Hydraulic Fracking Trigger Earthquakes - confirmed!

A former state-sponsored scientist revealed that he was ordered to alter his findings on the links between fracking and earthquakes.

Does Hydraulic Fracking Trigger Earthquakes? Officials Caught Forcing Scientist to Alter Findings to Cover Up Earthquake Fracking Link

By John Vibes

Global Research, November 22, 2017

TheFreeThoughtProject.com 19 November 2017

 

Hydraulic fracturing is a natural gas extraction method that has become extremely controversial for its environmental impacts. Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand, and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure, which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well. Wastewater produced from this process is highly toxic and filled with a variety of chemicals.

In many cases, people who live near fracking sites have been able to set fire to the water and air that comes through their pipes. It has also been found to contaminate drinking water. Unfortunately, fracking is still somewhat popular publicly because people know very little about it and it is also popular politically because all of the politicians have a hand in it.

According to Austin Holland, the former lead seismologist for the state of Oklahoma, officials at the University of Oklahoma worked to actively cover up scientific findings that linked fracking to earthquakes. Oklahoma is one of the most drastic examples of how fracking can cause an upsurge in seismic activity, with the state seeing 639 earthquakes in the year of 2016 alone.

In a deposition last month, Holland stated that Larry Grillot, former dean of OU’s Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, and Randy Keller, the former director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey pressured him to alter his findings to be more favorable to fracking companies. After the incident, Holland left his position at OU and the Oklahoma Geologic Survey.

“I don’t know if ‘angry’ is the right word, but just disappointed … that I’d spent my time working towards something, and I thought I was in my dream job, and then I couldn’t be a scientist and do what scientists do, and that’s publish with colleagues. Well, that’s the point at which I realized that for my scientific credibility, I had to leave the position I was in,” Holland said.

Keller and Grillot took issue with Holland’s report because they said that it advocated for specific policy changes. However, the only policy measures that Holland advocated was to ensure that important information about fracking and its effects were made available to the public.

Holland was told that the following passage in his article was “unacceptable“:

“Even if a network is owned and operated by industry, regulators must ensure that seismic data are not withheld from the public,” the report read. “Similarly, making injection data, such as daily injection rates, wellhead pressures, depth of the injection interval, and properties of the target formation, publicly accessible can be invaluable for attaining a better understanding of fluid-induced earthquakes. Open sharing of data can benefit all stakeholders, including industry, by enabling the research needed to develop more effective techniques for reducing the seismic hazard.”

Holland went through with publishing the report anyway, and although he did not receive a formal reprimand, his superiors were not pleased.

“Well, the president of the university expressed to me that I had complete academic freedom, but that as part of being an employee of the state survey, I also have a need to listen to the people within the oil and gas industry. So Harold Hamm expressed to me that I had to be careful of the way in which I say things, that hydraulic fracturing is critical to the state’s economy in Oklahoma, and that me publicly stating that earthquakes can be caused by hydraulic fracturing was — could be misleading, and that he was nervous about the war on fossil fuels at the time,” Holland said.

Holland also pointed out that while energy companies and environmentalists both contacted him and attempted to recruit him as a spokesperson for their cause, he did not feel directly threatened by them as he did by the bureaucratic structure within his own industry.

“I was navigating a difficult landscape, but I was not pressured by industry to change what I’m doing, I was pressured by staff. Now, I did — was pressured by Harold Hamm to change the way I spoke about [fracking] in public. And I did have people in the industry say, ‘Well, you can’t say that’ or ‘You can’t say this.’ But the ones that actually write the paycheck control what I say in the public eye and what I don’t,”Holland said.

It was also reported this week that the EPA approved dangerous fracking chemicals even though previous studies had shown that they had a significant negative impact on living creatures and ecosystems.

John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page.John is currently battling cancer , and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments consider subscribing to his podcast to support.

Featured image is from the author.

The original source of this article is TheFreeThoughtProject.com

Copyright © John Vibes, TheFreeThoughtProject.com, 2017

Amazon also shows its true colour...

This only further proves that govt and corps have morphed into a single ravenous tentacled abomination, intent on hoarding wealth and perpetrating its loathsome existence at any cost. Keep in mind now that whenever using ostensibly innocuous amazon services to buy whatever it is that helps you delude yourself from reality, you're in fact feeding the very beast which holds you in bondage. The consumerist dictatorship has come full circle.

Amazon launches ‘Secret Region’ cloud service for US intel agencies

RT : 20 Nov, 2017

Amazon announced it has launched a “Secret Region” on its cloud computing service for use by US intelligence and other government agencies. The provider is now able to store government information classified as “Top Secret.”

“AWS now provides the U.S. Intelligence Community a commercial cloud capability across all classification levels: Unclassified, Sensitive, Secret, and Top Secret,” said Teresa Carlson, vice president for Amazon’s web services worldwide public sector. “The U.S. Intelligence Community can now execute their missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission. The AWS Top Secret Region was launched three years ago as the first air-gapped commercial cloud and customers across the U.S. Intelligence Community have made it a resounding success. Ultimately, this capability allows more agency collaboration, helps get critical information to decision makers faster, and enables an increase in our Nation’s Security.”

This agreement expands the collaboration between private enterprise and US government intelligence agencies. It is separate from the existing $600 million contract signed with the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013 that provided cloud services to all 17 intelligence agencies. The new Secret Region agreement makes the technology available to all government agencies with sufficient clearance.

This comes after it was revealed that the US Defense Department left a massive data collection on an Amazon cloud server, which could have been accessed by anyone with a free account. The data included billions of social media posts from Facebook, Twitter and news sites.

The computing giant Microsoft made a similar announcement in October when it said its government cloud program, called “Azure Government Secret” would support US government agencies working with data classified as “secret.”

By storing all of their information on a private company’s servers, the intelligence community will become an even more attractive target to hackers.

A hacker [who] is able to breach AWS Secret Region’s security measures will most likely have an easier time gaining access to other files stored on the server and other servers within the network.
While it is unknown what new security measures the AWS Secret Region will include, hackers have previously utilized what is known as “east-west” traffic to move around the servers in the cloud network while avoiding detection for long periods of time.

If a hacker is able to breach the network and infect one server with malware, the malicious code could “fan out,” spreading across the entire cloud. This means one breach could potentially put all of the data and applications being stored on the AWS Secret Region at risk of being stolen, manipulated, or held for ransom.

= = =

Selected Comments: 

# The fact that american media and companies take dictates from US govt and install back doors, proves US regime is a fascist dictatorship.

# Government monitoring your communication, your whereabouts, and now, your purchases.

# CIA: Amazon,...Facebook?...Microsoft?...Google?...Yahoo?...Apple?...and wrap this present up with a huge dose of the CIA Grasshopper program.

# So now it is official - supposedly independent American corporations are nothing more than the tools of the US deep state.

Google exposes its true colour now by obeying US govt directive!

US companies initiated an anti-RT campaign to woo the American government at the expense of free speech. If Google really wanted to address the so-called ‘fake news’ phenomenon, they should look in their own backyard and check the information flow that comes out of the US mainstream media. Google is in cahoots with the US government, they are intertwined . Go read Yahoo news, look at the garbage they chose to publish , it's sickening.
If there was ever doubt in anyone's mind about what Google really is, why it was created, and who created it, then now you know. They have photographed every street and house on the planet, they know what you think, eat, where you work, and who you know, and what your political views are. They take their orders from the US Government. It's right there in plain sight.

‘Google’s plan to isolate Russian media is an act of information warfare’

RT : 21 Nov, 2017

Google’s announcement that it is working to reduce the presence of Russian media in its news feeds has been slammed by lawmakers and political commentators as an act of aggression which will have a global impact on the freedom of speech and thought.

“This is an open form of information warfare waged right now – a bombardment, a direct aggression” against the Russian news outlets, Andrey Svintsov, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, told RT. The lawmaker explained that tweaking search results for the news category would cut off the global readership that remains interested in the Russian position on global events, calling it a “powerful blow” to the freedom of speech.

“We as MPs should think about... limiting [the use of] the Google search engine, as well as certain social networks belonging to this holding in Russia,” Svintsov said. Meanwhile, the head of the Russian Upper House Commission for Information Policy, Senator Aleksey Pushkov, also wondered whether Google should be “de-ranked” in Russia in a tit-for-tat response.

Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said earlier that the company is “trying to engineer the systems” to prevent RT and Sputnik content from reaching wider audiences. RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan criticized the initiative as an arbitrary form of censorship that defies “all logic and reason.”

Google’s initiative will have a direct impact on “freedom of speech and thought” in the US, believes Prof. Dan Kovalik, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

“It is a form of censorship, and the idea is to lead readers away from RT content. And it will have an impact on the discourse in this country,” Kovalik told RT. “When [you start] censoring anyone, they are going to censor everyone, and I think everyone in the US should be appalled by this and very concerned.”

The human rights lawyer remains certain that US companies initiated an anti-RT campaign to woo the American government at the expense of free speech.

“I think what you see has happened is that Google, Twitter and Facebook have been pressured by the US government to try to essentially [put] blame on Russia where there is none, and to appear somehow that they are working with the US government against Russia. And they have bowed to this pressure,” Kovalik said.

Kovalik also argued that RT presents an alternative point of view that is simply incompatible with US policies.

“I do believe that there is a concern in the US government and the mainstream media of this alternative narrative about what is happening in Syria, for example, about whether the US is truly fighting terrorism Syria as it claims. Well, Russia has a different view of that. RT has a different view of that. The same thing in Ukraine. The US has been backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine. That is something that the powers to be don’t want Americans to know. And so, I think the attack on RT, which has a very different view of those things, is an attack on those alternative narratives of issues that are very important to the American people,” he said.

Google is dancing to the tune of the US government as part of the broader campaign to demonize Russia, political commentator and TV host Steve Malzberg told RT.

“This is all about the fact that Russia is right now the enemy. Russia has been made the enemy by the left, the Democrats and, by definition, the media. The media has been nonstop for a year now about ‘evil Russia.’ Anything associated with the ‘evil Russia’ will incur the wrath of the government,” Malzberg said. “It is because they have been called in before Congress and because of this witch hunt that is going on... They don’t want to risk the wrath of Congress, and that is the problem.”

“There has been nothing found in the whole Russian collusion investigation so far. And there really no meat here when it comes to RT and nefarious doings and dealings, but that does not stop them. They are just going with the flow,” the political commentator added.

Malzberg noted that if Google really wanted to address the so-called ‘fake news’ phenomenon, they should look in their own backyard and check the information flow that comes out of the US mainstream media.

“If they wanted to concentrate on the real program, they certainly have all the opportunity to look at what I call propaganda from the leftist mainstream news media… But they do not have interest in that, because Congress isn't calling them to say, ‘Oh, big bad CNN or big, bad, evil MSNBC’,” Malzberg said. “Russia is 'boogeyman' right now, and this is all part of that deal.”
= = =
Selected Comments:

# Google, which calls itself Alphabet in order to attract small children, has become the essence of evil. It is a fascist organization that punishes thought internally as well as externally. DO NO GOOGLE.

# Problem is Google has developed better UI interface and has more users across the globe, even with bloated apps or adwares or PUPs. Solution would be either RU or PRC or any other non-US state develops better user-friendly search engines and products at cost-effective prices, to defeat US governmental agenda on controlling all sorts of propaganda.

# The elite run Google, as they use their power to stifle freedom of information. They are violating the public's right to know the truth.

# ruth will set us free - Zionshits will never ever allow their sheeple populace to find, think about truth nor would they allow their business empire based on falsification of actual realities falter any further - RT has become their worst nightmare, one platform which by providing better insight make those sheeple Question More for better realistic versions!

# Most of the western media is zio run/owned, so it has control over their bias headline news stories. Google is just another tool in this bent media machine.

# You now see everyone, from companies, government agencies, and even the presidents openly violating the constitution and civil liberties, as their is no enforcement of the constitution it is only a matter of time before....

# Many web browsers use google as their default search engine, so this will have an impact on RT and News from Russia. Slowly , seems the governments are successfully pushing to regulate the internet like television networks. Internet neutrality is been undermined.

# The gap between Google and Goebbels is slowly but surely closing in this, the Union of fascist soviet states of Amerigo.

# Farewell, Google. I'm switching to DuckDuckGo. Maybe not as comprehensive nor as efficient a search engine, but keeping the wolf outside the door is paramount!

# I don’t think anyone believes RT is impartial. But if you’re already getting a biased view from one side you may as well get the biased view from the other, then weigh them both up to decide which is closer to the truth.

# Yandex is number 1 in Russia and Google is BANNED in China. Google obviously is not the only browser that is out there although Google has wrongfully assumed it is the only one that exists.

# Google = CIA branch. Using Google services, you support the country by the US aggressor.

# Have rarely used Google since they hopped in bed with the U.S. Government. I'm a Network Engineer and I use the Yandex web browser. It is secure and has some really cool features. DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Yandex are viable alternatives as a search engine. Google isn't the only game in town, just the biggest. This Russiaphobia and blacklisting should show us just how afraid Uncle Sam is not to control all the megaphones to the masses! The corporatocracy lives and grows in the U.S.A.

# Unbelievable that Google would do this. RT is way more rational and reasoned than CNN or the BBC.  And what about Israel's Jerusalem Post - which is pure racist propaganda?

ISIS fighters covertly smuggled out of Raqqa!

This should not surprise anyone who is aware that ISIS was created by CIA and Mossad...

Hundreds of ISIS Fighters Covertly Smuggled Out as Part of a US-UK Deal: Report

By PTI

Global Research, November 20, 2017

Times of India 18 November 2017

 

Hundreds of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists were smuggled out of Raqqa in Syria last month as part of a deal struck by the US and UK armed forces, a media investigation has claimed.

ISIS fighters and their families were covertly evacuated by American, British and local Kurdish forces from the de facto capital of the terrorist group after it was bombarded in October, and freed to “spread out far and wide across Syria and beyond,” according to a BBC documentary titled ‘Raqqa’s Dirty Secret’.

Foreign fighters who had joined ISIS – those not from Syria and Iraq – were also allegedly able to join the escape convoy.

“There was a huge number of foreigners. From France, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi, China, Tunisia, Egypt,” a local driver told the BBC.

The report describes how the escape convoy of trucks carrying 250 fighters, 3,500 family members, and loads of arms and possessions, was arranged on October 12 by local officials in meetings attended by a western officer.

The aim was to spare the lives of attacking forces and end the four-month battle over Raqqa, a crucial stronghold of the terrorist network.

“Great pains were taken to hide it from the world. But the BBC has spoken to dozens of people who were either on the convoy, or observed it, and to the men who negotiated the deal,” the makers of the documentary claim.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had cleared Raqqa of media so that the ISIS escape from its base would not be televised.

It claimed that only a few dozen fighters had been able to leave, all of them locals.

But a local driver told the BBC that the convoy was six to seven kilometres long and included almost 50 trucks, 13 buses and more than 100 of ISIS’ own vehicles.

ISIS fighters, their faces covered, sat defiantly on top of some of the vehicles.

“Footage secretly filmed and passed to us shows lorries towing trailers crammed with armed men. Despite an agreement to take only personal weapons, IS fighters took everything they could carry. Ten trucks were loaded with weapons and ammunition,” the report said.

The SDF did not want the retreat from Raqqa to look like an escape to victory.

No flags or banners were allowed to be flown from the convoy as it left the city, the deal struck by local officials had stipulated.

In light of the BBC investigation, the US-led coalition fighting in Syria admits the part it played in the deal.

“We didn’t want anyone to leave. But this goes to the heart of our strategy, ‘By, with and through’ local leaders on the ground. It comes down to Syrians – they are the ones fighting and dying, they get to make the decisions regarding operations,” Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve, the Western coalition against ISIS, was quoted as saying.

He maintains that while a Western officer was present for the negotiations, they didn’t take an “active part” in the discussions and that only four foreign fighters were allowed to leave in the convoy and they are now in SDF custody.

According to the report, the deal to free the ISIS fighters was about maintaining good relations between Kurds leading the fight and Arab communities who surround them. It was also about minimising casualties.

“ISIS was well dug in at the city’s hospital and stadium. Any effort to dislodge it head-on would have been bloody and prolonged,” the BBC report said.

“But it has also meant battle-hardened militants have spread across Syria and farther afield – and many of them aren’t done fighting yet,” it added.

The SDF, meanwhile, continues to maintain that no such deal was done.

Kerspersky comes under the cross hairs of US regime...

Another witch-hunt by the paranoids as they are further exposed...The goal is to get americans Europeans to stop using Kaspersky because it is too hard to penetrate. They want control over all computer systems. The actions of the NSA prove this mentality.

Kaspersky Lab under attack as it found something the US didn't like

RT : 17 Nov, 2017

Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab has fallen victim to a witch hunt in the US just because it did its job too well, the company’s CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, said. He added that his firm might have stumbled upon some secret US businesses.

The whole situation around the US ban on the use of Kaspersky Lab anti-virus products by federal agencies “looks very strange,” Kaspersky told Germany’s Die Zeit daily, adding that the whole issue in fact lacks substance. “It was much more hype and noise than real action,” he said.

Kaspersky then explained that the US authorities ordered all governmental agencies to remove all the company’s software from their computers, even though “we had almost zero installations there.” With little real need for such measures, they were apparently aimed at damaging the company’s reputation.

It seems that we just do our job better than others and that made someone very disappointed,” Kaspersky said of the motives behind the US government’s move. “It seems that we detected some unknown or probably very well-known malware that made someone in the US very disappointed.”

At the same time, he stressed that his company does not collect “any sensitive personal data,” not to mention any classified documents, adding that the only data Kaspersky Lab is hunting for is “new types of malware, unknown or suspicious apps.”

The Russian cyber-security company was indeed accused by the US media of using its software to collect the NSA technology for the Russian government – something that Kaspersky Lab vehemently denied.

According to US media reports in October 2017, an employee from the National Security Agency (NSA) elite hacking unit lost some of the agency's espionage tools after storing them on his home computer in 2015. The media jumped to blame Kaspersky Lab and the Kremlin.

Following the reports, the company conducted an internal investigation and stumbled upon an incident dating back to 2014. At the time, Kaspersky Lab was investigating the activities of the Equation Group – a powerful group of hackers that later was identified as an arm of the NSA.

As part of Kaspersky’s investigation, it analyzed information received from a computer of an unidentified user, who is alleged to be the security service employee in question. It turned out that the user installed pirated software containing Equation malware, then “scanned the computer multiple times,” which resulted in antivirus software detecting suspicious files, including a 7z archive.

“The archive itself was detected as malicious and submitted to Kaspersky Lab for analysis, where it was processed by one of the analysts. Upon processing, the archive was found to contain multiple malware samples and source code for what appeared to be Equation malware,” the company’s October statement explained.

The analyst then reported the matter directly to Eugene Kaspersky, who ordered the company’s copy of the code to be destroyed.

On Thursday, Kaspersky Lab issued another statement concerning this incident following a more extensive investigation. The results of the investigation showed that the computer in question was infected with several types of malware in addition to the one created by Equation. Some of this malware provided access to the data on this computer to an “unknown number of third parties.”

In particular, the computer was infected with backdoor malware called Mokes, which is also known as Smoke Bot and Smoke Loader. It is operated by an organization called Zhou Lou, based in China.

Kaspersky Lab, a world leader in cybersecurity founded in Moscow in 1997, has been under pressure in the US for years. It repeatedly faced allegations of ties to the Kremlin, though no smoking gun has ever been produced.

In July, Kaspersky offered to hand over source code for his software to the US government, but wasn't taken up on the offer. In October, the cybersecurity company pledged to reveal its code to independent experts as part of an unprecedented Global Transparency Initiative aimed at staving off US accusations.

Kaspersky has been swept up in the ongoing anti-Russian hysteria in the US, which centers on the unproven allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections. In September, the US government banned federal agencies from using Kaspersky Lab antivirus products, citing concerns that it could jeopardize national security and claiming the company might have links to the Kremlin. Eugene Kaspersky denounced the move as “baseless paranoia at best.”

Even as Kaspersky Lab is offering its cooperation to US authorities, on Thursday, WikiLeaks published source code for the CIA hacking tool “Hive,” which was used by US intelligence agencies to imitate the Kaspersky Lab code and leave behind false digital fingerprints.

The US might be targeting Kaspersky Lab in its witch hunt because the company might be able to disprove American allegations against Russia, experts told RT. “We have Kaspersky saying, 'We can do this. We can prove some of these hacks are not Russian, they are American,’ when it comes to the presidential elections. And so they needed to discredit them,” former MI5 analyst Annie Machon said.

The campaign against the Russian cybersecurity firm could go back as early as to 2010, when Kaspersky Lab revealed the origin of the Stuxnet virus that hit Iran's nuclear centrifuges, she told RT. Back then, Kaspersky Lab stated that “this type of attack could only be conducted with nation-state support and backing.” Nobody claimed responsibility for the creation of the malware that targeted Iran. However, it is widely believed that the US and Israeli intelligence agencies were behind Stuxnet.

= = =

Selected Comments:

# Obviously Kaspersky products do not allow to CIA and NSA to steal the information of Americans and Europeans, and this makes USA crazy paranoids, cause USA feels like it is loosing control.

# Kaspersky is one of the best anti-virus programs on the market and probably the only one that can protect user's private information from US government espionage. PRISM is far more extent than people imagine it is.

Hypocrisy of OSCE exposed!

The OSCE buffoons are afraid that other countries may decide to follow suit While forgetting to be critical about the US starting the labeling "foreign agent". The MSM hasn't only been critical of Russia, but Austria, Hungary, Poland and other countries that resist the globalist agenda.

OSCE condemns labeling media as 'foreign agents' – but only after Russia did it

RT : 16 Nov, 2017

The OSCE has finally paid attention to the issue of media outlets being labeled “foreign agents” and condemned this practice. The organization only took notice after Moscow's retaliatory move to RT being targeted in the US.

“Branding media entities as ‘foreign agents’ is a dangerous practice, as it can narrow the space for freedom of the media,” said Harlem Desir, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media, in a statement on Thursday. The official then expressed his “concern” about measures taken by the US and Russia “requiring the media entities from other countries to register themselves as ‘foreign agents.’”

Registration of media outlets as foreign agents is not acceptable, Desir said, expressing further concerns over “pieces of legislation, while originally designed for non-media actors, … being extended to cover the media,” the OSCE said in its statement.

The OSCE media representative then warned that registration as a foreign agent would most likely impose “additional administrative burdens” upon the affected media organization as well as would “stigmatize” their journalists. “I call on both the Unites States and the Russian Federation to reconsider and refrain from requiring media entities to register as ‘foreign agents’ and not take further steps,” he said, as he offered his assistance to both countries in resolving the issue.

Desir also asked both the US and Russia to clarify the reasons behind the labeling, as well as the consequences it can have for the media's ability to operate freely in both countries.

The OSCE decided to voice its criticism right after the reciprocal moves had been taken by Russia, after staying silent for months while RT was facing pressure from the US government.

The exchange was started by the US, which targeted RT America amid the ongoing hysteria over Russia’s alleged influence on the US 2016 presidential elections. It was also the US, which demanded that RT registered under the 1938 piece of legislation initially designed to counter pro-Nazi propaganda.

Finally, it was Washington that threated RT with staff arrests, property seizures and legal action in case it fails to comply with the US Justice Department's demands before November 13. Faced with the ultimatum, RT ultimately had to register as a foreign agent in the US.

In response, the Russian lawmakers passed a law requiring foreign mass-media outlets operating in the country to register as foreign agents. Following the move, the Russian Justice Ministry sent letters to nine media outlets, informing them it is possible they might have to register.

At the same time, RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, offered her condolences on Wednesday to all journalists “at all media organizations – Russian and foreign alike – who have been caught up in Washington’s political games.”

Asked for comment in November, when the witch hunt targeting RT was already in full swing, the office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media said it has “just” been notified about RT’s registration as a foreign agent in the US. It refused to provide any comment on the issue at that time.
A number of institutionalized journalist associations, including the US Press Association and the National Union of Journalists in the UK and Ireland, also preferred to stay away from trouble by refusing to comment.

The pressure exerted on RT by the US government did not go entirely unnoticed, however. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international rights group, called RT’s registration as a foreign agent a “troubling precedent.”

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author and former professor at Princeton University, denounced it as “one of the most horrendous blows to press freedom since the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s.”

NSA whistleblower William Binney also criticized Washington’s move and called it a direct violation of the First Amendment and freedom of speech.

= = =

Selected Comments:

# The USA talks a good line about freedom of speech, it's too bad they are so bad at it they have to try to stop others for fear that people can't handle the truth, or for that matter even discern what the truth is, when what we all see is the lies multiplying from our so called leaders and their puppets in an endless parade of prevarication and complicity.

# OSCE had to wait for orders from their puppet masters, every western institution has been infiltrated, every media outlet has to use the same narrative as theirs, you can't believe anything from the west anymore as its not controlled by the west ironically.

# The west in general and the US in particular has forgotten the value of being known as an 'honest broker'...Sadly once that reputation is lost it is not easily restored.

# what a disgraceful OSCE is only when it affects usa do they bleat.same as all the other gutless media that would not speak out against tyranny of the usa. americunts only deserve to be troden on and lied to.by their govt.

# Why is OCSE not condemning the British attempt to close RT's bank accounts in order to hinder their work in the UK? Can only handle one version of the truth, which is your own?

Reasons behind US animosity towards Iran

An Independent Iran is not desired by the neo-con establishment in America...

The US Persistently Seeks to Destabilize Iran. Why is Washington So Deeply Concerned about Tehran’s Regional Influence in the Middle East?

By Farhad Shahabi

 

Thirty eight years ago, in 1979, a revolution against a client regime installed and propped up by the United States succeeded in Iran. This was followed by the establishment of an independent state, the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Ever since, the US’s presence, plans and attempts to maintain, deepen and expand its dominance throughout the Middle East has been seriously challenged  and thwarted.

Hence, the US has persistently sought to make up for this loss and to this end, has supported individuals, tendencies and terrorist groups to bring down the revolutionary establishment in Iran  and  returning the old order of neo-colonial dependence. The hallmark of these attempts has been its support of the infamous Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in his aggressive war (1980-1988) against the newly founded Islamic Republic in Iran and its active involvement in Saddam’s many war crimes, including the widespread use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and civilians. However, in spite of the huge number of dead and injured, the extensive infrastructural destruction and social detriments, this war failed to derail the revolutionary objective of independence from foreign control.

Faced with the repeated and very costly failures of its military plans, the US  found it more feasible to invest more heavily on political approaches vis-a-vis Iran. Therefore, political plans had to be devised and/or cultivated to crush the strong waves of liberation from foreign domination and the struggle for independence in Iran. These plans had to also look beyond Iran; to the larger Middle East, which had been awakened and moved to action by the resistance struggle in Iran, particularly in Palestine which had suffered for decades under criminal Israeli occupation, and in Lebanon, devastated by its colonial past, Israeli aggression and foreign interventions.

Therefore, as early as the mid-1980s, the US and its allies, determined to impose crushing international sanctions on Iran, accused  Iran of threatening international peace through its support for Palestinian and Lebanese freedom fighters – labeled as ‘terrorists’-, its alleged interference in the internal affairs of regional states closely dependent on the US, and Iran’s missile and civilian nuclear programs.

To this end, through fabrications, extensive lobbying and use of pressure in the international scene, the US succeeded in pushing through United Nations Security Council resolutions which placed Iran under international sanctions (2006) for its peaceful nuclear activities.

The UNSC sanctions were followed by the illegal US/EU comprehensive sanctions in 2011 targeting Iran’s financial system, shipping and energy industry. Sanctions dealt a heavy blow to the nation’s  petroleum dependent economy but also had unintended positive consequences, in that, Iran’s chronic and deep-rooted dependence on its petroleum sales changed in favour of a more diversified economy and Iran’s flourishing nuclear activity made a huge leap forward, in both qualitative and quantitative terms.

However, after more than a decade of diplomatic interactions with world powers, which became  significantly more meaningful towards the end of this period with Zarif as Foreign Minister, Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment and its pursuit of other peaceful nuclear activities was recognised. This important recognition came through after two years (2013-2015) of extremely tight negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran.

This achievement was set in the context of a multilateral agreement, namely, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The achievement was hard won due to the forces bluntly opposed to the multilateral negotiations. These most notably included neo-con members of the US Congress, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The change in the US administration, and especially with the person of Trump in office, who saw the JCPOA as the “worst deal ever” provided the US neo-cons, Israel and Saudi Arabia with an extraordinary opportunity. Now, there was the unprecedented possibility to significantly increase the pressure on Iran, particularly through reinstating, and strengthening the old sanctions and devising new ones.

Therefore, they tried extremely hard to pressure the P5+1, the European Union side in particular, into accusing Iran of being in violation of the nuclear agreement. They tried equally hard to force a renegotiation of the nuclear agreement.

Having failed on both counts to reinstate international sanctions on Iran and to terminate the JCPOA, the Trump administration is now working desperately to pressure the big powers and the EU in particular, regarding the need to limit and to stop Iran’s formidable, though proven defensive, conventional missile program and Iran’s outstanding and growing regional influence.

Iran’s civilian nuclear activity is fundamentally very important to the country’s technological and industrial development. In contrast, the missile defense capability is of strategic importance to Iran’s defense and essential defence and security needs, with highly positive implications for the preservation of regional and international peace and security.

Iran’s civilian nuclear activity and its missile defense capability are both strategically very important to the country’s technological and industrial development on the one hand, and its essential needs for national defence and security, on the other.

These capabilities, however, are basically of a hard nature which many countries possess in various degrees. In contrast, regional influence is in essence a soft national capability, one which cannot be taken away, transferred or bought overnight. In this respect, it is potentially a most important national capability, deeply rooted in the beliefs, culture and history of a nation and a region.

With this in mind and in the context of the on-going political developments in the Middle East, it is necessary to examine why the US is so deeply concerned about Iran’s regional influence? I will next examine what in the US’s view is threatened by Iran’s regional influence. (To be continued)

North Korea accuses Trump of ‘begging’ for nuclear war

So, we have seen it all -- all fury, rants & raves but no action... still playing the scare-mongering tactic to sell more weapons to the gullible & servile Far-East Asians nations like Japan, South Korea.

North Korea accuses Trump of ‘begging’ for nuclear war as rare US 3-carrier drills gets underway
RT : 12 Nov, 2017

Pyongyang has accused “dotard” Donald Trump of “begging” for a nuclear war during his trip across Asia. The charge comes as Washington launched rare naval drills in the Pacific with Seoul and Tokyo, which simultaneously involves three US aircraft carrier strike groups.

Trump’s 12-day Asia tour Asia has, so far, focused primarily on containing the perceived North Korean threat, in the wake of the sixth nuclear test that the North carried out in September. As he continues his tour of the region, the US Navy together with Japanese and South Korean ships began massive naval drills in the Pacific.

On Saturday, North Korea lashed out against Trump, describing his tour as “a warmonger’s visit for confrontation to rid the DPRK of its self-defensive nuclear deterrence.”

“Trump, during his visit, laid bare his true nature as destroyer of the world peace and stability and begged for a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula,” a spokesperson of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said Saturday, according to state news agency, KCNA.

During this tour, Trump repeatedly made clear that his patience to reach a peaceful settlement to the Korean crisis is running thin, and that a military option remains on the table. Speaking in South Korea, Trump said nuclear weapons do not make N. Korea safer but instead, places the “regime in grave danger.” Every step Pyongyang takes “down this dark path increases the peril you face.”

Protest in Tokoyo prior to Trump's visit

“North Korea is a country ruled as a cult. At the center of this military cult is a deranged belief in the leader’s destiny to rule as parent protector over a conquered Korean Peninsula and an enslaved Korean people,” the US president said in a speech to the South Korean parliament Wednesday. America does not seek confrontation, Trump said, but emphasized that it will also “never run from it.” We “will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not be intimidated.”

“The reckless remarks by a dotard like Trump can never frighten us or put a stop to our advance,” Pyongyang responded. North Korea will defend its “sovereignty and rights to existence and development by keeping a real balance of force with the US,” its foreign ministry said.

In the latest show of American muscle in the region, three US carrier strike groups began holding tri-carrier, multinational drills off the Korean coast Saturday. The USS Ronald Reagan, USS Nimitz, and USS Theodore Roosevelt were joined by Japan’s Ise, Inazuma and Makinami ships as well as near a dozen South Korean vessels.

The four-day exercises will focus on carrying out air defense drills, sea surveillance, and replenishments at sea, the US navy said earlier. The drills will also include rehearsing defensive air combat training and close-in coordinated maneuvers. According to the Korean military, the joint drills involve 11 US and two South Korean destroyers equipped with the Aegis Combat System, designed to provide missile defenses against short to intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

The maneuvers are aimed at bolstering the allied trio’s policy of “extended deterrence” against the North’s nuclear and missile provocations, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, as cited by the Yonhap news agency. The allies will also show off their readiness to mount a strong retaliation with overwhelming firepower in the event of an emergency, the JCS said further. Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force said the exercises are part of efforts “to stabilize regional security,”according to the Japan Times.

Amid rapidly rising tensions, characterized by almost weekly exchanges of threats of mutual destruction by both Washington and Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow have repeatedly called on both countries to tone down their rhetoric and return to the negotiations table.

On Friday, North Korea’s permanent representative to the UN told the General Assembly in New York that Pyongyang will not enter into negotiations over its missile and nuclear programs until the US completely stopped its hostile policies and threats. Cha Son Nam warned that both states remain “on the brink of war.”

“The DPRK will not lay its nukes and ballistic missiles on the negotiating table in any case, unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are thoroughly eradicated,” the envoy said. “Despite the serious concerns of the international community, the US continues to stage, annually, the aggressive joint military exercises, with the aim of planning a nuclear attack against the DPRK.”



Selected Comments:

# North Korea is right... the US has been trying to provoke a major war for several years to save the falling and failing US economy.

# Both countries waisting money they can't afford for weapons build up instead of just talking with each other. Some group is getting very rich off this and it sure isn't the citizens of both countries.

# Relax, North Korea. USA loves to rattle sabres at their taxpayers expense. Just let them play.

# "The United States is a country ruled as a cult. At the center of this military cult is a deranged belief of the corrupt congress' destiny to rule as parent protector over a conquered US constitution and an enslaved American people".

The "Power" of American Dollar in plain English!

A must read article to understand the "power of American dollar" and why any attempt to de-dollarise the world economy is faced with military annihilation - Iraq and Libya are two prime examples. Russia and China are gradually earning the wrath of US administration as they slowly try to sway away from the clutches of dollar...

The Secret Reason Trump Is So Cozy With Saudi Arabia
By Nick Giambruno
Nov 8, 2017

As a candidate, Donald Trump used uncommonly harsh language to criticize Saudi Arabia—the world’s largest oil exporter.

He called the Saudi regime the world’s biggest funder of terrorism.

He also said the Saudi government uses “our petro dollars—our very own money—to fund the terrorists that seek to destroy our people, while the Saudis rely on us to protect them!”

At another point, Trump said, “Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi [Arabia].”

Trump also criticized Hillary Clinton for taking Saudi money for the Clinton Foundation. (They were its biggest “donors.”) He even challenged her to return the money.
​
He also famously got into a Twitter spat with a prominent member of the Saudi royal family, Al-waleed bin Talal.

As a candidate, Trump blasted the Saudis countless other times.

But, after he took office, Trump did a complete 180. He stopped criticizing the Saudis. In fact, he’s now singing their praises.
​
It’s bizarre… as if someone put a severed horse head in his bed.

Trump’s about face was astounding. But his newly adopted deference to the Saudis is no different than Obama’s, Baby Bush’s, or any previous president’s.

Today, I’ll tell you why Trump made such an abrupt turnaround. I’ll also explain why the Saudis get special treatment from the US Deep State.

“As Good As Gold”—From Bretton Woods to the Petrodollar

It’s been rightly said that he who holds the gold makes the rules.

After World War 2, the US had the largest gold reserves in the world, by far. Along with winning the war, this let the US reconstruct the global monetary system around the dollar.

The new system, created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, tied the currencies of virtually every country in the world to the US dollar through a fixed exchange rate. It also tied the US dollar to gold at a fixed rate of $35 an ounce.

The dollar was said to be “as good as gold.”

The Bretton Woods system made the US dollar the world’s premier reserve currency. It effectively forced other countries to store dollars for international trade, or to exchange with the US government for gold.

However, this pseudo gold standard was doomed to fail.

Not surprisingly, runaway spending on warfare and welfare caused the US government to print more dollars than it could back with gold at the promised price.

By the late 1960s, the number of dollars circulating had drastically increased relative to the amount of gold backing them. This encouraged foreign countries to exchange their dollars for gold, draining the US gold supply. It dropped from 574 million ounces at the end of World War 2 to around 261 million ounces in 1971.

To plug the drain, President Nixon “temporarily” suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold in 1971. This ended the Bretton Woods system and severed the dollar’s last tie to gold.

The “temporary” suspension is still in effect today.

This is why the Fed can print as much paper money as it pleases.

The death of the Bretton Woods system had profound geopolitical consequences. Most critically, it eliminated the main reason foreign countries stored large amounts of US dollars and used the US dollar for international trade.

At this point, oil-producing countries began to demand payment in gold instead of rapidly depreciating dollars.

It was clear the US would have to create a new monetary system to stabilize to the dollar.

So, the US government concocted a new scheme—the petrodollar system. It gave foreign countries another compelling reason to hold and use the dollar.

The new arrangement preserved the dollar’s special status as the world’s top reserve currency.

For President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, it was a geopolitical and financial masterstroke.

From 1972 to 1974, the US government made a series of agreements with Saudi Arabia that created the petrodollar system.

The US handpicked Saudi Arabia because of the kingdom’s vast petroleum reserves and its dominant position in OPEC—and because the Saudi royal family was (and is) easily corruptible.

In essence, the petrodollar system was an agreement that the US would guarantee the House of Saud’s survival.

 In exchange, Saudi Arabia would:

    # Use its dominant position in OPEC to ensure that all oil transactions would only happen in US dollars.

    # Recycle the many billions of US dollars from oil revenue into American weapons manufacturers and infrastructure companies—and critically, into US Treasuries. This let the US issue more debt and finance previously unimaginable budget deficits. By 1977, at least 20% of all Treasuries held abroad were in Saudi hands.

    # Guarantee the price of oil within limits acceptable to the US and prevent another oil embargo.

Oil is the largest and most strategic commodity market in the world.

As you can see in the chart below, it dwarfs all other major commodity markets combined.

Every country needs oil. And if foreign countries need US dollars to buy oil, they have a very compelling reason to hold large dollar reserves.

Think about it… If Italy wants to buy oil from Kuwait, it has to purchase US dollars on the foreign exchange market to pay for the oil first.

This creates a huge artificial market for US dollars.

In part, this is what differentiates the US dollar from a purely local currency, like the Mexican peso.

The dollar is just a middleman. But it’s used in countless transactions amounting to trillions of dollars that have nothing to do with US products or services.

Since the oil market is so enormous, it acts as a benchmark for international trade. If foreign countries are already using dollars for oil, it’s just easier to use the dollar for other international trade.

In addition to nearly all oil sales, the US dollar is used for about 80% of all international transactions.

This gives the US unmatched geo-political leverage.

The US can sanction or exclude virtually any country from the US dollar-based financial system at the flip of a switch. By extension, it can also cut off any country from the vast majority of international trade.

The petro-dollar system is why people and businesses everywhere in the world take US dollars. Other countries have had little choice over this.

Today, the biggest US exports are dollars and government debt. The US government can create unlimited quantities of both… from nothing.

It requires no effort to create US dollars, which can then be exchanged for real things like French wine, Italian cars, electronics from Korea, or Chinese manufactured goods.

Ultimately, the petro-dollar boosts the US dollar’s purchasing power. It entices foreigners to soak up many of the new currency units the Fed creates.

The system helps create a deeper, more liquid market for the dollar and US Treasuries.

It also helps the US keep interest rates artificially low. This allows the US government to finance enormous and permanent deficits. Otherwise, this would be impossible without destroying the currency through money printing and inflation.

The petro-dollar allows the US to finance the world’s largest military, which is bigger than the next seven largest militaries combined.

The petro-dollar has also allowed the US to spend astronomical amounts of money on welfare and other benefits for over half of its population. It gives Americans a much higher standard of living than they would have otherwise.

In short, the petro-dollar is the ultimate enabler of big government.

The US government could never have become as powerful without it.

It’s hard to overstate how much the petro-dollar system benefits the US. It’s the bedrock of the US financial system.

And it’s the reason the US political elite pamper the Saudis.

Bretton Woods lasted 27 years. So far, the petro-dollar has lasted over 40 years.

I think we’re on the cusp of another paradigm shift in the international financial system. It will be at least as fundamental as the end of Bretton Woods in 1971.

For decades, the petro-dollar system has allowed the US government and many Americans to live way beyond their means.

The US takes this unique position for granted. But it will disappear once the petro-dollar system breaks down.

When that happens, I expect severe inflation.

This will likely be the tipping point…

Afterward, the US government will be desperate enough to implement capital controls, people controls, nationalization of retirement savings, and other forms of wealth confiscation.

I urge you to prepare for the economic and socio-political fallout while you still can. Expect bigger government, less freedom, shrinking prosperity… and possibly worse.

It probably won’t happen tomorrow. But it’s clear where this trend is headed.

One day soon, Americans may wake up to a new reality.

Once the petro-dollar system kicks the bucket and the dollar loses its status as the world’s premier reserve currency, you will have few, if any, options.

The sad truth is, most people have no idea how bad things could get, let alone how to prepare…

Alibaba racked up $25.3 billion in sales on Nov 11

E-commerce at its best!

Jack Ma’s Alibaba rakes in over $1bn per hour as Singles Day record smashed
RT : 11 Nov, 2017

Alibaba has racked up $25.3 billion in sales on Singles Day, China’s biggest online shopping day, so far, with close to $7 billion in sales made in the first 30 minutes.

This was 42 percent higher than 2016, when the online shopping company made $17.8 billion. This year it made $18 billion in sales before 12pm, making $1 billion in the first two minutes.

Singles Day is a Chinese holiday, like a Valentine’s Day for single people, where people are encouraged to treat themselves. The day of shopping brings in more sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined in the US.

The revenue generated is 29 percent higher than 2016, when the online shopping company made $17.8 billion. This year it made $18 billion in sales before 12pm, making $1 billion in the first two minutes.

Since 2009, Alibaba has reaped the rewards of the day, with Chinese flocking to the site for 11/11 special offers.

Alibaba announced the company had broken a world record for payment transactions within the first five minutes on Saturday. There were 256,000 payment transactions processed per second by Alipay, Alibaba’s Alizila news website reported. Sales made on mobile sales account for 90 percent of the day’s transactions, Bloomberg reports.

The company has also surpassed the 657 million delivery orders it received in 2016, with Wan Lin, president of Alibaba’s logistics affiliate Cainiao, announcing delivery orders are close to 700 million, according to Alizila.

This year, 140,000 different merchants took part in the event, including many international brands like Tampax and Asos. Last year, there were 98,000.

Alibaba hosts a large gala on the Friday before Singles Day. This year, Nicole Kidman and Pharrell Williams were among the guests.

Trump lashes out at those rejecting good relations with Russia

Trump is the one person who openly acknowledges America's need to be friends with Russia. It is the characters in the SWAMP that want conflict with Russia. However, it is still difficult to ascertain his sincerity given his track record of possessing a restless mind...

‘Haters & fools’: Trump lashes out at those rejecting good relations with Russia
RT : 12 Nov, 2017

President Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to reiterate his belief that “Russia can greatly help” the US in solving many pressing world issues, such as global terrorism and the North Korean crisis, blasting those who disagree with that assertion as “haters and fools.”

 

“When will all the haters and fools out there realize that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing,” Trump wrote, emphasizing, that “playing politics” instead of moving forward to resolve high-priority issues is “bad for our country.”

Trump also said he had “good discussions” with President Vladimir Putin during their brief encounters at the APEC summit in Vietnam, where they, despite disagreements, managed to produce a joint statement on Syria.

“Hope for his [Putin’s] help to solve, along with China the dangerous North Korea crisis. Progress being made,” Trump tweeted.

The persisting hysteria around Moscow’s alleged involvement in the US election is a “Democratic hit job,” preventing the two countries from engaging in any meaningful cooperation, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One earlier on Saturday. The US president even hinted that Democrats are just jealous because they were not able to achieve a good relationship with Russia because they didn't have the talent to do it.

“Hillary tried it, and she failed. Nobody mentions that. They act like, you know - it's so terrible. She did that reset button; it was a joke. But she tried and she failed. Obama tried and he failed. Couldn't have it, because he didn't have chemistry. They didn't have the right chemistry,” the US leader said.

Selected Comments:

# I suggest that the Russians familiarize themselves with the phrase, good cop/bad cop. Arguably Trump is worse because he pretends to want better relations just to lull the other side into a false sense of security. Hillary is a known warmonger; the globalist decided Trump to use an unknown warmonger who claims to want peace. Trump is far more dangerous and calculating than Hillary.

# News Flash Folks....the media and people who read the media don't make policy and decisions about how the leaders of these countries handle their relationships with one another and, frankly, they don't care how you feel about it. So get over yourselves and stuff your bravado.

# Trump makes a lot of remarks on Twitter telling us how smart he is and what a great negotiator he is. So far his results show us nothing on Syria, North Korea, China, trade agreements, etc. America is tired of awaiting. If Trumps abilities does not improve trade and turmoil in the world, I wonder who he is going to blame?

# Words have to be conform with deeds. USA should pull out of Syria and stop supplying ISIS. They must also break all relations to the brutal regime in Saudi Arabia. They could easily remove the sauds from their oil wells and pump the oil by themselves.

Jupiter captured by Juno spacecraft in 2017

The following pictures were rendered, as always, from raw images taken by Juno spacecraft.