"If We Don't Find A Solution Today, It's The End Of The European Union"

After escalating for months, Europe's refugee crisis hit its most serious tipping point yet, when when earlier today European Union leaders held a mini-summit on Sunday debating whether to send hundreds of guards to its borders with the western Balkans, as well as deploying more ships off Greece, as the bloc seeks to balance Germany's welcome for refugees with tougher security measures.

So far, over 680,000 migrants and refugees have crossed to Europe by sea so far this year, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, according to the International Organization for Migration. Their goal has been Germany, which has promised sanctuary, however as a result of a populist backlash and concerns over the economy, Merkel's popularity has taken a major hit, sliding to the lowest level in four years.

Taking place just two weeks after a full EU summit, the meeting was sought by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. According to Reuters, "many see it as an attempt by Juncker and Merkel to raise pressure on central and southeast European states to coordinate among themselves in managing the migration flow in a more humane way and end a series of unilateral actions."

Central and eastern European leaders meeting in Brussels may agree to send 400 border guards and set up new checkpoints if the EU's frontier states drop their policy of giving arrivals passage to other countries, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters that must still be agreed.

According to Reuters, the draft said that "we commit to immediately increase our efforts to manage our borders," which, if formalized, would be a 16-point plan and the latest step in drawing up a common approach to dealing with the thousands of migrants streaming into the EU every day from the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. 

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's chief executive, has called leaders of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, plus refugee organizations involved, to attend the meeting in Brussels. 

Europe has been forced to tread lightly as Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania said they would close their borders if Germany or other countries shut the door on refugees, warning they would not let the Balkan region become a "buffer zone" for stranded migrants. 

In recent week, the fate of the European "Schengen" Customs Union has been in doubt following Hungary's decision to close its border with Serbia and Croatia which prompted others to follow, stranding tens of thousands in dire conditions as temperatures drop.

The traditional European response to another systemic risk has been the usual fallback: chaos, as the European Union has been so far unable to implement a coherent, credible response.

Rights group Amnesty International said the 28-country bloc could not afford to end another meeting without an agreed plan. "As winter looms, the sight of thousands of refugees sleeping rough as they make their way through Europe represents a damning indictment of the European Union's failure to offer a coordinated response to the refugee crisis," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's director for Europe and Central Asia.

And while Europe dithers, the lack of a common policy is straining ties between European leaders, raising questions about the EU's future.

It was just a few days ago that Hungary warned that Europe's future is at stake, when it announced it would seal its border with Croatia.  "This is the second-best option," Hungarian foreign minister Szijjarto told reporters. "The best option, setting up an EU force to defend Greece’s external borders, was rejected in Brussels yesterday." 

Now others are joining in. 

Yesterday, it was the turn of Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann who told the Austrian Kronen Zeitung that “now the speech is about either a common Europe or about a quiet collapse of the European Union. One path is burdensome, difficult and supposedly long and the other one would lead to the chaos." 

Then moments ago, Slovenia Prime Minister was quoted by Reuters during his arrival at the latest mini-summit, as saying "if European leaders fail to agree a plan to counter the sudden inflows of refugees, it could mean the end of the European Union."

"If we don't find a solution today, if we don't do everything we can today, then it is the end of the European Union as such," Prime Minister Miro Cerar said. "If we don't deliver concrete action, I believe Europe will start falling apart," he told reporters.

Considering this is the same Europe, which five years after the first Greek default has been unable to find any solution to its economic troubles - or at least a solution that does not benefit only the top 1% -  aside from kicking the can time and again and covering up record amounts of debt with even more debt, we are skeptical Europe will "deliver concrete action" today, or at any one point in the near and not so near future. 

Which means more crises, more summits, more confusion, more human suffering and tragedy.

Which may be just what Europe wants. 

Tecall the prophetic 2008 AIG report on "Empire Europe" which explained in 4 simple bullet points just what Europe wants:

AIG's explanation: "To use global issues as excuses to extend its power"

• environmental issues: increase control over member countries; advance idea of global governance
• terrorism: use excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillance
• global financial crisis: kill two birds (free market; Anglo-Saxon economies) with one stone (Europe-wide regulator; attempts at global financial governance)
• EMU: create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government”

And there it is: in four simple bullet points laid out in a 7 year old presentation, a prediction which has come true time and again: from the endless Greek bailouts, to the austerity paradox, to European youth unemployment stubbornly flat at 50% for years in many "southern" European nations, to Europe's QE creating the deflationary impulse it is said to be fighting against, and now - to the "refugee crisis", it is all playing out as if according to some unseen script.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Steve Quayle and Tom Horn discuss "Xenogenesis"

MEGA-RICH PREPPERS DEPLOY MINI SUBS AND NUKE PROOF HOMES

Iceland Has Now Sent 26 Corrupt Bankers To Prison

74 years of sentences for high level fraudsters; US and rest of Europe bailed theirs out.

In a story not reported on at all by any Western mainstream media source, Iceland just sentenced another five high level bankers to prison for directly contributing to the collapse of the country’s economy in 2008.

This brings the total to 26 bankers now behind bars in Iceland, with most being CEOs of large financial institutions, rather than low level traders.

Most of those jailed will serve terms of two to five years, according to a report by Iceland Magazine, which notes that three executives at Landsbankinn and two at Kaupþing, along with one prominent investor, have been prosecuted.

Their crimes include market manipulation, embezzlement, and breach of fiduciary duties. Their market manipulation destroyed the country’s economy and to this day Iceland is still having to repay the global loan sharks at the IMF, as well as governments of other countries, which kept the nation operating.

The article explains that the prosecutions have been possible because rather than protect and reward the very institutions responsible for the collapse, and the gangsters that run them, the Icelandic government let them fail, and then created a financial supervisory authority to strictly oversee the banks.

Iceland’s President, Olafur Ragnar Grimmson noted:

“Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and telecommunication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit, their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity? People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long run.”

The President added:

“We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years. We introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re seeing in Europe.”

While the country’s economy is far from what it once was, it has stabilized and is in a position to recover.

Meanwhile, the governments of the US and Europe bailed out most of those responsible for playing a direct role in the financial crisis that crippled the global economy.

In the US, Congress gave American banks a $700 billion TARP bailout at the expense of taxpayers.

Not one banker in the US has even been charged with a crime relating to the financial collapse, there is still virtually no regulation of the banks, and they are pulling in a near record $160 billion in annual profits, all from “money” created out of thin air.

The banksters continue to be protected, at all levels, and the effects of their criminal actions continue to worsen every day. Another financial catastrophe is a certainty.

Credit to Eutimes.net

Massive Earthquake Hits Afghanistan, Pakistan and India

Things are “shifting” in the Hindu Kush - literally. Just months after back-to-back quakes hit Nepal killing thousands, a powerful earthquake shook northeast Afghanistan on Monday. Tremors were felt in Pakistan and India as well.

The quake, which the USGS says measured 7.5, “centered 82 km (51 miles) southeast of Feyzabad in a remote area of Afghanistan in the Hindu Kush mountain range,” Reuters reports. At least 12 are reported dead in Pakistan thus far.





Here’s more from Bloomberg:



USGS sited the earthquake as being 42 miles west-northwest of Chitral, Pakistan. Chitral is located around 100 miles north of the city of Peshawar.

Pakistan's GEO TV reported people leaving their homes in Peshawar, Abbottabad and the capital Islamabad, with no reports of casualties so far.

Pakistan's AAJ TV said at least one building collapsed in Peshawar.

Residents of Delhi said tremors were felt in the Indian capital at 2:44 p.m. local time. The India Meteorological Department said the earthquake was at a depth of 118 miles (190km).

And here are a few first-hand accounts gathered by NBC:

"I just felt it go up and down as if I was on a New York subway on a really rough ride. Everything was moving up and down. My lunch on the table was literally just popping up and down."

"There was no was way to go downstairs so we immediately climbed to the rooftop. It seemed the entire building is going to collapse. Women and children were crying and traffic was stopped on roads."

More color from CBS:

"There are reports of casualties and destruction" in some remote districts of Badakhshan, said the provincial director of the national disaster management authority, Abdullah Humayoon Dehqan.

Power was cut across much of the Afghan capital, where tremors were felt for around 45 seconds. Houses shook, walls cracked and cars rolled in the street. Officials in the capital could not be immediately reached as telephones appeared to be cut across the country.

In Pakistan, Zahid Rafiq, an official with the meteorological department, said the quake was felt across the country. In Islamabad, buildings shook and people poured into the streets in a panic, with many reciting verses from the Quran.

"I was praying when the massive earthquake rattled my home. I came out in a panic," said Munir Anwar, a resident of Liaquat Pur in the eastern Punjab province.

From India







From Pakistan





Credit to Zero Hedge

Baghdad Allows Russia To Bomb ISIS

Putin Just Warned Global War Is Increasingly More Likely: Here's Why

Vladimir Putin is basking in Russia’s triumphant return to the world stage. 

What began with a land grab in Crimea and escalated with support for the separatists at Donetsk, culminated in Moscow’s dramatic entry into Syria’s protracted civil war.

To be sure, the deplorable (not to mention comically absurd) strategy adopted by the US and its regional allies in Syria set Putin up for success. The situation was highly exploitable by anyone that’s strategically minded and thanks to the convoluted set of alliances Washington has built with groups that later turned out to be extremists, Moscow gets to achieve its regional ambitions while simultaneously fighting terrorism. Meanwhile, Washington, Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha are left to look on helplessly as their Sunni extremist proxy armies are devastated by the Russian air force. The Kremlin knows there’s little chance that the West and its allies will step in to directly support the rebels - the optics around that would quickly turn into a PR nightmare. 

All of this has provided the perfect backdrop for Putin to begin what’s amounted to a lecture tour on how to conduct foreign policy. 

Soundbites have ranged from very serious commentary on why the West should not employ extremists to bring about regime change to comical jabs at the US and its allies who the Russian President last week accused of having “oatmeal brains” when it comes to Mid-East policy. 

Speaking today at the International Valdai Discussion Club's 12th annual meeting in Sochi, Putin delivered a sweeping critique of military strategy and foreign policy touching on everything from the erroneous labeling of some extremists as “moderates” to the futility of nuclear war. 

“Why play with words dividing terrorists into moderate and not moderate. What's the difference?,” Putin asked, adding that “success in fighting terrorists cannot be reached if using some of them as a battering ram to overthrow disliked regimes [because] it's just an illusion that they can be dealt with [later], removed from power and somehow negotiated with.” 

"I'd like to stress once again that [Russia's operation in Syria] is completely legitimate, and its only aim is to aid in establishing peace," Putin said of Moscow’s Mid-East strategy. And while he’s probably telling the truth there, it’s only by default. That is, peace in Syria likely means the restoration of Assad (it's difficult to imagine how else the country can be stabilized in the short-term), and because that aligns with Russia’s interests, The Kremlin is seeking to promote peace - it’s more a tautology than it is a comment on Putin’s desire for goodwill towards men. 

And then there’s Iran and its nascent nuclear program. Putin accused the US of illegitimately seeking to play nuclear police officer, a point on which he is unquestionably correct: The "hypothetical nuclear threat from Iran is a myth. The US was just trying to destroy the strategical balance, [and] not to just dominate, but be able to dictate its will to everyone – not only geopolitical opponents, but also allies."

Speaking of nukes, Putin also warned that some nuclear powers seem to believe that there’s a way to take the “mutually” out of “mutually assured destruction.” 

That is, Putin warned against the dangers of thinking it’s possible to “win” a nuclear war. Commenting on US anti-missile shields in Europe and on the idea of MAD, Putin said the following:

"We had the right to expect that work on development of US missile defense system would stop. But nothing like it happened, and it continues. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful for all, including the United States itself.  The deterrent of nuclear weapons has started to lose its value, and some have even got the illusion that a real victory of one of the sides can be achieved in a global conflict, without irreversible consequences for the winner itself – if there is a winner at all.”

In short, Putin is suggesting that the world may have gone crazy. The implication is that the US believes it not only has the capacity to win a war against the nations Washington habitually places on its various lists of "bad guys" (i.e. Russia, Iran, and China), but that Washington believes America can win without incurring consequences that are commensurate with the damage the US inflicts on its enemies. That, Putin believes, is a dangerous miscalculation and one that could end up endangering US citizens. 

So once again, this is Putin setting the narrative and jumping at every opportunity to portray Russia as a nation that's not content to "lead from behind" (as so many have recently accused the US of doing). And once again, his assessment seems remarkably sober in a world that does indeed seem to have lost its collective mind. 

Full speech (translated) below.

Credit to Zero Hedge