TBR News February 6, 2016

Feb 06 2016

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. February 6, 2016: ”Although the UN has condemned the actions against Julian Assange, neither the US nor its pet poodle, Britain care. The UN, the darling of the Roosevelts, has as mucn power in world events as does the city council for the town of Bad Seepage, Ohio. If the US plans to invade some small but oil-rich country, they loudely claim all manner of civil rights violations on the part of thieir intended victim and get a supporting vote in the captive UN but if that latter body dares to support measures the US does not like, these are ignored. Assange, an Australian citizen, used to work for the US Army’s DARPA program against the Chinese but when he branched out on his own, taking over the US-controlled Wikileaks, Washington went after him. Wikileaks was later taken over by Russian intelligence and managed to bag Edward Snowden and because of this, reap an incredible reward of tens of thousands of the highest level intelligence documents.”

Conversations with the Crow

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal , Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment. Three months before, July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. After Corson’s death, Trento and his Washington lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever

After Crowley’s death and Trento’s raid on the Crowley files, huge gaps were subsequently discovered by horrified CIA officials and when Crowley’s friends mentioned Gregory Douglas, it was discovered that Crowley’s son had shipped two large boxes to Douglas. No one knew their contents but because Douglas was viewed as an uncontrollable loose cannon who had done considerable damage to the CIA’s reputation by his on-going publication of the history of Gestapo-Mueller, they bent every effort both to identify the missing files and make some effort to retrieve them before Douglas made any use of them.

Douglas had been in close contact with Crowley and had long phone conversatins with him. He found this so interesting and informative that he taped  and later transcribed them.

These conversations have been published in a book: ‘Conversations with the Crow” and this is an excerpt.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Crow-Gregory-Douglas-ebook/dp/B00GHMAQ5E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450147193&sr=8-1&keywords=conversations+with+the+crow

 

Conversation No. 107

Date: Sunday, October 19, 1997 Commenced: 3:30 PM CST

Concluded: 3:50 PM CST

 

RTC: How are you this fine day, Gregory? Up and at ‘em?

GD: Trying to catch up on some of your documents. This Afghan business is interesting. One of the most consistently volatile areas on earth. Full of savage, very competent guerrilla warriors.

RTC: Oh yes, I give you that. When we decided to enter the lists there in ’79, we were well aware of the make up of the country. Utter, backward savages but very, very effective guerrilla warriors. We felt at the time that if we could lock the Soviets in to a drawn out war, they would lose it, take terrible personnel losses and hemorrhage money the way we did in ‘Nam. It worked like a charm. We got the Saudis in this with us and they did a wonderful job. They trained the locals, armed them with weapons we sent them and did everything they could to help us field a good response to Ivan.

GD: Well, I was reading about the Russian copters and how you gave the rag heads the small missiles to knock them down. Up to that point, those choppers were a deadly weapon for the Russians.

RTC: Well, we did our best and we won, we won there and they lost. We avenged ‘Nam if you want to look at it that way.

GD: But they did the fighting.

RTC: So much better for us, don’t you think?

GD: But the Russians must have known what they were getting into. They had a long history with the rag heads down there. Why invade a totally hostile area?

RTC: Well, something to do but also because of the opium down there. Outside of our dear friends the Turks, Afghanistan is the world’s largest grower of opium. Immense money to be made there, my boy.

GD: I can imagine. And do we?

RTC: Of course we do. Started out in the golden triangle under my direction and just spread out. We set them up there, gave them pep talks, money and guns. No, they are on our side…or were.

GD: ‘Were’ is a good word. You can’t trust tribal people like that. Give them guns to kill you enemy and when he’s dead, they’ll turn on you.

RTC: Much too pessimistic, Gregory, much to pessimistic. Although I haven’t been in harness for some time, I keep in touch. No, those people love us, make book on it.

GD: I don’t trust the Saudis, either. They hate us, Robert. I went to college with one of their royal family and he gave me quiet an insight. The royal family came from generations of camel thieves and I wouldn’t trust one of them to the corner for a pound of butter. We buy their oil and they smile and give us gold pen sets, just like you do to the boobies who help you for free. Thee is a large body of well-trained terrorists or freedom fighters as you will, looking for more exciting work. And the Saudis do not want them looking at their country.

RTC: Well, the Saudis do hate us, quietly, but they own the Afghans and their people run them there. Most of the leaders of the so-called activist movements in Afghanistan are Saudis. Of course to a stupid American, all Arabs look the same. Agreed they dislike the infidels in the west but they sell their oil for American dollars, don’t they? GD: Oh subtle one, oh serpent, as the line went. As I said, the Saudi leadership, their royal family, descend directly from brigands and camel thieves so don’t be astounded if they sic the other ones onto us. What would they gain? Getting us out of the Middle East for one thing. I mean getting our military people out of there. And because they hate Israel with a passion, our ass kissing of those Mongol assholes will get us into real trouble.

RTC: And what do you propose, Gregory? GD: Me? I know nothing but if it were up to me, I would get my pink ass out of that area and deal with everyone equally. When the Jews saw we were no longer their bigger brother, believe me, they would settle up with the Arabs in jig time. Oh, do excuse the awful racial remark there. Anyway, I think your people opened a Pandora Box giving weapons to those people. And they did terrible things to captured Russians. Tortured and killed them.

RTC: Yes, one of the more enjoyable aspects of the whole business. A dead Russian whose head is being used as a soccer ball can’t fight us, can he? GD: As ye sow, Robert, so shall ye reap.

RTC: My God, don’t drag the Bible into this. We did terrible damage to the Soviets, who, by the way, were our enemies at the time. They supported North Korea, didn’t they? Yes, I can tell you they did. So, what’s wrong with our supporting the Afghanistanis?

GD: Well, it isn’t something I would have done but then I am not the shield and buckler of the nation.

RTC: Ah, well now there you go! Right on the old nail head, Gregory. If it weren’t for the CIA, where would we be? Probably an occupied country.

GD: Can we forget the little question of the opium? On the one hand, this has become a nation of drug addicts and most of the drug, other than the glue-sniffers, get their drugs from the Mexicans, who get it from the Columbians, who, in turn, get the raw opium from Afghanistan courtesy of Air America. Crime rates soar, jails are packed, billions are spent on this but I suppose someone in Washington, or Langley, lives in a nice place, has a boat, a summer house on Long Island and another one in Bermuda. Well, so much for pragmatic sanctions.

RTC:What? GD: An historical joke, Robert. Anyway, knowing you, I doubt if you made a dime from the drug business.

RTC: Of course not. We got the political benefit in my department and at my level and others lower down, got the money.. You can’t make an omelet, Gregory, without breaking a few eggs.

GD: A favorite phrase of Ulanov.

RTC: Lenin, of course. At certain elevated levels, it’s all just a game.

GD: Unless your grandson overdoses, Robert.

 

(Concluded at 3:50 PM CST)

 

LinkedIn shares dive more than 40 percent, $11 billion wiped out

February 6, 2016

by Supantha Mukherjee and Anya George Tharakan

Reuters

LinkedIn Corp’s (LNKD.N) shares plunged as much as 43 percent on Friday, wiping out nearly $11 billion of market value, after the social network for professionals shocked Wall Street with a revenue forecast that fell far short of expectations.

The stock sank to a three-year low of $109.50, registering its sharpest decline since the company’s high-profile public listing in 2011.

At least seven brokerages downgraded the stock from “buy” to “hold” or their equivalents, saying the company’s lofty valuation was no longer justified.

“With a lower growth profile, we believe that LinkedIn should not enjoy the premium multiple it has grown accustomed to,” Mizuho Securities USA Inc analysts wrote in a note.

The brokerage downgraded the stock to “neutral” and slashed its target price to $150 from $258.

Raymond James, Cowen and Co, BMO Capital Markets, J.P.Morgan Securities, RBC Capital Markets and Suntrust Robinson also downgraded the stock.

At least 22 brokerages cut their price targets, with RBC slashing its target by almost half to $156.

LinkedIn forecast full-year revenue of $3.60-$3.65 billion, missing the average analyst estimate of $3.91 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

“This would imply that LinkedIn will grow around 15 percent in 2017 and 10 percent in 2018,” the Mizuho analysts said.

Underscoring the slowdown in growth, LinkedIn said online ad revenue growth slowed to 20 percent in the fourth quarter from 56 percent a year earlier.

Adding fuel to the selloff was the release of the U.S. monthly jobs report, which showed employment gains slowed more than expected in January.

LinkedIn’s hiring business, called Talent Solutions, is the company’s biggest unit by revenue.

“It’s not a great day to have reported tough guidance,” said Randle Reece, an analyst with Avondale Partners LLC. “The mediocre employment report from the Labor department just amplified the reaction of anything employment sensitive today.”

RBC analysts said they had thought LinkedIn was on the cusp of “fundamentally positive” change.

“We were wrong,” they said in a client note.

LinkedIn’s disappointing forecast and a weak forecast from data analytics software maker Tableau Software Inc (DATA.N) reverberated through the tech sector on Friday, sending the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC down nearly 3 percent.

BLOATED VALUATIONS

As of Thursday, LinkedIn shares were trading at 50 times forward 12-month earnings versus Twitter Inc’s (TWTR.N) 29.5 times, Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) 33.8 and Alphabet Inc’s 20.9, making it one of the most expensive stocks in the tech sector.

Even after the selloff, LinkedIn’s shares may still be overvalued, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

LinkedIn should be trading at $71.79, a 34 percent discount to the stock’s Friday’s low of $109.50 as of 1341 ET, according to StarMine’s Intrinsic Valuation model, which takes analysts’ five-year estimates and models the growth trajectory over a longer period.

LinkedIn has been spending heavily on expansion by buying companies, hiring sales personnel and growing outside the United States, but is now facing pressure in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific due to macro-economic issues.

“Given those macro concerns and LinkedIn’s recent execution issues, we expect investors will demand financial outperformance before there is meaningful recovery in LNKD’s multiple,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a client note.

Up to Thursday’s close, LinkedIn stock had already lost nearly a quarter of its value in the last three months.

(Corrects paragraph 19 to say LinkedIn should be trading at “a 34 percent discount to the stock’s Friday’s low of $109.50 as of 1341 ET”, not “a 35 percent discount to the stock’s Friday’s low of $75.54”. The error also appeared in an earlier version of the story)

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Tenzin Pema in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

 

How big oil spent $10m to defeat California climate change legislation

The oil industry targeted business-friendly Democrats in the legislature to kill parts of a bill mandating a 50% reduction in gasoline use in the state by 2030

February 5, 2016

by Anita Chabria

The Guardian

The oil industry spent more than $10m lobbying state lawmakers in a massive push to kill California climate change legislation last year, new disclosures have revealed.

Much of the money spent by big oil was targeted at a specific piece of legislation, SB-350, that would have mandated a 50% reduction in gasoline use in the state by 2030 in addition other climate change initiatives.

The bill was a marquee piece of legislation for Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic state leaders in advance of the Paris climate talks.

The oil industry targeted business-friendly Democrats in the legislature to kill the gasoline-related portion of the bill, sparking a major intra-battle in the final weeks before the vote. Ultimately, the industry was successful and the oil-related part of the bill was removed in its allowing it to pass in a weakened state with no petroleum restrictions.

Big oil might be on the right side of the shareholder reports, but we’re on the right side of history,” said Senate leader Kevin de León, one of the key authors of SB-350, on the defeat of the oil restrictions in the bill. “Ultimately, California is going to demand that an industry which represents most of the problem has an economic and moral duty to be part of the solution.”

Recently required disclosures to the California secretary of state reveal that The Western States Petroleum Association, a trade group for the oil industry, was the state’s single largest spender when it came campaigning in the state Capitol last year, reporting $10,949,149.83 in total “payments to influence”. $6.7m of that took place in the third quarter, and an additional $1.6m was spent in the final quarter, the periods when SB-350 was hotly contested.

That was an increase over the almost $9m it spent in 2014, and $4.7m spent in 2013.

Big Oil is the new robber barons for us in the California legislature,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. “If there is any question of this, it was confirmed in the last days of the the legislative session.”

Included in most recent filings from the trade group are meals at Spago, a restaruant in Maui, Hawaii, for nine legislators, racking up tabs of up to $182.28 each. Oil companies also lobbied individually on SB-350 and other issues. That event took place during a controversial week-long conference in Hawaii sponsored by the California Independent Voter Project that brings together California legislators with corporate event sponsors.

Chevron Corporation and subsidiaries spend nearly $4m in 2015, while on the other side of the issue, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer’s Climate Action spent nearly $2m advocating in support of change legislation and other causes.

Despite the disclosures, the exact nature of much lobbying spending remains cloudy because it can be reported under the catch-all category of “payments to influence”, which accounted for $6.1m of the Western States spending, or 69% of the spending by the top ten lobbyists in California’s state capital, Sacramento, according FPPC information provided by Consumer Watchdog.

Those rules are changing later this year, and will require itemization of payments listed as “other”, but would not require third-party vendors to list specific activities.

There’s still a lot they can hide through third party expenditures, but at least we’re on the right track,” said Court.

 

Man arrested after drone crashes into Empire State Building

February 5, 2016

RT

A man who was using a camera drone to take aerial pictures of Manhattan was arrested after accidentally flying his device into the Empire State building.

A man who had been using a camera drone to take aerial pictures of Manhattan was arrested after accidentally flying his device into the Empire State Building.

Around 8:00pm on Thursday, 27-year-old Sean Riddle of New Jersey crashed his small drone into the 40th floor of New York’s famous 102-story skyscraper, and it fell to a ledge on the 36th floor. No injuries or property damage were reported, according to the New York Police Department.

He then tweeted that security in the building took his drone, and he was with them trying to get it back.

Instead of helping, however, security in the Empire State Building called the police on him. He now faces charges of reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and illegally navigating an aircraft over the city, police said. It’s unclear if the drone was ever retrieved.

The incident falls at a time when federal, state and local authorities are wrangling with the issue of regulating the operation of unmanned aircraft due to concerns over security. In December, the Federal Aviation Administration announced a measure that would require drone owners to register their devices before February 19 or face penalties.

 

FAA: Drones flown within 32 miles of the Super Bowl could face ‘deadly force’

February 4, 2016

by Jessica Chasmar

Washington Times

The Federal Aviation Administration has declared the Super Bowl a “No Drone Zone,” saying unmanned aircrafts flying within a 32-mile radius of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Sunday could face “deadly force.”

“Bring your lucky jersey. Bring your face paint. Bring your team spirit. But leave your drone at home,” the FAA said in a 20-second video explaining the rule, which is almost identical to last year’s Super Bowl flight restriction, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told NBC News.

“With so many drones being sold for recreational use, we want to do everything we can to get the word out that the game is a No Drone Zone,” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement. “We’re working closely with our safety and security partners to spread this message as widely as possible.”

Violators could face fines and prosecution for disobeying the order. And, as Mr. Gregor noted from the regulations: “The United States government may use deadly force against the airborne aircraft, if it is determined that the aircraft poses an imminent security threat,” NBC News reported.

The restrictions will be in effect from 2 to 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 7.

 

Twitter suspends 125,000 accounts for terrorism links

Social media site Twitter has suspended 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts. Most of them were related to the self-declared ‘Islamic State’ (IS) group.

February 5, 2016

DW

Twitter said the more than 125,000 accounts had been frozen since mid-2015. The move comes after pressure from governments, especially after the November attacks in Paris and December attacks in southern California, which were linked to IS. The site had been urged to take more steps to control IS’ and similar groups’ efforts to recruit new members and to plan violent acts.

“Like most people around the world, we are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups,” Twitter said in a statement on the site. “We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism and the Twitter rules make it clear that this type of behavior, or any violent threat, is not permitted on our service.”

The San Francisco based company which claims 332 million active users said it has rules to discourage activity that advances terror, but that it was boosting staff and using technology to filter violence-promoting content.

However, the company cautioned: “As many experts and other companies have noted, there is no ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the Internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgment calls based on very limited information and guidance.”

“In spite of these challenges we will continue to aggressively enforce our rules in this area and engage with authorities and other relevant organizations to find viable solutions to eradicate terrorist content from the Internet and promote powerful counter-speech narratives.”

Pressure to act

The move comes after pressure from The White House, which said more should be done “when the use of social media crosses the line between communication and active terrorist plotting.” Similar statements have come from the European Commission and France, which passed emergency measures last year to close websites or social media accounts which encouraged terrorist actions.

In the US Congress, legislation was proposed requiring online communications services to report potential terrorist activity.

Facebook updated its “community standards” last March saying it would not allow groups advocating “terrorist activity, organized criminal activity or promoting hate,” a presence on its site.

 

BW as a Weapon

by Harry von Johnston, PhD

Botulism

What is it? Botulism is a muscle-paralysing disease caused by a toxin from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. There are three main types – food-borne, wound and infant botulism.

Symptoms The first recognisable symptoms, usually appearing 12 to 36 hours after exposure to the toxin, include blurred vision, vomiting and difficulty in swallowing.

If untreated, the disease can eventually lead to respiratory failure and paralysis. It is fatal in 5 to 10% of cases.

How is it spread? Botulism is caused by eating or inhaling the bacterial toxin. It cannot be spread from person to person.

If used as a biological weapon, the toxin could be sprayed as an aerosol – it is colourless and odourless – or used to contaminate food.

Is there an antidote?

An antitoxin is available, but it is only effective if administered early in the course of the disease. There is also a vaccine, but concerns about its effectiveness and possible side-effects mean it is not widely used.

Availability The bacterium from which botulism is derived occurs naturally in the ground, so many samples are likely to be held around the world. The Japanese cult Aum Shikrikyo dispersed it in aerosols on at least three occasions in the early 1990s. According to John Eldridge, the editor of Jane’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence, Iraq, Russia and Iran are likely to have large quantities at their disposal.

Overall risk One problem for health experts would be distinguishing a terrorist attack from a natural outbreak of food poisoning.

John Eldridge said: “Botulism toxin was considered by coalition forces to be a viable threat during the Gulf War. Some 10,335 kg was destroyed under UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] supervision.”

Smallpox

What is it? Smallpox is a viral infection caused by the variola virus. One of the biggest killers in history, the disease was effectively wiped out in the 1970s by a worldwide vaccination plan.

Symptoms The incubation period is about 12 days. First symptoms include fever, tiredness and an aching head and back. Over the next few days, a distinctive rash develops, usually on the face, legs and arms.

Lesions then appear, which form crusts and fall away within a few weeks. Death occurs in up to 30% of cases.

How is it spread? Smallpox can be caught by inhaling the virus from an infected person. Sufferers are most infectious during the first week of illness.

In the event of a purposeful attack, the virus could be released in an aerosol, or suicide attackers could deliberately infect themselves. Its stability in air and high infection rate make the smallpox virus potentially very dangerous.

Is there an antidote? There is a vaccine against smallpox but routine public inoculation ended in the 1970s as incidence of the disease declined. Everyone born before 1972 was vaccinated, but immunity has probably worn off by now.

In people exposed to smallpox, the vaccine can lessen the severity of, or even prevent, illness if given within four days of exposure. The US currently has an emergency supply of the vaccine.

There is no proven treatment for smallpox victims – except supportive therapy to combat the symptoms.

Availability There are two World Health Organisation-approved repositories of variola virus – one at the US Center for Disease Control and the other in Novosibirsk, Russia.

The extent of secret stockpiles in other parts of the world remains unknown, but according to Jane’s Defence, Iraq and Russia are likely to have the virus.

Overall risk Smallpox is often cited as the most feared biological weapon. There is no proven treatment, and the virus could race through a population before anyone realises it has been released.

According to John Eldridge: “It is possible that cultures have found their way out of Russia and could be in the hands of terrorists.”

Plague

What is it? Plague is an acute bacterial infection caused by Yersinia pestis. There are two main strains – bubonic and pneumonic.

Symptoms

In bubonic plague, the bacteria invade the body causing swollen lymph nodes and fever. The less frequent pneumonic plague causes severe respiratory problems, including coughing and breathing difficulties. The incubation period is usually between one and seven days.

How is it spread? Bubonic plague is generally not spread from person to person, except through direct contact with fluids from the swellings. The disease is mainly transmitted from the bite of infected fleas carried by rodents.

But pneumonic plague can be passed on by face-to-face contact, through the inhalation of bacteria from a sneeze or cough of an infected person.

Terrorists would most likely attack by spraying an aerosol containing plague bacteria, causing the pneumonic variety.

Is there an antidote? Plague can be effectively treated with antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline. In treated cases, death occurs in fewer than 5% of victims, but if left untreated mortality rates can be higher than 90%. There is no vaccine.

Availability Natural outbreaks of plague still occur – most notably in Africa, Asia and western USA. The bacterium responsible is also widely available in microbe banks around the world.

According to Jane’s Defence, America, Iraq, Russia, Iran and possibly North Korea have supplies of the bacterium.

Overall risk Pneumonic plague is less virulent than smallpox but more so than anthrax. John Eldridge said: “Plague is a possible low-tech choice as successful vectors include insects and rodents.”

Tularaemia

What is it? Francisella tularensis, the organism that causes tularaemia, is one of the most infectious bacteria known.

Symptoms Symptoms vary according to the method of infection. If the bacteria are inhaled, symptoms can be similar to pneumonia.

Victims who ingest the bacteria may get a sore throat, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. Untreated, the disease could progress to respiratory failure, shock and eventually death. The overall mortality rate is about 5%.

How is it spread? Tularaemia is not spread though human-to-human transmission. Many small mammals harbour the disease, and naturally-acquired human infection occurs through animal bites, ingestion of contaminated food or water and inhalation of infective aerosols.

Aerosol dispersal would be the most likely method of terrorist attack.

Is there an antidote? There is an effective vaccine, and the disease is treatable with antibiotics.

Availability

During World War II, the potential of F. tularensis as a biological weapon was studied by both sides.

Tularaemia was one of the biological weapons stockpiled by the US military in the late 1960s, but the supply was subsequently destroyed.

The Soviet Union continued production into the early 1990s. Jane’s Defence believe that Iraq and Russia are likely to have stockpiles of this bacterium.

Overall risk Tularaemia is considered to be dangerous because of its extreme infectivity and because it is easily spread. But it would not kill the vast majority of those infected.

Haemorrhagic fever

What is it? The most well-known haemorrhagic fever is Ebola, caused by a virus of the same name. A similar disease, also found in the tropics, is caused by the Marburg virus. Both are lethal and relatively easily transmitted.

Symptoms Within a few weeks of exposure, ebola victims suffer from headaches and muscle aches. They may also experience nausea, chest pain and profuse bleeding. More than half of all Ebola sufferers die from the disease.

How is it spread? The virus can spread from person to person, through direct contact with blood or other secretions.

Is there an antidote? For both Ebola and Marburg, there is no cure, no vaccine and no treatment.

Availability Like cholera and typhoid, these diseases are endemic in many poor countries. There is also speculation that the Soviets experimented with the Marburg virus for its use as a biological weapon.

Overall risk Haemorrhagic fevers are unlikely to be an obvious choice as they are so hazardous to work with. But, said John Eldridge, perpetrators could quickly acquire the capability to use these germs as weapons.

Crop diseases

Many countries have investigated the effects of purposefully inflicting crop diseases on an enemy. Japan, Germany, France, Britain, the former Soviet Union and the US have all – at various stages – invested in anti-crop warfare of various kinds.

Potato blight, soybean rot and diseases that can affect staple crops like wheat and rye are all capable of decimating huge swathes of agricultural land. So too are infestations by insects such as the Colorado and rapeseed beetle.

The potato blight of 19th Century Ireland and the brown spot disease responsible for the Bengal famine in 1942 show just how devastating these crop diseases can be.

Dr Simon Whitby, from the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, said that while attacking a crop is unlikely to cause widespread starvation in anywhere but the very poorest countries – those largely reliant on one staple crop – the method could still be effective as an “economic weapon” elsewhere.

This is especially true when the agriculture is concentrated on intensive farming of genetically similar crops.

“There would be social disruption at one end of the scale, and starvation at the other,” he said.

Two of the main crop diseases identified as potential bio-weapons are wheat stem rust and rice blast.

Rice blast

What is it?

This is one of the most important rice diseases and is caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae. There are 219 types, so breeding a resistant crop is complex.

Characteristics

Grey-white lesions appear on the leaves, which eventually produce a brown margin when the lesion stops growing. The fungus may also attack the stem of the plant. Yield losses may be large as few seeds are likely to develop.

Availability

The US chose blast disease as its main anti-rice agent. The US anti-crop programme, an intensive operation throughout the 1950s and 60s, had a cache of nearly a tonne of rice blast at the time it was disbanded. The stockpile would have been intended for a potential attack on Asia, said Dr Simon Whitby.

Other countries apart from the US are also likely to have investigated this disease as a biological weapon, but information is limited.

Overall risk

Rice blast is a fungal disease, in which thousands of spores form on the infected plant. These spores multiply rapidly and float through the air infecting other plants. This easy dispersal, coupled with the complexity of breeding resistant plants, make rice blast a potentially dangerous biological weapon.

Wheat stem rust

What is it?

Stem rust is caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis tritici.

Characteristics

Dark red postules appear on both sides of the leaves and stems of the infected plant. As well as attacking wheat, the fungus can also affect barley, rye and other grasses.

Availability

Between 1951 and 1969, the US stockpiled more than 30,000 kg of wheat stem rust spores, which Dr Simon Whitby estimated is probably enough, in theory at least, to infect every wheat plant on the planet.

The US also developed means of disseminating the spores. An early design, according to Dr Whitby, was a 500-lb bomb originally designed to release propaganda leaflets. Instead it was packed with bird feathers which carried the fungal spores.

Other countries have also investigated the use of wheat diseases in biological warfare. Dr Simon Whitby said: “Iraq has looked into its military capability and has carried out limited testing. The potential target was probably Iran.”

And the USSR’s huge programme in the 1970s, mostly concentrated on wheat diseases, is believed to have employed 10,000 personnel working solely on agricultural biowarfare, said Dr Whitby.

Overall risk

As stem rust is a fungal disease, the spores are easily dispersed in air. The use of resistant wheat strains limits its effectiveness as a biological weapon, but it still has the potential to be dangerous.

Animal diseases

The warfaring potential of diseases that affect animals is often overlooked. “This is a new type of hazard,” said John Eldridge, from Jane’s Defence. “In the UK we are

 

Six reasons you can’t take the Litvinenko report seriously

Inquiry points the finger at Vladimir Putin and the Russian state, but its findings are biased, flawed and inconsistent

February 5, 2016

by William Dunkerley

The Guardian

An inquiry into the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in the heart of London in 2006 has concluded that he was “probably” murdered on the personal orders of Vladimir Putin. This is a troubling accusation.

The report (pdf) said that Litvinenko, who died from radioactive poisoning, was killed by two Russian agents, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who were most likely acting on behalf of the Russian FSB secret service.

The head of the inquiry, Sir Robert Owen, also came to the conclusion that there was sufficient evidence heard in open court to build a “strong circumstantial case” against the Russian state.

His conclusions mirror those of the late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who had been living in London waging a campaign against Putin before his own death in 2013. Litvinenko was his chief bomb thrower.

I’ve been analysing this case since Litvinenko’s death, and I’ve followed the inquiry closely. I don’t know whether or not his murder was ordered by the Russian president or anyone in the Kremlin. What I do know is that Owen’s findings are not supported by reliable evidence.

The report relies on hearsay and is marred by inconsistent logic. It offers no factual insights into what really happened to Litvinenko, yet has been taken as gospel truth by governments and pundits across the west.

Here are some of the problems

      1. PR campaign
                1. The inquiry failed to take into account the massive misinformation campaign initiated by Berezovsky. It was Berezovsky, an arch-enemy of Putin, who put forward the narrative that the Russian president was behind the poisoning of Litvinenko and fed this to a gullible western media, with the help of the PR firm Bell Pottinger.

A typical headline of the day was something like “Ex-KGB Spy Murdered on Orders of Putin”. No facts were presented, just unsupported allegations. Berezovsky’s well-funded management of the public discourse set the tone for everything that was to come.

If this had been a jury trial, the media coverage would have prejudiced the case. In the absence of a jury Berezovsky’s targets included the public, journalists, police, and government officials. Yet there was no consideration of the impact of this wide-reaching influence in the report.

2. Inconsistent

The inquiry appears to use different evidentiary standards for different witnesses. On the one hand Owen claims that he considers some of the evidence submitted by the two alleged assassins, Lugovoi and Kovtun, to be deficient. As a result, he says, he won’t regard as credible any parts of their accounts.

But he applies a different standard to others. For example, a retired physics professor named Norman Dombey testified that a polonium sample contains a characteristic fingerprint that allows it to be traced back to its source. However Owen concludes that this fingerprint theory “is flawed and must be rejected”. He does not react to problems with some of Dombey’s testimony by dismissing all of it. In fact, he says that he received valuable evidence from Dombey.

3. Unreliable

There is also the question of Litvinenko’s dramatic deathbed statement implicating Putin that drew so much international attention. Early media reports suggest the statement was composed by Litvinenko himself and dictated to his associate, Alexander Goldfarb. The inquiry report describes Goldfarb as the co-author of the book Death of a Dissident with Marina Litvinenko. It does not mention that he was a close ally of Berezovsky’s.

Later media reports quote Goldfarb as saying that he wrote the statement himself and checked it with Litvinenko. Another account suggests the statement was drafted by the family lawyer, George Menzies, and discussed with the PR firm Bell Pottinger, acting for Berezovsky.

Which is correct? And even more importantly, the statement does not explain how Litvinenko could possibly have known of the Russian president’s culpability, nor does it offer evidence to back up the allegation.

4. Bias

The report fails to acknowledge that Goldfarb is not an objective observer in this case. For instance, he was also involved in promoting the anti-Putin protests of the punk rock group Pussy Riot. This is important because it suggests that the accusations against Putin form part of a long-running campaign stretching over his entire tenure in the Kremlin.

The report recounts many allegations against him as if they were discrete events rather than seeing them as part of a continuous process. The point here is that the inquiry should have considered Goldfarb’s testimony within a context of a systematic anti-Putin agenda.

5. Lacking evidence

The report admits that there are no hard facts to support the claims against Putin, noting that “evidence of Russian state involvement in most of these deaths is circumstantial”. But “circumstantial” is used here as a euphemism for “factually unsupported”.

The report goes on to suggest that the other allegations against Putin over the years, for example that he was implicated in the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, “establish a pattern of events, which is of contextual importance to the circumstances of Mr Litvinenko’s death”. In other words, Owen admits to being influenced by unproven cases in his consideration of culpability in Litvinenko’s death.

6. Dubious reasoning

The role of Mario Scaramella, an Italian sometimes described as an academic, presented a dilemma for the inquiry. At first Litvinenko publically accused Scaramella of poisoning him to stop him disclosing information about Russia’s culpability in Politkovskaya’s death. But the story seems to have changed after Berezovsky visited Litvinenko in hospital, after which his people began saying that Litvinenko had blamed Putin.

There is no evidence that Scaramella was responsible, but the inquiry accepted a strange reasoning for Litvinenko implicating him in the first place. Apparently the former spy was embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t seen Lugovoi and Kovtun as threats, so initially concocted the allegations against Scaramello to salvage his professional pride.

While this analysis points to serious flaws in the report, it does not present evidence to exonerate Putin. As I said, I don’t know whether or not he is to blame. But what happened to the presumption of innocence and the need to build a case before declaring someone guilty?

It is clear that those who are behind these claims against the Russian president have an agenda, and are using a wealth of means in their attempts to convince others.

The public inquiry’s acceptance of so many of their questionable allegations casts a pall over Owen’s efforts and renders his report practically useless.

 

Aggressors to return home in coffins’: Syrian FM warns against foreign ground op

February 6, 2016

RT

Any ground operation in Syria, carried out without consent from Damascus, will be viewed as an ‘act of aggression,’ Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has warned.

“Any ground intervention on Syrian territory without government authorization would amount to aggression that must be resisted,” Muallem said, as cited by Reuters.

“Let no one think they can attack Syria or violate its sovereignty because I assure you any aggressor will return to their country in a wooden coffin,” the minister said during a press conference in Damascus.Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia expressed eagerness to deploy its troops on the ground in Syria if the US-led coalition decided such an operation is necessary.

We believe that aerial operations are not the ideal solution and there must be a twin mix of aerial and ground operations,” Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, adviser to the Saudi defense minister, said.

Bahrain’s ambassador to the UK, Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohammed al-Khalifa, said his country is ready to provide its troops to act “in concert with the Saudis,” adding the United Arab Emirates was also interested in the Syrian ground operation.

When asked about the Saudi initiative, US State Department spokesman John Kirby stressed the coalition is generally supportive of having partners who contribute more in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

The US-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria since mid-2014.

Over the course of the operation, US President Barack Obama has repeatedly stated there will be no American boots on the ground in Syria. Russia’s Foreign Ministry treated reports of a planned Saudi ground operation in Syria with irony.

I’m afraid to ask, have they already defeated everybody in Yemen?” Maria Zakharova, the ministry’s spokesman, wondered.

The Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen since March 2015, after they toppled a Sunni government backed by Riyadh.

The operation has been severely criticized by human rights groups for targeting hospitals and other civilian infrastructures.

A leaked UN report blamed at least 119 Saudi-led military missions in Yemen for violations of international law

 

U.S., Britain consider letting spy agencies, police seek email, chat data from companies

February 5, 2016

by Mark Hosenball

Reuters

U.S. and UK spy agencies and police may soon be allowed to directly ask media companies in each others’ countries for email and online chat data for people being investigated, under a tentative bilateral deal, officials said on Friday.

As governments worldwide and online companies struggle to strike a balance between privacy rights and law enforcement imperatives, three U.S. officials confirmed a pact is in the works, although it would require congressional approval.

“The proposed agreement, which remains under discussion, would be reciprocal and would require legislation to take effect,” said a U.S. Justice Department official.

First reported by The Washington Post, the talks were focused on letting UK agencies, such as counter-intelligence unit MI5, serve “production orders” on U.S. firms demanding data for “live intercepts” in inquiries involving UK citizens.

UK agencies might also be able to ask U.S. companies to turn over stored data, such as emails.

The Post quoted a U.S. official saying that British nationals, including criminals, are using U.S. data providers such as Google, Facebook and Hotmail, making it hard for foreign agencies to get legal access to data for criminal and counter-terrorism inquiries.

The agreement’s main goal is to clear up legal conflicts faced by U.S. communications service providers when Britain issues an order seeking electronic data on users abroad, a request that may run afoul of U.S. law, the official said.

A U.S. government source, who asked for anonymity on sensitive legal issues, said U.S. law generally bars companies from complying with foreign data requests, even though criminal inquiries often hinge on cross-border communications. As a result, U.S. firms can face a tough choice: cooperate with a request and break U.S. law or ignore it and comply with the law.

A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office said Britain was “not going to comment on confidential discussions.”

But the official noted big international technology companies had called for a “robust, principled and transparent framework” on data requests “across jurisdictions.”

The official said British Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary (internal security minister) Theresa May were in preliminary discussions with other governments on the matter.

Representative Adam Schiff, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Congress should monitor any privacy and civil liberties issues, “including making sure these British orders do not cover U.S. persons or individuals within the U.S., do not permit bulk collection, and have due process protections.”

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and James Dalgleish)

 

In Art Forgery Trial, Expert Witness Says Knoedler Gallery Relied on Fakes for Profit

February 5, 2016

by Colin Moynihan

The New York Times

For its final 18 years, Knoedler & Company, the 165-year-old business that once reigned as New York’s oldest art gallery, largely depended on profits it made from the sale of fakes attributed to Abstract Expressionist masters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, an accounting expert testified on Friday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The expert, Roger Siefert, testified on behalf of Domenico and Eleanore De Sole, who paid Knoedler $8.3 million in 2004 for a painting falsely attributed to Mark Rothko. They have accused the gallery and its former president, Ann Freedman, of participating in fraud by selling more than 30 bogus works that were supplied by Glafira Rosales, a dealer from Long Island. The gallery and Ms. Freedman have said that they too were duped by the forgeries.

Duped or not, the gallery profited handsomely from the fakes, according to Mr. Siefert’s calculations. Using financial reports from the gallery, he said that works supplied to Knoedler by Ms. Rosales sold for $69.7 million between 1994 and 2011, when the gallery closed in advance of a host of lawsuits from collectors.

Without the $32.7 million in net income from the so-called Rosales works, “Knoedler would not have been a profitable enterprise,” Mr. Siefert testified. The gallery’s cumulative deficit for that period would have been about $3 million, he said.

But lawyers for Ms. Freedman and Knoedler challenged his conclusion, suggesting, among other things, that if the gallery had not spent its time selling the Rosales works it would have focused on selling other works that could have made up any deficit.

Ms. Rosales, who has pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the scheme but has not yet been sentenced, earned about $26 million from the sale of the paintings, said Gregory Clarick, a lawyer for the De Soles. All of the works were created in a garage in Queens by an immigrant artist named Pei-Shen Qian, who has said he was typically paid only several thousand dollars for each painting.

Mr. Siefert said that Ms. Freedman had arranged a profit-sharing arrangement with Knoedler and that her commissions had risen over the years, from 10 percent in the 1990s to 30 percent by 2008. He said she had earned $10.3 million in total from the sale of the Rosales works. (Because he was focusing on art sales, he said, he was omitting the fact that in 2011 the gallery earned $18.7 million from the sale of its headquarters, an Upper East Side townhouse.)

Mr. Siefert said his calculations showed that if income from the sale of the Rosales works were removed, the gallery would have operated at a loss in 10 out of the 18 years that he had examined. But when questioned by Mark Robertson, a lawyer for Knoedler, Mr. Siefert acknowledged that if he omitted from his calculations the years from 2009 to 2011, a period when no fakes were sold and Knoedler ran annual deficits from $1.6 million to $2.3 million, the gallery would have made a cumulative profit of about $3 million, even without the sale of any Rosales works, from 1994 to 2008.

Mr. Siefert also agreed, in response to questions from Mr. Robertson and Luke Nikas, a lawyer for Ms. Freedman, that there was no way to tell what sort of profits the gallery might have generated if it had been involved with selling art works other than the forgeries from Ms. Rosales.

Also on Friday, James Martin, an art conservator, testified that he had examined 16 of the Rosales works sold by Knoedler that were said to have been created by different artists between 1949 and 1959, and found indications that they were fake. Signs included suspicious signatures and the use of anachronistic materials, like oil paint with a pigment, Yellow 74, that was not available when the works were supposed to have been made.

The materials were pointing to a common source,” he said.

 

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