Meanwhile, China Quietly Takes Over Zimbabwe

While the developed world is focusing on the rapidly deteriorating developments in the Crimean, China, which has kept a very low profile on the Ukraine situation aside from the token diplomatic statement, is taking advantage of this latest distraction to do what it does best: quietly take over the global periphery while nobody is looking. 

Over two years ago we reported that none other than Zimbabwe - best known in recent history for banknotes with many zeros in them - was bashing the US currency, and had alligned itself with the Chinese Yuan. This culminated last month with the announcement by Zimbabwe’s central bank that it would accept the Chinese yuan and three other Asian currencies as legal tender as economic relations have improved in recent years. "Trade and investment ties between Zimbabwe, China, India, Japan and Australia have grown appreciably," said Charity Dhliwayo, acting governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Business Live reported then:

Exporters and the public can now open accounts in yuans, Australian dollars, Indian rupees and Japanese yen, Dhliwayo said. Zimbabwe abandoned its worthless currency in 2009.

It accepts the US dollar and the South African rand as the main legal tender. Their use has helped to stabilise the economy after world-record inflation threw it into a tailspin.

Independent economist Chris Mugaga said the introduction of the Asian currencies would not make a huge difference to Zimbabwe’s struggling economy.

"It is Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy, which has forced this, and nothing else," he said.

And now, as a result of the "Look East Policy", we learn that China has just achieved what every ascendent superpower in preparation for "gunboat diplomacy" mode needs: a key strategic airforce base. From the Zimbabwean.

China is planning to set up a modern high-tech military base in the diamond-rich Marange fields, says a German-based website, Telescope News.

The news of the agreement to set up the first Chinese military airbase in Africa comes amid increasing bilateral cooperation between Zimbabwe and China – notably in mining, agriculture and preferential trade. China is the only country exempted from the indigenisation laws which force all foreign investors to cede 51% of their shareholding to carefully selected indigenous Zimbabweans.

The airstrip at Marange has sophisticated radar
systems and ultra-modern facilities

The Marange story quoted unnamed military officials and a diplomat admitting knowledge of the plan to set up the base. Efforts to get a comment from the Zimbabwe Defence Forces were fruitless, as spokesperson Lt Col Alphios Makotore was consistently unavailable and did not respond to emails by the time of going to press.

The website speculated that China could be positioning itself for future “gunboat diplomacy” where its military presence would give it bargaining power against superpowers like the US. It would also be safeguarding its significant economic interests in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa.

Veil of secrecy

“Military officials in Zimbabwe said details of the airbase plan were sketchy and mostly classified due to the veil of secrecy around President Robert Mugabe’s relationship with China’s Red Army. A sizeable number of Chinese troops are reported to have their boots on the ground in the Marange diamond fields, which have since been cordoned off as a high level security zone,” said the publication.

It added that a senior Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) officer based in Harare confirmed that there were rumours of the impending establishment of the airstrip as a “follow up to a military treaty signed between China and Zimbabwe in July 2005”.

Telescope News has made sensational claims in recent weeks, among them that Defence Minister and Zanu (PF) Secretary for Legal Affairs, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was secretly anointed by the military to succeed President Robert Mugabe.

Key battleground

It quoted a former Asian diplomat deployed to Zimbabwe for almost a decade as saying: “Haven’t you heard that Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today? As such in terms of geo-politics Zimbabwe is already a key battleground, for various competing powers. During my stay there, we heard about many military agreements being signed between the two countries.”

Chinese companies are heavily involved in diamond mining, in partnership with the Zimbabwe Government. They are believed to have constructed the airstrip at Marange that many suspect is being used to clandestinely haul diamonds to unknown destinations. It has sophisticated radar systems and ultra-modern facilities.

At this point expect to see a prompt, and unexpected, escalation in hostilities in southern Africa, most likely due to latent ethnic conflict of some kind (and brought back to the surface with the help of a few CIA dollars), which in turn will be the justification for US drones to begin operations in proximity to Zimbabwe to keep up with China's encroaching take over of Africa, now from the south.

Perhaps most interesting is the finding that Zimbabwe's president-cum-dictator, Robert Mugabe, so widely despised by the west, is in fact on China's payroll:

Confidential Central Intelligence Organisation documents leaked last year suggested that China had played a central role in retaining President Robert Mugabe in the July 31 elections, indicating that high level military officers had worked closely with the local army in poll strategies while Beijing bankrolled Zanu (PF).

China is Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner after South Africa and has strategic economic interests in many African countries to guarantee raw materials, job sources and markets for its huge population.

The new Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Lin Lin, recently said trade between the two countries last year exceeded the $1 billion mark. Yet Zimbabwe is only 26th on the list of China’s 58 biggest African trading partners.

The Asian country has supplied Zimbabwe with military hardware, including MIG jet fighters, tanks, armoured vehicles and rifles, since Independence.

In other words, while nobody was looking, China just took over one more nation without spilling a drop of blood. And now back to the regularly scheduled Crimean War part X.

Credit to Zero Hedge

China Says U.S. Economy Is Fake

UK home ownership is at a record low. Best Buy, Wells Fargo are laying off more employees. The housing market is plummeting and Wells Fargo along with JPM are laying off mortgage employees. China stood up to the US and said the US economy is fake, the dollar is backed by nothing and the US has no manufacturing to support its economy. According to Edward Snowden trolls do exist and the government pays them to place comments on alternative media sites on the internet. Crimea is discussing to separate from the Ukraine. John Kerry wants a discussion between the US and Russia on Ukraine’s future. DHS is now warning that Boston Bombing might be the sign of the future for terrorist attacks.

Credit to Investment Watch
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/china-says-u-s-economy-is-fake-nothing-backs-the-dollar-and-has-no-manufacturing-to-support-its-economy/#esd1THs6JypIuHuJ.99

Ukraine Orders Full Military Mobilization, Acting PM Says Russian Actions "Declaration Of War"

With less than 6 hours left until FX trading opens, no resolution to the Ukraine crisis is in sight. Instead the situation has devolved even more and overnight Ukraine has ordered a full military mobilization in response to Russia's build-up of its forces in Crimea. Prime Minster Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the country was "on the brink of disaster." Several other measures were announced on Sunday by national security officials:
The armed forces would be put on "full combat readiness".
Reserves to be mobilised and trained
Ukraine's foreign minister will seek the help of US and UK leaders in guaranteeing its security
Emergency headquarters to be set up
Increased security at key sites, including nuclear plants.
Airspace closed to all non-civilian aircraft.

WSJ has more:

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Sunday that his country was "on the brink of disaster" and personally blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for bringing the two nations to the verge of war. Speaking to reporters at the Ukrainian parliament, Mr. Yatsenyuk called on the international community to rein in Mr. Putin and pressure him to remove troops from the Crimean peninsula, where a majority of residents are ethnic Russians but have Ukrainian passports.

"If President Putin wants to be the president who starts the war between two friendly and neighboring countries, he has [almost] reached this target," Mr. Yatsenyuk said. "We are on the brink of disaster. There was no reason for the Russian Federation to invade Ukraine."

Western diplomats doubt that the Ukrainian armed forces would be able to match up to the Russian forces already in control of the critical infrastructure and border points in the Crimea.

Ukrainian leaders say that Russia has already sent an additional 6,000 troops to Crimea since tensions arose in the peninsula last week. The two countries have a military agreement that allows Moscow to base forces in the region, but Ukrainian officials accuse Moscow of violating that treaty by not informing Kiev of additional troops, and by moving forces without prior notice. Moscow says that it is in compliance of the accord.

Earlier Sunday, Ukraine's interior minister said Russian officials had approached Ukrainian officers remaining in Crimea and offered them immediate Russian citizenship.

"Across the entire territory of Crimea, Russian emissaries and military officers have invited the remaining Ukrainian interior ministry troops to take Russian citizenship and immediately receive Russian passports," Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page. "This appeal has been aimed at upper and middle officer corps troops."

Mr. Avakov denied that Ukrainian forces had threatened the Russian-speaking population on the largely pro-Russian peninsula, and blamed Russian forces for the sharp militarization of the region.

"In Crimea, there are no forces from the interior ministry or the regular army threatening citizens of the Russian Federation or the Russian-speaking population," he said. "And also no self-defense units from Maidan have arrived from Kiev. All destabilization in the Crimea has come from and been masterminded in Russia."

The BBC adds that it has seen what appear to be Russian troops digging trenches on the Crimean border. Furthermore, a standoff between Ukrainian troops who have fortified a base in the crimean city of Privolnoye, borth place of the late USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev, and Russians who have surrounded them, may be the match that set it all off. Fox reports that hundreds of unidentified gunmen surrounded a Ukraine's infantry base in Privolnoye in its Crimea region Sunday. The convoy included at least 13 troop vehicles each containing 30 soldiers and four armored vehicles with mounted machine guns. The vehicles -- which have Russian license plates -- have surrounded the base and are blocking Ukrainian soldiers from entering or leaving it.

This is the current state of the standoff:



In response, acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said themove by Russian forces to surround military bases in Crimea was "a declaration of war."

His comments were echoed by acting president Oleksandr Turchynov, who said Ukraine had closed its airspace to non-civilian aircraft. Among the other statements by Yatsenyuk, asreported by the WSJ:
Ukrainian PM: ‘If President Putin Wants to Be the President Who Starts the War Between Two Friendly and Neighboring Countries, He Has [Almost] Reached This Target’
Ukrainian PM: ‘We are on the brink of disaster’
Ukrainian PM: ‘There Was No Reason for the Russian Federation to Invade Ukraine
Ukrainian PM: We Believe Western Partners and Entire Western Community Will Support Entire Territorial Integrity of Ukraine
Ukrainian PM: We Believe They Will Do Everything They Can to Stop Russian Military Aggression in Ukraine
Ukrainian Defense Ministry: All Ukraine’s Border Patrol Ships Moved Out of Crimean Ports to Odessa
Ukraine PM: Every Half Hour There Are Provocations in Crimea and Ukraine Refuses to Respond to These Provocations
Ukraine PM: Ukraine Hasn’t Given Permission to Russia to Deploy an Additional 6,000 troops to Crimea

All told, some 6,000 extra Russian troops and 30 additional armoured vehicles are now in Crimea, Ukrainian Defence Minister Ihor Tenyukh said on Saturday.

An interactive map of the key Ukraine battlefields is shown below:



Finallly, there was the traditional escalation in Western diplomacy with both France and Britain announcing they are putting on hold their plans for participation in the G-8 conference to be held in Sochi.

It gets better. From the WSJ:

France is not considering any military action in response to Russia’s decision to deploy troops inside Ukraine, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday, as Western countries instead sought to renew diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

In an interview with French TV, Mr. Fabius said Poland had requested a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, military alliance “because it feels threatened by what’s going on in Ukraine.”

Asked if France would intervene militarily in Ukraine, Mr. Fabius responded: “Today, this is not the hypothesis. I’m telling you we want a de-escalation.”

“France’s position is to call for the suspension of preparation ahead of the G-8 meeting in Sochi as long as the Russian partners have not returned to principles in agreement with the G-8 and G-7,” Mr. Fabius said.

Apparently unlike Mali and the Central African Republic, Russian can fight back.

And then there's this:
Kerry Says U.S. Considering Sanctions on Russia for Ukraine Move

Well if nothing else stopped Putin, this surely will.
CRedit to Zero Hedge

US Ambassador to China resigns

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, delivered farewell remarks on Wednesday to mark the end of his three-year tenure as ambassador.

Locke explained his decision, which he described as "not an easy decision," to return to the U.S. so that his two oldest children could complete their high school education in Seattle, saying "it was a family decision." Locke's wife Mona returned for the farewell, having departed China several months earlier with their children.

"... I depart Beijing with a real sense of achievement and a great sense of optimism for what the future holds for our two great countries."

Secretary of State John Kerry lauded Locke's achievements Thursday, calling him "a champion of human dignity and a relentless advocate for America’s values," and cited Locke's success in reducing the wait time for a U.S. visa to three days and increasing Chinese investment into the U.S. beyond what it had been in the past 11 years combined.

Kerry also noted the ambassador's personal journey as a descendant of Chinese immigrants who then became the first ambassador to China of Chinese ancestry.

"The first time I heard him speak at the Magnuson Awards in Seattle, Gary talked movingly about what it meant to be the son and grandson of Chinese immigrants. It was a story," Kerry said, that was "stamped into his DNA as a public servant, and it became lessons stamped into his DNA as a diplomat."

Locke previously served as secretary of Commerce and governor of Washington. He was appointed ambassador to China in 2011.



Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/02/27/US-Ambassador-to-China-resigns/3301393557365/#ixzz2udu9PBzb

Rome days away from bankruptcy

Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, came under pressure on Thursday as the city of Rome was on the brink of bankruptcy after parliament threw out a bill that would have injected fresh funding.

Ignazio Marino, Rome mayor, said city services like public transport would come to a halt and that he would not be a "Nero" - the Roman emperor who, legend has it, strummed his lyre as the city burnt to the ground.

Marino said that Renzi, a centre-left leader and former mayor of Florence who was only confirmed by parliament this week, had promised to adopt urgent measures to help the Italian capital at a cabinet meeting on Friday.

The newly-elected mayor faces a budget deficit of 816 million euros ($1.1 billion) and the city could be placed under administration if he does not manage to close the gap with measures such as cutting public services.

"Rome has wasted money for decades. I don't want to spend another euro that is not budgeted," Marino said, following criticism from the Northern League opposition party which helped shoot down the bill for Rome in parliament.

The draft law would have included funding for Rome from the central government budget as a compensation for the extra costs it faces because of its role as the capital including tourism traffic and national demonstrations.

Other cash-strapped cities complained it was unfair.

But Marino warned there could be dire consequences.

"We're not going to block the city but the city will come to a standstill. It will block itself if I do not have the tools for making budget decisions and right now I cannot allocate any money," he told the SkyTG24 news channel.

Marino said that buses may have to stop running as soon as Sunday because he only had 10 percent of the money required to pay for fuel in March.

He added: "With the money that we have in the budget right now, I can do repairs on each road in Rome every 52 years. That's not really maintenance."

Credit to The Telegraph

Why don’t humans have identity chips?

Look at this they are promoting the idea…it´s going to be a easier life.
Like the promise of the safer world with the airports controls

Watching our new dog have his identity chip implanted recently made me wonder why we humans don’t have the same process available.

A tiny little needle is used to insert the “chip” and the dog barely noticed. I’ve seen bigger needles used for human injections. So the actual implanting wouldn’t be a problem.

Human chips could be constructed to contain different kinds of information, which could only be “read” by those entities with a need to know.

One would obviously contain your identity — name, address, phone number and perhaps next of kin with a contact number for general identification, especially if you were unable to provide that information yourself. You would use it when you voted, or any other occasion that required identification.

You might have one, or a separate portion of one that contained any vital medical information. You know, the kind they repeatedly want you to fill out on the forms you get at the doctor’s office. Only your medical facility or an emergency service could access that information. When your medication changes, your doctor could phone in the change to the responsible chip provider and it would be electronically added.

Another chip, or portion of one, would contain your bank identification. You could just wave it at the drive up window instead of having to fish out a card; lean way out the window and poke buttons to say you wanted English or Spanish. It would access your account the way your pin number does now.

You and your children would be identifiable without having to carry cards and whatnot of various kinds, necessitating hauling your wallet out in awkward places like your rear pocket — the one you are sitting on in the car.

For those in the military in combat, it might ease identification.

If you are a traveler and need identification, your chip would have whatever immigration needed and you could just run your arm under a “reader” and continue on your way.

If the implanted “seed” carried a GPS capability, it would be useful for keeping track of children, the elderly or the mentally challenged who might wander away, or worse, be taken.

This chip could be altered when the “child” reached the age of 18 or 21, unless the holder agreed to leave it in.

Not sure an adult child would feel a need for the police to know their every move, or their parents.

Later, as in the incidence of the elderly or demented, the chip could be turned on again.

Think of the savings in time, paper and hassle. Not to mention the unlikely event of having this information stolen.

The only way that might happen is too grisly to think about.

A thief could hardly expect to be served by carrying a severed arm around, or a chip without the arm it belonged to.

The wave of a wand tells the vet or humane society that our dog is Teddy and where he belongs and how to contact us — simple, painless, technology that works.

How come a dog’s life is easier than ours?

Heritage.com

Newspaper Review with David Icke