VIETNAM MINE ACTION ALERT
Wartime ordnance explosion severely injures ethnic coffee farmer near former U.S. Marine base at Khe Sanh

A comment from Chuck Searcy, Project RENEW:

This is a tragic ​reminder that unexploded ordnance is still taking casualties in Vietnam 40 years after the war, and why Project RENEW's work remains important. 

Some basic knowledge of how to deal with the situation this young farmer encountered could have saved his hand. 

We have not found the funds to expand Project RENEW's risk education and explosive ordnance response units into the Khe Sanh area, so the risk in that area is still great. 

We are pleased that in RENEW's area of operations our efforts are showing results. 

When the project began in 2001, there were about 50 accidents a year in the four districts of Quang Tri Province where we launched Project RENEW.  In the past year, there was one accident.  That's still too many.  Our goal is to reduce accidents, injuries, and deaths to zero.

A visit this week of Senators Patrick Leahy, Mike Crapo, Dick Shelby, and Congressmen Jim Cooper and Peter Welch, offered some encouragement that the U.S. Congress may finally put up significant funds to "get the job done" in Vietnam -- that is, to make Vietnam safe from the dangers of unexploded ordnance, and within a reasonable period of time, say five to 10 years.

It can be done, with the political will and sufficient financial resources (and far less money than the U.S. has spent in a given month in Iraq or Afghanistan!).

We owe it to 21-year-old farmers who were born long after the war ended, their families, their children who are still living with the consequences of a war that ended for the U.S. in 1975.

The war has not ended for them.

They face lethal threats every day.

As an American citizen, and a Vietnam vet, I feel a strong responsibility for the U.S. to finally step up and do the right thing.  It's been 40 years, and more than 100,000 casualties.

CHUCK

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CHUCK SEARCY

International Advisor, Project RENEWCo-chair, 
INGO Agent Orange Working GroupVice President, 
Veterans for Peace Chapter 160 (Hoa Binh)

71 Tran Quoc Toan, Hanoi, Vietnam

Email:        chuckusvn@gmail.com  
Web:          www.landmines.org.vn 
Web:          www.veteransforpeace.org
Web:          vfp-vn.ning.com
Blog:          chucksearcy
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MINE ACTION ALERT

Wartime ordnance explosion severely injures ethnic coffee farmer near former U.S. Marine base at Khe Sanh

Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province (15 April 2014) – 

Coffee drinkers love Vietnam’s Arabica coffee grown at Khe Sanh, a former battleground in the central province of Quang Tri. But they probably don’t know that to grow one of the best coffee beans in Vietnam, indigenous farmers face a deadly legacy of unexploded ordnance (UXO) even though the fighting ended nearly 40 years ago. Yesterday that legacy kept on giving.

In a coffee field near the Ta Con Airstrip, which is the Vietnamese name for the U.S. military’s Khe Sanh Combat Base, a loud explosion seriously injured a young Van Kieu man around 3:00 p.m. on Monday.   Ho Lay was working with his brother digging holes in the ground, preparing to plant their new coffee crop. The 21-year-old man unearthed a piece of ordnance.   He picked it up and shouted to his older brother, Ho Van Linh, who was working a short distance away.

“I heard my brother shout my name, asking me what it was,” said Linh. “I saw him start to throw the object toward me, just as it went off in his hand.”  Linh said he thought the explosive device was an M79, also known as a 40mm grenade.  Together with cluster bombs, those items have been the leading cause of deaths and injuries in Quang Tri Province since 1975.

Linh and other members of his family used a motorbike to bring Lay to Huong Hoa District Hospital.  After he was stabilized, Lay was transferred to Quang Tri General Hospital in Dong Ha City for specialized treatment.

With nearly 5,000 hectares of coffee now being grown in Huong Hoa, the district produces 97% of the total coffee output in Quang Tri Province.  According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) Vietnam Coffee Annual 2013, Quang Tri ranks number eight among Vietnam’s coffee producing provinces, with large areas of coffee under cultivation.

For many indigenous families who have long scratched out a bare living with slash-and-burn agriculture, coffee has been the key to rising out of poverty.  Farmers who started many years ago now earn good incomes, and some are prospering.  Many others, such as Linh’s family, want to follow suit despite fluctuations in the coffee market.

“My uncle used to grow coffee on this land many years ago, but he failed,” Linh said.  “Now we’re willing to take a chance again, knowing that the price of young coffee plants has never been so cheap.  We have grown corn and peas,” he added, “but these crops are very short-term. Coffee is long-term, and produces better income for us.”

Linh and his brother, who graduated from high school in Khe Sanh two years ago, were planning to plant 800 young coffee plants in time for the rains which come to Khe Sanh in the next two months.  However, their effort to climb out of poverty was shattered yesterday by an item of UXO, and his brother Lay will now have to live with a disability that will be with him forever. 

Injuries to Lay’s right hand were so severe that doctors had to amputate it. Lay’s other hand was shattered by the blast. Photo by Project RENEW.

Despite a global coffee slump, Khe Sanh is a booming coffee town, and the areas producing coffee are getting bigger.  Providing coffee farmers with knowledge about UXO and safety guidance that covers all their work activities is essential where most of the land has yet to be cleared of explosive ordnance.   The people of Khe Sanh, who have suffered poverty and many other disadvantages, want to improve their circumstances and assert themselves as full citizens, earning good livelihoods.  To do this, they must be given the knowledge and tools to stay safe, and to report UXO when they find it.

Lay’s brother Linh, like other coffee growers, had general knowledge of the type of UXO that injured Lay.  Linh guessed it was an M79.  However, the two brothers had never been exposed to rigorous Risk Education, to teach them exactly what steps to take to be safe and how to report the finding so a qualified EOD team can come and safely dispose of dangerous items.

During the past five years, at least six coffee farmers have been injured by UXO in Huong Tan Commune alone.  In the same village of Tram, an explosion in February 2010 wounded four young men while they were weeding at a coffee plantation.  In October 2012 a 17-year-old boy lost his leg while planting coffee in in Ruong Village.


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Project RENEW
Restoring the Environment and Neutralizing the Effects of the War


Dự án Phục hồi Môi trường và Khắc phục Hậu quả Chiến tranh
Project RENEW Coordination Office
Kids First Village, 185 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Dong Ha City, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam
053 3858 445 tel / 053 3858 442 fax
projectrenewvietnam@gmail.com / www.landmines.org.vn
Ngo Xuan Hien, Communications & Development Manager, 0915 352 565 mobile
Email: ngoxuanhien@gmail.com
  

The Obscenity of War in a World of Need and Suffering

By Adnan Al-Daini

"...We are too readily manipulated and outraged into diverting our resources into wars that cause death, injury and destruction. The suffering to millions of fellow human beings is kept from us by mainstream media too ready to play its role...

The vast majority of us individually can see that there is something seriously wrong with the way our priorities are perceived. It is beyond comprehension that with so much poverty and need worldwide, that so much wealth is spent on wars and weapons of death and destruction...

As a species we have tremendous talents. Our scientific achievements are incredible; our advances in medicine and technology are stunning. Our social development however is still almost at Stone Age level."

Adnan Al-Daini (PhD, Birmingham University, UK) is a retired University Engineering lecturer. He is a British citizen born in Iraq. He writes regularly on issues of social justice and the Middle East.        

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“Crimes Against Peace”: Historic Class Action Law Suit Against George W. Bush

By Inder Comar

"An Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a class action lawsuit against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in a federal court in California.

She alleges that these six defendants planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law by waging a “war of aggression,” as defined by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, more than sixty years ago...

In its famous judgment in 1946, the Tribunal wrote,

“War is essentially an evil thing . . . to initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

The case against Bush is based on the conduct of members of the administration prior to coming into office as well as conduct taking place on and after 9/11. 

Years before their appointment to the Bush Administration, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were vocal advocates of a militant neoconservative ideology that called for the United States to use its armed forces in the Middle East and elsewhere.

They openly chronicled their desire for aggressive wars through a non-profit called The Project for the New American Century (or PNAC)...

We need your support and attention to this case. We cannot let the crime of aggression disappear into history...

For most of the post-war period, this notion — that leaders must be held accountable for their decisions to go to war — has gathered dust. This must change, or else the legacy of Nuremberg, and its foundation for the post-war international legal regime, will be tossed aside in favor of the state of anarchic international relations that led to the Second World War itself. 

It is time to fulfill Jackson’s dream of a global order governed by law, not war. And it is time for accountability over the Iraq War and for the millions of people who lost their lives or who were affected by it.

Inder Comar is counsel of record for Sundus Shaker Saleh in her case against members of the Bush Administration. The case is Saleh v. Bush, Case No. 3:13-cv-1124 JST (N.D. Cal. March 13, 2013). The firm is providing case updates at witnessiraq.com and is representing Saleh pro bono.

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Ukraine and the Grand Chessboard

By Pepe Escobar 

"...Still the Kremlin won't be dragged into a military quagmire. It's fair to argue Putin has identified the Big Picture in the whole chessboard, which spells out an increasing Russia-China strategic partnership as crucial as an energy-manufacturing synergy with Europe; and most of all the titanic fear of US financial elites of the inevitable, ongoing process centered on the BRICS-conducted (and spreading to key Group of 20 members) drive to bypass the petrodollar. 

Ultimately, this all spells out the progressive demise of the petrodollar in parallel to the ascent of a basket to currencies as the reserve currency in the international system. The BRICS are already at work on their alternative to the IMF and the World Bank, investing in a currency reserve pool and the BRICS development bank. 

While a tentative new world order slouches towards all points Global South to be born, Robocop NATO dreams of war. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War(Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).                     

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Harper on Russia: America's Useful Idiot?

By Murray Dobbin

"...Stephen Harper's acutely embarrassing behaviour regarding the crisis in Ukraine -- demonizing Vladimir Putin and upping the rhetoric -- must be welcomed in the U.S. which created the crisis in the first place and apparently believes it still has something to gain by isolating Russia. But it is not clear that Harper even realizes -- or cares -- what the larger game is.

And that game may include a Russia-driven shift in global currency allegiance that could devastate the economies of the U.S. and Canada...

In the meantime, the demonization of Putin and Russia is having a major influence on an issue that has barely been mentioned in the media: Putin's plan to create the petro-ruble and decouple Russia's energy exports from the dollar.

Abandoning the petro-dollar

It is arguable that this global issue is many times more important to the U.S. than anything that happens in the Ukraine but American efforts to isolate Russia is actually accelerating the process. 

It is also driving Russia to look to the East instead of Europe for its future prosperity -- aligning with China as both a market for its gas and a partner in undermining the petro-dollar. China is already headed there -- its yuan is the second most used currency, ahead of the euro, in international trade settlements...

The prospect of the U.S. dollar losing its status as the world's trading currency is far and away the greatest threat to U.S. hegemony in the world as it would turn the country's $17-trillion (not counting unfunded liabilities) virtual debt problem into a real one. 

Until now, the huge external demand for U.S. dollars has allowed it to accumulate enormous debts without defaulting. 

With Russia, China and the rest of the BRICSA countries (Brazil, India, and South Africa) moving in this direction the U.S. is panic-stricken...

Indeed, plans to decouple from the dollar was a common feature of three countries which experienced the wrath of U.S. foreign policy and military intervention. 

Libya's Muammar Gaddafi was planning a gold-standard currency for all of Africa; Iraq was planning to quit using the dollar for its oil exports, as was Iran. Sanctions against the latter had as much to do with this plan as any other issue.

But Russia, China, Brazil and India are countries of a whole different order and out of reach of the Pentagon's threats. There is virtually nothing the U.S. can do to stop this movement, provoked in part by the massive printing of money in repeated "quantitative easings" and accelerated by NATO's adventurism...

A New Silk Road between China and Europe

If that were not a big enough headache for the U.S., Russia is well placed to detach Germany from the EU and U.S. efforts to isolate it. While Russia will suffer economically in the short term from sanctions, the longer term looks brighter. 

At the same time that BRICSA is planning its new international payment system, China and Germany are negotiating another initiative that guarantees Russia a prominent role in one of the world's most ambitious economic development schemes: the New Silk Road linking China and Europe...

So the Russian president, at record highs in public approval and now fully justified in facing East after being provoked by the West, doesn't have to act: everything is in motion for advantage Russia. 

And our war-mongering prime minister will continue to aid Mr. Putin by demonizing him and justifying his eastern "pivot." 

Murray Dobbin has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. He writes rabble's State of the Nation column, which is also found at The Tyee.           

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US-NATO Build-up to Cold War 2.0

By Peter Koenig

"...As the credibility gap is widening and people in Europe and even in the US are increasingly seeking alternative news media  to find out the truth, the lies are becoming progressively more brazen.

The American-European public has been drilled for decades by the corporate lie-media that the world must dance to the canons of the United States of America...

Well the wind is changing. Increasingly people in Europe and even in America are watching, listening to and reading alternative news sources...

While John Kerry’s showed-off in Geneva with his ridiculously conceited threats, President Putin broadcast a four-hour televised Q&A session, where people from all over Russia and even from of the Russian Federate States could call in with questions and comments. 

Most of them were referring to Ukraine and Crimea. Mr. Putin answered them frankly, without teleprompter – no pre-conceived replies.

Mr. Putin uses facts when he refers to the ‘Kiev Nazi government’ as an illegal mob put in place with the help of Washington and its European puppets, fomenting unrest and killing in the streets. 

The 5 billion dollar investment for ‘regime change’ in Ukraine, at that time a sovereign country – Ms. Nuland’s admission – is not reported in the western media. 

No wonder, Mr. Putin’s rating at home is way above the steadily faltering popularity of Obama and his European cronies.

Since WWII, Washington has been sowing unrest and death around the world – death in the millions, all for reasons of expansion, of global hegemony – Korea, Vietnam, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Central Africa, Venezuela, Thailand, Syria – and now Ukraine — to name just a few. 

Some of these countries were subdued by direct US military / NATO action. In others, Washington’s Assassin-in-Chief is fighting ‘proxy’ wars, using personally approved drone killings and other willing allies, like Hollande and Cameron, to do the dirty work – meaning murdering tens of thousands of people to achieve ‘regime change’, to further the emperors global dominance – dominance over resources, people and their economies.


When it doesn’t work in a first go, there is temporary media respite, so people may forget; just to be picked up again later by the presstitute corporate information outlets to give global brainwashing no rest. – To the point, where the constant US meddling in other countries’ affairs has become an order of the day and an order of value for the Western world. It is not only accepted – it has become the norm...

The corporate mass media, all financed with mickey-mouse dollars, printed at will, achieved from the 1960’s onward an American- European mindset that serves Washington today to continue demonizing Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, with the objective for the West to invade Ukraine with its western destructive, debt-ridden financial system and put NATO at  Moscow’s doorstep.

Mr. Putin’s non-aggression, diplomacy and international statesmanship is certain to attract more support than do the ever twisted fork-tongued lies of Washington’s Nobel Peace Prize winning warrior.

Besides, Russia has a huge economic leverage on the west, particularly on the US. In addition to supplying 50% of Europe’s energy, Russia and its allies, China and the other BRICS and associates could destroy the dollar by a click of the mouse. 

Russia and China have already declared they will trade hydrocarbons in the future in their own local currencies, a measure already being carried out for general trading among the BRICS and associates. 

In addition, the BRICS are preparing to issue a new currency, an alternative to the dollar, and an international monetary transfer system that will bypass the notorious privately owned BIS – Bank for International Settlement, under which all international payments have to transit through US banks.

 ‘Times they are a-changing…’ according to Bob Dylan– and he is right.

Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources.   

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Antisemitic Flyer 'by Donetsk People's Republic' in Ukraine a Hoax

By Alec Luhn in Donetsk

City's chief rabbi states pamphlet is fake, claiming it is meant to discredit pro-Russian protesters or Jewish community. 

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What the 1% Don't Want You to Know 

By Bill Moyers 

Economist Paul Krugman explains how the United States is becoming (or has become already) an oligarchy - the very system our founders revolted against.

 Continue

The Vietnam - US Friendship Association

The Vietnam-American Friendship Association (VAFA) was established on October 17, 1945, 45 days after President Ho Chi Minh read the Proclamation of Independence, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (now Socialist Republic of Viet Nam) on September 2, 1945. It is the first bilateral friendship association in Vietnam founded by President Ho Chi Minh. For over 68 years, the association has made great contributions to promoting friendship between the two nations through people-to-people diplomatic activities.

READ MORE from Vietnam Pictorial magazine:
http://vietnam.vnanet.vn/vnp/en-us/15/21/CultureSociety/Home.html

Through the Vietnam-USA Society (VUS), the American war veterans
Association has so far provided Vietnam with about 300 files related to 10,000 
Vietnamese soldiers who died and went missing during the war and helped Vietnam 
search for and collect about 1,000 martyrs.


As a result of the American War, Viet Nam has about 300,000 Missing-In-Action soldiers throughout the country. Trying to find their remains, repatriate them, and provide some closure for family and loved ones, remains a full-time mission.

Investigation Finds Former Ukraine President Not Responsible For Sniper Attack on Protestors

Video 

By Michael Hudson 

The Real News

"...If all of this is front-page news in Germany, front-page news in Russia -- why would President Obama directly lie to the American people?..."

 Check out this video interview

for a different understanding of Ukraine and the world to the official narrative in corporate mainstream media.

MI6, The CIA And Turkey's Rogue Game In Syria
By Patrick Cockburn

New claims say Ankara worked with the US and Britain to smuggle Gaddafi's guns to rebel groups.  Continue

Senate Torture Report Leaked
CIA And White House Under Pressure

By Spencer Ackerman
Senate committee found CIA interrogations and detentions to be 'brutal'.  Continue

CIA’s Use of Torture Went Beyond Legal Authority, Senate Report Rays
By Ali Watkins, Jonathan S. Landay and Marisa Taylor
The CIA’s claim “is BS,” said a former U.S. official.  Continue

Venezuela Shows That Protest Can Be A Defence Of Privilege
By Seumas Milne
Street action is now regularly used with western backing to target elected governments in the interests of elites.  Continue

Barack Obama pulls a George W. Bush: Lies, misinformation and chemical weapons: 

Remember the almost-war in Syria last year? 

Western leaders and news media told us with certainty that Syria's government had used chemical weapons against civilians.

At the time, many voices in the alternative media knew otherwise. Well, now it is confirmed ~ we were right; they were wrong.

WHAT THEY TOLD US WAS A DELIBERATE LIE!

An explosive new report by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh -- which our media won't touch -- is a must read!

Seymour Hersh Exposes Erdogan's Chemical Adventure in Syria : 

Video 

Former American officials accuse Israel of breaching international law: 

For the first time, six former senior American officials issued a statement candidly accusing Israel of breaching international law and undermining peace talks.

China’s GMO Ban Costs US Corn Traders $ 427 Million in Sales: 

China’s ban on US corn containing traces of unapproved genetically modified maize caused a significant drop in US exports that has cost US traders $427 million in sales. Last year Mexico banned GMO corn. Last week, Russia banned the import of GMO food into the country.

Human Rights Watch Keeps the Distortions Coming about Venezuela: 

Joe Emersberger calls out Human Rights Watch on their latest attempt to “mislead” people about the content of Venezuelan media.

Why US Fracking Companies Are Licking Their Lips Over Ukraine
By Naomi Klein
The natural gas industry is supreme at exploiting crisis for private gain – what I call the shock doctrine.  Continue

Human Extinction In Our Lifetime?
By Professor Guy McPherson
Global warming is real - and possibly even worse than we've been told. Could it lead to the destruction of human civilization within just a few decades?

We Need an Apartheid-style Boycott to Save the Planet
By Desmond Tutu 
Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.  Continue

Neoliberalism and the Machinery of Disposability
By Henry A Giroux
Americans now live in a society in which almost everyone is spied on, considered a potential terrorist, and subject to a mode of state and corporate lawlessness in which the arrogance of power knows no limits.  Continue

Zombie Democracy in the U.S.
By Ajamu Baraka
I have always found discussions on democracy in the U.S. curious and at times hilarious.  Continue

White House Lies to EU about US Gas Supply
By William Engdahl
Recent statements by US President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are so patently false that it betrays an incredible desperation in Washington over the situation in Ukraine versus Moscow.  Continue

The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case 

By Robert Parry

Defenders of the old conventional wisdom blaming the Syrian government for the Aug. 21 Sarin gas attack are going after investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who implicates Syrian jihadists and Turkish intelligence. 

The Obama administration’s case against the Syrian government collapses, not that it was ever very sturdy.

"...If that is the case, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry owe it to the public to recant their rush to judgment of last summer and refocus U.S. intelligence on this clear and present danger. 

Sure, it’s not what Obama and Kerry want to do – admit they misled the people about the certainty of the U.S. government’s case against Assad – but they have a responsibility to put their egos aside and assess what is possibly an actual terrorist threat.

Despite his role in deceiving the world, President Obama does deserve some credit for veering away from another catastrophe at the last moment. Obama accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to have Syria’s government surrender all its chemical weapons, even as Assad continued to deny a role in the Aug. 21 attack.

But the mystery of who gassed the Ghouta suburb of Damascus – killing hundreds of people – is one that deserves a serious examination. 

If – as Sy Hersh reports – the U.S. government has evidence revealing collaboration between radical jihadists in Syria and Turkish intelligence, that should be revealed regardless of the political discomfort it might cause."

 Continue to read the article, and watch an interview with Seymour Hersh.

*

Could this explain the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines MH370 ? . . .

Analyst: Stealth Technology Seizure Behind MH370 Disappearance

By Kells Hetherington

17 March

WASHINGTON (VR) — Malaysian Airlines flight 370 was deliberately targeted for hijacking, according to Captain Field McConnell, a retired Delta Airlines pilot and a retired United States Air Force F4 and F16 fighter pilot.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/us/2014_03_18/Stealth-Technology-Seizure-Behind-MH370-Disappearance-5715/

Capt. McConnell cites industrial espionage for a cutting edge military technology as the reason behind the airliner’s disappearance. “There were 20 Chinese software engineers in the aircraft, riding as passengers, and they were working for Freescale Technology in Austin, Texas, and they had the intellectual property of an open patent. In other word[s], a patent had been applied for, but yet --- not yet granted. And the ownership of that patent was 20%, 20%, 20%, 20% and 20% for the U.S. Corporation named Freescale. And until that patent is granted, there is no ownership,” McConnell said.

“The technology they were working on was a way to make stealthy a non-stealth aircraft. In other words, they could take an aircraft that does not have a stealth capability” and make it stealth, McConnell said.

Stealth technologies such as this are found in the B-2 Bomber and the F 1-17, which is no longer deployed, according to McConnell. But the technology is breakthrough in that “going one step further, rather than building an aircraft from the ground up, they can take, for instance a B-52, which was built in 1962 and with electronic technology developed by Freescale, they can increase the stealth or actually they had be reducing the radar signature and they would be increasing the stealthniness of an otherwise very un-stealthy aircraft like a lumbering B-52,” McConnell said.

This group of 20 engineers, McConnell thinks, would be able to set up the technology. The retired Air Force captain said “but also keep in mind, we are not talking about rogue terrorists like Osama bin Laden, we are talking about rogue nations. And I will just give you four nations that are probably wrestling over these technologies for military advantage: Those being China, Russia, the United States and a British corporation called Serco,” McConnell said.

http://voiceofrussia.com/us/2014_03_18/Stealth-Technology-Seizure-Behind-MH370-Disappearance-5715/

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/us/2014_03_18/Stealth-Technology-Seizure-Behind-MH370-Disappearance-5715/

Good news. . . and about time!

Russia Announces Decoupling Trade From Dollar

China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China

By Peter Koenig

April 08, 2014 "ICH" -

Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners – no longer in dollars – see Voice of Russia

Russia’s trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the ‘petro-dollar’ as trading unit for oil and gas. 

This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars – December 2013) – leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement.

Added to this is the declaration today by Russia’s Press TV – China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where “New Areas” of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China’s Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China’s poorest regions.

“During his visit to Duisburg, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a master stroke of economic diplomacy that runs directly counter to the Washington neo-conservative faction’s effort to bring a new confrontation between NATO and Russia.” (press TV, April 6, 2014)

“Using the role of Duisburg as the world’s largest inland harbor, an historic transportation hub of Europe and of Germany’s Ruhr steel industry center, he proposed that Germany and China cooperate on building a new “economic Silk Road” linking China and Europe. The implications for economic growth across Eurasia are staggering.”

Curiously, western media have so far been oblivious to both events. It seems like a desire to extending the falsehood of our western illusion and arrogance – as long as the silence will bear.

Germany, the economic driver of Europe – the world’s fourth largest economy (US$ 3.6 trillion GDP) – on the western end of the new trading axis, will be like a giant magnet, attracting other European trading partners of Germany’s to the New Silk Road. 

What looks like a future gain for Russia and China, also bringing about security and stability, would be a lethal loss for Washington.

In addition, the BRICS are preparing to launch a new currency – composed by a basket of their local currencies – to be used for international trading, as well as for a new reserve currency, replacing the rather worthless debt ridden dollar – a welcome feat for the world.

Along with the new BRICS(A) currency will come a new international payment settlement system, replacing the SWIFT and IBAN exchanges, thereby breaking the hegemony of the infamous privately owned currency and gold manipulator, the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland – also called the central bank of all central banks.

To be sure – the BIS is a privately owned for profit institution, was created in the early 1930’s, in the midst of the big economic melt-down of the 20^th Century. The BIS was formed precisely for that purpose – to control the world’s monetary system, along with the also privately owned FED and the Wall Street Banksters – the epitome of private unregulated ownership.

The BIS is known to hold at least half a dozen secret meetings per year, attended by the world’s elite, deciding the fate of countries and entire populations. 

Their demise would be another welcome new development.

As the new trading road and monetary system will take hold, other countries and nations, so far in the claws of US dependence, will flock to the ‘new system’, gradually isolating Washington’s military industrial economy (sic) and its NATO killing machine.

This Economic Sea Change may bring the empire to its knees, without spilling a drop of blood. An area of new hope for justice and more equality, a rebirth of sovereign states, may dawn and turn the spiral of darkness into a spiral of light.

Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources.    Continue