For two years, the US government tried to publicly shy away from direct contact with radicals in Syria. Staunch advocates of peace, they did not want anything to do directly with weapons supplies to rebel forces. But in the light of concrete accusations of alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian government, some fear the US will no longer hold back, instead taking a more direct role in the dismantling of the Assad regime. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has announced that the country may finally push for a more direct involvement in the Syrian crisis. Geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen spoke to RT, expressing disbelief at the recent announcement and underlining the kind of strategies and power plays the West will now use to make their partnership with the Syrian rebels more official – as opposed to hushed and indirect, which he alleges has been happening all along.RT: President Obama talked about options and now his defense secretary is doing the same. Does Washington mean business in this case or is this just rhetoric?Patrick Henningsen: What they’re trying to do here is re-write the legal language that defines chemical weapons. You can see already in the US the government’s official position is that a pressure cooker constitutes a weapon of mass destruction. So that’s one side – the legal side. And the other side is called ‘political nudging’…so they’re nudging their way into Syria via different pathways. And of course they’re trying to nudge Russia out of the way in the process.RT: How much is this in danger of being a mission creep? Do you think the US could be stuck in a potentially explosive civil conflict in an unstable place?PH: A lot of this is public relations theatre. Unofficially the US, Britain and NATO have been airlifting quite a lot of weapons into Jordan via Croatia and other places, through turkey – another NATO country. So what they’re trying to do is make their position official rather than unofficial. This is aside from the fact that they have full support for the Saudis and the Qataris who are sending arms there as we speak. But they’re saying the weapons they’ve requested are surface-air missiles, anti-tank, depleted uranium munitions… this is kind of a ridiculous scenario where the rebels have this sort of wish list of arms they’d like to get and the US is hammering the UN to get them to try to do this ‘ legally’, quote unquote. But of course ‘legally’ is a very relative term, if you look at the history of the United States and Britain getting intervention green-lights in the last 10-15 years.RT: The rebels have long been able to purchase weapons. What would be the impact if simply the US weapons were able to go there?PH: What it’s going to do is making instead of an under-the-table operation a public operation. Of course one of the things it’s going to do as well is allow for Israel’s position on Syria to be formalized. Israel is very interested in taking a piece of Syria – the Golan Heights area. I said this on your program over a year ago and some people thought it was crazy, but that’s what the agenda is and you can see Israel moving in that direction already. So there’s a lot of different factors at play surrounding Syria right now and you’ve got Lebanon off to the side as well and the issue of Hezbollah, which Israel would like to eliminate on Lebanon. So there are all contributing to the interesting and not so nice mix we have going on with intervention in Syria.RT: Hegel’s statement came on the same day as the opposition reported what they call a massacre by government troops. What do you read into the timing of these two announcements?PH: One of the problems with reports of massacres is that the sole source of most of these statistics and reports is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London. And already their numbers and their reports have been proven to be fabricated, false and distorted. So this is the sole basis of intervention in Syria. This plus reports of uses of chemical weapons – but not real chemical weapons. So, we have a major problem: we’re basing the whole premise of intervention on stuff a lot of which is fiction. They’re trying to build their case to suit their already pre-existing conclusions. It’s a failure of politics, a failure of diplomacy. And it’s also a failure of logic, quite frankly. … Read More
Study reveals cannibalism in first US colony
http://www.youtube.com/v/1mIskJfCBTA?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Continue reading: Study reveals cannibalism in first US colony
Russia’s investment appeal 2nd lowest- report
In the top investment markets, only the Persian Gulf ranks below Russia.A similar survey by Rosvault Business also puts the Russian Federation second-last. In first place was the US, as 45% of the panel placed their confidence in the red, white, and blue asset markets. Second was China with 42%, and in subsequent places are South-East Asia, Brazil, India, and Japan. EIU Key Findings – Global investors are still bullish on China, but favor the US and other emerging markets. When asked to choose the 3 best regions for asset price growth, 46% chose the US, 42% China, and 34% South-east Asia, 30% Brazil, 27% India, and 19% EU – German investors (52%) chose the EU as the number one region for asset price growth – UK investors are the most pessimistic about economic and investment prospects in the EU. Only 4% of UK investors think the EU has strong economic growth prospects – 2013 showed a shift in portfolios away from commodities to telecommunication and service sectors – 65% of global investors believe rising income disparities pose a great threat to global capitalism Only 12% of respondents considered Russia a good place to invest in light of the potential growth in the value of assets, reports Lenta.ru.Oil and gas revenue reserves helped Russia shoulder the 2008-2009 crisis, but now the vulnerability of falling oil prices, a slowing economy, and a shady business environment that lacks transparency have all dragged down direct foreign investment.So far this year, $1.2 billion has fled Russian equity funds, an estimated 8% of Russian assets.The loss of direct foreign investment has particularly crippled the Russian economy, but venture capital investment has more than doubled year-on-year to $910 million in 2012, Vedomosti reported, citing research by Russian Venture Company (RVC) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). There were 201 venture capital deals in Russia last year, up from 2011. According to PwC, 160 funds invested in Russian startups last year.The Economist Intelligence Unit will present the data on Thursday at the Dorchester Hotel in London, as part of the Bellwether Series, a global conference series in the UK and Asia in 2013.Nearly 72% of investors expect global expansion this year- a significant increase from the 57% from the 2012 survey.Many are betting on a strong Chinese and US recovery. A majority of investors also agree that income disparities are a major threat to global capitalism, long-term. … Read More
Guantanamo hunger strike expands to nearly half of prisoners – prison officials
Follow RT’s day-by-day timeline on Gitmo hunger strike.At the same time, lawyers for Guantanamo inmates say the strike is more widespread than the military acknowledges and the majority of all 166 prisoners are participating.The hunger strike has been going on for almost three months, with five of the detainees hospitalized.However, their lives aren’t threatened, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House, a spokesman for Guantanamo, pointed out in a statement.Seventeen inmates are getting ‘enteral feeding’, or are being force-fed via tubes, a measure criticized as a solution to the hunger strike by the Red Cross President Peter Maurer.The UN also responded to the situation at the end of March, saying that they were looking into the details of the mass hunger strike. The UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay also “repeatedly regretted that the US Government has not closed Guantanamo Bay.”Just over a week ago, Russia released the ‘Guantanamo list’, naming 18 Americans banned from entering the Russian Federation over their alleged human rights violations, indefinite detention of prisoners at the facility and torture.The list was aimed as a direct response to the so-called Magnitsky list revealed by the US.The news about the expanding strike comes just a few days after clashes between the prisoners and guards erupted, resulting in two soldiers receiving head wounds and five prisoners sustaining injuries.The hunger strike is a protest by the detainees against their imprisonment without charge or trial for the past 11 years. It started after prison officials allegedly searched the inmates’ Korans for contraband, something the Guantanamo authorities denied.British Gitmo inmate may never return homeIn a separate development reported by The Guardian, it is feared the last British resident in Guantanamo may never be allowed to return to his family in London, because of an alleged “secret deal” between US authorities, Saudi Arabia and the British security services. Shaker Aamer has been in the Cuban detention facility for more than 11 years, but was cleared for release in 2007. However, earlier this month, two Metropolitan Police detectives interviewed Aamer to gather allegations that MI5 and MI6 were complicit in his torture. Were he return to London he would almost certainly be a key witness in Scotland Yard’s investigation into allegations of British complicity in torture in the post 9/11 years. His legal team alleges that the US, Saudi Arabia – where he was born – and the UK security services are trying to ensure he never goes back to the UK. However, officials in Saudi Arabia have threatened him with imprisonment.“It seems highly probable that the British security services are in bed with the Americans on trying to keep Shaker from coming back to the UK. We can only hope that Hague will hold them to account,” Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal charity reprieve, which is representing Shaker, told The Guardian. … Read More
Missouri state senator hurls insults at constituent via email
Though his mission was simple enough–to unsubscribe from Missouri state rep. Brian Nieves’ distribution list–Missouri resident Bart Cohn ended up trolling the senator. Hard. And succeeded.The Riverfront Times has published an email exchange between Cohn and Nieves–two adult men–that begins with Cohn rudely but simply asking to be removed from the distribution list: “Take me off your mailing list. Freak.”As with Internet comments, most people sending comments to a d-list don’t expect a direct response from the owner. But in Cohn’s case, that’s exactly what he got. The comment bugged Nieves enough to respond personally:Who are you? Is there something wrong with you? Are you incapable of communicating in a way that common, decent people do? Tell me this, how did you ever even get on MY Distribution list? Cohn responded, saying, “Remove me from your list. I despise you.” Nieves responded within two hours, calling Cohn a “troll.” The emails devolved from there, initiating an increasingly rapid back-and-forth between someone who has little to lose and someone who potentially has a lot to lose:Continue Reading… … Read More
Student loan rates rise, the government profits
Despite the havoc a generation of heavily indebted young people promises to wreak on the economy, commentators on the student debt crisis have for sometime pointed out that the federal government has considerable interest in student borrowers remain in the red. New figures further back this up. As the Huffington Post reported Tuesday, the Education Department is expected to earn $33.5 billion off student loans made during the 2013 fiscal year, according to budget documents. “The agency’s Direct Loan program delivered a $24 billion profit on loans made in 2012, and nearly $27.5 billion on 2011 loans. All told, over the last five fiscal years, the Education Department has generated $101.8 billion in profit from student borrowers, thanks to low borrowing costs for the government and fixed interest rates for students, budget documents show,” reported HuffPo, noting, “Some student advocates have charged that the department is profiting off the backs of students.”Continue Reading… … Read More
North Korea prepares rockets for strike against U.S.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on Friday ordered preparations for strategic rocket strikes on the US mainland and military bases in the Pacific and South Korea. The order, issued at an overnight emergency meeting with top army commanders, was a direct response to the use of nuclear-capable US B-2…
