Infinite Unknown

Russian blogger Alexander Malyutin as he speaks in his office in Moscow in 2009

MOSCOW — It started with a golden bed and African drummers and led to Russia’s latest, surprising, political duel pitting tenacious bloggers against bureaucrats whose excesses went a step too far.

Russians typically shrug their shoulders at the lavish lifestyles of government officials, assuming nothing can be done about bureaucrats who take bribes and pocket state funds.

But when Russia’s interior ministry announced plans to buy a golden bed, it raised an outcry — and revealed the potential of the Internet for stirring up outrage against entrenched corruption.

While the docile, state-dominated media looks the other way, a small but determined group of Russian bloggers is challenging corrupt bureaucrats, rallying public opinion and goading prosecutors into action.

Their blogs have attracted unanticipated popularity, reflecting deep-seated anger at the high-handed behavior of officials in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s government.

“I didn’t expect the blog to become so popular,” said Alexander Malyutin, who runs a blog devoted to exposing suspicious government tenders, including the interior ministry’s infamous golden bed purchase.

Last August, the ministry announced plans to buy 24 million rubles (800,000 dollars) worth of furniture, including a bed “covered with a thin layer of 24-carat gold,” according to the official tender documents.

The documents were posted deep within a website where all the government’s purchases must be published, under a law passed in 2005 during one of the Kremlin’s periodic efforts to root out corruption.

After bloggers and journalists exposed the plans, the ministry defended itself from ridicule by saying the bed was needed for a special VIP guesthouse in Moscow where it hosts foreign officials. Continue reading »

Tags: Bloggers, Blogs, Corruption, Government, Internet, Politics, Russia, Society

Chossudovsky: US will start WW3 by attacking Iran

“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Allow the president to invade a (neighboring) nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. “
- Abraham Lincoln

Any attack on Iran will start WW III. I told you before that it is the plan of the elite to start WW III.

Final destination Iran?

Exclusive: Rob Edwards - The Sunday Herald

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” said Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on US preparations for an attack on Iran. “US bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he added.

Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs.

Although the story was not confirmed at the time, the new evidence suggests that it was accurate.

Contract details for the shipment to Diego Garcia were posted on an international tenders’ website by the US navy.

A shipping company based in Florida, Superior Maritime Services, will be paid $699,500 to carry many thousands of military items from Concord, California, to Diego Garcia.

Crucially, the cargo includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” said Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on US preparations for an attack on Iran. “US bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he added. Continue reading »

Tags: China, Global News, Government, Iran, Military, nuclear, Nuclear reactors, Nuclear weapons, Politics, Russia, U.S., War, WWW III

“Cyber war!” flashes on the screen at an Internet security conference

(AFP) WASHINGTON — Former top US officials staged a digital doomsday simulation on Tuesday in which a huge cyberattack crashes cellphone networks, slows Web traffic to a crawl and plunges major cities into darkness.

Dubbed “Cyber ShockWave,” the elaborate exercise was held in a Washington hotel room transformed for the day into the White House Situation Room, where the president and his advisers typically meet to address national emergencies.

Former president George W. Bush’s Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff played the role of National Security Advisor as the “cabinet” sought to respond to a nightmare scenario drawn up by former CIA director Michael Hayden.

As the “crisis” escalated, the officials discussed various actions including calling out the National Guard, nationalizing the utility companies and staging a retaliatory strike if the authors of the cyberattack become known.

“If this is an attack on the United States the president, as commander in chief, has the authority to use the full powers at his disposal,” said former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, in her role as attorney general. Continue reading »

Tags: China, CIA, Cyber Attack, cyberwar, Doomsday, Government, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Pentagon, Politics, Russia, Terrorism, U.S.

Russia’s S-300 missile defense system

Iran’s ambassador to Russia says Moscow has guaranteed that it will deliver the S-300 missile defense system to Iran.

“Iran is ready to receive this system and our Russian colleagues have assured us that they will meet their obligations,” Ambassador Seyyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi said at a press conference at the main office of RIA Novosti in Moscow on Thursday.

“Several technical issues [in the contract's implementation] have emerged, and we hope they will be resolved soon,” the diplomat said without giving details about the problems.

The S-300 system, which can track targets and fire at aircraft 120 kilometers (75 miles) away, features high jamming immunity and is able to simultaneously engage up to 100 targets.

Continue reading »

Tags: Iran, Military, Missile Defense Systems, Missiles, Russia

LOL!

It’s good to see that US officials and former officials continue acting to par, God forbid they actually shock us and change their stripes. The latest tripe out of the mouths of the mega corrupted and their hand picked puppets is Henry Paulson’s tripe about Russia trying to collapse the US economic bubble and that being the reason that the US is now down on its luck.

And why not? After all, Russia only had some $450 BILLION invested in the US and that is not counting the various steel plants and other assets owned by Russian companies. Why not just throw away all that money, surely it could never be the fact that the US, government and people and corporations, are debt drunk and indentured fools who can not live within their means and spend and continue to spend like maniacs. It is almost like an alcoholic in his final stages of death, knowing its all over, why the hell not just drink like crazy, the liver is done anyways? Or a man dieing from lung cancer who just keeps chain smoking, not going to make any difference at this point anyways.

But Henry Paulson is an egotist and a former top official who obviously 1. does not want to be seen as the fool and boob that he is and 2. go to jail or worse get lynched by angry mobs. So, he does what any failed US government or business hack does, who can try and get away with it: he blames it on Russia. Russia, the evil tyrant, the ones who have a spy under every bed, an assassin with a uranium filled syringe, in every closet and a banker with a nuclear money bomb at every stock market.

This is no different from the usual: blame Russia for Georgia’s aggression, committed by a maniac US puppet. Blame Russia for a hyper armed Middle East, while the US hands out $12 billion in weapons to the Middle East, most of it to Islamics, each and every year. Blame Russia for Syria, while the US pays Syria to run black ops prisons and torture captives the US delivers. Blame Russia for Hamas and the PLO while the US saves the PLO from Israeli-Lebanese Christian extermination and then legitimizes them and arms them. Blame Russia for Serbia, while the US arms Islamic fanatics and wages a terror war of genocide on Orthodox Christian Serbs. Why not?

So now, while US banks and their lap dog English fellow sociopaths, were conning and robbing the world blind, till it all collapsed, lets now blame Russia for this to.

Of course, the US media is more than happy to join in and head lines are a buzz. Just to do a google search for the English versions. “Russia’s risky roulette” declares the New York Post.

“Russia tried to talk China into waging financial war on the US in 2008, as the country was mired in a mortgage crisis. According to a forthcoming book by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Russian leaders wanted the Chinese government to dump billions of dollars worth of bonds tied to ailing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” They state this as a fact. Why not, its not like they will ever be called out on the lies.

“Paulson Says Russia Urged China to Dump Fannie, Freddie Bonds” declares Bloomberg via BusinessWeek. “The Russians made a “top-level approach” to the Chinese “that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies,” Paulson said, referring to the acronym for government sponsored entities. The Chinese declined, he said.”

Of course, what Paulson and everyone else avoids answering is the simple question of: Why? What would Russia gain from loosing its invested funds? Secondly, at this point, the US would have done just what it did anyways, which is nationalize the two companies, which it was propping up anyways. Conspiracy is much easier to deal with than to answer for three decades of failed American social engineering financed with the savings and futures of much of the world.

The only proof they have is that Russia sold off its $65 billion in Fannie and Freddie in 2008. Oh my, you mean that our government had the brains not to ride the crashing plane to the bottom but decided to jump out with a parachute. Why not blame every other investor, who sold, for this also. My bet is, if Mr. Paulson owned any of that stock, he was out of it long before mid 2008. Furthermore, $65 billion is a drop in the trillions of debt that those two organizations hold. Continue reading »

Tags: Bonds, China, Debt, Economy, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Government, Henry Paulson, Politics, Pravda, Russia, U.S.

Sure! That is called ‘his-story’ (Henry Paulson’s fairy tale).

See also:

- Paulson Says He Was Prepared to Guarantee Lehman (BusinessWeek):

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says in his memoir that he was prepared to support a government backstop to prevent the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. until he learned the firm’s assets were so mis- marked it would have guaranteed a loss to taxpayers.‘

As of  ‘now’ the US taxpayer has already lost everything, because of bailouts, stimulus packages, quantitative easing etc., which only benefited the banksters and the elite. It is just that the people don’t know it yet.

The US government and the Fed are bankrupting America!

As a side note:

If you are an investor and your investment starts to look really bad and is about to lose a lot of money, then you better sell it straightaway.

China is also about to lose a lot of money from holding US Treasuries, and it has now become very difficult to sell them without tremendous consequences, but the bailout/stimulus bubble will finally blow up. This will be the end of the dollar and the US as we know it.

Just think about the big dilemma the Chinese are in now, because of the irresponsible economic policies of the US.

I am not saying that China ‘always’ acted responsible. This is a created crisis. This is the Greatest Depression and it has only just begun.

Henry Paulson, former U.S. treasury secretary, testifies at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 27, 2010. (Bloomberg)

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — Russia urged China to dump its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 in a bid to force a bailout of the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said.

Paulson learned of the “disruptive scheme” while attending the Beijing Summer Olympics, according to his memoir, “On The Brink.”

The Russians made a “top-level approach” to the Chinese “that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies,” Paulson said, referring to the acronym for government sponsored entities. The Chinese declined, he said.

Russia’s five-day war with U.S. ally Georgia started on Aug. 8, the same day as the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Games. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush during those ceremonies that “war has started,” according to Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.

“The report was deeply troubling — heavy selling could create a sudden loss of confidence in the GSEs and shake the capital markets,” Paulson wrote. “I waited till I was back home and in a secure environment to inform the president.”

Russia never approached China about dumping U.S. bonds, Peskov said today. “This is not the case,” he said by phone.

Russia sold all of its Fannie and Freddie debt in 2008, after holding $65.6 billion of the notes at the start of that year, according to central bank data. Fannie and Freddie were seized by regulators on Sept. 6, 2008, amid the worst U.S. housing slump since the Great Depression. Continue reading »

Tags: Bailout, Bonds, China, Debt, Dmitry Medvedev, Economy, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, George Bush, Global News, Government, Henry Paulson, Politics, Russia, Taxpayers, U.S., Vladimir Putin

With as much as 30,000 tons of American poultry in the pipeline to Russia, the government in Moscow imposed a ban on future U.S. poultry imports on New Year’s Day.

Russia joins the European Union in prohibiting the use of chlorine as an anti-microbial treatment in poultry production, which is commonly used in the United States.

As for birds in the pipeline, USA Poultry and Egg Export Council President Jim Summers said he thinks based on earlier assurances from the Russian Veterinary Service that poultry in transit will be allowed to enter.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defended the use of chlorine by the American poultry industry.

“Since chlorine has been used as an anti-microbial treatment for more than 25 years, this resolution effectively blocks U.S. exports of poultry to Russia, has a devastating impact on the U.S. poultry industry and trade, and raised the costs of poultry products for Russia’s consumers,” says USDA spokeswoman Katie Gorscak.

She said there is overwhelming scientific evidence that chlorine is safe and effective as a disinfectant for poultry.

Continue reading »

Tags: Chlorine, Food, Government, Politics, Russia, U.S.

Before:

National Geographic News (December 15, 2005):

- North Magnetic Pole Is Shifting Rapidly Toward Russia:

New research shows the pole moving at rapid clip—25 miles (40 kilometers) a year.

Over the past century the pole has moved 685 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Arctic Canada toward Siberia, says Joe Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University.

Now …

North Magnetic Pole Moving East Due to Core Flux

Earth’s north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet’s core, new research says.

The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field’s movements by tracking how Earth’s magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.

Now, newly analyzed data suggest that there’s a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the core’s surface, possibly being created by a mysterious “plume” of magnetism arising from deeper in the core.

And it’s this region that could be pulling the magnetic pole away from its long-time location in northern Canada, said Arnaud Chulliat, a geophysicist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France. Continue reading »

Tags: Earth, Earth Changes, Environment, Magnetic Field, North Pole, Russia, Science

Stephen Jen from the hedge fund Blue Gold Capital has a warning for those who think that gold has risen far too high, is necessarily in a speculative bubble, and must soon come clattering back down.

Mr Jen is an expert on sovereign wealth funds from his days at Morgan Stanley. The gold story - essentially - is that the rising economic powers of Asia, the Middle East, and the commodity bloc are rejecting Western fiat currencies. China, India, and Russia have all been buying gold on a large scale over recent months.

Why should that stop when the AAA club of sovereign debtors is pushing towards the danger threshold of 100pc of GDP?

These new players account for almost all the accumulation of foreign currency reserves worldwide over the last five years, so what they do matters enormously.

After crunching the numbers, Mr Jen found that the share of gold in their reserves is just 2.2pc compared to 38pc for the Old World (perhaps we should just call them the deadbeats from now on). They would have to buy $115bn of gold at current prices to raise their bullion to just 5pc of total reserves, and $700bn to reach just half western levels.

The killer-term here is at current prices since any such move in the tiny global market for gold would send prices into the stratosphere.

Continue reading »

Tags: China, Commodities, Dollar, Economy, Gold, Hedge Funds, India, Politics, Russia

- Iran to drop US dollar from forex reserves

BEIJING, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

The premier, currently on a visit to Beijing, said a final decision on the issue can only be made after a thorough expert analysis.

“Yesterday, energy companies, in particular Gazprom, raised the question of using the national currency. We are ready to examine the possibility of selling energy resources for rubles, but our Chinese partners need rubles for that. We are also ready to sell for yuans,” Putin said.

He stressed that “there should be a balance here.”

On Tuesday, Russia and China agreed terms for Russian gas deliveries at a level of up to 70 billion cubic meters a year. China also imports oil from Russia.

The Russian prime minister said the issue would be addressed among others at a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) finance ministers, who are to convene before the end of the year in Kazakhstan.

Britain’s Independent newspaper reported last Tuesday that Russian officials had held “secret meetings” with Arab states, China and France on ending the use of the U.S. dollar in international oil trade.

Continue reading »

Tags: China, Dollar, Economy, Gas, Government, Iran, Oil, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin