sábado, 23 de mayo de 2015

MAY 23 SIT EC y POL



MAY 23 SIT EC y POL

ZERO HEDGE

The revelation from an internal US intelligence document that the very US-led coalition supposedly fighting ‘Islamic State’ today, knowingly created ISIS in the first place, raises troubling questions about recent government efforts to justify the expansion of state anti-terror powers.
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What if Putin is Telling The Truth? On April 26 Russia’s main national TV station, Rossiya 1, featured President Vladimir Putin in a documentary to the Russian people on the events of the recent period including the annexation of Crimea, the US coup d’etat in Ukraine, and the general state of relations with the United States and the EU. His words were frank. And in the middle of his remarks the Russian former KGB chief dropped a political bombshell that was known by Russian intelligence two decades ago... Putin stated that the terror in Chechnya and in the Russian Caucasus in the early 1990’s was actively backed by the CIA and western Intelligence services to deliberately weaken Russia.
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Spoiler alert: these are not the requirements of an "everyday American"...
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"FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating... Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations."
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The last time large speculators were as aggressively buying silver as last week was September 1997. The net long non-commercial positioning in Silver futures, according to the CFTC rose almost 22,000 contracts last week to a 3-month high (which is closing in on the 'longest' since 2005). Gold, not be out-precious'd also saw major buying. Net speculative longs in gold added over 45,000 contracts - the most since July 2005 - lifting net long positions to their highest in 3 months. Perhaps, just perhaps, as Alhambra's Jeffrey Snider notes, this is due to Yellen putting the 'dollar' back on suicide watch.
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In an attempt to frontrun even more draconian measures resulting from California's record drought, farmers in the state's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta who have California's oldest water rights proposed to voluntarily cut their water use by 25% to avoid the risk of even harsher restrictions by the state later this summer should the water situation deteriorate further. State officials promptly accepted the offer, even if it is ultimately moot since there is no way to enforce it.
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Foreign investment is of course common around the world and is generally seen as a good thing. Americans mostly like it, for instance, when Japanese investors bid up shares of US companies or Chinese expats pay above asking price for Manhattan apartments. With only a few exceptions we take the money and don’t look back. But there must be a limit, a point where foreign interests own so much of a country that they call the shots and the locals become in effect their serfs. Greece might be the test case that shows us where that point is...
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China is building the world’s greatest economic development and construction project ever undertaken: The New Silk Road. The project aims at no less than a revolutionary change in the economic map of the world. It is also seen by many as the first shot in a battle between east and west for dominance in Eurasia. For the world at large, its decisions about the Road are nothing less than momentous. The massive project holds the potential for a new renaissance in commerce, industry, discovery, thought, invention, and culture that could well rival the original Silk Road. It is also becoming clearer by the day that geopolitical conflicts over the project could lead to a new cold war between East and West for dominance in Eurasia.
Initial Project:
A look at the first project, currently under development, provides a good example of how China plans to proceed.


Coming soon, Part 2: Cold War or Competition on the New Silk Road.
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At the end of every quarter there is a scramble by the financial public to peek at what the biggest hedge fund holdings were as of 45 days ago. And yet, one wonders why: as Goldman notes, "the low dispersion market continues to challenge stock-pickers as the average hedge fund lags the S&P 500 for the seventh straight year (2% vs. 4% YTD)." In fact, even the barbarous relic known as gold has outperformed the average hedge fund YTD. Then again, as we have said since 2012, the only informational value comes not from looking at hedge fund longs, but their biggest shorts, since short squeezes remain perhaps the only source of major outperformance. So for all those curious, here are the biggest hedge fund shorts as of March 31, 2015.
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As we detailed earlier, in a chaotic scene during the wee hours of Saturday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill known as the USA Freedom Act - backed by President Barack Obama, House Republicans and the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence officials - which would have preserved the government's ability to search phone company records for suspected spies and terrorists. As AP reports, the failure to act means the NSA will immediately begin curtailing its previously-secret bulk data collection progreams with The DoJ noting that while it will take time to taper off the collection process, that process began Friday (according to an administration official). Sen. Rand Paul called the Senate's failure to allow an extension of the surveillance programs a victory for privacy rights, adding "we should never give up our rights for a false sense of security."
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Lately, not a day seems to pass without news of NATO jets being scrambled to intercept/reroute a Russian warplane or reconnaisance jet. As a result, David Cenciotti's The Aviationist blog has compiled the recent history of all the "close encounters" between Russian and NATO warplanes since 2013. Here are the results.
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As the US moves closer to putting boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria to counter an ISIS "offensive", The New York Times is out with a series of graphics which document the group’s spread.
To let the media tell it, ISIS has launched a successful “offensive” of late, taking control of Palmyra, a Syrian city that’s home to ‘treasures of antiquity’, as well as Ramadi, which gives the group control of  “strategic highway linking Iraq and Syria.”
ISIS has also claimed responsibility for a mosque bombing that claimed the lives of 21 Saudis on Friday. 
As the US moves closer to putting boots on the ground, The New York Times is out with a series of graphics which document the group’s spread.
[[SEE 3 MAPS & THE CONCLUSION: HERE ONLY 2 MAPS & THE CONCLUSION
NOTICE:  In the 2nd map ISIS do not control nor govern the areas depicted in the 1st one,
And much less, the areas depicted in the 3rd one as commented in the conclusion. ]]
MAP 1:


MAP 2:



Note that the last graphic — which depicts a giant globe with highlights on “countries with groups that have pledged allegiance to ISIS” — makes it look like ISIS has launched a Naziesque blitzkrieg on the way to invading multiple countries. This, of course, is completely absurd. There are a lot of groups who can claim membership in a lot of countries meaning that we could produce a lot of these maps if we wanted to, but it wouldn’t mean that any of said groups were on the verge of a Napoleonic global conquest.

But reality never got in the way of a good story.  
 [This seems to be NYT propaganda in favor of ISIS]
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The financial world today is now an island on its own – separated from the real economy, as can be seen by the paradox of record high valuation in the stock market coinciding with record low inflation, employment , productivity and no hope. There is asset inflation, but deflation in the real economy. When the world has been this long at the zero-bound, the misallocation, the inability to reform, and a toolbox without new tools creates a mandate for change. "I expect stocks to trade sideways for the balance of 2015 and have now sold all my fixed income, increased my gold exposure, and I’m looking to buy mining companies and overall to increase my exposure to commodities beyond the normal allocation."
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While an extension of the Patriot Act, that landmark bill which ushered in the America's Big Brother, "turnkey totalitarian state" (previewed here long before Edward Snowden's shocking revelations), is just a matter of time, supporters of the Fourth Amendment scored a brief victory last night when following yet another marathon 10 hour filibuster and refusal to play by the script by Rand Paul, the Senate failed to extend the Patriot Act, leaving the future of America's "war against terrorists" but really against "enemies domestic", i.e., anyone who uses email, has a cell phone or in any other electronic way communicates with others, in limbo.
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Time To Get Real About China. Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/23/2015
The present Chinese leadership appears to be trying to gain (regain?) more - if not full - control over the country’s economic system, while at the same time (re-)boosting the growth it has lost in recent years. President Xi Jinping, prime minister Li Keqiang and all of their subservient leaders – there are 1000?s of those in a 1.4 million citizens country- apparently think this can be done. We truly doubt it. We don’t think that they ever understood what would happen if they opened up the country to a more free-market, capitalist structure. That doing so would automatically reduce their political power, since a free market, in whatever shape and form, does not rhyme with the kind of control which the Communist Party has been used to for decades, and which the current leaders have grown up taking for granted.
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PRESSTV

No deal on humiliating terms: Greece. Sun May 24, 2015 Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says a bailout deal with its international creditors on “humiliating terms” is not viable.
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Debate: Turkey's support for terrorists in Syria. Sun May 24, 2015 This edition of "The Debate" focuses on Turkey's support for Takfiri terrorists in Syria.
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US Marine kept woman in wooden box . Sun May 24, 2015 US police have shot and killed a former Marine accused of holding a woman captive in a wooden box for months at his home in western Missouri.

[ Este es solo 1 de muchos casos de bestializacion de nuestros soldados en Guerras abroad. Cuando regresan no son sometidos a examen psicológico ni a procesos de rehabilitación. La mayoría de ellos son abandonados, lo indico un reporte. La familia que dejaron, sufren los efectos de ello. El negocio de la guerra es inhumano e inmoral, me refiero a la producción y venta de armas.]
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UK modern slavery: 3000 kids from Vietnam. Sun May 24, 2015 Some 3,000 Vietnamese children are being enslaved by criminal gangs in the UK. 

[[Terrible!! .. this is a crime against humanity and the State is responsible for it ..is this really true?. If not, the media owner should be investigated and indicted]]
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Saudis name Shia mosque bomber. Sun May 24, 2015 Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry releases identity of the ISIL-linked bomber who detonated his explosives at a Shia mosque in the eastern city of Qatif.
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‘Russians languishing in US prisons'. Sun May 24, 2015 There are dozens of Russians who have committed no crimes but they are languishing in US prisons, an American political analyst says.
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UK Takfiris find new ways to join ISIL. Sat May 23, 2015 Britain’s would-be members of ISIL come up with new routes to join the Takfiri fight in Iraq and Syria.
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‘Obama remarks part of Iranophobia plot’. Sat May 23, 2015 Iran rejects allegations made by the US president that the Islamic Republic seeks to exploit instability in the region.
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