North Korea test-fires ballistic missiles as Barack Obama holds Japan-South Korea summit

North Korea has test-fired two ballistic missiles, as US President Barack Obama hosted a landmark Japan-South Korea summit and pledged "unwavering commitment" to Tokyo and Seoul's security concerns in the face of Pyongyang's nuclear threat.

South Korea's defence ministry said both missiles flew 650 kilometres (400 miles) into the Sea of Japan, upping the ante after a series of short-range missile and rocket launches by the North in recent weeks.

A ministry spokesman said the missiles were believed to be Rodong variants, which are considered medium-range at their maximum reach of between 1,000 and 1,500 kilometres.

UN Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from conducting any ballistic missile tests.

The United States responded to North Korea's test firing, saying it represented "a troubling and provocative escalation."

Credit to The Telegraph

China Will Soon Place Long-Range Nuclear Missiles On Submarines

China for the first time will likely have subs equipped with long-range nuclear missiles later this year, part of an increasingly potent submarine fleet, a top US officer said Tuesday,

The head of US Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said the latest class of Chinese subs would be armed with a new ballistic missile with an estimated range of 4,000 nautical miles (7,500 kilometers).

"This will give China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent, probably before the end of 2014," Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Locklear was referring to the production of China's JIN-class nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine and the new JL-2 missile on board the vessel.

"China’s advance in submarine capabilities is significant. They possess a large and increasingly capable submarine force," the admiral said.

Locklear said China's submarine modernization effort was impressive.

China now has five nuclear attack submarines, four nuclear ballistic missile submarines, and 53 diesel attack submarines, according to Jess Karotkin of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

He added that Chinese military operations were "expanding in size, complexity, duration and geographic location."


Credit to Business Insider.com
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-missiles-on-chinese-submarines-2014-3#ixzz2x7tCKHC7

Kim Jong-Un has told his military chiefs to prepare for war with South Korea in 2015

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has told his military chiefs to prepare for war against the South in 2015, it has been claimed.

According to South Korea's largest daily newspaper, a source has revealed that the dictator plans to invade and has ordered the army to remain 'combat-ready'.

The source told the Chosun Ilbo: 'Armed confrontation could take place on the Korean peninsula in 2015,' IBT reports.

They added: 'Since he came to power in late 2011, Kim Jong-un has often said his aim is reunification "through force" and that he would personally drive a tank and advance into Seoul.'



Get Kim out: A group of women take part in an anti-North Korea protest in Seoul following Jong-Un's test-launch of two missiles into the sea off the Korean coast



Fired up: A man uses an aerosol can and a lighter to set fire to one of the protestors flags during the Anti-North Korea rally in Seoul





North Korea test-launched two Nodong medium-range ballistic missiles into the sea off Korean peninsula's east coast on Wednesday morning, according to South Korea's defence ministry

While the Chosun Ilbo paper is well respected and informed, South Korean reports are often over sensationalised.

It comes as South Koreans gathered in the capital of Seoul today to protest against the North firing nuclear missiles off the Korean coast.

Kim Jong-Un’s army test-launched two Nodong medium-range ballistic missiles into the sea off the peninsula's east coast, according to South Korea's defence ministry.

The North Korean missiles were set off into the sea shortly after 5.30pm GMT on Tuesday, just as the leaders of its rivals Japan and South Korea sat down to a meeting with U.S. president Barack Obama.

The firing off the missiles also coincided with the fourth anniversary of the sinking of the South Korean navy ship the Cheonan, for which Seoul blames North Korea.

The Cheonan was sunk in the Yellow Sea near the inter-Korean maritime border, leaving 46 people dead or missing and presumed dead.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2589719/Anger-South-Korea-Kim-Jong-Uns-forces-fire-mid-range-missiles-sea-latest-military-tests.html#ixzz2x7ra78vk

Exo-Vaticana Rising -- Vatican Summons World's 200 Top Astrobiologists Toward Specific Goal Of Finding Extraterrestrials

Two hundred of the world's experts in the search for life beyond our solar system are meeting this week to probe the great unanswered question of the 21st Century: Are we alone in the universe? Motivated by the rapidly increasing number of known Earth-sized planets, the increasing range of extreme conditions in which life on Earth can persist, and the progress toward a technology that will ultimately enable the search for life on exoplanets, the Vatican Observatory and the Steward Observatory are holding a major conference this week entitled The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignatures & Instruments.

The goal of the conference called "The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignature & Instruments," which runs from March 16 through 21 in Tucson, Ariz. is to bring together the interdisciplinary community required to address this multi-faceted challenge: experts on exoplanet observations, early and extreme life on Earth, atmospheric biosignatures, and planet-finding telescopes.

Astrobiologists attending the conference include John Baross (U. Washington), Natalie Batalha (NASA Ames), Phil Hinz (UA), Markus Kasper (ESO), Lynn Rothschild (NASA Ames), Lisa Kaltenegger (MPIA, CfA), Peter Lawson (NASA JPL), Sara Seager (MIT), and Jill Tarter (SETI)

"Finding life beyond Earth is one of the great challenges of modern science and we are excited to have the world leaders in this field together in Tucson," said event co-chair Daniel Apai, assistant professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at the UA Steward Observatory, in a statement. "But reaching such an ambitious goal takes planning and time. The goal of this meeting is to discuss how we can find life among the stars within the next two decades."

José Gabriel Funes, an Argentine Jesuit priest and astronomer, and the current director of the Vatican Observatory says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility exists," said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, current director of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The large number of galaxies with their own planets makes this possible, he noted.

Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: "Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis."

"Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom. Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation."

Funes, who runs the observatory that is based south of Rome and in Arizona, held out the possibility that the human race might actually be the "lost sheep" of the universe. There could be other beings "who remained in full friendship with their creator," he said.

Funes commentary is a giant step away from the historical record that includes the Inquisition, which condemned Galileo in the 17th century for insisting that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church did not rehabilitate him until 1992.

Funes said he believed as an astronomer that the most likely explanation for the start of the universe was "the big bang," the theory that it sprang into existence from dense matter billions of years ago. But he said this was not in conflict with faith in God as creator. "God is the creator," he said. "There is a sense to creation. We are not children of an accident."

He added: "As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us."

Credit to Daily Galaxy

Putin Is a Pawn of the Bankers

Being a former college basketball coach, I marvel at the skill of a good strategist who can carry out a game plan. Vladimir Putin would have been a great college basketball coach, a masterful poker player, a top used car salesman and he is an excellent leader of his country when it comes to foreign policy. Putin has made the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and our government look amateurish.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Putin has the potential to be one of the most despotic figures in all of history, I would be a fan of his cunning and his ability to carry out an agenda on multiple fronts with precision and skill.

However, there is one group that Putin does not outfox, out-strategize and out maneuver; that would be the forces controlling the Bank of International Settlement (BIS).

Putin is developing almost a cult following among some people in the alternative media. To them, he represents a man with the force of conviction to tell international banking to go to hell. To these well-intentioned, but misguided analysts, Putin has succeeded where other world leaders have lost their lives (e.g. JFK, Hussein, etc.). As romantic and appealing as a superhero may be who will ride in and save the world from the evil bankers, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to Putin. Whether Putin realizes it or not, he is doing the complete bidding of the big boys at the BIS and everything is moving right along according to plan.

This article explores the fact that Putin, although he may be, on the surface, resisting international banking on one level, he is very much under their control on another level. This article will also explore the implications for these events upon the American people.

The Starting Point

In the alternative media, many make the mistake of speaking about the “banksters” as if they were one entity all working towards the same goal which is the establishment of a singular economic system which controls the planet through rabid debt management. Generally, this is true. However, the process of international banking is compartmentalized and when goals are not met, we see divisions emerging and this is exactly what we are witnessing at the present moment.

Before we can effectively analyze how Putin is in the process of putting himself in charge of the world’s chessboard, we need to first take a very brief look at how international banking is organized.

Level One: The Bank of International Settlement

International banking has three major levels. The executive directors of this grand economic scheme, the Bank of International Settlement, from Basel, sit at the head of the table. The BIS sets global economic policy by manipulating currency exchange rates (e.g. IMF), establish lending rates, picking national winners and losers, etc. The singular mission of the BIS is to march the world’s central banks into the NWO that they control.

It can be said that the forces, both known and unknown, are the rulers of the planet.

Level Two: The Central Banks

The second level of power consists of the global central banks including the Federal Reserve which is an unelected cabal of private bankers who have wrestled the financial power of this country away from Congress and control the nation’s money. It is the same in every country. And of course, if an entity controls the money of a nation, they also control those who use their money through the establishment of a predatory debt enslavement system. You learned this principle of finance as a teenager when your parents told you, “For as long as you live under this house, you will do what I say.” The power of the purse determines who controls behavior. The world’s central banks take their marching orders from the Bank of International Settlement because the monetization of the fiat currency that each central bank controls is determined by the BIS.

It can be accurately stated that the central banks are rulers of nations and represent mid-level management in the hierarchy of the process.

Level Three: The National Banking Industry

The third level of power in this unholy system are the financial institutions of a nation. In our case, this would be institutions such as Goldman Sachs, other lesser Wall Street investment houses as well as the megabanks (e.g. Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, etc.). Policies that are developed in Basel are implemented by these institutions.

The investment houses conduct the day to day management of the polices which flow downhill from the BIS.

Finally, there is everybody else and that would be the sheep of this country who know nothing of how any of this works. Don’t hold your breath on a sudden level of developing awareness, most of us are all too brainwashed by the system to achieve this level of awareness.

The Game Plan for Building a New World Order

Since the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement which established the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and the US was made the de facto world policeman as a result, Americans have enjoyed economic dominance because in order to buy energy, the world needed to purchase dollars from our Federal Reserve. After the world departed from the gold standard for the fiat currency standard, the US is the only country that truly enjoyed a solvent currency and our standard of living has reflected this status.

Americans have been allowed to enjoy this most favored status because it became our task, on behalf of the BIS, to put together coalitions of central banks to force unwilling nations into this system. And when a nation, such as Libya and Iraq, attempted to swim upstream against the debt enslavement policies of these banks, the leaders were murdered and the people become indentured debt slaves. The cost to America is endless war, massive debt and a reputation for being the “Great Satan”.

Virtually, all nations have succumbed to this tyranny, with two notable exceptions, Russia and China. To a lesser extent, India has also become problematic for the BIS since they have joined Russia and China in using national currency and/or gold to conduct trade among each other rather than using the “required” dollar.

If the BIS is going to realize its dream of New World Order, Russia, China and the United States economies must all be crushed. For when the world lies in ruin, out of chaos will come order. Putin is the main driving force in making this a reality.

Putin Has Checkmated the Central Banks At Level Two

Putin is defeating the world’s central banks at two levels. One, he is spearheading an effort to move the world away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This is what the Syrian and Iranian crisis was all about (e.g. selling oil for gold rather than the Petrodollar) and Putin exposed Obama’s false flag event (i.e. gassing the Syrian rebels) for what it really was. Further, Putin now has the power to refuse to accept the dollar as payment for his gas flowing into Europe. If the Petrodollar dies, what will happen to the US economy? If this does happen, we will find out very quickly why DHS purchased 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with its 2700 armored personnel carriers.

Second, Putin is threatening to become the main supplier of energy on the planet. With the consummation a recent gas deal between the Russians and the Chinese, Putin is undermining the control of energy that the central banks have enjoyed since the early days of the creation of Saudi Arabia to oversee oil production.

Putin is spitting in the face of the Federal Reserve and the other G7 central banks by encouraging Iran to sell its oil for gold. This is turning international finance on its head. Putin also has enough of a military presence, along with nuclear weapons, to stave a direct conventional invasion of his country. Putin has positioned himself to control the energy needs of Europe as the Europeans will be forced to choose between heating their homes or remaining a military ally of the US. This will eventually lead to a disintegration of NATO, thus enhancing Putin’s military power by comparison.

Has Putin Really Killed the New World Order?

The march of the G7 toward consolidating national power under the central banks has stopped dead in its tracks. Russia, China, India and to a lesser extent, Brazil and South Africa are now charting their own independent economic course. When Libya refused to regionalize and weaken its currency and they were adamant about avoiding the debt slavery, their leaders were murdered and their country was conquered by al-Qaeda proxy forces supported by the funds of the G7.

However, Russia and China are not Libya and Iraq. Both nations possess nuclear weapons and sizeable armies. For the moment, the dream of a New World Order appears to be dead. Or is it?

The BIS Employs the Sun Tzu Strategy of “Death’s Ground”

The G7 central banks are impotent against Putin as he has outmaneuvered them at every turn. But for the big boys at Basel, things are proceeding according to plan. If the BIS has to sacrifice some of its central banks to get what it wants, so be it. The BIS will also think nothing of fermenting the conditions for the next world war.

Over 2,000 years ago, Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, imparted a knowledge of military strategy which is still being taught in our service academies and in our war colleges. One of the primary principles of Sun Tzu consists of the concept of placing one’s soldiers on “death’s ground” if you want them to fight hard and achieve victory against all odds. The best military example that comes to mind is what happened to the WWII Normandy invasion force at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. These men were thrown onto a beach where there was no retreat and they were only going to leave the beach dead or victorious. The BIS has employed a Sun Tzu strategy of placing its second level of power, the central banks, on death’s ground. The G7 central banks will conquer Putin, or they will die. However, before rigor mortis sets in, the G7 nations will commence a world war based on economic survival. Again, out of chaos will come order.

World War III Is Inevitable

The failure of the central banks to corral and control Putin has made World War III a likely scenario. As Putin continues on the path of destroying the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, what will the Federal Reserve do? There will be a war to preserve the status quo. As China, Russia and the United States are drawn into a confrontation, the world’s economy will be obliterated along with billions of lives. In the aftermath of the coming global holocaust, the supreme financial rulers of the planet will be waiting to create order, the New World Order, out of chaos.

A willing pawn of the NWO, or not, Putin is no hero. He is doing exactly what is expected. Make no mistake about, the BIS controls the central banks, world finance and Putin. The New World Order is very much alive.

Credit to Common Sense

Obama highlights Putin threat to EU during keynote speech in Brussels

Barack Obama has charged Vladimir Putin with being a menace to an international system built up over decades following the Russian leader's sudden appropriation of part of Ukraine.

In his sole big policy speech of a four-day trip to Europe, Obama, on his first presidential visit to Brussels, the capital of the European Union andNato's headquarters, sought to stiffen European spines against Russia and pledge US security guarantees for east European allies on Russia's borders who are alarmed at the Kremlin's expansionist aims.

"We must never forget that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom," Obama said, adding that the Ukraine crisis has neither easy answers nor a military solution. "But at this moment, we must meet the challenge to our ideals, to our very international order, with strength and conviction."

Drawing on modern struggles, like gay rights, as well as the ethnic cleansing and world wars, Obama sought to draw a connection between the US experiment in democracy and the blood spilled by Europeans seeking to solidify their own right to self-determination.

"I come here today to say we must never take for granted the progress than has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world," Obama said.

Obama said that Moscow would become increasingly isolated. "If the Russian leadership stays on its current course, together we will ensure that this isolation deepens," Obama said. At the same time, he acknowledged that military force would not dislodge Russia from Crimea or prevent further encroachment, holding out the allies' combination of pressure and an open door to diplomacy as the path to peace.

Obama addressed about 2,000 young people at an art deco arts centre in central Brussels. Before delivering the speech, Obama held a summit lunch meeting with EU leaders, Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso, both bowing out later this year, then a meeting with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Dane who heads the Nato alliance and whose term also expires this year.

Russia's annexation of Crimea was expected to dominate the speech and meetings. Although this is the first time Obama has come to Brussels as president, Ukraine has already forced a second visit. He is expected back in June for a meeting with G7 leaders because the US and Europe have frozen Russia's membership of the G8 and called off a June G8 summit in Sochi in Russia.

As well as Ukraine and Russia, the US and EU leaders were discussing their ambitious negotiations on a transatlantic free trade area which, if successfully concluded, would boost the EU economy by more than €100bn (£83bn), according to Brussels, although economists say trade agreements actually have little impact on levels of trade and point to China's soaring trade performance as proof.

The trade talks may also be encumbered by European complaints about the National Security Agency surveillance scandal, with White Housereforms of NSA bulk data gathering in the pipeline. The Europeans will press the US leader to facilitate reciprocity in the courts, meaning that Europeans in the US should be able to seek redress in the American courts if they feel their data privacy rights have been violated by US agencies.

Americans in Europe can go to the courts, but not vice versa.

At Nato headquarters, Obama was due to discuss efforts to boost security for eastern allies alarmed by Putin's behaviour, for example by sending air reinforcements to Poland and the three Baltic states, all Nato and EU members.

"There's no question that Nato is prepared to defend any ally against any aggression," said a senior US official. "To reassure them, we do think we should take additional steps. We've already deployed Baltic air policing, additional planes over the Baltic countries. We've deployed an aviation detachment to Poland.

"We are looking at doing more things like that. We'll be discussing very specifically what more can be done in terms of signalling concrete reassurance to our eastern European allies."

In the centenary year of the start of the first world war, Obama started the Belgian leg of his trip on Wednesday by visiting a US war graves cemetery in Flanders, north-west of Brussels.

Credit to The Guardian

How The BRICs Just Kicked The G-7 Out Of The G-20

By Paul Mylchreest of Monument Securities

A critical juncture

Over the course of the last century, the US Congress has been blamed for much that has gone wrong in international relations. The unwillingness of Congressional leaders in 1919 to support US participation in the League of Nations doomed from the outset that quixotic attempt to put global relations on a rational basis. Renewed world war was the eventual outcome. Then in 1930, Congressional passage of the Tariff Act, widely known as Smoot-Hawley, marked the break-out of beggar-thy-neighbour trade practices that no less an authority on that period than Mr Bernanke has maintained contributed to the length and depth of the global depression. 

It is no matter that some historians argue that Smoot-Hawley merely built on the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922; that had been Congress’s doing as well. More recently, the US Congress has resisted presidential demands for ‘fast-track’ authority to tie up international trade deals. The lack of faith of the USA’s counterparties in Washington’s ability to ratify trade agreements was an important factor in the collapse of the Doha Round, which has put a brake on the development of the World Trade Organisation. Now, the US Congress is acting in a way which could have consequences at least as serious as those that followed these past examples of obduracy.

This week the US Congress is considering a bill to provide financial aid to Ukraine. President Obama had appended clauses to this bill to ratify the IMF’s 2010 decision to increase the quotas, and hence voting power, of emerging countries, chiefly at the expense of European members, and to boost the IMF’s capacity to lend. The USA enjoys a blocking minority in IMF decision-making under current quotas, and would continue to do so after the changes; it is essential, therefore, that US ratification be secured if the reform is to go ahead. However, many members of the US Congress, especially on the Republican side, are suspicious of the IMF and its activities. Specifically, that element of the reform package which would convert countries’ temporary lending to the IMF during the global financial crisis into a permanent increase in IMF resources has roused fierce opposition. 

For more than three years, congressional leaders have thought better of exacerbating party tensions by bringing forward proposals to approve the IMF changes. However, the G20 meeting in February ‘deeply regretted’ that the reform was still held up and urged the USA to ratify ‘before our next meeting in April’. Mr Siluanov, Russia’s finance minister, then suggested that the IMF should move ahead with the reforms without US approval, a suggestion sympathetically received by other BRICS leaders but which would threaten to split the IMF. Mr Obama’s concern to avoid this outcome is understandable and he has argued that, since the IMF will play the lead role in supporting Ukraine’s economy, approval of the new quotas is relevant to the Ukraine legislation. 

All the same, Mr Reid, the Democrat Majority Leader in the Senate, yesterday stripped the IMF provisions from the text, taking the view that the bill would be given a rough ride through the Senate and no chance of passage through the House of Representatives if it retained them. It now seems unlikely that the USA will complete (or, indeed, begin) legislative action on the IMF reform by the 10 April deadline the BRICS have set. The odds are moving in favour of a showdown at the G20 finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting due in Washington on that date.

International discord over Ukraine does not bode well for the settlement of differences over the IMF’s future. Though the G7 is excluding Russia from its number, in retaliation for its action in Crimea, this does not amount to isolating Russia. There has been no suggestion that Russia be excluded from the G20. The USA and its allies have suspected that several other G20 members would not stand for it. This suspicion was confirmed yesterday when the BRICS foreign ministers, assembled at the international conference in The Hague, issued a statement condemning ‘the escalation of hostile language, sanctions and counter-sanctions’. They affirmed that the custodianship of the G20 belongs to all member-states equally and no one member-state can unilaterally determine its nature and character. In short, their statement read like a manifesto for a pluralist world in which no one nation, bloc or set of values would predominate.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama has also been active at The Hague fostering warmer relations between South Korea and Japan. His aim seems to be to contain China’s expansionism in the Asian region. But US worries in this regard may be exaggerated to judge by a recent article in the PLA Daily, the official media outlet of China’s military. This urged China’s leaders to study the history of the 1894-95 war with Japan, which China lost decisively despite being at least as well equipped. The concern in Beijing seems to be that problems of corruption and nepotism in the PLA today are no less serious than they were in China’s forces in 1894. That may well deter China from taking military action. However, to the extent that China lacks confidence to use military force, it may be all the more intent on wielding financial weapons in pursuing its geopolitical aims. Beijing  leaders have long dreamt of displacing, or at least dethroning, the US dollar from its reserve currency role. US dominance of the IMF is one of several effective bars to the achievement of such a goal. The kind of action Russia is advocating, the BRICS wresting control of the IMF in despite of US veto power, might have some appeal. That would mark the end of the unified global monetary system that has developed since the IMF was founded in 1945, to be replaced by a bloc of fiat currencies in the developed countries and a system in the emerging sector where currencies were linked to drawing rights in some new international fund, possibly with some material backing. It seems unlikely that convertibility between these monetary systems could be maintained for long. Consequently, the 10 April meeting is shaping up as a potentially critical juncture in world economic history.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Obama Telegraphs Nuke in NYC

Spring blizzard batters Mass., Maine