Russia Masses Heavy Firepower on Border with Ukraine
May 28th, 2015Check out the gallery.
Via: Reuters:
Russia’s army is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry including mobile rocket launchers, tanks and artillery at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine, a Reuters reporter saw this week.
Many of the vehicles have number plates and identifying marks removed while many of the servicemen had taken insignia off their fatigues. As such, they match the appearance of some of the forces spotted in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev and its Western allies allege are covert Russian detachments.
The scene at the base on the Kuzminsky firing range, around 50 km (30 miles) from the border, offers some of the clearest evidence to date of what appeared to be a concerted Russian military build-up in the area.
Anthrax: Pentagon Accidentally Sent Bioweapon To As Many As Nine States
May 28th, 2015Via: Guardian:
The Pentagon has conceded it accidentally shipped samples of a live bioweapon across nine states and to a US air base in South Korea.
In an extraordinary Wednesday admission, the Pentagon revealed what it called an “inadvertent transfer of samples containing live Bacillus anthracis,” or anthrax, took place at an unspecified time from a US defense department laboratory in Dugway, Utah.
Nine unspecified states received samples of the bioweapon, which can be fatal if untreated. One sample was also sent to Osan air base in Pyeongtaek, about 65km south of Seoul.
Colonel Steve Warren, the acting Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that there was “no known risk to the general public,” and lab workers possibly exposed to the bioagent have not manifested any indications of infection.
Warren said the lab at Dugway was “working as part of a DoD effort to develop a field-based test to identify biological threats in the environment.”
The Pentagon is aiding with a Centers for Disease Control investigation, Warren said, and “out of an abundance of caution” stopped additional anthrax shipments from its stockpiles. Such shipments are supposed to involve only inactive or dead bioweapons samples.
Pentagon officials would not say more about when the shipment occurred, who was the official responsible nor how inadvertent it was, given that the shipment appeared from Warren’s account to be part of a bioweapon detection initiative.
Judge Who Blocked Release of Osama bin Laden Death Photos Now Blocks Release of Senate Torture Report
May 27th, 2015Via: AllGov:
A federal judge has thwarted an attempt to force the release of the Senate report on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture program.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s full report on the CIA interrogation program. The executive summary of the report was previously made public, albeit with numerous redactions.
But U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg rejected the ACLU’s request, ruling the report remains a congressional record and thus isn’t subject to the FOIA. When Congress created FOIA in 1966, it made sure to exempt the legislative branch from its provisions.
Boasberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, appears to be the go-to judge if you don’t want something released to the public.
Pentagon Report Predicted West’s Support for Islamist Rebels Would Create ISIS
May 27th, 2015Try not to die of shock.
Via: Medium:
A declassified secret US government document obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.
The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.”
According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of this strategy, and warned that it could destabilize Iraq. Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the “Syrian opposition”?—?which included al-Qaeda in Iraq?—?could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels. On the contrary, the emergence of an al-Qaeda affiliated “Salafist Principality” as a result is described as a strategic opportunity to isolate Assad.
Obama, Senate Republicans United: Trans-Pacific Partnership Lurches On
May 24th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
President Obama won a big victory for his trade agenda Friday with the Senate’s approval of fast-track legislation that could make it easier for him to complete a wide-ranging trade deal that would include 11 Pacific Rim nations.
A coalition of 48 Senate Republicans and 14 Democrats voted for Trade Promotion Authority late Friday, sending the legislation to a difficult fight in the House, where it faces more entrenched opposition from Democrats.
The Senate coalition fought off several attempts by opponents to undermine the legislation, defeating amendments that were politically popular but potentially poisonous to Obama’s bid to secure the trade deal.
“This is an important bill, likely the most important bill we will pass this year. It’s important to President Obama,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and primary author of the bill, said at the close of debate.
TPA’s fast-track provisions would allow Congress, under strict timelines, to consider trade deals with a simple up-or-down vote without any amendments or requirements of a Senate super-majority to end debate. That would help Obama complete the final details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with the other 11 nations, a bloc that represents about 40 percent of the global economy.
America’s Trailer Parks: The Residents May Be Poor But The Owners Are Getting Rich
May 24th, 2015It’s harvest time.
Via: Guardian:
It’s an unusual but potentially lucrative investment: billionaire Warren Buffett is heavily invested, and his and others’ success is prompting ordinary people to attend Mobile Home University, a ‘boot camp’ in trailer park ownership.
Related: Wall Street’s Hot New Financial Product: Your Rent Check
Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
May 23rd, 2015Via: First Look:
Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.”
A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the report was obtained by The Intercept.
The report lays out, in almost obsessive detail, the extent to which OMG members are represented in nearly every part of the military, and in federal and local government, from police and fire departments to state utility agencies. Specific examples from the report include dozens of Defense Department contractors with Secret or Top Secret clearances; multiple FBI contractors; radiological technicians with security clearances; U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees; Army, Navy and Air Force active-duty personnel, including from the special operations force community; and police officers.
“The OMG community continues to spread its tentacles throughout all facets of government,” the report says.
Apple and Google Just Attended a Confidential Spy Summit in a Remote English Mansion
May 23rd, 2015Via: First Look:
At an 18th-century mansion in England’s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks.
The three-day conference, which took place behind closed doors and under strict rules about confidentiality, was aimed at debating the line between privacy and security.
Among an extraordinary list of attendees were a host of current or former heads from spy agencies such as the CIA and British electronic surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Other current or former top spooks from Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Sweden were also in attendance. Google, Apple, and telecommunications company Vodafone sent some of their senior policy and legal staff to the discussions. And a handful of academics and journalists were also present.
Banks Fined $5.7 Billion Over Foreign Exchange Market Rigging
May 23rd, 2015And nobody goes to jail.
Via: Evening Standard:
Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland were among six banks to be fined a total of $5.7 billion (£3.8 billion) by British and US regulators over allegations that they rigged the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market.
The settlement, which also involved US banks JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citi, as well as Switzerland’s UBS, means banks have handed authorities around $10 billion to deal with the scandal.
Barclays, Citi, JPMorgan and RBS also all pleaded guilty to a US antitrust violation.
The affair follows a series of scandals, including the fixing of benchmark interest rate Libor, that have severely damaged the public’s perception of the banking industry.
FX traders were said to have come together in chatrooms with names like “The Cartel” or “The Bandits Club” to organise methods to influence the value of major currencies in the hope of inflating their profits.
“If you aint cheating, you aint trying,” one Barclays trader said in a chatroom.
New ‘Deep Learning’ Technique Enables Robot Mastery of Skills Via Trial and Error
May 22nd, 2015I mainly posted this because of the Comedy Gold juxtaposition below. haha
Via: UC Berkeley:
The work is part of a new People and Robots Initiative at UC’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). The new multi-campus, multidisciplinary research initiative seeks to keep the dizzying advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and automation aligned to human needs.
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Office of Naval Research, U.S. Army Research Laboratory and National Science Foundation helped support this research.
