"NASA Says Dust Is Falling"

Top Navy Admiral Warns China Now Has More "Fairly Amazing Submarines" Than The US

Continuing the theme first presented yesterday, when we showed that while America's financial situation is in dire straits, it is the strength of its military - that age-old realpolitik variable - or lack thereof... 

... that may determine the longevity of the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, overnight we learned from Vice Admiral Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for capabilities and resources, who testified before the House Armed Services Committee's seapower subcommittee that China "is building some fairly amazing submarines and now has more diesel- and nuclear-powered vessels than the United States," although he admitted their quality was inferior.

“They may not be the same quality, but their submarine forces are growing at a tremendous rate. They now have more diesel and nuclear attack submarines than we have,” the admiral told the lawmakers. “They are producing some fairly amazing submarines and they are actually deploying them.”

The top Navy admiral added that China was also expanding the geographic areas of operation for its submarines, and their length of deployment. For instance, China had carried out three deployments in the Indian Ocean, and had kept vessels out at sea for 95 days, Mulloy said.

Are the subs armed with nuclear ICBMs? 

“We don't think they have nuclear weapons on board, but we've seen them producing the missiles and testing them,” the admiral said. "We know they are out experimenting and looking at operating and clearly want to be in this world of advanced submarines.”

So is America on the verge of another arms race? It sure seems like it based on the Admiral's implicit message that the US will need to catch up to China, if not in quality then in quantity.

U.S. military officials in recent months have grown increasingly vocal about China's military buildup and launched a major push to ensure that U.S. military technology stays ahead of rapid advances by China and Russia. 

Mulloy said the quality of China's submarines was lower than those built by the United States, but the size of its undersea fleet had now surpassed that of the U.S. fleet. A spokeswoman said the U.S. Navy had 71 commissioned U.S. submarines. 

In its last annual report to Congress about China's military and security developments, the Pentagon said China had 77 principal surface combatant ships, more than 60 submarines, 55 large and medium amphibious ships, and about 85 missile-equipped small combatants.

The real question is "who benefits." The answer: 'U.S. submarines are built by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. and General Dynamics Corp."

Who? Oh these guys:

And since we live in a Fed-controlled, M.I.C.-dominated world, it may be a good idea to buy the stock of these two dominant powers in the MIC, who are about to get an unexpected present courtesy of the nascent arms race resulting from the second cold war.

So is China's sub fleet really that technologically behind? We leave it up to readers to decide: in October 2013 we presented "First Glimpse Of China's Nuclear Submarine Fleet" in which we wrote "China has revealed that its first fleet of nuclear submarines has started sea patrols, in the latest sign of its military’s growing confidence which has raised concerns in the region. Xinhua, China's official news agency, released photographs of what appeared to be Xia-class vessels – China’s first generation of nuclear-armed submarines, which are several decades old – saying they were being “declassified” for the first time, adding with supremely colorful language that, the subs would "gallop to the depths of the ocean, serving as mysterious forces igniting the sound of thunder in the deep sea", and be an "assassin’s mace that would make adversaries tremble""

Credit to Zero Hedge

Putin threatens to turn off Europe’s gas supply over the Ukraine conflict

Europe’s gas supply could be turned off within days after Russia raised the stakes in the Ukraine conflict.

Days after Britain announced it was sending 75 troops to Ukraine on a training mission President Putin demanded immediate advance payments to keep the gas taps on.

Britain gets around 15% of its gas from Russia, while continental Europe relies on Moscow for about 30% of its supplies.

Any dispute over gas supplies could plunge millions of homes into darkness in the middle of winter.

Putin’s ultimatum came on the day that the EU announced ambitious plans for an “energy union” to end Russia’s energy stranglehold over the continent.

Officials admitted, however, that it would take many years and an investment of EUR 1 trillion in infrastructure to achieve energy security.

Mr Putin said Ukraine had paid only enough cash “for three or four days’ gas supplies”.

“Unless there is a prepayment, Gazprom [the Kremlin’s energy giant] . . . will terminate the supply. Of course this may create a threat to transit to Europe, to our European partners,” he said.

He also criticised Kiev for cutting off gas to its eastern regions under the control of pro-Russian separatists.

“Imagine these people will be left without gas in winter. Not only that there is famine . . . It smells of genocide,” said Putin.

Credit to Mirror

Greece Suffers Biggest Bank Run In History: January Deposits Plunge To 2005 Levels

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the Greek negotiation and ultimately, bailout extension, was just how panicked was the Greek population and domestic corporations. Recall that as explained previously, the tension boiled down to this: the Troika did everything in its power to accelerate the bank run in order to crush any negotiating leverage Varoufakis may have; Greece on the other hand was desperate to make its cash drain appear far better than rumored. 

Moments ago the Bank of Greece presented its latest, January, deposit data. And it's a doozy: following a record €12.2 billion monthly outflow, greater in absolute and relative terms than anything experienced during any of the previous Greek crises and bailouts, the total amount of Greek corporate and household deposits has now tumbled to just €148 billion, down 7.7% from the month before, and down 10% since November. This number is in line with some of the more pessimistic expectations, and brings the total cash holdings at Greek banks to the lowest level since August 2005.

What's worse is that the outflow has most certainly continued in February, when according to rumors another €10 billion or more may have been withdrawn. And while the new FinMin is desperate to make it seem that now that Greece has a can kicking bailout extension "deal" the bank run has stopped, this is very much in doubt.

One thing is certain: Greek banks, already crushed by record NPLs somewhere in the 40% range, and without any equity buffer, are now all, without exception, dead banks walking following this latest cash rush. And absent another bailout - one which S&P calculated in October will need to fund Greece with more than €40 billion in additional cash - and one which will come with even more draconian conditions, we simply don't see how Greece gets away from its current "self-reinforcing feedback loop" predicament without Cyprus-style capital controls.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Iranian military drill targets mock US carrier

TEHRAN — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched large-scale naval and air defense drills near a strategic Gulf waterway on Wednesday in which dozens of speedboats swarmed a replica of a US aircraft carrier.

The drill, named Great Prophet 9, was held near the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world’s oil passes.

State TV showed footage of missiles fired from the coast and fast boats striking the mock US aircraft carrier. The drills, which also included shooting down a drone and planting undersea mines, were the first to involve a replica of a US carrier.

“American aircraft carriers are very big ammunition depots housing a lot of missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything else,” the Guard’s navy chief, Adm. Ali Fadavi, said on state TV, adding that a direct hit by a missile could set off a large secondary explosion. Last month Fadavi said his force is capable of sinking American aircraft carriers in the event of war.

The Guard’s chief commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, said the drills send a “message of (Iran’s) might” to “extraterritorial powers,” a reference to the United States.

Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, the spokesman for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said the Iranian naval exercises began a few days ago and have had no effect on maritime traffic.

Stephens said the Americans were monitoring the drills, but downplayed the simulated attack on the carrier, saying the US military was “not concerned about this exercise.”

“We’re quite confident of our naval forces’ ability to defend themselves,” he said. “It seems they’ve attempted to destroy the equivalent of a Hollywood movie set.”

The exercises began two days after French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle launched operations in the Gulf as part of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group (IS) in Iraq and Syria.

The ship will be stationed off Saudi Arabia for about eight weeks, working alongside the American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

A nuclear-powered attack submarine, a French anti-aircraft frigate and a British anti-submarine frigate are also in the area.

Credit to The Times of Israel

Read more: Iranian military drill targets mock US carrier | The Times of Israelhttp://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-military-drill-targets-mock-us-carrier/#ixzz3SrOoc5AG

PASTORS TO HELP DHS IN ARRESTS AND DETENTION OF AMERICANS IN FEMA CAMPS

Pastors serving government over God.

The fact that FEMA has recruited up to an estimated 28,000 pastors, as a low end estimate, to as many as 100,000 pastors, as a high end estimate, in order to form the clergy response team is very disturbing, not to mention frightening.

The reports of pastoral betrayal are now coming in from multiple sources and there is no denying where this is headed. Below is an interview that Alex Jones did with my friend Pastor Butch Paugh. I have been on Pastor Butch’s show many times and my experience with him is that he is not only a committed man of God, he is a very serious researcher.  In the following video, Pastor Butch tells Alex just how far FEMA’s plot is to use pastors to entice willing self-incarceration into FEMA camps.

In the following short clip, the DHS/FEMA freely admit to enlisting pastors as part of the Clergy Response Team run by NOVAD.

There is no hiding it now, it is out in the open.

As if the Clergy Response Teams are not enough to convince you that your church has been compromised by the non-Christian forces connected to the globalists, then you need to consider the impact of 501c3 regulations and how they limit the preaching of the word of God from the pulpits of America.

Stunning Interview with Pastor/Congressman Admitting DHS/IRS Is Telling Pastors What They Cannot Say from the Pulpit

MSNBC interviewed a pastor, who also happens to be the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO.). Representative Cleaver stated very clearly that Preachers are being muzzled by the 501c3 regulations being enforced for the Justice Department and the IRS. In 2014, Representative Cleaver headed up a meeting with several thousand clergy along with representatives from FEMA, the IRS and Eric Holder. According to Cleaver, the pastors minister to a total of about 10 million Christians.

Cleaver clearly stated that the purpose of the meeting was to “equip the pastors with what they need to know about what they can say and not say in the church…”

If you find this too hard to believe, let the Congressman tell you in his own words what I have just written here.

Through the 501c3 regulations, DHS and FEMA have made it nearly impossible for your pastor to tell you the truth as to what is coming.

How Common Is the Undermining of the Church?

As part of the Clergy Response Team training, their initial and primary training was to tell their flock to obey the DHS version of Romans 13.

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: that be ordained of God.” Romans 13:1

Pastor Mansfield’s “Insider” Revelations

After watching a number of videos and interviewing several pastors with regard to the undermining of the church by FEMA/DHS, I interviewed a whistleblower who was a pioneer in the formation of the Clergy Response Team, Pastor Walt Mansfield.

Pastor Mansfield was among the first of the pastors recruited to become a part of the Clergy Response Team. The revelations he conveyed to me about this program had pastors doing a whole lot more than preaching Romans 13. But before going to the disturbing contents of the interview, let’s take a look at relevant legislation which helps to legitimize Pastor Mansfield’s outrageous claims.Pastor Mansfield was recruited to become a member of the Clergy Response Team which would operate under the control of NOVAD and DHS. Mansfield’s revelations about his experiences are stunning and concerning at the same time.

Pastor Mansfield attended several briefings and he could barely believe his ears. He learned of the government’s plan to enact martial law as well as to implement forced population relocations. Mansfield emphasized that when martial law is enacted, the enforcement would be immediate. In other words, family members will be separated from each other and part of the training that the clergy received was how to comfort separated family members.

Pastor Mansfield emphasized that the FEMA/DHS drills were predicated on bioterrorism. The pastors were trained to go to homes were people refused to be relocated by the authorities and  their immediate job was to convince the reluctant to willingly go to the relocation camps. Ostensibly, this was to be done in lieu of sending in the SWAT teams.

I asked Mansfield if FEMA camps were real and he stated that much of the clergy training focused around this scenario of pastors operating within the forced relocation centers. The main goal of a pastor assigned to a FEMA camp was to bring order and encourage compliance with DHS requests, hence, the emphasis on Romans 13.

The pastors were forced to sign  anon-disclosure.The most interesting and disturbing fact that I learned was the fact that the pastors were told not to quote Scripture. The DHS document which was prepared for the pastors clearly stated that Scripture had been used to “oppress” people in the past and the presenters strongly discouraged its use. Please see the following excerpt from one of the DHS training manuals:

Healing Scripture and Prayer In the Pastoral Crisis Intervention

“During a time of crisis people do go through a “crisis of faith.”

Sometime quick mention of God and scripture may not be helpful. As we all know the Scripture has been used to oppress, dominate and at the same time used for healing and reconciliation- renewing of relationship with God and people. If the pastor senses it is appropriate to use the scripture and prayer, it must carefully be done for healing of victims not to uphold pastoral authority.” (Page 14)  

In other words, all legitimate pastoral authority was abrogated by the pastors who participated in the roundup of American citizens.

Also on page 14 of the same training document, pastors were admonished to avoid “Unhealthy God talk….” Specifically pastors are ordered to avoid using references to God when helping people cope with the loss of a loved one:

        “4. God must have needed him/her more than you.”

        “5. God never gives more than we can handle.“

Pastor Mansfield also revealed that pastors will be issued badges under the Clergy Response Team program. Any pastor not displaying the badge, indicating that they have been trained under these guidelines, will not be permitted into the established and designated “DHS safety zones”. This reminds me of the banishment of religious figures from Plymouth Colony who, in good conscience, refused to go along with some of the extremism of that day. Pastors are absolutely forbidden to publicly to speak about any aspect of the program. If you were to ask your pastor if they are a FEMA trained pastor, they will not likely tell you.

Disturbingly, Pastor Mansfield reiterated several times that the number one job of these pastors is to calm down people and encourage their compliance within the peoples’ new surroundings (i.e. FEMA camps).

Pastor Mansfield also stated that pastors will be utilized as informants. This violates the legal privilege of confidentiality between pastor and church-goer, that is currently recognized by law. All church-goers can no longer trust the sanctity of personal confessions and revelations made to pastors, priests or rabbis. This one illegal act by DHS completely undermines the Christian Church in America! Many of us have been quick to point out that this bastardization of the Romans 13 is designed to force compliance to government edicts who might not otherwise comply.

 Related Background Legislation

On December 31, 2011, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law which in addition to allocating $662 billion to the Pentagon also contains a measure which allows U.S. citizens to be taken into custody and held indefinitely without ever being charged with a crime.

Not only can any citizen deemed a threat to “national security interests of the United States,” be held forever without receiving a trial, but the military will be the ones arresting those citizens.

NDAA Section 1022, subsection c allows “(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”

The National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645 mandates the establishment of “national emergency centers” to be located on military installations for the purpose of providing “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” according to the bill.

The legislation also states that the camps will be used to “provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations”.

The bill also provides that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs”, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security. This is a carte blanche mandate that many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting following a national emergency or a total economic collapse.

Conclusion

What pastor could, in good conscience, participate in this heinous program? Only a pastor who has turned their back on Jesus could ever be a part of such a tyranny. The pastors in America are being coerced to participate because when an emergency is declared, no pastor, who does not have the “FEMA-trained government badge” will be allowed to be in a declared “emergency” area. Pastor Mansfield and many of the other pastors that I spoke with, felt strongly this was the government’s way of removing Jesus from America’s landscape and set the stage for the ushering in of a new-age religion.

It is mindboggling to fathom how so many reporters and media types deny the existence of FEMA camps under these circumstances. It is also disturbing that any pastor would agree to participate in a program in which Jesus and the Bible end up on the cutting room floor. The only viable way to preserve Christianity is for all Christians to leave their churches and form Bible home study groups. 

Since I began investigating how widespread the takeover of the chuch is by DHS/FEMA, I have been contemplating the potential wisdom of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who made the following quote:

Solzhenitsyn once said that:

“We should have resisted the KGB at the front door. If the KGB thought that they might not go home that night, the Russian people might have had a different fate”.

WILL YOU SUBMIT TO ILLEGITIMATE AUTHORITY?

Credit Common Sense

Part 2 Here Comes The United States of Antichrist?

By Terry James

The nation saw an absolutely amazing transformation take place in December of 2014. If such a thing had been even considered by a US president pre-2008, the result would have been impeachment at the very least, I’m convinced.

Yet, the deed was done and, except for mouthy punditry for a few days and a few expressions of incredulity by some within and outside of Congress, the matter was done and America’s configuration dramatically changed. Barack Obama indeed planned “change,” and he, indeed, put it into effect. I have a distinct feeling that “we ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” as Yogi Berra or somebody once said.

I refer to the embrace of the communist gulag called Cuba. With a simple “memorandum”—not even a presidential executive order, Mr. Obama declared, in effect, that this regime that has mass murdered all opposition and nearly set up the United States for nuclear destruction is a good citizen, worthy of our trust and—well—largesse.

For that is what Cuba will now become: a massive welfare recipient of American largesse—largesse that we can no longer afford, if we ever could truly afford worldwide giveaway of our Treasury.

We are more than $100 trillion in debt, when extrapolated out to its ever-increasing endpoint.

But, we have—that is—Mr. Obama and the New World Order builders have—reached out with the wealth America doesn’t have in order to hug Raúl Castro, or whomever is in charge of the dictatorship these days. It is a move, I believe, dictated by the powers that be who took this young, inexperienced, unaccomplished academic community organizer and made him president of the United States for this very purpose, and other purposes yet to come.

It was pure genius—demonic genius, I suspect—to take a young, charismatic, talented man of color and play his candidacy off the American psyche, where guilt over the long-past days of slavery still hang heavily within the national conscience.

Well…the people of this nation, wallowing in entertained, fat-and-happy apathy, have culpability, as well. I want to be fair to our would-be globalist masters. The Americans among them each has but a single vote, I presume. They couldn’t do it alone.

Mr. Obama has singlehandedly—with strings pulled from somewhere even above his pay grade, in my opinion—set the American economy into a slow-motion collapse. It is absolutely astonishing that the proverbial house of cards hasn’t come crashing down in a catastrophic plunge. I believe it is the Lord Himself who is in control of this strange, financial bubble of potential disaster—a bubble that is being prevented from bursting until prophetic alignments are all as has been foretold.

What we are experiencing is a “change” that is designed to shift the movement of union of this continent—even this hemisphere—into high gear. It is perhaps a move more dynamic than any other of recent years to accelerate a major prophetic development. This alignment is what I term, again, “The United States of Antichrist.”The following is how God’s Holy Word describes my United States of Antichrist.

The prophecy of which I write is wrapped up in the alignment of nations as they will be at the time Christ’s Second Advent nears.

And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. (Revelation 17:12–13)

Daniel the prophet, like John to whom the Revelation was given, saw the entity that would emerge at the time near the end. Daniel saw it as the lowest extremities of the great, metallic image of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dream.

Daniel told the king the following about what the feet of this prophetic dream-image involved.

And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (Daniel 2:41–44)

Daniel, and later John, saw these ten kings and kingdoms as the last world power that will be ruled over by the first beast of Revelation chapter 13. That strange, composite behemoth is described through John’s telling of the Revelation:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. (Revelation 13:1)

This composite monster, although symbolic in its representation of planet earth’s final world power, presents a terrifying image of what it is to become once it moves onto the end-times world. Daniel further describes the monster, as well as the personage who will be at its head:

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. (Daniel 7:7–8)

There can be no serious contention with the fact that Bible prophecy predicts a final world power that will consist of ten separate, yet unified in some way, entities. Regardless of whether or not one believes the Bible, one cannot deny that such a final world governing monster is prophesied to come on the scene at some point. It is foretold to be all consuming, and a monstrosity that is headed by the most mesmerizing orator of all time—and the most blasphemous.

Prophetic Empire Emerging

The geopolitical factors for the soon fulfillment of Bible prophecy are in alignment. Israel is again a nation, hated by practically all other nations, and Jerusalem, with the Temple Mount at the center of potential for all-out war, is headline stuff daily. Russia and Iran are poised to fulfill their destinies as the nucleus of the Gog-Magog force of Ezekiel 38–39. Just as dramatic as these, in my view, is the emergence of a number of distinct global economic trading blocs.

I consider these that I term the developing United States of Antichristto be the reviving Roman Empire, from which the beast of Revelation chapter 13 will emerge.

Our own, once-great-and-sovereign nation is the key factor in ultimately determining how swiftly Daniel and John’s composite world government will come into fulfillment.

We can understand just how important the United States is to the rest of the nations of earth by thinking on America’s chief Cold-War nemesis at this very hour.

Just weeks ago, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, was threatening to cut off oil and gas to Europe. He blustered in his macho way to tell the West that their sanctions imposed for his bellicosity against Ukraine, etc., would only hurt the West and harden Russia’s resolve.

In addition to leading the imposition of sanctions against Putin’s saber-rattling, the US administration, it is almost a certainty in my mind, twisted the arms of the Saudi royal family to drop the price of oil through market manipulations. Thus, the powers that be, even above our president’s own input, achieved their two-fold purpose:

1) It cut the legs out from under Putin’s oil sales because he cannot compete with such decreases. Almost overnight, the ruble fell precipitously against the dollar. The fall and its ramifications were so great that some heads within European governments want sanctions eased or lifted so as to save Russia from possible economic collapse.

2) It greatly set back the burgeoning fracking industry in America’s North Dakota and other regions, an action intended to further bring America’s economic base to an ever-lessening position of dominance.

So, Lucifer is using the most powerful nation to ever be upon earth to bring all others into his desired one-world configuration—the configuration that was his desire at Babel all of those millennia ago. At the same time, he is managing to diminish America, thereby bringing her into conformation with the New World Order he is building. I think his demented genius is evident at every turn as of late.

Already, the construction of the United States of Antichrist is far advanced. Although the individual regional entities that comprise the quickly evolving global-governing power to come is in constant flux, the skeleton that will soon take on prophesied end time’s flesh is in view today. Here is how it looks at a quick glance:

• European Union
• North American Union
• South American Union
• African Union
• Mediterranean Union
• Eurasian Economic Union
• Gulf Cooperation Council (Arab states of the Gulf)
• South Asian Association
• Asia Pacific Union
• Caribbean Community

Credit to SkyWatch.com

Russia and Cyprus sign military deal for Mediterranean ports

Cyprus has agreed to a deal allowing Russian ships to use its ports. Cyprus is the next in a line of individual EU nations with which Russia has sought to forge stronger ties.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades signed an agreement on Wednesday that will allow Russian navy ships regular access to ports on the Mediterranean island nation.

The move comes as ties between Russia and the West have soured over the Ukraine conflict. Putin told journalists that the ships that will dock at Cypriot ports would mostly be used in international anti-terrorism and piracy efforts.

"Our friendly ties aren't aimed against anyone," Putin said, adding, "I don't think it should cause worries anywhere."

Cyprus also hosts military bases for its former imperial ruler, Britain. The UK announced earlier in the week that it is planning on sending military trainers to Ukraine to assist government forces.


But Cyprus is also heavily dependent on Russian investment, and Anastasiades played down Wednesday's deal, explaining that Russia has always had access to its ports. Now, he said, Moscow just had a more solid legal basis for docking its ships in Cyprus. Earlier this week Russia restructured a 2.5 billion euro loan ($2.8 billion) to Cyprus from 2011, reducing the interest rate from 4.5 percent annually to 2.5 percent.

Russia cozies up to certain EU members

Russia has attempted to create stronger ties with individual members of the European Union, including Cyprus, Hungary and Greece, in the wake of the 28-nation bloc imposing cumulative sanctions on the Kremlin for its alleged role in stoking the Ukraine crisis. Moscow has offered financial assistance to Athens, and last week Putin received a warm welcome in Budapest.

The EU authorities in Brussels worry this policy is aimed at weakening resolve to pass a further tightening of sanctions.

The Cyprus deal solves a problem facing Russia since it lost its Syrian Mediterranean base to the conflict between rebels and the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russian news agency Tass reported that besides the navy deal, Putin and Anastasiades were also discussing the possibility of Russian planes using an air base near the town of Paphos for humanitarian relief missions.

Credit to DW

CIA Insider Breaks Silence on Global Currency Wars

Should the rise of conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine serve as a warning sign that something much more dangerous is approaching?

According to Jim Rickards, the CIA's Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, the answer is yes.

In a startling interview he reveals that all 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies have begun to prepare for World War III.

Making matters worse, his colleagues believe it could begin within the next 6 months.

However, the ground zero location for this global conflict is what makes his interview a must-see for every American.

Take a few moments to watch it below and decide for yourself.

http://moneymorning.com