North Korea on Tuesday lashed out at an upcoming joint US-South Korean military exercise, warning it would attack the South and the US mainland in case of any armed provocation.

The South and its close US ally will next month hold their largest-ever annual exercise in response to the North's recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, Seoul's defence ministry has announced.

The North's military supreme command said the allies planned to practise a "beheading operation" aimed at the North's leadership, and other moves to neutralise its nuclear weapons and missiles.

If there were even a "slight sign" of special forces moving to carry out such operations, the military said, "strategic and tactical" preemptive attacks would be launched.

The primary target would be the South's presidential Blue House, it said in a statement on the official news agency, condemning it as "the centre for hatching plots for confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north, and reactionary ruling machines".

The North also threatened attacks on US bases in the Asia-Pacific and the mainland.

It said it has "the most powerful and ultra-modern strike means" in the world capable of "dealing fatal blows at the US mainland any moment and in any place".

Such blows would "reduce the cesspool of all evils to ashes, never to rise again on our planet", it added in a reference to the United States.

The North habitually claims that the annual Key Resolve/Foal Eagle exercise is a rehearsal for invasion while Seoul and Washington say it is purely defensive.

Tensions are high as the United Nations considers tougher sanctions against the North to punish it for January's nuclear test and this month's rocket launch.

The South, in an unprecedentedly tough move, has shut down a Seoul-financed and jointly-run industrial estate in the North, saying it was helping finance its neighbour's military programmes.

CALAIS, France (AP) — The Latest on the migrant influx into Europe (all times local):

7:25 p.m.

NATO's chief says the alliance could return any migrants it rescues in the Aegean Sea to Turkey if they set out from that country.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Turkey and its allies have agreed that "if the people were rescued by NATO, if they come from Turkey, we can return them to Turkey."

He told EU lawmakers Tuesday that NATO ships have already been doing monitoring work in the Aegean while mission details are sorted out.

NATO wants to help Greece, Turkey, and the EU border agency Frontex with surveillance in the sea, which thousands of migrants have been crossing daily. NATO vessels are obliged to help boats in distress, but rescue work is not their aim. Still, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO would not turn migrant boats back.

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Refugees from Afghanistan sit in front of a tent at the transit center for refugees near northern Ma …

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A humanitarian worker looks at refugees and migrants gathered at the transit center for refugees nea …

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Refugees and migrants, mostly from Afghanistan, walk through the transit center for refugees near no …

5:25 p.m.

Belgium is reinforcing its borders with France close to Calais to avoid a flood of people crossing the border if the migrant camp there gets closed.

Interior Minister Jan Jambon said Belgium has told the European Union authorities of the Schengen borderless zone it will temporarily reimpose border controls.

Jambon said that up to 290 police officials a day will be used to make sure that no camps are set up on the Belgian side of the border and that migrants cannot slip aboard Britain-bound ships in the port of Zeebrugge.

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A boy carries a box with goods delivered by Red Cross to hundreds of migrants and refugees after the …

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5:20 p.m.

Austria's chancellor is citing parts of a letter from the EU's top refugee official critical of his country's cap on migrant entries to argue that Austria's move is warranted.

Werner Faymann says the letter from Dimitris Avramopoulos notes that "no one must be waved through" EU borders. He also says the letter stipulates that "someone who already had the chance to request asylum somewhere else in the European Union can be turned away."

As of last Friday Austria is allowing no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points. It is also restricting the total number of those in transit to other EU nations further north to 3,200 a day.

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Refugees and migrants sit around a Greek Orthodox icon stand as they wait outside a transit camp in …

Faymann, in comments to reporters Tuesday, said he is standing by the restrictions.

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4:20 p.m.

The U.N. refugee agency says several European countries are placing extra "undue hardship" on asylum-seekers and Greece with restrictions that have caused "chaos" at some border points.

UNHCR expressed concerns Tuesday that such "restrictive practices" are putting extra pressure on Greece. Its Aegean Sea islands have taken in over 825,000 people since August alone — mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis fleeing conflict at home.

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Greek army check the documents of refugees and migrants, before leave a transit camp in the western …

The agency said a statement from police in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia about registering refugees at the Macedonia-Greece border has been "interpreted differently" and resulted in greater risks for such travelers — notably unaccompanied children.

UNHCR also said recent limits announced by Austria and Slovenia on daily entries and accepted asylum applications "risk violating EU law."

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3:35 p.m.

Regional officials in Greece say they have reached an agreement with the eastern Spanish region of Valencia for the transfer of 1,000 migrants — bypassing the European Union's slow moving relocation system.

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Migrants watch French officials tour a makeshift camp set outside Calais, France, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2 …

Greek islands have been hard hit by Europe's refugee crisis, with more than 800,000 asylum-seekers arriving last year and roughly 4,000 per day so far in 2016.

The South Aegean regional government, which represents several Greek islands, said it had made the agreement with Valencia authorities currently visiting Greece. The migrants were due to travel by chartered ferry from the island of Leros to Spain, an announcement said.

The governments say the move "sends a message that the refugee problem in Europe can been managed with humanity and enlightenment."

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3:30 p.m.

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Migrants walk through a makeshift camp set outside Calais, France, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2016. People fle …

Germany's interior minister is pressing for Turkey to take back migrants trying to cross the Aegean Sea as European Union leaders prepare for a summit with Turkey expected on March 7.

Germany and other EU countries see diplomacy with Turkey, currently the main transit country for migrants trying to get to Europe, as key to stemming the flow of refugees. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere says after meeting Sweden's justice minister Tuesday that securing the Greek-Turkish sea border is important "and that includes people being returned to Turkey, and not being received in Greece first."

De Maiziere says that approach will be pursued in the coming weeks. He says if it's not helping reduce the influx, other "pre-eminently European" measures would have to be considered.

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3:20 p.m.

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A migrant walks through a makeshift camp set outside Calais, France, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2016. People f …

The European Union is worried about new police restrictions being imposed on people traveling along the main migrant route through the Balkans.

Police chiefs from EU states Austria, Croatia and Slovenia plus non-members Serbia and Macedonia agreed last week to only allow in people "arriving from war-torn areas." The EU's executive arm said Tuesday that it "has concerns about this approach and will raise the matter with the relevant countries."

People from Afghanistan are now being stopped from moving through the Balkans. That is ratcheting up the pressure on Greece, where most of the migrants arrive in Europe, since many Afghanis are getting stuck at its border with Macedonia.

Many from Afghanistan could potentially qualify for asylum.

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3:10 p.m.

The Czech prime minister says the European Union should stop migrants along the Balkans' route if the measures taken by Turkey and Greece are not enough.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka says "if the flow of migrants is not stopped in Greece, we have to stop it in the western Balkans area." Sobotka says the EU should do that after next month's summit of EU leaders. He says thousands of migrants cannot be allowed to enter the EU daily any more.

Sobotka said Tuesday that four Central European countries —the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — support creating a new barrier on Greece's borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria. The plan is controversial — and opposed by Germany — because it effectively eliminates Greece from Europe's passport-free Schengen travel zone.

But Sobotka says Greece would not remain alone and receive an unspecified help from the EU.

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laundry of refugees dries hanged on a fence at the transit center for refugees near northern Macedon …

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1:40 p.m.

The head of Europe's border control agency says more border officers, ships and planes are needed to guard Greece's sprawling maritime border, where most migrants enter the 28-nation European Union.

Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri says Tuesday the agency's 2016 budget has been increased to 250 million euros ($275 million) from 142 million euros last year. In 2017, the agency's budget will increase to 320 million euros.

Some 775 EU border officers are currently deployed in Greece and about 280 in southern Italy where migrants arrive across the Mediterranean from Libya.

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A migrant walks through a makeshift camp set outside Calais, France, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2016. People f …

Leggeri says January migrant arrivals are down significantly over December, but are many times higher than the number who arrived in January 2015. Last year saw more than one million migrants land on Europe's shores.

12:35 p.m.

The head of Europe's border control agency says it's proving near-impossible to return to Turkey migrants who arrive in Greece but have no case for asylum in the European Union.

Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri said in Berlin Tuesday that newcomers who don't meet requirements for protection and are considered economic migrants are supposed to leave Greece within a month. Since the vast majority arrive on boats from Turkey, that means they should return to Turkey.

But Leggeri said "practically almost no migrants can be returned to Turkey." He suggested that if no country is taking the unwanted economic migrants it's likely they'll all remain in Greece.

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A stranded migrant tries to cut woods from a tree to use them for a make shift fire at a gas station …

EU leaders are looking for ways to persuade Ankara to deliver on a pledge to crack down on migrants trying to cross into Greece.

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12:30 p.m.

A key migration watcher says more than 110,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Greece and Italy this year — about four months faster than that milestone was reached in a record-setting 2015.

The International Organization for Migration says more than 102,500 people crossed into Greece and more than 7,500 to Italy through Monday. IOM figures show that last year, that number of crossings wasn't reached before June. By year-end, more than 1 million people had crossed.

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Refugees from Iraq walk through the transit center for refugees near northern Macedonian village of …

Nearly half of those arriving in Greece this year were Syrians, and one-quarter were Afghans.

Separately Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said a study found 94 percent of Syrians and 71 percent of Afghans who arrived in Greece in January cited conflict and violence at home as their main reasons for traveling there.

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9:40 a.m.

People fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa, the Mideast and Asia are facing an evening deadline to move out of a camp in the French port of Calais that has become a flashpoint in Europe's migrant crisis.

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Refugees and migrants, mostly from Afghanistan, sit or stand in a tent at the transit center for ref …

Authorities, arguing that the slum-like site presents sanitary risks, warned camp residents last week that they have until 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) Tuesday to leave.

A decision is expected Tuesday in a last-ditch effort by charity groups to delay the evacuation.

Officials estimate 800 to 1,000 currently live there, but humanitarian groups contend the figure is more than 3,000.

Regional administration head Fabienne Buccio said on Europe-1 radio Tuesday that the expulsion order doesn't mean authorities will use force to evacuate the site. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve insisted the evacuation would be "progressive."

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9:15 a.m.

Police have removed hundreds of migrants from a camp at Greece's border with Macedonia following a protest that halted freight rail services to other Balkan countries.

Authorities said the mostly Afghan migrants were being put on buses bound for Athens, in the south of the country, after the police operation started early Tuesday. Journalists were not allowed to approach the area.

Macedonia at the weekend began stopping Afghan migrants at the border, and slowing the rate at which asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq were allowed to cross the border — leaving thousands stranded in Greece, where an average of 4,000 migrants and refugees each day.

Greek has strongly criticized Austria's decision last week to cap the daily number of asylum applications and migrants crossing the country.

Residents inspect damage after an airstrike on the rebel held al-Fardous neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria February 18, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters were reported to have tightened their grip on a Syrian government supply route to Aleppo on Tuesday as the army battled to retake the road as part of its campaign to seize the city.

As Damascus accepted a U.S.-Russian plan for a "cessation of hostilities" between the government and rebels due to take effect on Saturday, heavy Russian air strikes were also said to be targeting one of the last roads into opposition-held parts of Aleppo.

The plan announced by the United States and Russia on Monday is the result of intensive diplomacy to end the five-year-long war. But rebels say the exclusion of Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front will give the government a pretext to keep attacking them because its fighters are widely spread in opposition-held areas.

The Syrian government, backed by Russian air strikes since September, said it would coordinate with Russia to define which groups and areas would be included in what it called a "halt to combat operations". Damascus also warned that continued foreign support for the rebels could wreck the agreement.

The Russian intervention has turned the momentum President Bashar al-Assad's way in a conflict that has splintered Syria and mostly reduced his control to the big cities of the west and the coast.

Damascus, backed by ground forces including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is making significant advances, including near the city of Aleppo which is split between rebel- and government-control.

The Islamic State assault has targeted a desert road which the government has been forced to use to reach Aleppo because insurgents still control the main highway further west.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports the war using a network of sources on the ground, said Islamic State fighters had seized the village of Khanaser on the road, which remained closed for a second day. A Syrian military source told Reuters army operations were continuing to repel the attack.

Islamic State, which controls swathes of eastern and central Syria, differs from rebels fighting Assad in western Syria because its priority is expanding its own "caliphate" rather than reforming Syria through Assad's removal from power.

The group has escalated attacks on government targets in recent days. On Sunday, it staged some of the deadliest suicide bomb attacks of the war, killing around 150 people in government-controlled Damascus and Homs.

A U.S.-Russian statement said the two countries and others would work together to delineate the territory held by IS, Nusra Front, and other militant groups excluded from the truce.

In Geneva, U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said: "This is a cessation of hostilities that we hope will take force very quickly and hope provide breathing space for intra-Syrian talks to resume."

Fawzi said there were plans for additional aid deliveries to opposition-held areas blockaded by government forces near Damascus, including the Eastern Ghouta.

RIGHT TO RESPOND

Damascus stressed the importance of sealing the borders and halting foreign support for armed groups and "preventing these organizations from strengthening their capabilities or changing their positions, in order to avoid what may lead to wrecking this agreement".

The Syrian military reserved the right to "respond to any breach by these groups against Syrian citizens or against its armed forces", a government statement added.

The main, Saudi-backed Syrian opposition body said late on Monday it "consented to" the international efforts, but said acceptance of a truce was conditional on an end to blockades of rebel-held areas, free access for humanitarian aid, a release of detainees, and a halt to air strikes against civilians.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee also said it did not expect Assad, Russia, or Iran to cease hostilities.

The powerful Kurdish YPG militia, which is currently fighting both Islamic State and rebels near Aleppo, is "seriously examining" the U.S.-Russian plan to decide whether to take part, a YPG official told Reuters. "There is so far no decision," said the official, declining to be identified because he is not an official YPG spokesman.

The YPG, an ally of the United States in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, has recently received Russian air support during an offensive against rebels near Aleppo.

Britain said on Tuesday it had seen disturbing evidence that Syrian Kurdish forces were coordinating with the Syrian government and the Russian air force.

Turkey, a major sponsor of the insurgency against Assad, said it welcomed plans for the halt to fighting but was not optimistic about a positive outcome to talks on a political transition.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Ankara had reservations about actions that Russian forces could take against Syria's moderate opposition and civilians. Turkey is worried about the expansion of YPG influence in Syria, fearing it could fuel separatism among its own Kurdish population.

A rebel fighter in the Aleppo area said he did not expect the ceasefire plan to work.

"The Russian jets will not stop bombing on the pretext of Nusra and the Islamic State organization, and will keep bombing civilians and the rest of the factions with this pretext," said Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a fighter with the Ajnad al-Sham group.

"Everything that is happening is pressure to extend the life of the regime," he told Reuters from the Aleppo area.

(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Guy Faulconbridge in London and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

(NaturalNews) The push by the world's central bankers to essentially ban the use of cash is intensifying, but it belies another truth that is hard to escape: Even as they advocate a cashless society, which they say is necessary to reduce theft and stop criminals, these same central bankers are printing money like crazy.

As noted by Simon Black at Sovereign Man, the push for a cashless society is not just growing, it's disturbing, and for a number of reasons. First, the obvious reason is the control it would give central banks and governments over their citizens; the second is that, in the event of a societal collapse or a cyber attack on global finances, a person's wealth would be wiped out with a few computer keystrokes.

Black noted in his Feb. 17 column:

The momentum to "ban cash", and in particular high denomination notes like the 500 euro and $100 bills, is seriously picking up steam.

On Monday the European Central Bank President emphatically disclosed that he is strongly considering phasing out the 500 euro note.

Yesterday, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers published an op-ed in the Washington Post about getting rid of the $100 bill.

Prominent economists and banks have joined the refrain and called for an end to cash in recent months.

The reasoning is almost always the same: cash is something that only criminals, terrorists, and tax cheats use.

'Comical'

Summers, in his op-ed, cites recent research from a Harvard University paper entitled, Making it Harder for the Bad Guys: The Case for Eliminating High Denomination Notes, which Black says generally sums up conventional central bank thinking these days. Among other things the paper recommends abolishing the 500 euro bill and the $100 bill.

The study's authors say that "without being able to use high denomination notes, those engaged in illicit activities – the 'bad guys' of our title – would face higher costs and greater risks of detection.

"Eliminating high denomination notes would disrupt their 'business models,'" the paper continued.

Black says he finds those conclusions "comical."

"I can just imagine a bunch of bureaucrats and policy wonks sitting in a room pretending to know anything about criminal activity," he wrote – which is very true; it does sound a bit incredulous that academics would presume to know much about the adaptive nature of criminal enterprises.

The fact is, as Black points out, there has been criminal activity since man first walked on earth. Indeed, crime began occurring long before humans devised and exchanged money for goods and services. And if a monetary ban ever really takes place, crime will continue.

"Perhaps even more hilarious is that many of these bankrupt governments have become so desperate for economic growth that they now count illegal drug activity and prostitution in their GDP calculations, both of which are typically transacted in cash," Black wrote. "So, ironically, by banning cash these governments will end up reducing their own GDP figures."

It's all about control

But isn't something else really behind this push to eliminate cash? What's the rush to ban something that is used for criminal purposes by a very tiny minority of people on the planet?

Cash, it seems, "is the Achilles' Heel of the financial system," says Black, whose company helps guide people into a life free from normal societal constraints, like poverty and an inability to be mobile.

Black notes that central banks around the world have managed to keep interest rates at zero or near zero for almost eight years now – which is unprecedented. All that has happened is that such policies have created massive financial bubbles as well as extraordinary amounts of debt. But the worst has yet to materialize.

Read Black's entire column here.

Sources:

SovereignMan.com

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NaturalNews.com