The UK will send 2,000 specialist troops and a spy plane to Jordan to aid its efforts to defeat the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), a government source has revealed.

The decision follows criticism from the Commons Defence Select Committee that the UK was not committing sufficient troops or resources to the area.

An initial group of 60 military planners will join a coalition HQ in Jordan, which will be used to co-ordinate support of Kurdish and Iraqi troops, followed by a further 2,000 who will mainly act in a training capacity, the source told the Express.

The UK’s increased involvement follows Jordan’s decision to extend airstrikes from Syria to Iraq.

The RAF Sentinel R1 spy plane will be used to identify potential targets for coalition airstrikes on IS positions. Royal Artillery drones and electronic jammers from the Royal Signals are expected to be in place by April.

Senior military sources claim the forthcoming election was taking precedence over making defense decisions in the Middle East, but claimed troops would be ready to deploy “shortly.”

“We will shortly be in a position to deploy as many as 2,000 troops mainly in a training capacity,” one source said. “Though a proportion will be ready for force protection purposes if that decision is taken.”

Select committee member Colonel Bob Stewart said there was “only one way to deal with people who behave in the most monstrous way under a masquerade for religious duty.”

The increased commitment comes after the Commons Defence Select Committee said the UK can and should be playing a greater role in resisting ISIS, branding current efforts “strikingly modest.”

In a report published on February 5, it was revealed only three British military personnel were operating outside the Kurdish region.

The report said the UK has the military capability, expertise and resources to make a greater contribution in the fight against IS, including support for Iraqi forces, and can also play a role in encouraging a political solution.

It further called the Islamic State’s recent acquisition of swathes of northern Iraq a “nightmare.”

READ MORE: ‘Britain should do more to fight ISIS’ - Defence Committee

The terror group is responsible for the murder of captive Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh after negotiations to secure his release broke down. His death was announced with the release of a video on February 3, which showed the pilot being burned to death.

The Defence Committee said the unwillingness of military chiefs to provide a clear and articulate statement of the UK’s strategic plan in Iraq was “shocking.” They accused them of a lack of clarity over who was in charge of the policy, and questioned whether such a policy even existed.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon had previously promised to send “hundreds” of troops to the area.

The decision has been met with criticism from some pacifist groups, howeve, who said on Monday afternoon that sending troops to the Middle East would invariably take the UK another step closer to war.

Chris Nineham, from Stop the War Coalition said the move was more likely to spread terrorism that avert it.

"If we don't learn the recent history we will keep repeating it, with disastrous results. The military interventions of the last few years have spread terrorism rather than containing it. We are pushing the Middle East into a downward spiral of violence. We need a complete break from this approach not another escalation"

"Stop the War calls on the government not to break its word to parliament. The deployments, which have no democratic legitimacy, should be stopped immediately" he added.

(RT)

Are we on the verge of a major worldwide economic downturn? Well, if recent warnings from prominent bankers all over the world are to be believed, that may be precisely what we are facing in the months ahead. As you will read about below, the big banks are warning that the price of oil could soon drop as low as 20 dollars a barrel, that a Greek exit from the eurozone could push the EUR/USD down to 0.90, and that the global economy could shrink by more than 2 trillion dollars in 2015. Most of the time, very few people ever actually read the things that the big banks write for their clients. But in recent months, a lot of these bankers are issuing such ominous warnings that you would think that they have started to write for The Economic Collapse Blog. Of course we have seen this happen before. Just before the financial crisis of 2008, a lot of people at the big banks started to get spooked, and now we are beginning to see an atmosphere of fear spread on Wall Street once again. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, but an increasing number of experts are starting to agree that it won’t be good.

Let’s start with oil. Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen a nice rally for the price of oil. It has bounced back into the low 50s, which is still a catastrophically low level, but it has many hoping for a rebound to a range that will be healthy for the global economy.

Unfortunately, many of the experts at the big banks are now anticipating that the exact opposite will happen instead. For example, Citibank says that we could see the price of oil go as low as 20 dollars this year…

The recent rally in crude prices looks more like a head-fake than a sustainable turning point — The drop in US rig count, continuing cuts in upstream capex, the reading of technical charts, and investor short position-covering sustained the end-January 8.1% jump in Brent and 5.8% jump in WTI into the first week of February.

Short-term market factors are more bearish, pointing to more price pressure for the next couple of months and beyond — Not only is the market oversupplied, but the consequent inventory build looks likely to continue toward storage tank tops. As on-land storage fills and covers the carry of the monthly spreads at ~$0.75/bbl, the forward curve has to steepen to accommodate a monthly carry closer to $1.20, putting downward pressure on prompt prices. As floating storage reaches its limits, there should be downward price pressure to shut in production.

The oil market should bottom sometime between the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2 at a significantly lower price level in the $40 range — after which markets should start to balance, first with an end to inventory builds and later on with a period of sustained inventory draws. It’s impossible to call a bottom point, which could, as a result of oversupply and the economics of storage, fall well below $40 a barrel for WTI, perhaps as low as the $20 range for a while.

Even though rigs are shutting down at a pace that we have not seen since the last recession, overall global supply still significantly exceeds overall global demand. Barclays analyst Michael Cohen recently told CNBC that at this point the total amount of excess supply is still in the neighborhood of a million barrels per day…

“What we saw in the last couple weeks is rig count falling pretty precipitously by about 80 or 90 rigs per week, but we think there are more important things to be focused on and that rig count doesn’t tell the whole story.”

He expects to see some weakness going into the shoulder season for demand. In addition, there is an excess supply of about a million barrels of oil a day, he said.

And the truth is that many firms simply cannot afford to shut down their rigs. Many are leveraged to the hilt and are really struggling just to service their debt payments. They have to keep pumping so that they can have revenue to meet their financial obligations. The following comes directly from the Bank for International Settlements…

“Against this background of high debt, a fall in the price of oil weakens the balance sheets of producers and tightens credit conditions, potentially exacerbating the price drop as a result of sales of oil assets, for example, more production is sold forward,” BIS said.

“Second, in flow terms, a lower price of oil reduces cash flows and increases the risk of liquidity shortfalls in which firms are unable to meet interest payments. Debt service requirements may induce continued physical production of oil to maintain cash flows, delaying the reduction in supply in the market.”

In the end, a lot of these energy companies are going to go belly up if the price of oil does not rise significantly this year. And any financial institutions that are exposed to the debt of these companies or to energy derivatives will likely be in a great deal of distress as well.

Meanwhile, the overall global economy continues to slow down.

On Monday, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level ever. Not even during the darkest depths of the last recession did it drop this low.

And there are some at the big banks that are warning that this might just be the beginning. For instance, David Kostin of Goldman Sachs is projecting that sales growth for S&P 500 companies will be zero percent for all of 2015…

“Consensus now forecasts 0% S&P 500 sales growth in 2015 following a 5% cut in revenue forecasts since October. Low oil prices along with FX headwinds and pension charges have weighed on 4Q EPS results and expectations for 2015.”

Others are even more pessimistic than that. According to Bank of America, the global economy will actually shrink by 2.3 trillion dollars in 2015.

One thing that could greatly accelerate our economic problems is the crisis in Greece. If there is no compromise and a new Greek debt deal is not reached, there is a very real possibility that Greece could leave the eurozone.

If Greece does leave the eurozone, the continued existence of the monetary union will be thrown into doubt and the euro will utterly collapse.

Of course I am not the only one saying these things. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are even projecting that the EUR/USD could plummet to 0.90 if there is a “Grexit”…

The Greek Prime Minister has reaffirmed his government’s rejection of the country’s international bailout programme two days before an emergency meeting with the euro area’s finance ministers on Wednesday. His declaration suggested increasing minimum wages, restoring the income tax-free threshold and halting infrastructure privatisations. Should Greece stay firm on its current anti-bailout course and with the ECB not accepting Greek T-bills as collateral, the position of ex-Fed Chairman Greenspan will gain increasing credibility. He forecast the eurozone to break as private investors will withdraw from providing short-term funding to Greece. Greece leaving the currency union would convert the union into a club of fixed exchange rates, a type of ERM III, leading to further fragmentation. Greek Fin Min Varoufakis said the euro will collapse if Greece exits, calling Italian debt unsustainable. Markets may gain the impression that Greece may not opt for a compromise, instead opting for an all or nothing approach when negotiating on Wednesday. It seems the risk premium of Greece leaving EMU is rising. Our scenario analysis suggests a Greek exit taking EURUSD down to 0.90.

If that happens, we could see a massive implosion of the 26 trillion dollars in derivatives that are directly tied to the value of the euro.

We are moving into a time of great peril for global financial markets, and there are a whole host of signs that we are slowly heading into another major global economic crisis.

So don’t be fooled by all of the happy talk in the mainstream media. They did not see the last crisis coming either.

Today's children should look like pincushions from the dozens of vaccines they get from birth to the age of 18. "According to the Centers for Disease Control, the onslaught begins within 12 hours of birth when many babies get a Hepatitis B vaccine," says Dr. David Brownstein.

"At two months, eight more vaccines follow, including polio, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis, and throughout the next few months, they are subjected to boosters of the vaccines they've already have plus additional vaccines.

"The CDC recommends that children get 49 doses of 14 vaccines before they reach the age of 6, and the total reaches 69 doses by the age of 18," Dr. Brownstein tells Newsmax Health. In fact, today's average child is subjected to three times as many vaccinations as were recommended in 1953. In addition, children's small bodies are subjected to numerous vaccinations simultaneously.

In 1983, the CDC guidelines stated that doctors shouldn't give more than four vaccines at the same time. By 2013, CDC guidelines changed to approve giving children up to eight vaccines at once.

What's the result? According to the National Vaccine Information Center, chronic disease and disability in children has drastically increased in the past 50 years. For instance, in the 1990s, one child in 555 had autism, but by 2013, the figure had risen to one child in 50.

What good do vaccines accomplish? It's a mixed bag, says Dr. Brownstein. "The powers that be claim that vaccines markedly lowered the death rate of common childhood illnesses such as measles and whooping cough. However, the mortality rates of these illnesses were rapidly falling before the mass vaccination campaign began.

"I am not saying that all vaccines don't work," he says. "I know some of them do. "For instance, the chicken pox vaccine has clearly lowered the incidence of chicken pox," Dr. Brownstein says. "However, is that a good thing? I am not sure it's so good, since shingles cases have skyrocketed since the mass vaccination of chicken pox was started. And it was known from the start of the chickenpox vaccine that chickenpox vaccinations resulted in an increased rate of shingles.

"In addition, vaccinations may not be good for a child's immune system, because perhaps it needs to be stimulated with these childhood infections to become strong.

"Last month, I was recognized by a reader in an airport. She asked me a question: 'Why are so many kids having all these allergies? We never saw peanut, milk and gluten allergies when we were kids — where is it all coming from?'

"I answered her question by stating, 'I believe that there are multiple reasons for this, but the main reason is that the younger generation's immune system is becoming weaker and weaker.'

"I feel that today's children, when compared to previous generations, suffer from more chronic illnesses because they are exposed to more toxins, and they are receiving too many vaccines at too young of an age. The vaccines contain toxic elements such as mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde. It is ludicrous to inject these toxic agents into our youth and expect good outcomes.

"In addition, human tissue is currently used in 23 vaccines. One prominent former scientist at a pharmaceutical firm, Dr. Helen Ratajczak, feels that the increased spike in autism may be related to the introduction of human DNA into the MMR and chicken pox vaccines. She goes on to state that the foreign DNA from vaccines can be incorporated into the host DNA which causes the immune system to fight against the foreign cells.

"This could start an inflammatory process that never ends, and leads to chronic illnesses like autoimmune disease and allergies. Maybe this is why we are seeing so many children with severe, life-threatening allergies to common foods like peanuts," he says.

"Both of my older sisters had measles," says Dr. Brownstein. "Back then, it was a benign illness that everybody got, just like chicken pox. That generation did just fine with measles. They did not suffer the plethora of autoimmune, allergic and chronic illness that the younger generations suffer from.

"Perhaps we need to do research comparing vaccinated with non-vaccinated populations. Unbelievably, this work still has not been done. There has not been a single randomized, controlled study of a vaccinated versus a non-vaccinated population. Yet, we subject the most vulnerable of us, our children and the future of our country, to dozens of vaccines whose worth is often questionable," says Dr. Brownstein. "This is insane.

"I am not against all vaccines," he says. "However, just proclaiming that vaccination is safe does not make it so. There are inherent dangers of vaccinating as there are dangers of not vaccinating. Parents need to educate themselves about vaccines so that they can make appropriate decisions on whether to vaccinate."

For the original article, visit newsmaxhealth.com.

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Moscow (AFP) - Anti-Western sentiment has reached historic levels in post-Soviet Russia, with a vast majority expressing negative attitudes towards the United States and the European Union, a poll showed on Monday.

Relations with the United States, the former Cold War era rival, have never been particularly warm under Vladimir Putin, but ties appear to have come undone since the start of the Ukraine crisis more than a year ago, a study by the respected Levada Centre pollster showed.

"We have not seen such aggressive and strong resentment towards the West since we started our monitoring," Lev Gudkov, director of the Levada Centre, told AFP.

Eighty one percent of respondents expressed negative attitudes towards the United States, up from 44 percent in January 2014.

The number of people who called ties between Moscow and Washington hostile has grown tenfold -- to 42 percent last month from 4 percent in January 2014.

The poll also showed that traditionally good relations with the European Union have also taken a beating, with the number of people reporting negative attitudes towards the bloc more than doubling to 71 percent.

View gallery

A woman watches a TV set as Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual address to the Fede …

Twenty four percent said relations with the EU were now hostile, up from 1 percent in January 2014. Forty one percent spoke of tense relations, up from 9 percent a year ago.

Predictably, nearly half said ties with the fellow Slavic nation of Ukraine were now hostile, up from 2 percent a year ago.

Forty percent said ties with the West should be strengthened, while 36 percent believe it is best to give Washington and Brussels a wide berth.

At the same time, 49 percent believe that Russia should win back its Group of Eight membership it has lost over its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Gudkov chalked up high levels of hostility towards Americans and Europeans to aggressive propaganda on national television.

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A journalist prepares to do a piece on the frontline between Ukrainian forces and pro Russian separa …

"What happens next depends on television," he said.

"If there is no escalation, if this does not grow into Russia's war with neighbouring states, then the wave will ebb."

The Russian economy has been hit hard by several rounds of Western sanctions coupled with falling oil prices, with the ruble losing half its value.

-'On the brink of war'-

Many in Russia blame the United States for sparking the current crisis and publicly wonder why a country located so far from Ukraine's borders is meddling in the internal affairs of Russia's neighbour.

Alexander Burtsev, a 58-year-old Muscovite, is among those who say his view of the West has worsened over the past year.

"I cannot agree with their assessments," he told AFP, referring to the West.

"The feeling that arose during the bombing of Serbia has strengthened. But that was far away and was forgotten. But what's happening in Ukraine is happening nearby, with our relatives and friends."

Months of high-level diplomacy to settle the crisis failed to halt the fighting and calls are intensifying in Washington for sending weapons to Ukraine.

Observers point out that in a development that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago European leaders have warned about the threat of a major war.