Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ

Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ | World news | theguardian.com:

"• Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk

• 1.8m users targeted by UK agency in six-month period alone

• Yahoo: 'A whole new level of violation of our users' privacy'

• Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images"



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Foreclosures Surging in New York-New Jersey Market

Foreclosures Surging in New York-New Jersey Market - Bloomberg: "The epicenter of the U.S. foreclosure crisis is shifting to New Jersey and New York, threatening a housing rebound in one of the country’s most densely populated areas.

New Jersey has surpassed Florida in having the highest share of residential mortgages that are seriously delinquent or in foreclosure, with New York third, a Mortgage Bankers Association report showed last week.

 The number of New York and New Jersey homeowners losing their houses reached a three-year high in 2013."



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Fighting fascism from Ukraine's Russian enclave

The views of ethnic-Russians from the Russian speaking provinces of the Ukraine.

Putin orders ‘combat readiness’ tests for western, central Russian troops

Putin orders ‘combat readiness’ tests for western, central Russian troops — RT News: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an urgent military drill to test the combat readiness of the armed forces across western and central Russia. The drill included troops dealing with mock security and terrorist threats.

The surprise drill tested ground troops, Air Force, airborne troops and aerospace defense, according to Russia’s Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu.

Putin ordered to “test combat readiness of troops in dealing with crisis situations that threaten the military security of the country, as well as with antiterrorist, sanitary and epidemiological, or technogenic situations,” Shoigu said.

According to the Defense Minister, the drill, which started at 14:00 GMT, will be held from February 26 until March 3 in two stages. The second stage involves an opposing-force exercise with the participation of Russia’s Northern and Baltic fleet and bomb strike drills.

While Western media was quick to connect the drill to the situation in Ukraine, such exercises were proposed by Putin as early as last September and followed massive 2013 drills."



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Tepco Says Fukushima Radiation ‘Significantly’ Undercounted

Tepco Says Fukushima Radiation ‘Significantly’ Undercounted - Bloomberg: "Tokyo Electric Power Co. is re-analyzing 164 water samples collected last year at the wrecked Fukushima atomic plant because previous readings “significantly undercounted” radiation levels.

The utility known as Tepco said the levels were undercounted due to errors in its testing of beta radiation, which includes strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer."



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Boko Haram kills 59 children at Nigerian boarding school

Boko Haram kills 59 children at Nigerian boarding school | World news | theguardian.com: "Some of the students' bodies were burned to ashes," police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the attack on the federal government college of Buni Yadi, a secondary school in Yobe state, near the state's capital city of Damaturu.

Bala Ajiya, an official at the Specialist Hospital Damaturu, said the death toll had risen to 59. "Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students who had escaped with bullet wounds died from their injuries," he said.

Rufai, who had given an earlier estimate of 29 killed, said all those killed were boys. He said the school's 24 buildings, including staff quarters, were completely burned to the ground."



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Popular Uprising, Foreign Manipulation and Rising Fascism in Ukraine

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations - The Intercept

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations - The Intercept: "Among the core self-identified purposes of ( the British) JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:"



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Putin Says Sochi Criticism Motivated by Global Politics

Putin Says Sochi Criticism Motivated by Global Politics | Sochi 2014 | RIA Novosti: "“There is a cohort of critics that are far from sport, they are engaged in a competitive struggle in international politics,” Putin said in an interview aired Monday night. “They used this Olympic project to achieve their own objectives in the field of anti-Russian propaganda.""



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US expands military net over Africa, checking China’s influence

US expands military net over Africa, checking China’s influence — RT Op-Edge: "The United States, like its allies Britain and France, has long maintained influence and indirect control in Africa through financial institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and African Development Bank. It has exerted political influence using aid organizations such as USAID and NGOs like the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and others.

However, recent years have seen an unprecedented military expansion which has gone almost entirely unnoticed by the US public.

After 9/11, the United States began to grow its military footprint on the African continent under the guise of a ‘War on Terror’, selling this notion to a United States gripped with fear of terrorism. With programs such as the Pan-Sahel Initiative, later broadened into the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative, Washington managed to provide military and financial assistance to compliant countries in North Africa – a policy whose practical application meant that the US military became the dominant force in the Sahel region, supplying the human and material resources for which the governments of the region were starved. Naturally, this meant an implicit subservience to US military command."



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Russia to Strengthen Mediterranean Force With ‘Stealth’ Subs

Russia to Strengthen Mediterranean Force With ‘Stealth’ Subs | Defense | RIA Novosti: " The combat capability of Russia’s naval task force in the Mediterranean will increase significantly following the first deliveries of Varshavyanka-class submarines to the Black Sea Fleet in 2015, Navy Commander Adm. Viktor Chirkov said Thursday.
Russia formed a permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean last year to defend its interests in the region. The move was widely seen, however, as a response to calls for international intervention in the worsening civil war in Syria, Russia’s longtime ally."



The Defense Ministry has ordered a total of six Varshavyanka-class subs, dubbed “black holes in the ocean” by the US Navy because they are nearly undetectable when submerged



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Rise in children treated on adult mental health wards in the U.K.

BBC News - Rise in children treated on adult mental health wards: "One mother, who did not want to be named, said her 12-year-old daughter was sent from Hull to a psychiatric unit in Stafford, 130 miles away.

"One time she got upset because she didn't want me to go and they had to prise her off me," the mother said.

"They put her in a room and as I was leaving the unit she was shouting out the window, 'Mummy, Mummy, don't leave me, please. Don't leave me, Mummy'."



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Iran defense capabilities non-negotiable: Zarif

PressTV - Iran defense capabilities non-negotiable: Zarif: "Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the country’s defense and scientific capabilities are non-negotiable and no Iranian nuclear site will be dismantled.

“Our framework is based on the Geneva accord (reached last November) and they (the six world powers) agreed on the point that only issues related to Iran’s nuclear program can be negotiated in these talks,” Zarif said in Vienna on Thursday following a new round of talks with the world powers.

“Our defense issues are out of [the question in] these talks; so are our defense capabilities,” he said, adding that Iran and the world powers – the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – have not discussed any dismantling of Iran’s nuclear facilities."



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Ukraine truce fails, rioters renew offensive in Kiev, death toll rises to 35

Ukraine truce fails, rioters renew offensive in Kiev, death toll rises to 35 — RT News: "Rioters have reached the Rada building (the country's parliament), while the police have been pushed back into Mariinsky park nearby. An emergency evacuation has been declared and parliament members and employees are leaving the building.

Protesters hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police on Thursday morning as violence broke out once again in spite of the day of mourning that had been declared as a mark of respect for the 35 people who have died in the unrest. Ambulances have been sent to Maidan and video footage shows several people carried away on stretchers."



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Radioactive water leaks at Fukushima plant

Brazil rations water in 140 cities amid worst drought in decades

Brazil rations water in 140 cities amid worst drought in decades — RT News: "Over 140 Brazilian cities have been pushed to ration water during the worst drought on record, according to a survey conducted by the country's leading newspaper. Some neighborhoods only receive water once every three days.

Water is being rationed to nearly 6 million people living in a total of 142 cities across 11 states in Brazil, the world's leading exporter of soybeans, coffee, orange juice, sugar and beef. Water supply companies told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that the country's reservoirs, rivers and streams are the driest they have been in 20 years. A record heat wave could raise energy prices and damage crops.
"



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Australia concedes spying on Indonesia

PressTV - Australia concedes spying on Indonesia: "Based on a top secret document leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its Australian counterpart have spied on an American law firm that was representing Indonesia in trade disputes with Washington.

The relations between Jakarta and Canberra plunged last November after reports emerged that Australia had tried to tap the phones of Indonesian officials in 2009.

The reports also showed that the Australian diplomatic missions have helped the US to monitor phone calls and other communications in the Asia-Pacific region. The intelligence activities took place in several Australian Embassies located in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand."



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I was a victim of the 2012 floods.The clean-up took 15 months- the guardian

".....we are no longer insured for flood damage. Although the government wants everyone in flood risk areas to be insured it is far from clear how this can work. No new company would take us on, and the one we had before increased the premium by 300% and raised the previously small excess to £100,000. They may call that insurance but I don't."


theguardian.com:

Russia offers alternative Syria resolution, slams West-Arab draft as helping 'military aggression' — RT News

Russia offers alternative Syria resolution, slams West-Arab draft as helping 'military aggression' — RT News: "Both Russia and the West have presented their draft resolutions on delivering humanitarian aid to Syria. Moscow accuses the West of paving way to military aggression, whereas Washington blames Russia for insufficient action to help suffering Syrians.

Russia presented its own draft resolution on Syria in the UN after fiercely criticizing the Western-Arab draft resolution brought in last Thursday.

“We have presented our own draft resolution on Syria to the UN Security Council,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference on Thursday, adding that it laid out “our vision of the role the Security Council can play if we want to foster a solution to the problems and not antagonize one side or the other.”"



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Greece's jobless rate up at record 28% in November

Exclusive: EU executive sees personal savings used to plug long-term financing gap | Reuters

Exclusive: EU executive sees personal savings used to plug long-term financing gap | Reuters: " The savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.

The EU is looking for ways to wean the 28-country bloc from its heavy reliance on bank financing and find other means of funding small companies, infrastructure projects and other investment."



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Trust is in short supply between developed and emerging countries

Satyajit Das: Trust is in short supply between developed and emerging countries - The Independent: "Developed nations have chosen policies to devalue their currencies, through a combination of low interest rates and increasing the supply of money. These actions erode the value of sovereign bonds in which other nations, like China, Japan, Germany and others, have invested their savings."



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UK to spend £2.5bn on F-35 fighters- BBC News

Main points:
1-critics have questioned Ministry of Defence suggestions that the jets will be fully combat capable by 2020. 

2- it has been plagued by development problems, is years late into service and the true cost to the UK is only just becoming clear.

3-With 8.4m lines of software, it is by far the most complex fighter ever built, but a Pentagon inspector's report stated that by last summer only 2% of that code was fully up to standard. Much of the plane's software, including that needed to aim and launch weapons, remains to be proven in tests.

 4-Former Royal Navy chief Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, who now works with Lockheed Martin, believes the new aircraft is vital to maintaining Britain's status as a serious international player.

 5-One Pentagon estimate last year for an aircraft plus support costs for the first few years came out at £154m ($253m) each.

 6-It's planned that the 14 aircraft will form the first operational squadron in 2018, and that by 2020 they will be able to fly from HMS Queen Elizabeth. Justin Bronk, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, says that even by then, they might be capable only of "going through the motions" - taking off and landing - and not using the more advanced weapons in the RAF inventory.
via the BBC
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Why are we worse off than our parents?- Channel 4 News.

Barclays Bonuses Up 10% As 7,000 UK Jobs Are Cut- SKY News

Barclays Bonuses Up 10% As 7,000 Jobs Are Cut: "Barclays bank has pushed up staff bonuses by 10% despite seeing both its revenue and profit fall, as it admits 7,000 UK job cuts will occur this year.

The bank said it would pay £2.378bn in "incentives", following the release of its annual results for 2013.

It said investment banking staff would receive two-thirds of the bonus pool - £1.57bn.

It said the average value of incentives paid to workers in the investment bank was £60,100, up from £54,500 in 2012.

The bonus increase was 10.2%, despite income at the section sliding 9% last year to £10.73bn."
Video report from Press TV--


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Blast at Pakistan cinema leaves many dead - Al Jazeera English

Blast at Pakistan cinema leaves many dead - Al Jazeera English: "At least 10 people have been killed and 20 others wounded in an explosion targeting a cinema in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar, Al Jazeera's correspondents have said.

Tuesday's blast hit Shama cinema, known to show adult rated movies, and is owned by the Bilour family, one of the most powerful political families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said our reporters.

City police chief Mohammad Ijaz Ahmed said three grenades were used and up to 80 people were in the cinema at the time."



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Flood-hit areas in for 'long haul', says David Cameron - BBC News

BBC News - UK floods: Flood-hit areas in for 'long haul', says David Cameron: "More wet weather is affecting flood-stricken parts of the UK, with severe flood warnings in place along the Thames and in Somerset.

Fourteen severe flood warnings are in place in Berkshire and Surrey, and two in Somerset.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the floods were a "huge challenge" and "we are in it for a long haul"."



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