plan to buy just two tickets, and the driver ultimately agrees to give the officer $30 for three tickets. The officer also is heard making a homophobic remark while discussing pink windshield wipers on the unregistered car. The driver says they honor a grandmother who had breast cancer.
Ramsey said he learned of the video on Friday morning and plans to refer it to local prosecutors. "That's totally inappropriate, and it could very well be illegal," Ramsey said. "He tainted a cause that I think is certainly one that I think we should all be proud of." Zagursky couldn't be reached for comment because he doesn't have a listed phone number. The police union said it couldn't comment because its president was on vacation.
The fall fundraiser collects money for the families of police officers and firefighters killed on duty. Ramsey said the police department distributes tickets at district offices but does not pressure officers to sell a certain number.
The video appears to have been taken from within the car. Ramsey said he does not know when the traffic stop occurred, but he said the tickets displayed by the officer have been available for only about a month. Police learned of the video after it was posted on Facebook. They hope to learn the names of the driver and a male passenger.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
VIDEO-Anti-Trump Fervor Reaches New Levels in New York City As Demonstrators Gather to Bash Open Trump Pi±atas | Video | TheBlaze.com
Anti-Donald Trump venom reached new levels in New York City Tuesday evening as locals tore apart two Trump pi±atas in a popular park using sticks and a baseball bat.
Ratter.com, a counter-cultural website based in the area, hosted the event asking its readers and area freelancers: ''Would You Like To Smash The Crap Out Of This Donald Trump Pi±ata?''
The answer was yes for approximately ten people who took turns battering the papier-mch(C) figures.
The odd spectacle included DJs wearing KISS-style masks, cash raining from the tattered likenesses and a dog tearing at its already torn pieces.
Watch Video From the Event:Follow Josiah Ryan (@JosiahRyan) on Twitter, Instagram (@ahhdannyboy) and Youtube.
VIDEO-Jorge Ramos Escorted Out of Press Conference for Shouting Questions at Trump: 'Go Back to Univision' | Video | TheBlaze.com
Univision reporter Jorge Ramos was escorted from a news conference Tuesday afternoon after he started asking presidential candidate Donald Trump questions without being called on.
''Excuse me! Sit down. You weren't called,'' Trump told Ramos. ''Sit down! Sit down.''
''You haven't been called,'' the real estate tycoon added to Ramos who insisted he had a right to ask a question. ''Go back to Univision.''
Trump said that he didn't object to Ramos asking questions, but noted that he had not been called on and contended it was not polite for him to shout questions at him and interrupt the news conference.
Trump later invited Ramos back into the conference, sparring with him on immigration for several minutes.
During that time, the real estate tycoon said that he had a ''bigger heart'' than Ramos when it comes to immigration. He also insisted that building a wall would not be a problem, contending it's much more difficult to build a skyscraper.
Update, 7:40 p.m. ET: It appears Trump has reached out to Ramos for a possible sit-down interview:
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VIDEO-Clinton Email Scandal Falls Apart As State Dept. Says There Was No Policy Against Private Email
The Republican Hillary Clinton email scandal is falling apart as the State Department confirmed that there was no policy against Clinton using private email.
Video:
On CNN's New Day, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, ''We have said in the past, Chris that there was no policy prohibiting the use of a private email account here at the State Department, and that is still a fact. Now, obviously, we have policies in place now that highly discourage that, and you are supposed to use your government account so that there is a constant, permanent record of it, but at the time she was not violating policy'....I can tell you that there was no prohibition for her use of this, and we've since changed the policy to discourage that greatly, and in fact, the policy is that you have to use your government account for business.''
Kirby added that he didn't believe that the policy changed while she was Secretary of State, which means that Hillary Clinton was doing nothing wrong when she used private email.
In a recent interview, also on CNN, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) admitted that the number of emails that Republicans claim were classified information in Hillary Clinton's email account was not accurate due to retroactive classification.
The great email scandal that Republicans hoped would destroy Hillary Clinton's candidacy is heading down the same path as ''IRS scandal,'' the ''Benghazi scandal,'' and President Obama's birth certificate.
The email scandal is being revealed as another in a long series of election-year stunts. Republicans are set to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on politically driven investigations into Clinton's use of email, and their efforts are likely to result in nothing.
A CNN poll released last week revealed that voters don't care about Hillary Clinton's emails. Clinton still leads every Republican presidential candidate, and Republicans are now confronted with the reality that if Hillary Clinton did not violate any policies regarding the use of email, there is no scandal to investigate.
VIDEO-'¶ Iran's Qasem Soleimani, the most dangerous terrorist alive #STTA by Mike Rogers
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With no room to take rates lower, markets in near-free fall and worries building over a global recession, another round of easing would be the only monetary policy option left.
Read MoreThe Fed rate hike speculation is getting crazy
"I don't believe they're ever going to raise rates, because they can't do it," Schiff said. "People actually believe in the legitimacy of the U.S. recovery, they believe in the Fed's rhetoric. The truth is, everything has gotten worse. All the Fed did was blow a bigger bubble. All they did was interrupt the financial crisis."
While unlikely to take any specific action in the near term, Fed officials could start leaving a trail of clues in upcoming public speeches. No time would be better, for instance, than the Aug. 27-29 retreat at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the very site where then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke planted the seeds for QE2 back in 2010.
"It's not about QE happening. If the perception of QE (happening) goes from zero to 18 percent, that's a huge impact," said Lawrence McDonald, head of U.S. macro strategy at Societe Generale. "Maybe even have one Fed governor, the most dovish of the doves, like (Minneapolis Fed President Narayana) Kocherlakota ... lay it out there. If one of them does it, look out."
For now, the market's deliberations have focused on the timing of rate hikes, and the current verdict is that the first one since June 29, 2006, won't happen until January 2016. The CME's FedWatch indicator shows just a 24 percent chance of a move in September and a 49 percent chance in December.
Read MoreFed may have just gotten a red light for rate hike
Economist Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies and a frequent Fed critic, said the central bank has work to do before it could take viable steps toward another round of QE.
"For the Fed to go back to QE, there are two problems: First, they'd have to admit that everything they've done since 2008 has been a complete failure," Pento said. "Then, you have the problem that QE doesn't really affect fundamentals in the economy, it only affects asset prices."
Indeed, a recent paper by Stephen D. Williamson, St. Louis Fed vice president, said there was no evidence that QE provided the economic help that its supporters touted.
Read More'Forward guidance' didn't work, either
Also, similar easing programs haven't done much elsewhere in the world. Japan's aggressive QE couldn't prevent a 0.4 percent contraction in second-quarter growth, while the euro zone is barely above water despite its own efforts, with just a 0.3 percent improvement in gross domestic product for the same period.
"Sixty trillion dollars in debt and seven years of ZIRP later, anyone who thought this was going to be a smooth and easy transition to escape velocity is getting a rude awakening," Pento said. "That fantasy is shattering."
VIDEO-CBS: Citing Email Scandal, Major Clinton Donor Would Flip Support to Biden If He Ran | Washington Free Beacon
A major Hillary Clinton donor would flip their support to Vice President Joe Biden if he decided to enter the Democratic presidential race, CBS This Morning correspondent Julianna Goldman reported Monday, citing disappointment with Clinton's handling of the private email scandal dominating the headlines.
The possibility of Biden joining the race has grown in recent weeks after an Aug. 1 New York Times report that he and his associates were exploring a run. Over the weekend, Biden met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), a favorite of the party's progressive base, adding fuel to the speculation that he could jump in and shake up the race.
''Over the weekend we spoke with one big Clinton donor, who says that they're ready to jump to Biden if he gets in,'' Goldman said. ''They don't know where Clinton's email story is headed, and they're disappointed in how her campaign is handling it.''
Clinton leads in the polls but has been badly hurt by her handling of the story behind the server, with nearly two-thirds of voters in key swing states finding her dishonest for passing classified information through her email and wiping the server clean. Her attempts to make light of the situation have backfired as well, with commentators pointing out many Democratic voters take the allegations against her seriously.
VIDEO-Key & Peele - Prepared for Terries - YouTube
Story highlightsCurtis Smith, 34, attacks a sheriff's deputy with a knifeA second sheriff's deputy draws weaponSmith climbed an outer stone wall near the White House in MarchCurtis Smith, 34, attacked the deputy at the security entrance to the Chester County Justice Center in West Chester, according to a statement from the office of Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan. A second deputy drew a weapon and shot Smith.
"In Chester County, we have trained intensively to deal with the threat of an attacker in the Justice Center or any other public building. Today, that training paid off," Hogan said.
Hogan said in his statement that Smith is the same man who climbed an outer stone wall near the White House in March. It was not clear why he was at the courthouse.
The injured sheriff's deputy suffered wounds to his hand and arm. He was transported to a hospital and is in stable condition.
Smith was pronounced dead at a hospital.
CNN's Kristina Sgueglia and Jim Acosta contributed to this report.
