Boots on the Ground - Weekend 04-12-14

Weekend Edition

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Ukraine gunmen seize two buildings in Sloviansk

Armed men have seized a police station and a security services building in eastern Ukraine, officials say.

Police said the men fired shots and used stun grenades to seize the offices in Sloviansk, near the Russian border.
The interior minister called the gunmen "terrorists" and said special forces would repel the attack.
Pro-Russian activists have seized government buildings elsewhere in east Ukraine. Kiev accuses Moscow of orchestrating the unrest.
Interim Foreign Minister Andrei Deshchytsia urged Moscow to end "provocative" actions by its agents.
Eastern Ukraine has a large Russian-speaking population and has seen a series of protests since the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych in February.
Protesters in largely Russian-speaking Donetsk, 130km (80 miles) from Sloviansk, have been occupying government buildings for days and demanding a referendum on becoming part of Russia.
A similar move prompted a Russian takeover of Ukraine's Crimea region earlier this year.
The US and EU have put sanctions on Russian and Crimean people they say were connected with the takeover.

Bogged down in Syrian civil war, Hezbollah develops new tactics _ including commando attacks

BEIRUT –  The commandos infiltrated Syrian rebel-held territory near the Lebanese border, watching rebel fighters come and go from a two-story villa before slipping inside to plant a powerful bomb. The next morning, they detonated it as three rebel explosive experts and four assistants met inside, turning the villa to rubble in seconds.
The operation late last month in Syria's western Qalamoun region was carried out by fighters from Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, several Lebanese officials close to the militants have told The Associated Press. The Shiite group has sent hundreds of its fighters into Syria to shore up President Bashar Assad's overstretched troops, helping them gain ground around the capital, Damascus, and near the Lebanese border.
But with its own casualties mounting in a civil war that activists say has killed more than 150,000 people in three years, officials say Hezbollah has turned to a variety of new tactics — including complicated commando operations — to hunt down rebels and opposition commanders.
The aim of the new strategy, that includes hit-and-run attacks as well as reconnaissance missions, is to help Assad hold onto power, limit Hezbollah casualties and attack groups that want to launch attacks inside Lebanon itself.
"Hezbollah is also well aware of its comparatively limited manpower capacity," said Charles Lister, an analyst with the Brookings Doha Center. "So exploiting an ability to inflict damage on the enemy without expending significant resources ... is a natural strategic development."
Hezbollah has a long history of guerrilla attacks. It fought Israel in the wake of its occupation of south Lebanon until it pulled out in 2000, relying on hit-and-run assaults to combat Israel's army.

Indian police say Maoist rebels kill 12 in jungle ambushes in anti-election campaign

PATNA, India –  Police say Indian Maoist rebels killed 12 people in two separate attacks in the central state of Chhattisgarh as they continue a campaign of violence aimed at disrupting a five-week national election.
Police Director General A.N. Upadhyay says a land mine set by the rebels exploded Saturday and killed five election officials and two bus drivers traveling from Kutru to Bijapur before planned balloting there next week. The blast also injured four people.
In another attack, the rebels killed five paramilitary soldiers traveling in the remote Darbha Forest.
The rebels have also asked voters to boycott the polls. They have been fighting since the 1960s for a greater share of natural wealth and more jobs for the poor. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called them India's greatest internal security threat.
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Russia and China announce decoupling trade from Dollar - The End for the USA is nigh‏

Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners - no longer in dollars - see Voice of Russia

Russia's trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the 'petro-dollar' as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars - December 2013) - leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement.

Added to this is the declaration today by Russia's Press TV - China will re-open the old Silk Road

Russia prepares to attack the petrodollar

as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where "New Areas" of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China's Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China's poorest regions.

The US dollar's position as the base currency for global energy trading gives the US a number of unfair advantages. It seems that Moscow is ready to take those advantages away.

The existence of "petrodollars" is one of the pillars of America's economic might because it creates a significant external demand for American currency, allowing the US to accumulate enormous debts without defaulting. If a Japanese buyer wants to buy a barrel of Saudi oil, he has to pay in dollars even if no American oil company ever touches the said barrel. Dollar has held a dominant position in global trading for such a long time that even Gazprom's natural gas contracts for Europe are priced and paid for in US dollars. Until recently, a significant part of EU-China trade had been priced in dollars.

Lately, China has led the BRICS efforts to dislodge the dollar from its position as the main global currency, but the "sanctions war" between Washington and Moscow gave an impetus to the long-awaited scheme to launch the petroruble and switch all Russian energy exports away from the US currency .

The main supporters of this plan are Sergey Glaziev, the economic aide of the Russian President and Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, the biggest Russian oil company and a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Both have been very vocal in their quest to replace the dollar with the Russian ruble. Now, several top Russian officials are pushing the plan forward.

First, it was the Minister of Economy, Alexei Ulyukaev who told Russia 24 news channel that the Russian energy companies must ditch the dollar. "They must be braver in signing contracts in rubles and the currencies of partner-countries," he said.

Then, on March 2, Andrei Kostin, the CEO of state-owned VTB bank, told the press that Gazprom, Rosneft and Rosoboronexport, state company specialized in weapon exports, can start trading in rubles. " I've spoken to Gazprom, to Rosneft and Rosoboronexport management and they don't mind switching their exports to rubles. They only need a mechanism to do that ", Kostin told the attendees of the annual Russian Bank Association meeting.

Russia’s Miserable Century: 85 Million “Gone Missing”

The Russian population is currently around 143.6 million — putting in in the top ten globally.

2. Some demographers believe that natural growth since 1913 should have put Russia’s population to almost 200 million (or even 225 million).
3. Two World Wars, fought by Russian commanders without regard for losses, two famines in the early 1920s and 1930s, purges and social ills brought about by communist mismanagement, including alcoholism, have left their mark on the size of Russia’s population.
4. This resulted in as many as 85 million Russians “going missing” – not being born at all.
5. This represents a reduction of Russia’s population from its natural growth of about 30%.
From How Russia Botched an Entire Century by Alexei Bayer (The Globalist)

Claims of new poison gas attack in Syria

The government and opposition forces in Syria have accused each other of using poison gas in an attack on a village on Friday.

State TV said the jihadist Nusra Front group launched the attack on Kafr Zita in Hama province, killing two people and injuring dozens of others.
But opposition groups quoted doctors as saying that an attack by regime planes led to suffocation and poisoning.
There was no independent verification of either of the claims.
"Regime planes bombed Kafr Zita with explosive barrels that produced thick smoke and odours and led to cases of suffocation and poisoning," said Rami Abdel Rahman, from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
State-run television blamed the attack on the Nusra Front and said they had information that the jihadist group was planning to attack two more towns.
"There is information that the terrorist Nusra Front released toxic chlorine... leading to the death of two people and causing more than 100 people to suffer from suffocation," it said.
In a separate incident, the Al-Arabiya TV news network also reported on Friday that there were a number of cases of suffocation in Harasta, a northeastern suburb of Damascus.
An opposition group was quoted by the news channel as saying the incident came "after the regime bombarded it with poisonous gas."
In August last year, a chemical attack near the capital killed hundreds of people.

Iraqi military commander disputes allegation of assassination attempt on deputy prime minister

BAGHDAD –  The head of the military command in Iraq's western province of Anbar is disputing claims that the country's deputy prime minister faced an assassination attempt Friday.
A lawmaker accompanying Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq charged that a group of armed men in army uniforms opened fire at their convoy, triggering a firefight. Al-Mutlaq spokesman Sam Patten says witnesses and the deputy prime minister's bodyguards alleged that members of the Iraqi army's 9th Division opened fire first.
Anbar Military Command head Lt. Gen. Rasheed Fleih offered a different account Saturday. He says a dispute between al-Mutlaq's bodyguards and security forces assigned to protect the Ministry of Water Resources led to shots being fired.
He says al-Mutlaq's guards opened fire after an argument over whether he could travel further than initially arranged.

UK Falklands military exercises 'provoke' Argentina

Argentina has accused the UK of provocation over plans to hold military exercises in the Falkland Islands.

It said drills by British forces would include missile launches and were part of a "pattern" of "hostile acts".
The British ambassador in Buenos Aires has been summoned by Argentina's deputy foreign minister, who will protest over the "new show of military force".
The UK Foreign Office dismissed the claims as "fanciful" and said next week's exercises were "routine".
Argentina lays claim to the islands, which it calls Las Malvinas, and said the UK planned to conduct the exercises on "occupied Argentine territory" between 14 and 27 April.
'Wholly false' A spokesman for the Argentine embassy in London said: "This action is a new example of UK's disregard for United Nations resolutions, which call on both parties to resume negotiations over sovereignty and refrain from introducing unilateral modifications in the situation as long as the dispute persists."
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Harry Reid's Son Representing Chinese Solar Panel Plant in $5 Billion Nevada Deal

The son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory Reid, is the primary representative for ENN Energy Group, a Chinese energy company seeking to build a $5 billion solar panel plant on a 9,000-acre Clark County desert plot in Laughlin, Nevada.   

ENN scored big when Clark County commissioners unanimously voted to sell the Chinese company the public land for just $4.5 million, despite the fact that it was appraised at $38.6 million.   
Sen. Reid has been one of ENN’s biggest supporters, having recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China. According to Reuters, last month Sen. Reid tried to “pressure Nevada's largest power company, NV Energy, to sign up as ENN's first customer.”
Both Rory Reid and Harry Reid deny having ever discussed the $5 billion Chinese solar panel plant deal: 

"I have never discussed the project with my father or his staff," said Rory Reid. Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for the senator, said he had not discussed the project with his son.

This isn’t the first time the Reids have come under fire for alleged cronyism. In 2003, allegations emerged that Nevada industries frequently lobbied Sen. Reid through his well-connected relatives.
Related Story; Nevada Land Grab, Is Sen. Reid in Bed w/ Chinese?

President Obama and Vice President Biden’s 2013 Tax Returns

Today, the President released his 2013 federal income tax returns. He and the First Lady filed their income tax returns jointly and reported adjusted gross income of $481,098. The Obamas paid $98,169 in total tax.
The President and First Lady also reported donating $59,251 – or about 12.3 percent of their adjusted gross income – to 32 different charities. The largest reported gift to charity was $8,751 to the Fisher House Foundation. The President’s effective federal income tax rate is 20.4 percent. The President pushed for and signed into law legislation that makes the system more fair and helps the middle class by extending tax cuts to middle class and working families and asks the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. In 2013, as a result of his policies, the President was subject to limitations in tax preferences, as well as additional Medicare and investment income taxes, for high income earners. The President and First Lady also released their Illinois income tax return and reported paying $23,328 in state income tax.

DOWNLOAD THE OBAMAS' TAX RETURNS 

DOWNLOAD THE BIDENS' TAX RETURNS 

Carson for president backers report $4 million raised, campaign apparatus into place

Conservatives frustrated with the direction of the country think Dr. Ben Carson can change the course by winning the 2016 presidential race.
Now they just have to convince him.
The group, RunBenRun.org, a super PAC, has already raised $4 million toward a Carson bid for the Republican nomination and has collected 200,000 signatures for a petition to get him to join the race.
John Philip Sousa IV, the group’s national chairman, said Tuesday that members are working Carson on an almost daily basis, sending along petition-drive updates and hundreds of “clamorings” for him to run,  received through letters, Facebook postings and other forms of communication.
“I don’t’ like the direction in which the county is going,” said Sousa, the great grandson of the late American composer John Philip Sousa, who wrote such iconic songs as “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis,” the official march of the U.S. Marine Corps. “Carson doesn’t whine like some other Republicans. He brings a solution to the table.” 
The fundraising numbers are indeed competitive -- considering Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul -- a top-tier 2016 hopeful -- has purportedly raised roughly $4.7 million.
But while Carson might be able to match fundraising numbers, at least for now, the equally important question is whether he can assemble a campaign operation, considering he’s not expected until next year to make a decision about running.

The NRA Puts Its Support Behind Mitch McConnell

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) received a big boost to his reelection efforts on Saturday, netting an endorsement from the National Rifle Association.
McConnell, who earned an A+ rating from the organization, was praised by NRA Political Victory Fund Chairman Chris W. Cox for his "steadfast support of our Right To Keep and Bear Arms."
"Mitch McConnell is a true champion of our Second Amendment rights, leading the fight against President Obama, Harry Reid and Michael Bloomberg's anti-freedom agenda," Cox said in a statement released by McConnell's campaign.
The endorsement arrives a little more than a month after McConnell captured attention at CPAC for presenting a gun on stage to retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on stage. Upon receiving the endorsement, McConnell said in a statement that he was "grateful" for the honor from the "foremost champion of the Second Amendment."
"I am grateful to have the NRA’s endorsement and I am honored to continue fighting on behalf of Kentucky’s gun owners to ensure that the liberals in Washington can never trample on our constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms," McConnell added.
HuffPost Pollster's latest compilation of 19 publicly available polls shows McConnell running neck-and-neck with Democratic challenger and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.
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 Tributes for ex-Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

Tributes have poured in for former Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who passed away just three weeks after resigning from office.

Mr Flaherty, 64, suffered a heart attack on Thursday in Ottawa, his family said.
As finance minister from 2006, he helped oversee Canada's relatively smooth recovery from the global financial crisis.
Mr Flaherty resigned on 18 March to return to the private sector.
'Loved his country' "My partner and my friend, Jim Flaherty, has passed away suddenly... This comes as an unexpected and a terrible shock," Canadian PM Stephen Harper said on Thursday as wife Laureen Harper wiped away tears.
Members of the Canadian parliament remembered the former finance minister on Friday morning in lieu of the usual question period, with flowers placed on Flaherty's former desk in the Commons.
Labour Minister Kellie Leich said Flaherty "loved his country and served it with a heart as big as the country itself".
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