29 June 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The U.S. Sees the World through a PRISM
29.06.2013 | 00:00 | Boris KAZANTSEV
The scandal which broke on June 7 around articles published in the American newspaper The Washington Post and the British paper The Guardian could very well be more damaging to the United States than the scandal surrounding Wikileaks… We need to accept a simple thesis: security in the information society is even more «nationally oriented» than classic security. Now, when the world is still in shock from what is happening, is the time to implement the initiatives of Russia and China for the international regulation of cyberspace. It may be that even those countries which previously hesitated to support these initiatives could significantly change their positions and a resolution of the issue might finally get off the ground…
Farewell UK
29.06.2013 | 00:00 | Rafe MAIR
…The United Kingdom will leave the European Union within 5 years and likely sooner. In making this assessment it’s largely wasteful to scan the economic issues for they are not a driving force. In fact the catalyst is one man, Nigel Farage, with a powerful following and whose popularity is on the increase but before we get to that, some history…
NSA is All about Preserving the Power of the Aristocracy in a Dystopian World
28.06.2013 | 08:22 | Wayne MADSEN
In 2004, the surveillance was aimed at a newly-elected U.S. senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. The imagination places no limits on what sort of blackmail personal information NSA now holds over the head of President Obama, someone who has complied with every dictate from the U.S. intelligence infrastructure. Today, Obama believes he is in control of the NSA spying network. In fact, he is not… Others monitored by NSA include all sitting members of the U.S. Congress, every governor of the 50 states and territories, every celebrity, in fact, everyone who uses an electronic communications device or network anywhere in the world, from the busy streets of Hong Kong and Cairo to the very remote city of Kyzyl in the Tuva Republic of Siberia and Grytviken on the Antarctic island of South Georgia…
US and British Global Spying – the Poachers Appoint Themselves as Gamekeepers
28.06.2013 | 00:00 | Finian CUNNINGHAM
The poachers – caught in the act – are now appointing themselves as the gamekeepers. Former CIA contractor Edward Snowden has performed an immense service to international public interest and democratic rights by exposing the «industrial scale» illegal spying operations of the American and British governments. The victims of this vast criminality against international laws and norms are the citizens of the world and every other government. Yet, far from showing any sense of remorse or apology, the recidivist perpetrators are crying foul and demanding justice…
Obama’s Wild Neocon Dream
27.06.2013 | 14:06 | Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR
…President Vladimir Putin’s strong words at the G8 summit fell on deaf ears. If anything, the US is encouraging its key allies to raise the ante. This is evident from the exceptionally hard line that the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal took at the joint press conference with the visiting US secretary of state John Kerry following their talks in Jeddah on Tuesday. Faisal just… Meanwhile, Kerry is on a regional tour of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, which aims at coordinating the role of the US’ allies in the pursuit of the military track…
Gas Exporting Countries to Gather in Moscow for Influential Forum
27.06.2013 | 00:00 | Igor ALEXEEV
Members of the influential Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) will gather in Moscow 1-2 July 2013. Long-term contracts and infrastructure projects are reported to be high on the agenda. The GECF is an international club of major natural gas exporters including Russia, Iran, Qatar, Libya and Venezuela. Exporters strive to guarantee the stability of gas supplies, open new markets for this clean energy source and provide a balanced risk sharing mechanism between producers and consumers…
Brussels Gambit and US World Wide Interests
27.06.2013 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
The European summit is to open on June 27. As the date was approaching, the issue of Serbia’s European Union membership talks start date was more and more shifting into spotlight… Germany’s stance will be decisive. The issue will be discussed by all 27 full-fledged members at working dinner on Friday. It is reported, the draft decision mentions fixing a concrete start date for the talks between Brussels and Belgrade on Serbia’s accession. But Germany is intent to press for changing the draft decision so that it would be possible to exert pressure on Serbia pushing it for diplomatic recognition of Kosovo…
US Expands Global Electronic Surveillance
26.06.2013 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
…The U.S. government’s counterterrorism policies appear to have gone too far, especially if one adds the going-on debates on the legality of drone attacks abroad and the use of remote control air vehicles for spying on US citizens inside the country or the Home Security Department filling ammunition storages for emergency situations. The Patriot Act has no chance of being recalled soon, if ever. One row related to covert activities of US special services follows another. The Snowden’s revelations have complicated the relations with the outside world, including the closest allies. The country’s image abroad is down to low ebb. With all this in mind, it is really funny to hear US politicians pontificating about human rights with their incurable propensity to teach others instead of looking at what’s happening in their own backyard…
What Lies Behind the Idea of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement
26.06.2013 | 00:00 | Natalia MEDEN
Europe has no serious economic interest in an association agreement with Ukraine, and for Ukraine the economic consequences of liberalizing trade with the EU are more than dubious… The political element permeates the entire history of the negotiations for an agreement between the EU and Ukraine… Signing an EU – Ukraine association agreement is viewed as a guarantee that Ukraine will not participate in any integration processes in the post-Soviet area…
Under Electronic Surveillance of US Special Services
25.06.2013 | 00:00 | Nil NIKANDROV
The CIA and the NSA (the US National Security Agency) whistleblower Edward Snowden (who temporarily had found refuge in Hong Kong and now is leaving elsewhere) has demonstrated once more the global reach of US electronic surveillance which, no doubt, is a kind of criminal activities. He looked really deep into what the NSA does and was terrified by the things he found out. So the man is on his way looking for a safe shelter to continue the revelations…
Obama as a Third World Strongman
25.06.2013 | 00:00 | Wayne MADSEN
President Barack Obama entered office as a «hope and change» candidate who promised to be far different from his predecessor George W. Bush. However, in his fifth year in office, Obama has taken on the trappings of a «strongman», a leader found more often in Africa, the land of Obama’s paternal lineage, and in Asia, from where his step-father hailed. Obama has not only maintained unprecedented «unitary executive» powers amassed up by Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, but in the area of surveillance and press restrictions, Obama has gone far beyond the preceding administration…
Discord Mounting in the European Union (II)
24.06.2013 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
Right on time for the conflicts in the European Union at the center of which Germany has found itself comes an IMF report unprecedented in its self-criticism. This report acknowledges the organization’s serious mistakes in developing and implementing the anti-crisis program for Greece. In particular, the report documents the unforeseen consequences for the economy of reducing state expenditures when the recession was already underway, excess optimism in assessing the chances of returning the country to the debt market, and delays in restructuring the state debt using private creditors…
Lebanon is Being Prepared for Sedition as a Front in the Syrian War
24.06.2013 | 00:00 | Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA
The flames of division and fighting in Syria are being fanned into Lebanon. The US and its allies could be working with their Lebanese partners and proxies to ignite and internal conflict… The aim of a strategy that seeks to ignite Lebanon with fighting is aimed at forcing Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria and turn inward into its home turf. This is why the takfiri militants in Lebanon are being aroused and sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shiites is intentionally being instigated. The weakening of the state and the erosion of its institutions is adding to the problem and may also serve this project…
Discord Mounting in the European Union (I)
23.06.2013 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
…Instead of overcoming the crisis together, Germany and other European Union member countries are exchanging more and more outrageous accusations. A schism in the ranks of the organization is deepening between the economic locomotive represented by Germany on the one hand and a number of countries in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe on the other. And the fact that many of these states have a bad «credit history» with Berlin could lead to new conflicts which threaten financial losses for all of Europe…
Volynia, Šven?ionys and Eurointegration
23.06.2013 | 00:00 | Vladislav GULEVICH
…Warsaw is behaving reservedly on the threshold of the upcoming anniversary of the Volynia massacre: June 11, 2013 will mark its 70th anniversary. In order not to disturb the dynamics of the Polish-Ukrainian eurointegration dialog, Warsaw is willing to sacrifice the memory of thousands of Poles wiped out by the executioners of the OUN-UPA, and even to turn a blind eye to the territorial claims made by Western Ukrainian politicians…
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The New Dark Age 