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Today: 74 articles and 207 comments as of 16:15.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Opinion        Politix   
Mali Blast Kills Two French Soldiers
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
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Page 6: Politix
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15 21:24 Frank G [3]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Florida HS Survivor refuses to paticipate in CNN 'scripted' Town Hall
[Breitbart] Colton Haab, a student who survived last week’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, refused to participate in a CNN Town Hall on Wednesday night after he was told to ask a "scripted" question.

Haab, a junior at the high school, told Fort Lauderdale ABC affiliate WPLG that CNN invited him to speak at the televised town hall in nearby Sunrise, Florida, and that he and his parents had dressed up for the occasion.

But CNN then told Haab he would have to read a question that CNN had prepared for him:
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 02:29 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Colton should have sandbagged the bastards - 'Yeah, sure - what question you want me to ask?', then go with another one that'll make the CNN clowns look like more of the jackasses than they already are.
Posted by: Raj || 02/22/2018 10:26 Comments || Top||


International Money Laundering Via Author Impersonation on Amazon?
[KrebsOnSecurity] Patrick Reames had no idea why Amazon.com sent him a 1099 form saying he’d made almost $24,000 selling books via Createspace, the company’s on-demand publishing arm. That is, until he searched the site for his name and discovered someone has been using it to peddle a $555 book that’s full of nothing but gibberish.

Reames is a credited author on Amazon by way of several commodity industry books, although none of them made anywhere near the amount Amazon is reporting to the Internal Revenue Service. Nor does he have a personal account with Createspace.

But that didn’t stop someone from publishing a “novel” under his name. That word is in quotations because the publication appears to be little more than computer-generated text, almost like the gibberish one might find in a spam email.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: 3dc || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Betcha the IRS still expects him to pay taxes on it...
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/22/2018 8:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Disgusting that Amazon doesn't do something about it.

Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/22/2018 13:56 Comments || Top||

#3  We may have a winner to bring Amazon to heel.

Posted by: ClemKadiddlehopper9000 || 02/22/2018 20:53 Comments || Top||


China cracks down on 'funeral strippers' as families are told not to hire erotic dancers to draw mourners
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I need to save up to hire the strippers before I die.
Posted by: Sloluting and Tenille8977 || 02/22/2018 2:59 Comments || Top||

#2  5000 years of civilization.....
Posted by: Mercutio || 02/22/2018 5:44 Comments || Top||

#3  So what, Nancy Pelosi is out of a job?
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/22/2018 6:25 Comments || Top||

#4  Ok Woodrow, that's a new keyboard and a quart of eye bleach you owe me for. Bleaaaaaaagh.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/22/2018 8:22 Comments || Top||

#5  "Geeze, if this Champagne Room was any smaller, it'd be a coffin..."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/22/2018 12:13 Comments || Top||

#6  This has been going on since the 1990s!
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/22/2018 13:12 Comments || Top||


Three African Men Arrested for Cannibalism in Paris Suburb
[BREITBART] Three men have been tossed in the slammer
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
in the heavily migrant-populated Gay Paree suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois for attacking a man by biting at his face and then eating the pieces of flesh they had bitten off.

The men, who all originally came from the African island nation of Cape Verde,
...85.4% Christian, according to the CIA World Factbook, so what’s their unacceptable excuse for such behaviour?
were arrested on Sunday after they attacked a man who was walking in the Hector-Berlioz alley at around 6 pm and bit off pieces his ear and lower lip, Le Gay Pareeien reports.

The victim was able to fight off the attackers, wounding one of them in the ankle, before police arrived a short time later and arrested the three Africans.
Castrate ‘em, hamstring ‘em on the left side, and send ‘em back to where they came from with just the clothes on their backs. And test them for HIV and other unpleasant diseases — the odds are high they just shared something.
Both the victim and the injured man were then taken to Montfermeil hospital.

Clichy-sous-Bois has become infamous as one of the most troubled no-go zones surrounding the French capital. The massive riots that occurred in 2005 began in the area when a pair of teenagers running from the police potted themselves by hiding in an electric power station.

Since then, Clichy-sous-Bois has been associated with further riots, as was the case last year, and with a connection to the rising tide of radical Islamic extremism in La Belle France.
Posted by: Fred || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1  a drug mostly manufactured in China

What is the 'zombie drug' blamed for face-eating attacks?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 9:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe the French should only have actual French people in Clichy-sous-Bois!
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/22/2018 12:32 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Bezos is running out of time
[DailyMail] Jeff Bezos reveals construction of a massive clock inside a Texas mountain that will chime every day for 10,000 years as a ‘symbol for long-term thinking’
  • The clock is being buried 500 feet inside a mountain in the Sierra Diablo range

  • It's programmed to play a different chime each year for the next ten millennia

  • Bezos revealed a clip on Twitter of construction work under way at the site

  • Visitors will able to climb down stairs and hear the daily chime at noon
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Van Horn can use the tourist business.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2018 8:10 Comments || Top||

#2  "Alexa, what does Bezos do with the excess money he screws out of me?"
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/22/2018 14:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Kind of makes me feel good to know that I live in an age where private individuals have enough wealth and free time to indulge fancies like this and Musk's space Telsa. Kind of like the difference between a plain glass box office building and a cathedral. The world needs more things done just for the sh*ts and giggles. It does not need more glass boxes.
Posted by: Iblis || 02/22/2018 16:24 Comments || Top||

#4  It's the difference between "because we must" and "because we can".
Posted by: Iblis || 02/22/2018 16:28 Comments || Top||


It's Not Just U-Boats
Remember a couple days back about the German Navy not able to get their submarines out to sea. Seems classical German logistics isn't 'German' anymore.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Actually, historically the Germans were always cavalier in their handling of 'logistics' and also 'military intelligence(at least the strategic, high level kind)'. A focus on short, decisive wars meant tactics was where all of the smart officers went -- when you start out in the center of Europe you have to win the first battle or the game could be quickly over.
Posted by: magpie || 02/22/2018 1:13 Comments || Top||

#2  I thought they were big into AIP and exporting u-boats? Pretty shitty marketing.
Posted by: Spot || 02/22/2018 20:14 Comments || Top||


Africa North
President Sisi says dream of turning Egypt into regional energy hub is becoming reality
[AlAhram] Sisi commented on the controversial $15 billion gas deal brokered between Egyptian and Israeli gas companies, saying that Egypt has 'nothing to hide' about the agreement.

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah said on Tuesday that the dream to turn Egypt into a regional energy hub is becoming a reality, referring to a number of gas deals recently signed in the country.
The president made the comments while opening a number of investor service centres across the country.

El-Sisi commented on the controversial $15 billion gas deal brokered between two Israeli companies and private Egyptian company Dolphinus, saying that Egypt has "nothing to hide about this deal."

"Egypt is now one of the few countries in the Mediterranean region that owns facilities fully capable of providing all oil-related services," El-Sisi said, adding that Egypt will use these facilities to liquefy the imported gas for later export or for use in industry.

El-Sisi said that Egypt has developed these facilities before other countries in the region like in Leb, Israel, Cyprus and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, which will allow Egypt to benefit by having oil from Mediterranean countries liquefied in Egypt.

"We had to take advantage of this opportunity to attract Cypriot, Lebanese and Israeli gas in preparation for liquefaction and export," he said.

"We scored a goal," El-Sisi said in Egyptian colloquial slang, referring to the recent gas deals and other achievements in the gas sector, though he stressed that these agreements are reached by the private sector and not the state.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just don't follow the Caracas Model(tm)
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2018 8:11 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
South Africa's new president wants to confiscate land from white farmers
[Business Insider] If you’ve been following much international news, you’ve probably heard that, after literally years of scandal, abuse, and incompetence, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma was finally forced to resign last week.

This is a big deal for South Africa.

The country has been suffering for nearly a decade under Zuma’s corruption.

And people are certainly hoping that the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, will represent a positive, new chapter for South Africa.

Yesterday Ramaphosa addressed the nation’s parliament in Cape Town and made clear that his priority is to heal the divisions and injustice of the past, going all the way back to the original European colonists in the 1600s taking land from the indigenous tribes.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 07:07 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  .....new chapter

Yes, 'new chapter' of same old book. As at the University of Vermont, it starts slow and then whilst people sleep and do nothing, it gradually becomes the law of the land.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 7:22 Comments || Top||

#2  good, the aboriginal Africans can starve just like ZimBobWe's. Farmin B. Hard around?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/22/2018 7:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah... 'cuz that has worked soooo well everywhere else it was tried.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/22/2018 9:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Yesterday Ramaphosa addressed the nation’s parliament in Cape Town

Might want to fix your water shortage problem first, bunky...
Posted by: Raj || 02/22/2018 10:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Yep, you would think Ramaphosa would have been smarter. Afterall, Southern Rhodesia is right next door and the results of Mugabe's pet project were right there...including thousands of refugees clogging up the welfare rolls in SA.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/22/2018 10:10 Comments || Top||

#6  They ain't the aboriginal Africans! The Zulus invaded not THAT long ago.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/22/2018 12:09 Comments || Top||

#7  They ain't the aboriginal Africans! The Zulus invaded not THAT long ago.

More hate facts! Unacceptable! Next you will be telling us Africans captured and sold their neighbors as slaves.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/22/2018 12:37 Comments || Top||

#8  In verval is die Plaasmoorde? (Farm murders have tapered off ?).
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 14:37 Comments || Top||

#9  If you are going to do this, I should just have the military shoot you you worthless asshole.
Posted by: newc || 02/22/2018 17:12 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
'Exodus' from Puerto Rico: A visual guide
(CNN) Before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, there already was an unprecedented migration from the Caribbean island to the mainland United States -- at least in part because of the US commonwealth's financial crisis. After the storm, academics are starting to use words such as "exodus" and "stampede" to describe the massive outflow of people.

"This is the greatest migration ever from Puerto Rico since records have been taken," said Jorge Duany, a professor of anthropology at Florida International University.

Some reasons for the migration are obvious: Millions of Americans living in Puerto Rico were left without power or running water because of the Category 4 hurricane. Schools were closed. Jobs lost. There seemed to be little hope on the horizon. Puerto Ricans are American citizens and can move to the states without visas or other paperwork. And so, many did.

Yet the scope and shape of this diaspora remain mysterious.

So far, estimates of its size have been based on airline traveler data, which some academics consider unreliable because flying off the island doesn't necessarily mean you're going to migrate. Florida school enrollment numbers have added clarity, but they only cover students who showed up in the Sunshine State, not the entire nation.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 02:43 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Millions of Americans living in Puerto Rico were left without power or running water because of the Category 4 hurricane.

You confuse the symptom with the underlying causal factors. Generations of corruption and mismanagement. Other parts of the nation have had major disasters but have been able to rebound (unless they as Instapundit would say - been a Democratic stronghold since [insert date here]).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2018 8:00 Comments || Top||

#2  ‘We have a big problem’: Puerto Rico seeks aid for tens of thousands of squatters

And this little beauty: Half of Puerto Rico’s housing was built illegally. Then came Hurricane Maria.

Hurricane Maria shed some light on some serious PR issues which are now being exported to FL.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/22/2018 10:24 Comments || Top||

#3  Hurricane Maria just made the ongoing disaster that is Puerto Rico worse.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/22/2018 12:12 Comments || Top||

#4  2 Sept 2015: The Puerto Rico Department of Housing Did Not Properly Administer $90.79 Million of FEMA Grant Funds Awarded for the New Secure Housing Program
OIG, DHS document title
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/22/2018 13:01 Comments || Top||

#5  none went to Idaho :)
Posted by: 746 || 02/22/2018 13:24 Comments || Top||

#6  Give them to Haiti.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/22/2018 13:51 Comments || Top||

#7  Am I the only one thinking Democrats are trying to send them to Florida?
Posted by: Charles || 02/22/2018 17:24 Comments || Top||


Economy
Sen. Cruz rallies refinery workers for ethanol mandate change
[The Hill] Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday went to a massive Philadelphia oil refiner to rally its workers for changes to the federal ethanol mandate.

Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the East Coast’s largest refiner, filed for bankruptcy last month, blaming the costs of complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Cruz wants to put a cap on the costs of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) tradeable credit system for complying with the mandate that refiners blend ethanol and other biofuels into the traditional fossil fuels.

"There is a win-win solution where we can fix RINs, save the jobs of the refinery workers and also allow corn farmers to sell more corn and get the government out of the way of the success of both of them," Cruz told the boisterous campaign-style rally in South Philadelphia.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 02:42 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ethanol is yet another vote getting agri-scam. See wind farms, subsidized milk, food stamps, free cell phones, and the war on coal for more information.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 7:31 Comments || Top||

#2  The whole ethanol scheme sounds like a VW type scam to me.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/22/2018 8:11 Comments || Top||

#3  It began in 1919 with the addition of Tetraethyl lead and they've been buggering around with gasoline ever since.

In 1919, Dayton Metal Products Co. merged with General Motors. They formed a research division that set out to solve two problems: the need for high compression engines and the insufficient supply of fuel that would run them. On December 9, 1921 chemists led by Charles F. Kettering and his assistants Thomas Midgley and T.A. Boyd added Tetraethyl lead to the fuel in a laboratory engine. The ever present knock, caused by auto-ignition of fuel being compressed past its ignition temperature, was completely silenced. Most all automobiles at the time were subject to this engine knock so the research team was overjoyed. Over time, other manufacturers found that by adding lead to fuel they could significantly improve the octane rating of the gas. This allowed them to produce much cheaper grades of fuel and still maintain the needed octane ratings that a car’s engine required.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 8:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Does a corn surplus mean a drop in whiskey prices?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 9:44 Comments || Top||

#5  "Does a corn surplus mean a drop in whiskey prices?"

Maybe, plus the cost to feed beef cattle and other delicious animals. Might lower the price of that chuck roast or brisket, too.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 02/22/2018 9:51 Comments || Top||

#6  A corn surplus might help the millions of people nearly at starvation put there by the diversion of corn to making alcohol for automobiles.

What a scam. Doing the math, you find that ethanol is BTU negative, meaning that the distillation process consumes more BTU's than the generated BTU's of the ethanol. The only place in the world where ethanol is not BTU negative is Brazil where they use the sugar cane pulp to fire the boilers...of course the EPA would have a fit if we tried that.

BTW, electricity is BTU negative when the energy source is natural gas.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/22/2018 10:08 Comments || Top||

#7  Good - now bring back incandescent light bulbs before I run out of 40 & 60 watt bulbs - I only have 40 of them left!
Posted by: Raj || 02/22/2018 10:15 Comments || Top||

#8  ...plants churning them out in Mexico.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2018 11:19 Comments || Top||

#9  LEDs are vastly better TBH.

Could you sell incandescent lights as combined heat and light devices?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/22/2018 16:01 Comments || Top||

#10  The light bulbs are back. I just bought 4 120W
Posted by: newc || 02/22/2018 17:53 Comments || Top||


Europe
Major armed police operation in Brussels as officers ‘block gunmen in building'
[RT] Armed police and a helicopter have been deployed to a house in Brussels. At least one armed man is believed to be inside, according to local media.

The incident is taking place near a primary school in the municipality of Forest, on Rue Jean-Baptiste Vanpe. The school is attended by approximately 350 pupils, and the children have been taken inside as a safety precaution. The mayor of Forest, Marc-Jean Ghyssels, has also confirmed the police operation, citing "suspicion of the presence of armed men," RTBF reported.

A security perimeter has been established, with a witness telling RTL Info that police have ordered residents of the neighborhood to stay inside their homes. Armed police and snipers have been deployed to the scene. Police helicopters are also flying above the area.

Local media reported in August that Belgian prosecutors had opened an average of more than 20 probes per month against people suspected of terrorism-related offenses since the start of 2017, many of whom were thought to be "homegrown" extremists.

Update at 9:40 a.m. ET: the Daily Mail is on the case:
Armed police seal off streets after reports of a gunman at large in Brussels suburb where terror suspect Salah Abdeslam hid from authorities after Paris attacks

But a police spokeswoman denied media reports that an armed gunman was hiding in the area, saying the heavily armed units were responding to reports of a possible murder.

She said the special units of the federal police had been deployed in a major security operation after a Polish man reported that someone had been murdered in the morning.

'They are searching the buildings but we can say there has not been any terrorist attack,' she said.
Page 1: War on Terror was the right first call, and we’ll stick with that until we are certain it should be filed elsewhere, especially given the location.
Update from the Daily Mail at 2:15 p.m. ET:
Thursday's incident began after a Polish man reported what he said was a murder, Calie said.

When police arrived at the address, they found nothing.

'It seems he may have expressed himself badly,' Calie said.

But witnesses there said that an incident had happened at a nearby building and they reported seeing an armed man, so officers from Belgium's special federal police force were called in, she said.

'We can rule out terrorism,' Calie said.
Article moved to P.3: Non-WoT. Here’s hoping the Belgian police did not call it too soon.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 09:01 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fake news. They have strict gun control laws over there and no one besides the government has one.

/sarc
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/22/2018 10:29 Comments || Top||

#2  no one besides the government has one Someday we'll be reading articles about one classified band of government-paid gunmen shooting it out with a different classified band of government-paid gunmen. You read it here, first.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/22/2018 13:18 Comments || Top||

#3  You mean, like Syria?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/22/2018 16:01 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Not A Single Lawyer Known To Work For Mueller Is A Republican
[Daily Caller] None of the 16 publicly-confirmed lawyers on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team are registered Republicans, The Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

Voter registration records indicate that 13 of the attorneys are Democrats and three have no party affiliation. This is the first time the political affiliation of all 16 lawyers has been reported.

One of the lawyers, Zainab Ahmad, appears to have registered as a Republican at the age of 18, but has since changed her registration status to unaffiliated.

There is a 17th lawyer on the Russia probe, but this person’s identity and political affiliation remain unknown.

The special counsel’s office has previously disclosed that nine of the 16 lawyers have made a total of $62,000 in donations to Democrats, with one of those nine lawyers having also donated $2,750 to Republican candidates.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 03:13 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Coincidence or inconvenient truth? You decide.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2018 7:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Republicans have too much integrity? Nah.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/22/2018 8:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't need a republican lawyer for a witch hunt.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/22/2018 9:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Echo chamber
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/22/2018 10:11 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm pretty sure this is old news. Remember the reports from two or three months ago that detailed all their political donations went to Democrats? It doesn't take a great leap of faith to determine that none of them are 'Pubs; this is merely confirmation.
Posted by: Raj || 02/22/2018 10:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Of course not. It'd be a hostile work environment, subject to government litigation.
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/22/2018 14:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Democrats are a cult.
Posted by: newc || 02/22/2018 17:13 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Nexus of drug dealers, lawyers, politicians unearthed during Chanesar Goth operation
[DAWN] KARACHI: A recent report by the police about an anti-drug operation in Chanesar Goth carries alarming details of connection between the law enforcement agency, its special and intelligence branches, excise department, and drug traders and smugglers protecting the illegal business in the city. The report, a copy of which is available with Dawn, also speaks of an "organised nexus of police, lawyers, notables and political representatives" behind the racket.

The document titled Operation Detail Report ‐ Chanesar Goth, PS Mehmoodabad actually contains day-to-day details of a four-month operation in the densely populated neighbourhood that led to "almost an end" to drug business in the area where it had been booming for the last three decades.

The success, the report said, was not achieved only through raids and sending over 150 drug peddlers behind bars but also taking action against dozens of coppers ranked from constable to DSP and severing the supply line, which was being operated by the excise officials.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Iraq
US oil giant Chevron restarts drilling in Kurdistan Region
[Rudaw] ERBIL, Kurdistan Region ‐ US-based oil firm Chevron announced on Monday it has resumed drilling in the Kurdistan Region having suspended operations in mid-October following the independence referendum.

"Chevron can confirm that it has resumed its activities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and we have restarted drilling operations at our Sarta 3 well," Chevron spokeswoman Sally Jones said in a statement, Rooters reports.

The block is operated by Chevron that has an 80 percent interest in the Sarta production-sharing contract (PSC). Sarta is just north of Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan Region.

The company also operates at the Qara Dagh field with an 80 percent PSC, about 28 kilometers south of the historic provincial capital city of Sulaimani. The two blocks cover a combined area of 1,129 square kilometers.

The firm had drilled a new well at its Sarta block in September but halted operations in the Kurdistan Region in mid-October 2017 after Baghdad moved Iraqi forces and Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries into oil-rich Kirkuk and other disputed areas claimed by Erbil and Baghdad.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) says its revenues have been slashed by almost half since the loss of Kirkuk oil production.

Chevron began operating in the Kurdistan Region in 2012. Shortly thereafter, it was blacklisted by the Iraqi government for dealing directly with the KRG.

Oil disputes and independent exports from the Kurdistan Region have been at the heart of disagreements between Erbil and Baghdad.

The Iraqi government announced earlier in February it will not cover the gross payments due to oil companies that have signed agreements with the Kurdistan Region, but will require new contracts signed with the central government.

The KRG says it is ready to resolve issues with Baghdad within the framework of the Iraqi constitution.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:


Government
Sessions forms U.S. cyber task force after election warnings
h/t QANON
(Rooters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday announced he would create a task force to examine how his Justice Department can better combat global cyber threats, including efforts to interfere with elections or damage critical infrastructure.

Last week, leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies warned that Russia will try to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections in November and said the United States was "under attack."

The Justice Department will have until the end of June to report its findings, according to a memorandum Sessions signed on Friday but released on Tuesday.

"The internet has given us amazing new tools that help us work, communicate, and participate in our economy, but these tools can also be exploited by criminals, terrorists, and enemy governments," Sessions said in a statement.

The task force, composed of representatives from different branches of the Justice Department, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will examine use of the internet to spread violent ideologies and recruit followers, how hackers breach private corporate and government data, and law enforcement challenges posed by strong encryption.
Then rooters goes into propaganda mode. Interesting, it took them to the 6th paragraph.
Some security experts expressed skepticism about the task force, saying it lacked focus or a clear mission purpose.

"This step basically takes a number of really complicated parallel issues in 'hard' cybersecurity and 'soft' information security and throws them into the same amorphous task force," said Graham Brookie, a cyber security aide in the Obama administration who now works at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council think tank.

U.S. intelligence officials have said Russia believes it successfully undermined U.S. democracy in the 2016 presidential election and would try again.
Which intelligence officials? Clapper and Brennan?
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller last week charged several Russians with conducting a trollingcriminal and espionage conspiracy through social media by boosting Republican Donald Trump and denigrating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations.
What crap.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Russian cyber threat, and called Mueller's investigation of possible collusion between his campaign and Moscow a "witch hunt."

Sessions, who recused himself from overseeing the Mueller probe after failing to disclose meetings with Russian officials, said last October "probably not" when asked by a U.S. senator if enough was being done to tackle Russian interference.
Posted by: G. Fliting2034 || 02/22/2018 08:07 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  https://8ch.net/qresearch/res/448242.html#448584
Posted by: B. Sheager1498 || 02/22/2018 15:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Won’t help a bit til insider threats are purged.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 15:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Since Q posted it, I suspect that deep state threats are the real target.

I found this Rooters article where Rooters is just spinning it. Look past the spin.
Posted by: B. Sheager1498 || 02/22/2018 15:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
'Forgive us, because we sold them,' says African ambassador on possible slave ship find
Things you won't hear at today's U.S. schools/colleges/universities.
[AL.com] Hector Posset, the ambassador of the Republic of Benin, cracked the seal on a bottle of gin as we neared the wreck.

Travelling aboard my boat, we had come up the Spanish River, through its confluence with the Mobile River to 12 Mile Island, following the exact path that the Clotilda, the last American slave ship, used to smuggle the final 110 slaves brought in bondage from Africa to the United States.

Posset arrived in Mobile two days after news broke that a burnt ship the size and age of the Clotilda had been found in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the swamp where the captain claimed he set it afire in 1860. In a previous article, I relied on historical evidence and analysis by archaeologists to suggest that the 19th century wreck I found might be the Clotilda, which was burned after it arrived here with a last load of slaves from Benin.

I had been asked to take the ambassador upriver to the site by Dr. Sharon Ingram, chair of the state-sponsored Alabama Benin Trade and Cooperative Forum, so that he might offer libations and perform traditional rituals practiced in his homeland.

Floating a few feet from the hull of what may be the Clotilda, the ambassador, wearing a necktie and pinstripe suit, shook water and then gin from two bottles over the wreck. In low, forceful tones, he spoke directly to the wreck in a Beninese dialect, his voice often colored with anger. Then, taking a slug from the gin bottle, the ambassador began spraying mouthfuls of liquor over the wreck. Tears streamed from behind his sunglasses.

The moment was a profound one for Posset. Not only does he hail from Benin, once known as the Kingdom of Dahomey, where the Clotilda captives were first captured by fellow Africans and then sold to the Americans, but Posset is actually a descendant of the nation's royal family. By the 1800s, the King of Dahomey was making about a quarter of a million dollars a year selling Africans to Europeans, Americans and Brazilians, according to historical records. To put that number in perspective, a quarter of a million dollars in 1860 would be worth roughly $50 million today. The prosperous kingdom was notorious as a hub of the slave trade, and home to the door of no return, through which millions of slaves, including perhaps the Clotilda captives, passed as they were transferred to slave ships for the middle passage.

Asked to explain the words he spoke over the wreck, Posset covered his eyes for a moment as he regained composure and stifled a sob.

"I am just begging them to forgive us, because we sold them. Our forefathers sold their brothers and sisters. I am not the person to talk to them. No! May their souls rest in peace, perfect peace. They should forgive us. They should," Posset said, wiping tears from his cheeks. "Qualified people will come and talk to them in due time. I feel so sad."
Continues.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/22/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You know what? This is the first step in Forgiveness.
Posted by: newc || 02/22/2018 0:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Which, an apology and tears or a bottle of Gin?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2018 9:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Is it too later to return defective products?
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/22/2018 14:30 Comments || Top||



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