Crackdown on freedoms? Australian Senate passes draconian anti-terror laws
RT | September 26, 2014
Australia’s senate has endorsed new anti-terror laws that will grant its intelligence agency the right to spy on any citizen with just a warrant, while journalists and whistleblowers “recklessly” exposing special ops can face up to 10 years in jail.
The anti-terror laws, which cleared the Australian Senate on Thursday – and will almost certainly pass the House of Representatives on Tuesday – grants extraordinary powers to the nation’s spying agency, ASIO, to effectively monitor the entire Australian internet.
The National Security Legislation Amendment Bill allows one warrant to give the ASIO access to a limitless number of computers on a computer network when attempting to monitor a target. It also allows for the content of communications to be stored – while ASIO agents will be allowed to copy, delete, or modify the data on any of the computers it has a warrant to spy on.
Critics of the law say it effectively allows the entire internet to be monitored as it is a ‘network of networks’ and the bill doesn’t define a computer network.
Moreover, under the new law, anyone identifying ASIO agents or disclosing the information related to a special intelligence operation faces up to 10 years in jail. To be found guilty one would only need to be proven to be “reckless as to whether the disclosure of the information will endanger the health or safety of any person or prejudice the effective conduct of an SIO.”
In addition, any operation can be declared “special” by an ASIO officer, and a person may never know which investigation he allegedly obstructed and being put on trial for – because it is a secret one.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance said the law could have a freezing effect on national security reporting, although Senator George Brandis and the government’s Attorney General, said the laws didn’t target journalists but instead went after people who leak classified information like the former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The new laws were introduced to target government whistleblowers, and over growing concerns about the Islamic State jihadists who threatened to directly target Westerners including Australians.
“Regrettably, for some time to come, the delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a statement on Monday.
Voting against the measure in the 44-12 vote was Australian Green party Senator Scott Ludlam who added an amendment limiting the number of computers to 20 to be searched at any one time, which failed to gain support.
“What we’ve seen [tonight] is I think a scary, disproportionate and unnecessary expansion of coercive surveillance powers that will not make anybody any safer but that affect freedoms that have been quite hard fought for and hard won over a period of decades,” Senator Ludlam told Fairfax Media.
Colorado students stage mass walk-out over US history ‘censorship’
RT | September 25, 2014
Hundreds of Denver-area high school students walked out their classrooms in a mass protest against what they call an attempt to censor their history curriculum by refocusing it on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and obedience.
Students at six Denver-area highs schools walked out their classrooms en masse, protesting a plan by the conservative-majority Jefferson County school board to push for curriculum changes to Advanced Placement history courses to promote patriotism and deference to authority. The proposed changes would include the removal of topics that could ‘encourage’ civil disobedience from textbooks and materials.
The protest was organized through social media, encouraging students to stand outside the Jefferson County School Administrative Building with placards which read “People didn’t die so we erase them,” “Educate free thinkers,” “There is nothing more patriotic than protest,” and “History is History.”
The student protest comes after teachers at two schools caused a shutdown the week before when they staged a sick-out over the curriculum changes, which the school board says provides a balanced view of American history.
“I understand that they want to take out our very important history of slavery and dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it portrays the US in a negative light,” a high school senior, Casey McAndrew, told CNN.
The proposal calls for establishing a committee that would regularly review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement history to make sure materials “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights,” and don’t “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strike or disregard of the law.”
“The nation’s foundation was built on civil protests,” Tyrone G. Parks, a senior student told the Associated Press. “And everything that we’ve done is what allowed us to be at this point today. And if you take that from us, you take away everything that America was built of.”
Those students participating in the protest will not be punished but will receive unexcused absences unless their parents request permissions for missed classes, according to school district spokeswoman Lynn Setzer said.
Meanwhile, Jefferson County Superintendent Dan McMinimee tried to calm the tensions saying that no changes in the curriculum have been finalized and renewing his offer to continue discussions on the issue.
READ MORE: Journalism groups blast Obama admin for ‘politically driven suppression of news’
Ohio cops killed Walmart air gun-wielding man moments after confrontation, new video shows
RT | September 25, 2014
Recently released surveillance video showing the fatal Walmart shooting of a black man carrying an air gun – which he picked up in the same store – seems to contradict police accounts, after a grand jury decided not to indict the officers.
James Crawford III, 22, was shot and killed by police officers after they received a 911 call on August 5 that a man was carrying a rifle in the BeaverCreek Walmart, Ohio, and allegedly waving it at store customers.
Police said in their report that Crawford ignored their numerous orders to drop the rifle before he was shot. However, the video, obtained by the Xenia Daily Gazette, shows Crawford being fired upon mere seconds after police encounter him.
The video shows Crawford walking to the sporting goods section, apparently talking on his phone, and picking up what looks like an assault rifle. In fact it was an air rifle that had been left unboxed on a shelf. He then continues walking around the store – sometimes carrying the gun over his shoulder, sometimes pointed at the ground – before police arrive and shoot him dead.
The video was released as the grand jury decided not to indict the two officers involved and said “they were justified in their actions.”
The Crawford family said they were “disgusted” by the grand jury decision to not file charges against the two officers involved in the shooting.
The August 5 incident triggered protests from residents and family members demanding the video be released. Crawford is black, and the two officers involved in the fatal shooting are white. Crawford’s family asked for a federal investigation to determine if race was a factor.
The Justice Department said Wednesday it would “conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances” around Crawford’s death to see if there were any civil rights violations. The review will be conducted by the department’s civil rights division, the US attorney’s office and the FBI.
READ MORE: Local police kill at least 400 people a year, mostly minorities
White House accused of censoring dispatches from pool reporters
RT | September 24, 2014
The White House’s relationship with the press is once again under fire upon publication this week of a Washington Post article containing allegations that administration staffers have censored and stifled the work of pool reporters.
Paul Farhl wrote for the Post on Tuesday this week that several journalists who have covered the administration of United States President Barack Obama as pool reporters for various papers and news services have experienced hardships firsthand with regards to getting the White House to approve their pieces ahead of distribution.
Although the White House regularly takes questions during the media briefings scheduled during most business days with press secretary Josh Earnest, a select group of journalists — pool reporters — are rotated into a smaller subset of writers who receive the privilege of attending events with Pres. Obama where access is otherwise largely restricted. Those pool reports are then circulated among thousands of recipients ranging from news outlets and agencies to congressional offices, Farhl wrote, but not before first being vetted by White House staffers ahead of release.
According to Farhl, pool journalists have been told by the White House to hold off on presenting information to the public that thusly goes unreported, raising new concerns about an administration that has already come under attack for its relationship with the press, as with a campaign last year that sought to ensure that photographers other than the official Obama-sanctioned shutterbug are offered access to the president.
Last November, a coalition of outlets including McClatchy newspapers and USA Today wrote the White House to say that they would not publish any images issued by the executive branch after their own photojournalists were finding themselves increasingly shunned from official events where Obama’s official photography team only was allowed to shoot.
“As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the Executive Branch of government,” reads part of a letter sent to the White House at the time by the Associated Press, ABC News, the Washington Post and others.
Now according to the latest allegations to come from the Post, pool writers are also being stifled — not because they’re being barred from events, but rather as a result of the White House’s habit of saying what can and cannot be circulated among the thousands of recipients who receive those reports once their vetted.
One of those journalists — Anita Kumar of McClatchy — told Farhl that she reluctantly complied with the White House last year when she was told that her pool report concerning the president’s appearance on The Tonight Show television program was too long and needed to be trimmed.
“The worry is that when you send in a pool report, the White House is reading it and approving it,” she said.
In other instances cited by the Post, pool reporters were told on one occasion to nix a remark Pres. Obama made to a reporter about wanting to win re-election, and during another time were asked to erase references to a White House intern who fainted during a press briefing this past summer. During that ordeal, Farhl reported, the journalist and her editor complained to the White House that censoring that information wouldn’t be necessary since the intern was never named, and Josh Earnest — the president’s current press secretary — eventually allowed it.
“I don’t know why the White House tries to be an editor or middleman,” the reporter, Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post, told Farhl. “They’re just supposed to hit ‘forward’ ” to send the pool reports out.
According to Alexis Simendinger — who has written pool accounts going back two decades — the reach that pool reports have today thanks to the internet have likely left the White House wanting to more carefully keep information under their control lest it otherwise be unleashed on thousands of outlets and offices.
“It used to be a small and clubby readership,” she said of the pool reports. “Now it’s enormous. That has made each White House progressively more sensitive.”
Earnest, Farhl said, declined to comment for this week’s Washington Post piece. Deputy press secretary Eric Schultz did provide a statement, however, saying: “We value the role of the independent press pool, which provides timely, extensive, and important coverage of the president and his activities while at the White House and around the world. That is why, at the request of the White House Correspondents Association, the White House has distributed 20,000 pool reports in the past six years, and we will continue to offer that facilitation for journalists as they work to chronicle the presidency.”
Regardless of their response, the latest allegations concerning the White House’s workings with the press are only the most recent to cause concern among free press advocates — and last year’s ordeal with official photographers was hardly the first.
The Obama administration has routinely come under fire from activists who oppose of the president’s use of the World War One-era Espionage Act to time and time again prosecute individuals suspected of leaking information to the media, including most recently former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. Furthermore, AP reporter Sally Buzbee wrote only last week that the Obama administration is routinely keeping information from escaping the White House and raised her own concerns about the office’s efforts.
“The public can’t see any of it,” Buzbee said of Washington’s latest military campaigns.“News organizations can’t shoot photos or video of bombers as they take off – there are no embeds. In fact, the administration won’t even say what country the [US] bombers fly from.”
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression awarded both the White House Press Office and the US Department of Justice in April with its annual “Jefferson Muzzle” distinction for abridgments of free speech, and a 29-page report published by the Center to Protect Journalists last October determined that “Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press.” According to the group Reporters Without Borders, the US has dropped 13 places from 2013 to 2014 with respect to freedom of the press.
‘Anti-nuclear’ Obama plans to spend $1 trillion on nukes
RT | September 22, 2014
Despite campaigning on a platform that endorsed having “a nuclear-free world” in the not so distant future, United States President Barack Obama is overseeing an administration that’s aim has taken another path, the New York Times reported this week.
On Sunday, journalists William Broad and David Sanger wrote for the Times that a half-decade of “political deals and geopolitical crises” have thrown a wrench in the works of Obama’s pre-White House plans, as a result eviscerating his previously stated intentions of putting America’s — and ideally the world’s — nuclear programs on ice.
According to the Times report, an effort to ensure that the antiquated nuclear arsenal being held by the US remains secure has since expanded to the point that upwards of $1 trillion dollars is now expected to be spent on various realms of the project during the next three decades, the likes of which are likely to keep the trove of American nukes intact and do little to discourage other nations from doing likewise.
“The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut the number of warheads,” the journalists wrote. “Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reductions in return.”
Shortly after he first entered the oval office in early 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize commission awarded Pres. Obama with its highest award for, among other factors, taking a strong stance against international nuclear procurement.
“I’m not naïve,” Obama said that year. “This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence.”
After speaking with analysts, however, the Times journalists — both Pulitzer winners — now raise doubts that the commander-in-chief’s campaign goals will come to fruition anytime soon.
“With Russia on the warpath, China pressing its own territorial claims and Pakistan expanding its arsenal, the overall chances for Mr. Obama’s legacy of disarmament look increasingly dim, analysts say,” they wrote. “Congress has expressed less interest in atomic reductions than looking tough in Washington’s escalating confrontation with Moscow.”
Indeed, international disputes have without a doubt raised concerns in recent years over the nuclear programs of other nations. The Washington Post reported this week that Pakistan is working towards achieving the capability to launch sea-based, short-range nuclear arms, and concurrently the Kremlin confirmed that Russia is set to renew the country’s strategic nuclear forces by 100 percent, not 70 percent as previously announced.
As those countries ramp up their nuclear programs on their own, the Times report cites a recent study from the Washington, DC-based Government Accountability Office to show that the US is making more than just a minor investment with regards to America’s nukes. According to that report, 21 major upgrades to nuclear facilities have already been approved, yet in the five years since Obama took office, “the modernization push” to upgrade the nukes has been “poorly managed and financially unaccountable.”
“It estimated the total cost of the nuclear enterprise over the next three decades at roughly $900 billion to $1.1 trillion,” the journalists noted. “Policy makers, the [GAO] report said, ‘are only now beginning to appreciate the full scope of these procurement costs.’”
Obama administration ‘blocking’ information from the press – AP
RT | September 20, 2014
Uncovering information that should be available to the public has become increasingly difficult under the presidency of Barack Obama, an Associated Press bureau chief says. In some cases, it surpasses the secrecy of the George W. Bush administration.
The White House’s penchant for secrecy does not just apply to the federal government, according to AP’s Washington bureau chief, Sally Buzbee. During a joint meeting of news editors, she stated that the same kind of behavior is starting to appear in state and local governments.
Buzbee pointed out eight ways that the Obama administration is stifling public access to information – including keeping reporters away from witnessing any military action the United States takes as it battles Islamic State extremists in the Middle East.
“The public can’t see any of it,” Buzbee said, referring to the military campaign. “News organizations can’t shoot photos or video of bombers as they take off – there are no embeds. In fact, the administration won’t even say what country the [US] bombers fly from.”
She also expressed frustration with the government’s handling of the upcoming 9/11 trial, during which journalists are prohibited from looking at even non-classified court filings in real time.
“We don’t know what prosecutors are asking for, or what defense attorneys are arguing,” she said.
Meanwhile, basic information about the prison complex in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is being withheld from the public, despite the fact that the Bush administration freely shared this data. The media is unable to learn how many inmates are on hunger strike in the infamous prison, or how frequently assaults on guards take place.
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have become harder than ever to process, Buzbee added. Government officials often fail to do so unless media outlets bring a lawsuit to bear.
At the same time, federal officials have begun pressuring state and local agencies to keep quiet.
“The FBI has directed local police not to disclose details about surveillance technology the police departments use to sweep up cellphone data,” Buzbee said. “In some cases, federal officials have formally intervened in state open records cases, arguing for secrecy.”
Mysterious unidentified spying cell towers found across Washington, DC
RT | September 19, 2014
Washington, DC is littered with surveillance devices designed to trick surrounding mobile phones into logging onto signal-lifting networks, thereby allowing for tracking or call-monitoring purposes.
While traveling around the capital city with Washington Post reporters, a top executive using his company’s mobile-security technology detected as many as 18 such devices mimicking legitimate cell towers around the city, especially in sensitive areas around the likes of the White House, the US Capitol building, and foreign embassies.
Aaron Turner’s company Integricell is one of many outfits that has developed technology to indicate surveillance devices – known as ISMI catchers – used by police, intelligence entities, private individuals, and others to track surrounding devices or to even spy on phone calls.
ISMI catchers are named after a “unique identifying phone code called an ISMI,” according to the Post, and can hijack phone signals, tricking an average mobile phone attempting to hook into established cell networks such as Verizon or AT&T.
While Integricell found at least 18 such ISMI catchers, others believe that is simply the beginning.
“I think there’s even more here,” said Les Goldsmith, top executive with ESD America, a tech company partnering with Integricell to promote the company’s GSMK CryptoPhone. “That was just us driving around for a day and a half.”
Others expressed doubt to the Post that the CryptoPhone – currently marketed at $3,500 apiece – can accurately identify individual ISMI catchers.
“I would bet money that there are governments that are spying in DC,” said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union. “Whether you can detect that with a $3,000 device, I don’t know.”
Goldsmith said that though there are ISMI catchers in the locations identified by Integricell’s technology, CryptoPhone cannot very well determine the source of espionage, whether it is the US government, local police, a foreign intelligence entity, or an individual.
The Federal Communications Commission has taken notice of ISMI-catching technology, as even skilled hobby technologists could build a surveillance device for less than $1,500. This summer, the FCC organized a task force to study potential use and abuse of ISMI catchers by foreign governments or private citizens. The FCC does not have authorization to police US government use of the catchers – which are illegal to use without a search warrant or other legal clearance.
Meanwhile, researchers across the globe are racing to counter ISMI catchers with a device known as “ISMI catcher-catcher.” These efforts include the development of free or inexpensive apps that could offer some protection from surveillance.
CryptoPhone looks for three indicators when attempting to identify an ISMI catcher: when a phone moves to a 2G network from a more-secure 3G one; when a phone connection “strips away” encryption; and when a cell tower does not offer a “neighbor’s list” of other cell towers in the area. ISMI catchers will not provide such lists, hoping to capture any phone that it comes in contact with in a general area.
When cruising around DC with the Post, Integricell’s Turner reported one or two of the three indicators. Only once in 90 minutes were all three indicators detected.
While there is a surge of interest in the likes of the CryptoPhone, researchers contend that makers of IMSI catchers will boost their own technology to outwit ISMI catcher-catchers, signaling an arms race in surveillance and counter-surveillance technology.
Earlier this month, Popular Science published a story – citing ESD America’s CEO Goldsmith – reporting that the CryptoPhone had found 17 different fake cell phone towers, or interceptors, across the United States in cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and more.
“Interceptor use in the US is much higher than people had anticipated,” Goldsmith told Popular Science. “One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found 8 different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”
Although these interceptors act as fake cell phone towers, they are not necessarily large, physical structures. They could simply be small mobile devices that act exactly like a real tower, deceiving phones into giving up information. Such devices are known as ‘Stingrays,’ after the brand name of one popular type of interceptor.
Police agencies across the country are increasingly relying on Stingrays to conduct investigations, but the powerful tools aren’t often discussed in public.
In June, the US Marshals Service intervened in a dispute between a Florida police department and the state’s ACLU chapter, with the Marshals sweeping in at the last minute to seize controversial cell phone records obtained with a Stingray device before the ACLU was able to review them.
The ACLU has asserted that a Stingray enables the “electronic equivalent of dragnet ‘general searches’ prohibited by the Fourth Amendment,” and convinced a court to force the Sarasota police to make the documents available for review.
‘Deterrence not arms race’: Russia hints it may develop rival to US Prompt Global Strike
RT | September 11, 2014
Russia could use ballistic missiles, such as the Yars , with conventional warheads to counter CPGS. (RIA Novosti / Vadim Savitskii)
A highly-placed Defense Ministry official says that Russia may be forced to match the US Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) doctrine, which prescribes that a non-nuclear US missile must be able to hit any target on Earth within one hour.
“Russia is capable of and will have to develop a similar system,” Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said during a public discussion of the Russian rearmament program for the decade of 2016 through 2025.
“But mostly we will concentrate on countering CPGS, as our military doctrine is a defensive one.”
But the official denied that the Kremlin was setting off for another Cold War-style arms race with the West.
“This is not in these plans, and I hope will never happen,” said Borisov. “We simply want to protect our civilian population from outside threats.”
While Prompt Global Strike is often treated as a futuristic super-weapon, it is simply a system that ensures that strike areas of existing technologies cover the entirety of the planet. The concept of CPGS was first explicitly stated in official US documents during the first George W. Bush administration, and in more than a decade on, it has gone through various iterations, from ones that would see kinetic weapons fired at targets on the ground from space, to hypersonic missiles, to conventional solutions of placing short and medium range missiles around the world. There is no deadline for the program’s official completion, which is just as much subject to budget constraints as other articles of the defense budget, or consistent status updates on whether its aims may have already been achieved through existing armaments.
Despite its vague remit and gradual implementation, the program has caused considerable consternation in Moscow and Beijing. A previous US study showed that up to 30 percent of enemy nuclear launchers could be taken out with conventional weapons that would form part of the CPGS. Russian officials have said that together with the missile defense system the US is deploying around the world, this could mean that the current nuclear balance could be undermined.
This was clearly on Vladimir Putin’s mind when he spoke of creating new “assault capabilities, including maintaining a guaranteed solution to the task of nuclear deterrence” at the same Wednesday meeting.
But most experts agreed that Russia’s current abilities are already sufficient to withstand CPGS, even if it lacks the same attack capabilities.
“We already have a system of swift retaliation,” said Yuri Baluyevsky, former Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The retired general is helping to develop the Kremlin to develop a new military doctrine by the end of the year, in the face of geopolitical changes in Ukraine, NATO’s increased presence in Eastern Europe, and the NATO missile shield.
“Russia has missiles, such as the long-range, air-based X-101 strategic cruise missile, which is able to strike at distances of 5,000 kilometers (about 3,100 miles),” the president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Konstantin Sivkov, told RIA news agency.
“It also has high-precision ballistic missiles that could strike ground targets, providing they had normal warheads. These are the two main elements of a rapid long-range strike, That is, it can be done now. Basically, existing long-range aviation would be sufficient.”
Another expert suggested that Russia’s air defense systems – which cost considerably less than launches of ballistic missiles to operate – should form the backbone of the country’s response to CPGS.
“To create an adequate aerospace defense system it is important to develop interceptor systems, such as the S-500. It is capable of hitting targets not only in the air but also in near space at an altitude of 200 kilometers above the Earth, which are moving at a speed of up to 8 kilometers per second,” said Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of National Defense magazine.
The unveiling of CPGS has not only bred stiff resistance around the world, but also doubts at home in the US itself. A Carnegie Center study from last year said that the system held some of the same risks as a nuclear attack, and was much more likely to be used. Within the allocated 60-minute time frame, incoming conventional missiles could be mistaken for nuclear warheads, their trajectory could be misunderstood, or they could simply hit the wrong target – all situations that may unleash a rapid response, which Russia and China, at the very least, appear to be very capable of already.
Finance, energy & defense sectors: EU and US set to impose new Russia sanctions
RT | September 11, 2014
Barack Obama says he is joining the EU initiative to impose a new round of sanctions on Russia. Both Washington and Brussels say the sanctions will target finance, energy and defense sectors – yet can be revoked if the situation in Ukraine improves.
The US is to provide details of their sanctions on Friday.
“We will deepen and broaden sanctions in Russia’s financial, energy, and defense sectors. These measures will increase Russia’s political isolation as well as the economic costs to Russia, especially in areas of importance to President [Vladimir] Putin and those close to him,” US President Barack Obama said in a statement on Thursday.
The US says that Russia has sent heavily armed forces to Ukraine. Obama added that the US may withdraw sanctions if Russia fulfills obligations under the Minsk agreement.
“We are watching closely developments since the announcement of the ceasefire and agreement in Minsk, but we have yet to see conclusive evidence that Russia has ceased its efforts to destabilize Ukraine,” Obama said. “If Russia fully implements its commitments, these sanctions can be rolled back.”
While details officially remain unknown, a Reuters source has alleged that the US intends to sanction Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, and tighten restrictions on other Russian banks.
Previously, access to the US capital market was restricted for five Russian banks – VTB, Gazprombank, Bank of Moscow, Russian Agricultural Bank and Vnesheconombank (VEB). The Aug. 1 sanctions restricted Sberbank’s activity in the EU.
EU sanctions to take immediate effect on Friday
As for the European Union, the bloc will list their new limitations in the official journal Friday, which will mean they will come into effect immediately. Brussels will add 24 individuals to the list which blocks travel to the EU and asset freezes. Russian leaders and businessmen, as well as politicians in Crimea and the Donbass, will be added to the blacklist.
According to the official document, the EU will halt services Russia needs to extract oil and gas in the Arctic, deep sea, and shale extraction projects.
Three of Russia’s major energy companies and the country’s three largest defense entities will be restricted from raising long-term debt on European capital markets, Van Rompuy said.
Five major Russian state-owned banks will also be banned from any long-term (over 30-day) loans from EU companies.
Major Russian defense companies will be barred from debt refinancing, and the EU will also ban the export of any technology considered military “dual-use” to nine Russian companies.
Meanwhile, an EU source told RIA-Novosti news agency that the fresh European Union sanctions won’t affect the Russian gas sector.
“The energy sector affected by these sanctions is limited to the oil sector,” the source said.
On July 16, the US blacklisted several defense sector companies include Almaz-Antey Corporation, the Kalashnikov Concern and Instrument Design Bureau, as well as companies such as Izhmash, Basalt, and Uralvagonzavod.
If the EU follows the US lead on hitting Russian companies that also supply the Russian military, the above mentioned will be blocked from debt financing.
The European Commission has agreed to amend or suspend the sanctions in accordance with progress in Ukraine. A ceasefire was agreed by the Ukrainian government and rebels in the East on September 5.
“Thus, if the situation on the ground can be trusted, the European Commission and the EU Foreign Service will request to amend, suspend, or cancel sanctions, either in part or in full,” Van Rompuy said, as quoted by ITAR-ITASS.
Media sources suggest Gazprom Neft, Transneft, and Rosneft will all fall under Friday’s sanctions.
Gazprom Neft is the oil subsidiary of Russian gas giant Gazprom.
Transneft is Russia’s state-owned oil pipeline company that exports all of Rosneft’s crude oil, and exports 56 percent of Russia’s total crude exports.
Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer was put on the US sanctions list on July 16 and later added to the EU list on July 29. In July, Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer, Novatek was also added to the blacklist which bans the export of hi-tech oil equipment needed in Arctic, deep sea, and shale extraction projects to Russia.
Russian respose to ‘de facto choice against peace’
Russia said it will respond to Western sanctions with equal strength, and last week Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that closing Russian airspace to European airlines was an option being considered.
President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that new EU sanctions make no sense, as they are being introduced when Russia is making vigorous efforts to stop the bloodshed in southeastern Ukraine.
“The EU doesn’t see, or prefers not to see, the real state of events in [Ukraine’s] Donbass and doesn’t want to know about the efforts aimed at settling the conflict,” Peskov said.
“We regret the EU’s decision to impose new sanctions. We repeatedly expressed our disagreement and incomprehension about the sanctions that were implemented earlier, which we considered and will consider illegal,” he added.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the EU was apparently very much against any peaceful resolution of the crisis in Ukraine.
“By taking this step, the European Union has de facto made its choice against a peaceful resolution of the inter-Ukrainian crisis,” the ministry said in a statement.
US bans Europol from releasing its own documents to European officials
RT | September 9, 2014
The United States has instructed Europol, the European Union’s police agency, to withhold its own annual internal data-protection review from EU lawmakers because the report was written without the US Treasury Department’s permission.
Europol drafted the data-protection report “without prior written authorisation from the information owner (in this case the Treasury Department),” according to the US, violating “security protocols” that could “undermine the relationship of trust needed to share sensitive information between enforcement agencies.”
The report, drafted by Europol’s Joint Supervisory Body, outlines how data concerning EU citizens and residents is transferred to the US, according to the EUobserver. The document is mainly known to monitor implementation of the EU-US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, or TFTP. Basically, the US Treasury Department is quite territorial about how the TFTP is adhering to European data protection compliance.
EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly said Europol refused to allow her to see the report based on US demands. O’Reilly then confronted US ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner in July. Gardner confirmed the order.
On Thursday, O’Reilly said she sent a letter to the European Parliament asking the body “to consider whether it is acceptable that an agreement with a foreign government should prevent the Ombudsman from doing her job.”
“If the US says ‘No disclosure’ then it won’t be disclosed, which is ridiculous because we are EU citizens, we vote, we pay taxes, we have EU laws, and we decide what happens on this continent. Nobody else,” Dutch MEP liberal Sophie In’t Veld told EUobserver. In’t Veld first requested the report in 2012.
In’t Veld said there is no top-secret information in the report that should be viewed as overly sensitive.
“There is no operational information, there is no intelligence, there is nothing in the document. So you really wonder why it is kept a secret,” she said.
The TFTP has received scrutiny in the last year after documents supplied by former US government contractor Edward Snowden showed mass spying by the US National Security Agency on citizens and officials across the world, including in the EU.
The Snowden leaks showed the NSA had gained a “back door” entrance into the SWIFT servers – SWIFT being a financial-record sharing program, which revealed the banking details of millions of European citizens, despite the fact that access to this financial data was limited by the TFTP.
Pentagon: Missile defense ‘kill vehicle’ still plagued with problems after years of failure
RT | September 9, 2014
A Pentagon investigation of the “kill vehicle” warhead, part of a weapons system plagued with years of failed tests, found dozens of quality control problems, according to a new report.
The Pentagon’s inspector general said in the report released Monday that the “kill vehicle,” a warhead meant to intercept missiles, fell short of quality standards in 48 specific cases, including issues with software testing, supply chain demands, and design changes, making the kill vehicle “susceptible to quality assurance failures.”
The warhead, known as the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) is built by Raytheon Co. and is part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system led by Boeing Co. EKVs are launched by a Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), “which is designed to engage high-speed ballistic missile warheads in space,” according to Raytheon. The current procurement cost for each GBI is around $75 million, said Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Admiral James Syring in July 2013.
The inspector general report, the first of two on the EKV, said the US Missile Defense Agency has agreed with concerns over the interceptor warhead and has started to address 44 of the 48 issues identified.
The GMD missile defense system was deployed in 2004 even before it completed testing to be able to counter what the George W. Bush administration claimed was a looming missile threat from North Korea.
The EKV finally conducted its first successful missile intercept in June after years of failed attempts.
“A combination of cost constraints and failure-driven program restructures has kept the program in a state of change. Schedule and cost priorities drove a culture of ‘use-as-is’ leaving the EKV as a manufacturing challenge,” the report said.
“With more than 1,800 unique parts, 10,000 pages of work instructions, and 130,000 process steps for the current configuration, EKV repairs and refurbishments are considered by the program to be costly and problematic and make the EKV susceptible to quality assurance failures,” it added.
The Pentagon inspector general wrote that most quality management systems on the weapons program were in compliance, but problems were evident. The report found 15 major and 25 minor quality problems with Raytheon’s EKV work. Boeing’s work on the entire system had six major and one minor problem.
Most of the issues identified in the report have been corrected, the inspector general said, but Raytheon is still working on four issues.
Raytheon has a $636 million development and sustainment contract to produce the EKV, though the Pentagon is seeking one of the major defense contracting firms to develop a more reliable, second generation EKV, Reuters reported. Weapons giants Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp. are all in the running.
Arms firms implicated in illegal US drone strikes ‘bought influence’ at NATO summit – Reprieve UK
RT | September 8, 2014
Arms firms that provide core military components for drones deployed by the US to conduct covert strikes in violation of international law allegedly bought access to NATO’s summit in Wales last week, a British human rights charity says.
The defense companies concerned doled out up to £300,000 to ‘exhibit’ their military wares at the conference in Newport. Among the firms present were General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and MBDA, according to a British government press release.
General Dynamics manufacture Hellfire missiles utilized in most US drone strikes, while Raytheon make the targeting system for the Reaper drone deployed by the CIA and other actors to conduct strikes across the globe. Lockheed Martin operates as a contractor to provide select support services for both the Reaper and Predator, and MBDA is a European company that manufactures the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Brimstone – a variant of the Hellfire missile.
The US drone program has received widespread public criticism both at home and abroad. Critics say attacks carried out in foreign countries, including Yemen and Pakistan, are in violation of both international and US law.
Although US drone strikes have culminated in hundreds of civilian casualties, they are subject to little oversight, according to Reprieve. President Barack Obama has refused to formally acknowledge the program’s existence.
Reprieve’s Legal Director Kat Craig said it’s “deeply worrying” that a group of firms who potentially profit most from this breach of international law were able to buy access into an international global summit like NATO.
“It is unacceptable that the US’ drone campaign, and the UK’s support for it, has been allowed to remain in the shadows for so long”, he added.
“President Obama must be far more open about it – as must his European allies, especially the UK and Germany, about the support they provide.”
Craig suggested the drone manufacturers’ presence at NATO signaled their inherent capacity to buy political influence “behind closed doors,” highlighting the opaque, illicit and legally questionable nature of much of the global arms trade.
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Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj
By Dr. Mathew Maavak | RT | May 30, 2025
In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing “national security” and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America’s “intellectual leadership and soft power.” At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US.
But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script.
China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government.
So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? ... continue
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