We already know that the Russian economy is on shaky ground as their economy depends upon gas and oil exports. The recent Israeli gas and oil discoveries threaten the Russian economy as much as any other factor, including the recent drop in gas prices. This obviously involves speculation, as we know the land of Magog will come to "loot and plunder" and that could have several meanings yet to be determined. However, Russia is very interested in Israel's recent discoveries:
Russia wants in on the Israeli natural gas boom, but the U.S. wants them to stay out, and that’s why they haven’t made progress negotiating with the Israelis, ambassador to Israel Sergey Yakovlev hinted in an interview withGlobes.
Russia has been seeking entry into the Mediterranean gas fields for some time, but so far to no avail. Gazprom, for one, showed interest in becoming a partner in the Leviathan reserve, one of the most important in the Mediterranean Sea, but nothing substantive came of it.
The world is more nervous about the drift toward nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia than at any time since 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis. When French President Francois Hollande urgently side-tracked his return-flight from a diplomatic mission recently, in order to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, at a private room that had been scoured ahead of time to eliminate any possible bugging devices, there was speculation as to what had caused Hollande’s sudden detour, and there were even rumors of a possible cause being an American “false-flag” event in the works to be blamed on Russia as a pretext for going to war against Russia
All that was publicly released about the two-hour meeting were platitudes, hardly anything that would have justified side-tracking Hollande’s flight so as to surprise intelligence agencies and be able to meet the Russian leader in an untapped room.
As President Obama’s speech at West Point, on 28 May 2014, propagandized for (i.e., rationalized) this conquer-Russia view on the part of America’s aristocracy: “Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us.” So, Obama made clear to the graduating West Point cadets that the BRIC countries are the enemy (Russia and its leading supporters of international independence, the enemies against a mono-polar or “hegemonic” world), from the standpoint of America’s aristocracy, whom the U.S. military now serves to the exclusion of any public interest. Ours want to crush the aristocrats in Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Though it’s alright for those other countries to produce more, that’s true only if American aristocrats control the local ones there, like in any other international empire — not if the local nation’s aristocrats control the country. That’s not the way aristocrats in banana republics are supposed to behave. They’re not supposed to be independent countries. Not really.
The President who had invaded Libya and Syria, and re-invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and who perpetrated a violent overthrow and installed racist fascists (nazis) in control of Ukraine, is lecturing the world against “Russia’s aggression,” for its having accepted back into Russia’s traditional fold little Crimea, which craved to return to Russia.
On December 11th, the U.S. Senate voted 100% (unanimously) to donate U.S. weapons to the Ukrainian Government in its war against Russia. On December 4th, 98% of the U.S. House had done likewise. Both bills also accuse Russia of having invaded Ukraine, and this accusation of an aggressive Russia provides a pretext for the U.S. to attack Russia, now that the Ukrainian Government has flipped from neutral (according to some estimations) or pro-Russian (according to others) to being clearly and publicly anti-Russian...They then promptly set about terminating Russia’s 42-year Crimean lease for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is key to Russia’s security. Crimeans, who had always overwhelmingly considered themselves to be Russians and not Ukrainians, demonstrated against that Ukrainian move against them and against Russia, and Russian troops came into Crimea, to local applause, but to the condemnation from Washington and its allies.
Russia’s taking back Crimea was not aggression at all, though America’s noise-media say it was; it was instead protection of Crimeans against the CIA’s American invasion of Ukraine. When the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev donated Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, it was much to the consternation of Crimeans at the time, and ever since. Yet, one of the explicit alleged ‘justifications’ for war against Russia, that are listed in the Republican House’s bill (“Whereas the Russian Federation’s forcible occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea. …”) is a blatant lie, because Crimeans overwhelmingly wanted Russia’s protection against the new, Obama-imposed, Ukrainian regime, which Obama’s State Department and CIA had just installed when overthrowing the President for whom nearly 80% of Crimeans had voted.
In fact, a poll that was issued by Gallup in June 2014 showed then that 71.3% of Crimeans viewed as “Mostly positive” the role of Russia there, and 4.0% viewed it as “Mostly negative”; by contrast, only 2.8% viewed the role of the United States there as “Mostly positive,” and a whopping 76.2% viewed it as “Mostly negative.” This wasn’t much changed from a year-earlier Gallup poll.
So, now, both the Senate and the House, plus the U.S. President (via his State Department, CIA, FBI, and entire Administration), are actually at war, a hot war not a cold war, against Russia, through their proxy, their made-in-Washington, racist-fascist or nazi, Government of Ukraine, which currently is doing the fighting and the killing and the dying, but which couldn’t do it but for that Western backing.
Western nations want to chain “the Russian bear,” pull out its teeth and ultimately have it stuffed, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned. He said anti-Russian sanctions are the cost of being an independent nation.
Putin used the vivid metaphor of a “chained bear” during his annual Q&A session with the media in Moscow in response to a question about whether he believed that the troubles of the Russian economy were payback for the reunification with Crimea.
“It’s not payback for Crimea. It’s the cost of our natural desire to preserve Russia as a nation, a civilization and a state,” Putin said.
The president said that even if “the Russian bear” started “sitting tight… and eating berries and honey,”this would not stop pressure being applied against the country.
“They won’t leave us alone. They will always seek to chain us. And once we are chain, they’ll rip out our teeth and claws. Our nuclear deterrence, speaking in present-day terms,” Putin said.
“As soon as this [chaining the bear] happens, nobody will need it anymore. They’ll stuff it. And start to put their hands on his Taiga [Siberian forest belt] after it. We’ve heard statements from Western officials that Russia’s owning Siberia was not fair,” he exclaimed.
Now that U.S. intelligence has blamed North Korea for the Nov. 24 cyber attack on Sony Pictures, there is growing concern that the Hermit Kingdom has the capability of bringing down the vulnerable U.S. national grid system.
However, national security experts question North Korea’s capability to take down an entire grid system alone through a cyber attack, as opposed to targeting an individual company.
At first, North Korea wasn’t assessed to have the capability of such an electronic attack. But U.S. intelligence sources said it increases the threat of an attack on the nation’s life-sustaining, critical infrastructure.
Sources told WND it was the 3,000-person North Korean Unit 121 that undertook the sophisticated attack on Sony.
“You have to assume that North Korea is in our grid,” said retired Col. Cedric Leighton, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer.
He did not elaborate on the extent of the communist nation’s ability to launch a cyber attack on the U.S. grid.
To underscore the potential of its cyber-attack capabilities, Peter Pry, who was staff director to the congressionally mandated commission that studied the impact of an electromagnetic pulse event, or EMP, on the grid and other critical infrastructures that depend on it, said North Korea has invested heavily in cyber-warfare capabilities over the past 20 years.
Pry also is executive director of the congressional advisory Task Force on National and Homeland Security, and spoke with WND in an exclusive interview.
Russia and China similarly have isolated their critical infrastructures from cyber attack, he said, and they have hardened their grids against a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack as well.
On the other hand, the U.S. and its allies are vulnerable due to their interconnectivity to the Web.
Underscoring Pry’s concerns about China’s cyber warfare capabilities, National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers last week told Congress that China indeed could shut down the U.S.
Rogers said China, along with “one or two” other countries, had the capability to launch a cyber-attack that could shut down the electric grid system in parts of the U.S.
With the U.S. remaining on the defensive, it is a “losing strategy,” Rogers said.
He said the cyber threat was “so real,” the first admission by a top cyber official such as Rogers confirmed that prospect publicly.
He said that U.S. adversaries constantly are doing electronic “reconnaissance” looking for ways to attack industrial control systems that automatically operate pipelines, chemical facilities, water treatment plants and other SCADA-operated facilities.
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"IDF strikes Gaza following earlier rocket fire"
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