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The Telegraph (UK) January 9, 2015 Fitch has downgraded Russia's credit rating and painted a horrific picture of a struggling economy rocked by a collapsing rouble, falling oil prices, high inflation and declining international reserves. The ratings agency cut the country to BBB- from BBB with a negative outlook, meaning further downgrades are possible. But it was the language Fitch used in its reasoning that was most shocking. Russia's economic outlook "has deteriorated significantly" in just six months, Fitch stated. Gross Domestic Product will shrink 4pc this year, the agency added, far worse than the 1.5pc contraction it previously expected....

Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros has urged the West to step up aid to Ukraine, outlining steps towards a $50 billion (33.22 billion pounds) financing package that he said should be viewed as a bulwark against an increasingly aggressive Russia.Writing in the New York Review of Books, Soros said Europe and the United States needed to balance sanctions imposed on Russia with large-scale assistance to near-bankrupt Ukraine, which risks defaulting on debt as a result of turmoil caused by pro-Russia separatist fighting.

Not so much respect that the state should recognize their commitment as a legal marriage, he stresses, but respect nonetheless. “We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “I hope that we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue – including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.”… Gay rights leaders said...

Stefano Pozzebon December 31, 2014 Russia plans to build a new high speed railway, with trains that would speed from Moscow to Beijing in just 48 hours. At the moment, it takes about seven days to commute between the two cities and the route requires changes. According to Romanian website Glasul, the Kremlin has awarded the project to China Railway High-speed (CRH), a subsidiary of the state-controlled China Railway (CR), which is working in a joint-venture with the local firm Uralvagonzavod. CR is famous in the train industry for operating the world's only magnetic levitation train in an urban area,...

In his annual year end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is in fact mentally unhinged. For three hours, by turns he demonstrated signs of schizophrenic paranoia, pathological dishonesty, deep seated passive-aggressive tendencies, woeful ignorance of world affairs and economics, and delusional confidence in Russia’s future prospects. Putin evokes the national self-image of the Russian bear. Putin’s bear is a natural hunter contentedly chasing pigs and boars, but otherwise minding his own business in his own sovereign forest. But somebody wants this bear to have a makeover, and to give up...

Victoria Nuland, U.S. secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said the U.S. has been internally preparing more financial support to Ukraine.“Senior IMF leadership was in Ukraine this week issuing a public validation of the reform program going forward but also confirming that the program agreed last year is going to need a significant adjustment – that there is a fiscal hole to the tune of $10-15 billion,” Nuland said at the American Enterprise Institute during a discussion examining the Ukrainian revolution one year later.“We expect that the IMF and the World Bank will have to increase their support...

Russia has adopted a new military doctrine, keeping North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion first among its list of primary external threats. The revised doctrine [PDF in Russian - 29 pages with 58 sections], signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday, is comparable to a 2010 version, which also listed NATO expansion as a primary threat. Additions to the doctrine include a highlighting of the threat from "global strategic antiballistic missile systems" and a Russian goal to protect its interests in the Arctic region, according to Russian state-funded news organization RT. The doctrine’s adoption comes days after Ukraine took a...

<p>MOSCOW — The ruble extended its rebound, hitting the highest levels in two weeks Tuesday, as Russian authorities ordered major state companies to sell foreign currency to stabilize the market.</p> <p>The order, which applies to big exporters including Gazprom OGZPY, -0.41% and Rosneft RU:ROSN is part of a package of stabilization measures that the government and central bank have imposed to pull the ruble USDRUB, -1.12% back from the record lows set during last week’s currency crisis. So far, the authorities have kept promises not to impose administrative controls on capital flows or ruble convertibility, sticking instead to less-formal steps.</p>

Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war. Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status -- a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars. President Petro Poroshenko had vowed to put Ukraine under Western military protection after winning an election called in the wake of the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president. "Ukraine's fight for its independence,...

With a quiet, almost unnoticed nomination just before Thanksgiving, President Barack Obama rewarded Media Matters for its help in attacking reporters and critics of the administration. At the same time, he virtually guaranteed that a federal agency that is supposed to improve the administration of elections will instead become a partisan battleground intended to help his political party. On Nov. 19, the White House issued a press release announcing that it was withdrawing the nomination of Myrna Perez, a lawyer at the Brennan Center, to be a commissioner on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). It instead nominated Matthew S....

In addition to major telecommunications firms aiming to influence the public debate on net neutrality, there’s the Ford Foundation, the second-largest private foundation in the world. “If you are a foundation for justice in the world, and you don’t understand that the Internet is going to be a major battleground in this century, and you’re not engaged in that fight and supporting people who are concerned about access and security, you’re going to be left out of one of the most important justice issues of the day,” Foundation President Darren Walker told the Council on Foreign Relations this summer. “And...

MR. BILDERBERG (GEORGE SOROS): Gets His North American Union Tomorrow November 19, 2014 – The Lame Stream Media reports that on Thursday Mr. Soetoro (aka BHO) will announce that the North American Union will be in full force. The puppet-master of Soetoro (George Soros) has been working since 1986 as a managing agent of the Bank of England aka Rothschild Empire (aka Vatican Hierarchy) to create a North American Union much like the European Union. Read more at: http://www.americanresistanceparty.org

SOROS, MASTERMIND OF 2002-2014 North American Union November 17, 2014 – “On June 11, 2002 a conference on North American integration was held by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The center, which influences policy making in Washington, is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Gates Foundation and George Soros. During the 2002 meeting, shocking revelations were made regarding the elite’s plans to create a North American Union between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. In order to accomplish this, representatives from various think tanks agreed that a campaign of social engineering (sic) needed to re-shape beliefs about...

PRESS RELEASE NOVEMBER 8, 2014 GEORGE SOROS CONTROLS CALIFORNIA: Jerry Brown - a willing puppet November 8, 2014 – The Center for American Progress (CAP) describes itself as “an independent nonpartisan educational institute dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action” in such areas as “energy, national security, economic growth and opportunity, immigration, education, and health care.” CAP is a key member of the Shadow Party, a network of non-profit activist groups organized by George Soros and others to mobilize resources -- money, get-out-the-vote drives, campaign advertising, and policy initatives -- to advance Socialist/Marxist agendas. See:...

You won't see the news in the mainstream media. After all, this is not a priest. 44-year-old Stefan Johansson, former President of the RFSL (Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas och transpersoners rättigheter), or the National Association for the Rights of Homosexuals, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, was sentenced on 24 October to five years in prison and ordered to pay 60,000 euros for pain and suffering caused by rape, pimping and paedophilia. Founded in 1950, the the National Association for the Rights of Homosexuals, Bisexuals and Transsexuals is Sweden's largest organization of its kind, with more than 6,000 members. The RFSL was...

Breaking Three Teen Girls Killed By Car While Trick-or-Treating In Santa Ana Santa Ana By RYAN PARKER Three children were killed when they were hit by a car while trick-or-treating in O.C.; driver fled scene Three teenage girls were killed by a hit-and-run driver Friday evening while they were trick-or-treating in Santa Ana, police said. The three were struck by a driver "going at a high rate of speed" while they were in a crosswalk in the area of Old Grand Street and Fairhaven Avenue, near Fairhaven Elementary School, said Anthony Bertagna, a spokesman for the Santa Ana police.

The NAACP has been a hollow organization for a while. Its membership may or may not exist, but it’s so small that it represents a tiny fraction of African-Americans. ... There’s a reason why Obama took a pass at appearing before the NAACP. It’s a dying organization being kept alive as a front for various lefty causes that have nothing to do with black people or that black people oppose, like illegal immigration and gay rights, and because its legacy is useful to provide cover on voter fraud issues. Now the Democratic Party’s favorite anti-Semitic Nazi collaborator is helping the...

Despite no official action from the president ahead of the election, the Obama administration has quietly begun preparing to issue millions of work authorization permits, suggesting the implementation of a large-scale executive amnesty may have already begun. Unnoticed until now, a draft solicitation for bids issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Oct. 6 says potential vendors must be capable of handling a “surge” scenario of 9 million id cards in one year “to support possible future immigration reform initiative requirements.”

And now, in what may plant further seeds of mistrust and suspicion, a major Liberian newspaper, the Daily Observer, has published an article by a Liberian-born faculty member of a U.S. university implying the epidemic is the result of bioterrorism experiments conducted by the United States Department of Defense, among others. “They are using” Ebola, wrote one, “for culling the world population mainly Africa for the…purpose of gaining control of the Africans resources criminally.” The piece purports to describe scientific findings from various “reports,” which are not cited in detail, and even references the bestselling thriller, “The Hot Zone.” “Reports...

This week the AFL-CIO threw its considerable weight behind Democrat-turned-independent Greg Orman in his bid for U.S. Senate in Kansas. This came on the heels of a debate that was all about defining who Greg Orman really is: ... The AFL-CIO won't run TV ads for Orman, spokesman Jeff Hauser said, but his campaign will now be incorporated into the union's extensive ground game there. The AFL-CIO had previously endorsed Kansas's Democratic Party's gubernatorial nominee, Paul Davis, who is locked into one of the country's most competitive gubernatorial contests with incumbent Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. During Wednesday's debate, incumbent Sen....