3810-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Standing Rock 2017: The Fight is Not Over

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 16:48

Makia Freeman, Contributor
Waking Times

Standing Rock 2017 will continue to be an issue. The fight of the Native American Indian tribes, environmentalists and the water protectors (protestors) is not over. Although the Army Corps of Engineers announced on Sunday December 4th, 2016, that it would not be granting the DAPL easement access, there is nothing to stop the oil company from disobeying that and moving forward anyway. After all, the amount they would have to pay in fines in insignificant next to the lost revenue they are experiencing from the delay of the project. The announcement offered temporary relief, but the battle is not over. Some at the camps have stated that the announcement was propaganda to lull people into a false sense of security. You can expect Standing Rock 2017 to be just as newsworthy as Standing Rock 2016. Before going further, however, it is worth revisiting the legal facts of the Standing Rock / DAPL issue, since there was so much emotion, disinformation and confusion surrounding it.

Historical Context of DAPL: Treatment of the American Indians in the Past

First we need to understand the background. In 1851, the Laramie Treaty was struck which outlined the territorial claims of 8 American Indian tribes including the Sioux. However 11 years later in 1862, after many years of broken promises by the US Government (treaty land not honored, food and supplies not delivered as promised), a war raged between members of the Dakota nation and the US military in southern Minnesota. In fact, December 26th marked the 154th anniversary of the largest mass execution in US government history, when 38 Dakota men were publicly hanged in Mankato, Minnesota. Around this time gold and other minerals were discovered on Treaty reservation land, so the US Government took back the land, dug for uranium and poisoned the aquifer and thus the drinking water of the people there (now incidentally the Sioux must pump the Missouri River to make their water drinkable). In 1890, a horrible massacre took place. At the Battle of the Wounded Knee (not a battle but a massacre), white man shot Lakota Sioux women and children and killed their buffalo. History.comdescribes it as follows:

“The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre … a brutal massacre … in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.”

Clearly there has been a lot of mistrust, broken promises, theft, violence and murder in the past. From the American Indian point of view, the DAPL is the black snake they have prophesized about which threatens their livelihood and lives. Those supporting the DAPL have made several claims substantiating why they believe it’s right, fair and legal. Let’s take a closer look at their claims.

Claim: DAPL Does Not Go Through Sioux Treaty Land

This is technically true, but overall very misleading. Yes, the DAPL runs adjacent and parallel to an older 1982 pipeline in the same place. The pipeline passes by a point about 500 feet from Sioux land. Obviously, if some kind of oil spill were to occur, the probability is almost 100% that it would affect American Indian land. How could it not being that close? The Lakota Sioux on pine Ridge used to depend upon the Ogallala Aquifer for their drinking water. But since the uranium contamination, they now pump water from the Missouri River. They have had their drinking water permanently poisoned from resource extraction in the past. Clearly, it’s fair for them to protest a pipeline right next to them with such a potential of disruption and danger to their lives. And if you think that pipelines are “safe”, look at the next claim.

Anther North Dakota spill (not DAPL) that happened near Standing Rock in December 2016.
Is any oil safe? Credit: RT.

Claim: Pipelines are Safer to Transfer Oil than Trains and Other Overland Methods

Another technically true but misleading point. Pipelines may be safer than other methods, but they still break and spill. Just in case you think that a domestic American oil spill is an unlikely event, consider this: only around 4 weeks ago another oil pipeline in North Dakota (not the DAPL, but a different one around 150 miles from Standing Rock) spilled into a creek. This happened at Ash Coulee Creek in North Dakota. 176,000 gallons of oil were spilled which contaminated around 5.4 miles of the creek. Oil is a dirty fuel; these kind of accidents are bound to happen. The more a country relies on oil, the more accidents it can expect to have. Did you know the Keystone XL pipeline leaked 12 times in its 1st year of operation?

In fact, there have been thousands of documented oil spills and pipeline breaks (averaging 31,500 barrels per year according to this source) in the USA alone in the last 15 years! That is an astonishing figure and truly goes to show that there is no way “safe” way to transport oil. This doesn’t even include the 100s of undocumented spills that we were not told about …

Claim: The Sioux were Given a Chance to Voice Claims but Didn’t Negotiate

Both the DAPL and the Army Corps of Engineers have been claiming that the Sioux tribe didn’t respond in timely way to their requests for negotiation and consultation. Clearly there was a huge communication breakdown. Whose fault was it? It’s very difficult to determine. The article Everything You Need to Know About Standing Rock summarizes the situation:

“When it all comes down, through, the tribe was not involved in the process. Whose fault that is . . . well, depends on how you look at the world, really. The Corps and DAPL made significant effort, but the tribe also doesn’t have the money, means or special training that the organization’s have. This causes some pretty significant imbalance. One example: After several months of requests for meetings and input, the Tribe asks for clarification on the process all together – keep in mind they had already been getting notifications from DAPL prior to this. When Chairman Archambault got involved – almost a year into the process – he claims that form letters and public meetings don’t meet the obligation of the Corps to consult with tribes. In the final months, there is confusion over the Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction and their completion of necessary research and inclusion. During this time Chairman Archambault also asserted that the Army Corp of Engineers “violated its own policy” by not holding an “active and respectful dialogue before decisions are made and actions are taken.””

Claim: No Archeological Evidence DAPL is Going Through Burial Grounds

There are more disputes in this area too, with the DAPL claiming the pipeline doesn’t go through burial grounds. Does this stand up? Unlikely. Right after the tribe submitted burial evidence to the court, the DAPL jumped 25 miles and starting ploughing a new area with bulldozers. Why? To eliminate evidence. Waterkeeper Alliance lawyer Daniel E. Estrie wasoutraged at Dakota Access LLC for these actions:

““Based upon reports from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawyers, on Friday, September 2, the tribe provided to the federal court in Washington, D.C. specific locations along the planned pipeline route where evidence of sacred burial and other culturally important sites had been identified by experts. The tribe’s intent was obviously to protect these irreplaceable sacred sites by requesting that the court consider them in connection with a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, on which a ruling is expected by this Friday. Shockingly, the day after the tribe notified the court of the specific locations of the sacred sites — and knowing the tribe would not be able to get into court over Labor Day weekend — Dakota Access LLC sent work crews with bulldozers and other heavy equipment out to the very locations that had been identified by the tribe and physically destroyed them. If these allegations against the pipeline company are true, in the 23 years that I have practiced and taught environmental law, I have never seen such an outrageous, unconscionable, and bad faith abuse of the legal process. It also plainly demonstrates that contrary to the pipeline company’s spin, it is the company, not the tribe, that is the aggressor here.””

DAPL Was Deliberately Fast-Tracked to Avoid Environmental Impact Statement

The DAPL is certainly making a lot of dubious claims, but let’s turn away from its claims and onto its actions. The fact is that the DAPL broke the law in numerous ways in the lead up to this project. The main way they skirted the law was by engaging in segmentation (breaking up the project into lots of shorter projects in order to get more favorable legal treatment). They conspired to push the project through without doing an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) as required by law. DAPL tried to do a shortform EIS, but their proposed line is 7 miles longer than another similar project which did complete an EIS. They used a fast track method (Army Corps Permit 12) to avoid an EIS:

“The permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline project (DAPL) were granted using the Army Corps Nationwide Permit 12, a fast track permitting process that has allowed the oil and gas industry to build numerous fossil fuel pipelines across the country, even on private property, without any project specific environmental review or public input process.”

The theme of large corporations trying to avoid the EIS is a common one. This is exactly what happened when a joint consortium including the US Navy tried to force the military SuperFerry onto the island of Kauai, Hawaii, against the wishes of the local people and without an EIS. The consortium was headed by John Lehman, a member of the neocon PNAC group that agitated for 9/11 before it happened. Due to direct action and the bravery of many surfers who jumped in the water and blocked the ship from docking, the SuperFerry was never able to make it to Kauai.

The common theme is undeniable: large corporations have a habit of avoiding the responsibility of conducting a thorough environmental impact assessment regarding their plans – obviously because they don’t want scrutiny of their actions and for the public to realize just how much the corporations’ activities will affect the land, air, water, etc.

Another question worth asking is this: why was the pipeline moved from going through Bismarck (where it was originally planned) to going through Native land? Is it because Bismarck residents are whiter and have more political power, and thus a government that is less likely to cross them than a more disadvantaged and less politically powerful section of society?

Water Protectors Hit with Police Brutality and Chemtrails

Even if you believe the DAPL is in the right, how can the Government justify the police brutality dished out? The police used water cannons in already freezing conditions, which was widely and sharply denounced as inhumane. The police also used rubber bullets and conducted illegal strip searches on the protectors. In one video a woman claims some water protectors were being sprayed with chemtrails. There have also been unverified reports of cell phone jamming.

Standing Rock 2017 Will Continue

Standing Rock may have temporarily disappeared from the headlines, but the fight is not over. You can be sure that the oil company is either continuing anyway (and paying the relatively low fines) or considering doing so. There are 3 different camps at Standing Rock: Oceti Oyate (the main camp north of the Cannonball), and Rosebud and Sacredstone (on the south of the Cannonball). They have not always been in good communication with each other, so it has been hard to verify information. Ever since the Dec. 4th announcement, the elders (such as Chairman David Archambault in this video) have asked supporting people to go home because of the bitter cold and to make the camps more sustainable. The Standing Rock battle in 2017 will still be about access to correct information. Meanwhile, the people there are still in need of basic supplies such as firewood, propane and food. If you feel called to donate, the best way is via these 2 links – this for the legal fund, and this for food.

Thanks so much to Mark Morey for assistance in providing information for this article.

About the Author

Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com (FaceBook here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance

**Sources embedded throughout article.

This article (Standing Rock 2017: The Fight is Not Over) was originally created and published by The Freedom Articles and is re-posted here with permission.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/01/05/standing-rock-2017-fight-not/

Category:

Waking Times

Hundreds Of US Tanks Arrive In Europe To Support NATO Anti-Russian Buildup

Jan 6, 2017 12:43 PM

As we reported yesterday, Lithuania confirmed the presence of U.S. special forces inside its territory, stating the deployment’s purpose is to train local forces and act as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Supposedly, the move is in response to a “escalation” by Vladimir Putin, who has been deploying nuke-ready missiles in the Russian province of Kaliningrad located in the heart of central Europe. This move has prompted the neighboring Baltic states to become “highly concerned” about Russian military activity.

Furthermore, sometime during the spring of 2017, NATO is expected to send battalions of 800 to 1,200 troops to each of the Baltic States and Poland. Themainstream media has even dubbed NATO’s recent buildup the alliance’s “biggest military buildup on Russia’s borders since the Cold War.” Even Great Britain will be sending fighter jets, as well as troops to Romania in order to counter Russia in the region.

Over the last several years, Russia has made it abundantly clear in the past that its deployment of missiles is a deterrent against NATO expansion along its borders, in what is effectively a cat-and-mouse game that continues to be played with catastrophic consequences, and which neither side can win.

Meanwhile, as part of the latest conventional arms race, on Friday hundreds of U.S. tanks, trucks and other military equipment arrived by ship in Germany to be transported by rail and road to eastern Europe as part of a NATO buildup that has drawn Russia’s ire. According to Reuters, two shiploads arrived in the northern port of Bremerhaven and a third was due in a few days, bringing the fleets of tracked and wheeled vehicles for use by around 4,000 U.S. troops being deployed for exercises in NATO states near Russia.

U.S. and Polish forces will participate in a large “massing” exercise in Poland at the end of January as part of a series of measures aimed at reassuring U.S. allies in Europe after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine. Beginning in February, U.S. military units will spread out across Poland, the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany for training, exercises and maintenance.

“The best way to maintain the peace is through preparation,” Major General Timothy McGuire told reporters when asked if the large deployment was meant to send a message to Russia.

He also admitted that “this is just showing the strength and cohesion of the alliance and the U.S. commitment to maintain the peace on the continent.” It is also a provocation specifically designed to provoke Putin into further escalation, something which Obama also did last week with the expuslion of 35 Russian diplomats.

NATO countries say their planned deployments to eastern NATO countries are purely defensive, but Russia has rebuked what it sees as an aggressive western buildup in eastern Europe.

In addition to U.S. troops going to Poland, NATO members Germany, Canada and Britain are also sending battalions of up to 1,000 troops each to the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They say the four battalions, backed by additional U.S. forces on rotation, are justified by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Those actions alarmed the Baltic states, which worry they could be the next targets of Russian pressure.

Among their equipment will be 87 Abrams M1A1 tanks, 20 Paladin artillery vehicles and 136 Bradley fighting vehicles.

The equipment will be used by the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, arriving this month from Fort Carson, Colorado for the first of what Washington promises will be back-to-back nine-month rotations in the “foreseeable future.”

The Army is also sending its 10th Combat Aviation Brigade with about 50 Black Hawk and 10 CH-47 Chinook helicopters and 1,800 personnel, as well as a separate aviation battalion with 400 troops and 24 Apache helicopters.

Amid this dangerous escalation, voices of reason were few and far between. One of them belonged to Germany’s Left party, which has called for closer ties with Russia, said Berlin had a historic obligation to work for peace and disarmament, and it would protest against the deployment. “Tanks never create peace anywhere,” said Christian Goerke, who heads the party in Brandenburg state. “Quite the contrary, a troop deployment of such a scale is part of always increasing buildup and provocation.”

Unfortunately both the US Military-Industrial complex, and the US government, stubbornly pretend not to recognize this simple logic.

This article (Hundreds Of US Tanks Arrive In Europe To Support NATO Anti-Russian Buildup) by Tyler Durden originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was used with permission. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org.

A future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders.

Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) AI system is installed this month. Maintaining it will cost about 15m yen (£100k) a year.

The move is unlikely to be welcomed, however, by 34 employees who will be made redundant by the end of March.

The system is based on IBM’s Watson Explorer, which, according to the tech firm, possesses “cognitive technology that can think like a human”, enabling it to “analyse and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video”.

The technology will be able to read tens of thousands of medical certificates and factor in the length of hospital stays, medical histories and any surgical procedures before calculating payouts, according to the Mainichi Shimbun.

While the use of AI will drastically reduce the time needed to calculate Fukoku Mutual’s payouts – which reportedly totalled 132,000 during the current financial year – the sums will not be paid until they have been approved by a member of staff, the newspaper said.

Japan’s shrinking, ageing population, coupled with its prowess in robot technology, makes it a prime testing ground for AI.

According to a 2015 report by the Nomura Research Institute, nearly half of all jobs in Japan could be performed by robots by 2035.

Dai-Ichi Life Insurance has already introduced a Watson-based system to assess payments - although it has not cut staff numbers - and Japan Post Insurance is interested in introducing a similar setup, the Mainichi said.

AI could soon be playing a role in the country’s politics. Next month, the economy, trade and industry ministry will introduce AI on a trial basis to help civil servants draft answers for ministers during cabinet meetings and parliamentary sessions.

The ministry hopes AI will help reduce the punishingly long hours bureaucrats spend preparing written answers for ministers.

If the experiment is a success, it could be adopted by other government agencies, according the Jiji news agency.

If, for example a question is asked about energy-saving policies, the AI system will provide civil servants with the relevant data and a list of pertinent debating points based on past answers to similar questions.

The march of Japan’s AI robots hasn’t been entirely glitch-free, however. At the end of last year a team of researchers abandoned an attempt to develop a robot intelligent enough to pass the entrance exam for the prestigious Tokyo University.

“AI is not good at answering the type of questions that require an ability to grasp meanings across a broad spectrum,” Noriko Arai, a professor at the National Institute of Informatics, told Kyodo news agency.

(the guardian)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/7/2017 10:56:08 AM
	Standing Rock 2017: The Fight is Not Over Thu, 01/05/2017 - 16:48 Makia Freeman, Contributor Waking Times Standing Rock 2017 will continue to be an issue. The fight of the Native American Indian tribes, environmentalists and the water protectors (protestors) is not over. Although the Army Corps of Engineers announced on Sunday December 4th, 2016, that it would not be granting the DAPL easement access, there is nothing to stop the oil company from disobeying that and moving forward anyway. After all, the amount they would have to pay in fines in insignificant next to the lost revenue they are experiencing from the delay of the project. The announcement offered temporary relief, but the battle is not over. Some at the camps have stated that the announcement was propaganda to lull people into a false sense of security. You can expect Standing Rock 2017 to be just as newsworthy as Standing Rock 2016. Before going further, however, it is worth revisiting the legal facts of the Standing Rock / DAPL issue, since there was so much emotion, disinformation and confusion surrounding it. Historical Context of DAPL: Treatment of the American Indians in the Past First we need to understand the background. In 1851, the Laramie Treaty was struck which outlined the territorial claims of 8 American Indian tribes including the Sioux. However 11 years later in 1862, after many years of broken promises by the US Government (treaty land not honored, food and supplies not delivered as promised), a war raged between members of the Dakota nation and the US military in southern Minnesota. In fact, December 26th marked the 154th anniversary of the largest mass execution in US government history, when 38 Dakota men were publicly hanged in Mankato, Minnesota. Around this time gold and other minerals were discovered on Treaty reservation land, so the US Government took back the land, dug for uranium and poisoned the aquifer and thus the drinking water of the people there (now incidentally the Sioux must pump the Missouri River to make their water drinkable). In 1890, a horrible massacre took place. At the Battle of the Wounded Knee (not a battle but a massacre), white man shot Lakota Sioux women and children and killed their buffalo. History.comdescribes it as follows: “The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre … a brutal massacre … in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.” Clearly there has been a lot of mistrust, broken promises, theft, violence and murder in the past. From the American Indian point of view, the DAPL is the black snake they have prophesized about which threatens their livelihood and lives. Those supporting the DAPL have made several claims substantiating why they believe it’s right, fair and legal. Let’s take a closer look at their claims. Claim: DAPL Does Not Go Through Sioux Treaty Land This is technically true, but overall very misleading. Yes, the DAPL runs adjacent and parallel to an older 1982 pipeline in the same place. The pipeline passes by a point about 500 feet from Sioux land. Obviously, if some kind of oil spill were to occur, the probability is almost 100% that it would affect American Indian land. How could it not being that close? The Lakota Sioux on pine Ridge used to depend upon the Ogallala Aquifer for their drinking water. But since the uranium contamination, they now pump water from the Missouri River. They have had their drinking water permanently poisoned from resource extraction in the past. Clearly, it’s fair for them to protest a pipeline right next to them with such a potential of disruption and danger to their lives. And if you think that pipelines are “safe”, look at the next claim. Anther North Dakota spill (not DAPL) that happened near Standing Rock in December 2016. Is any oil safe? Credit: RT. Claim: Pipelines are Safer to Transfer Oil than Trains and Other Overland Methods Another technically true but misleading point. Pipelines may be safer than other methods, but they still break and spill. Just in case you think that a domestic American oil spill is an unlikely event, consider this: only around 4 weeks ago another oil pipeline in North Dakota (not the DAPL, but a different one around 150 miles from Standing Rock) spilled into a creek. This happened at Ash Coulee Creek in North Dakota. 176,000 gallons of oil were spilled which contaminated around 5.4 miles of the creek. Oil is a dirty fuel; these kind of accidents are bound to happen. The more a country relies on oil, the more accidents it can expect to have. Did you know the Keystone XL pipeline leaked 12 times in its 1st year of operation? In fact, there have been thousands of documented oil spills and pipeline breaks (averaging 31,500 barrels per year according to this source) in the USA alone in the last 15 years! That is an astonishing figure and truly goes to show that there is no way “safe” way to transport oil. This doesn’t even include the 100s of undocumented spills that we were not told about … Claim: The Sioux were Given a Chance to Voice Claims but Didn’t Negotiate Both the DAPL and the Army Corps of Engineers have been claiming that the Sioux tribe didn’t respond in timely way to their requests for negotiation and consultation. Clearly there was a huge communication breakdown. Whose fault was it? It’s very difficult to determine. The article Everything You Need to Know About Standing Rock summarizes the situation: “When it all comes down, through, the tribe was not involved in the process. Whose fault that is . . . well, depends on how you look at the world, really. The Corps and DAPL made significant effort, but the tribe also doesn’t have the money, means or special training that the organization’s have. This causes some pretty significant imbalance. One example: After several months of requests for meetings and input, the Tribe asks for clarification on the process all together – keep in mind they had already been getting notifications from DAPL prior to this. When Chairman Archambault got involved – almost a year into the process – he claims that form letters and public meetings don’t meet the obligation of the Corps to consult with tribes. In the final months, there is confusion over the Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction and their completion of necessary research and inclusion. During this time Chairman Archambault also asserted that the Army Corp of Engineers “violated its own policy” by not holding an “active and respectful dialogue before decisions are made and actions are taken.”” Claim: No Archeological Evidence DAPL is Going Through Burial Grounds There are more disputes in this area too, with the DAPL claiming the pipeline doesn’t go through burial grounds. Does this stand up? Unlikely. Right after the tribe submitted burial evidence to the court, the DAPL jumped 25 miles and starting ploughing a new area with bulldozers. Why? To eliminate evidence. Waterkeeper Alliance lawyer Daniel E. Estrie wasoutraged at Dakota Access LLC for these actions: ““Based upon reports from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawyers, on Friday, September 2, the tribe provided to the federal court in Washington, D.C. specific locations along the planned pipeline route where evidence of sacred burial and other culturally important sites had been identified by experts. The tribe’s intent was obviously to protect these irreplaceable sacred sites by requesting that the court consider them in connection with a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, on which a ruling is expected by this Friday. Shockingly, the day after the tribe notified the court of the specific locations of the sacred sites — and knowing the tribe would not be able to get into court over Labor Day weekend — Dakota Access LLC sent work crews with bulldozers and other heavy equipment out to the very locations that had been identified by the tribe and physically destroyed them. If these allegations against the pipeline company are true, in the 23 years that I have practiced and taught environmental law, I have never seen such an outrageous, unconscionable, and bad faith abuse of the legal process. It also plainly demonstrates that contrary to the pipeline company’s spin, it is the company, not the tribe, that is the aggressor here.”” DAPL Was Deliberately Fast-Tracked to Avoid Environmental Impact Statement The DAPL is certainly making a lot of dubious claims, but let’s turn away from its claims and onto its actions. The fact is that the DAPL broke the law in numerous ways in the lead up to this project. The main way they skirted the law was by engaging in segmentation (breaking up the project into lots of shorter projects in order to get more favorable legal treatment). They conspired to push the project through without doing an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) as required by law. DAPL tried to do a shortform EIS, but their proposed line is 7 miles longer than another similar project which did complete an EIS. They used a fast track method (Army Corps Permit 12) to avoid an EIS: “The permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline project (DAPL) were granted using the Army Corps Nationwide Permit 12, a fast track permitting process that has allowed the oil and gas industry to build numerous fossil fuel pipelines across the country, even on private property, without any project specific environmental review or public input process.” The theme of large corporations trying to avoid the EIS is a common one. This is exactly what happened when a joint consortium including the US Navy tried to force the military SuperFerry onto the island of Kauai, Hawaii, against the wishes of the local people and without an EIS. The consortium was headed by John Lehman, a member of the neocon PNAC group that agitated for 9/11 before it happened. Due to direct action and the bravery of many surfers who jumped in the water and blocked the ship from docking, the SuperFerry was never able to make it to Kauai. The common theme is undeniable: large corporations have a habit of avoiding the responsibility of conducting a thorough environmental impact assessment regarding their plans – obviously because they don’t want scrutiny of their actions and for the public to realize just how much the corporations’ activities will affect the land, air, water, etc. Another question worth asking is this: why was the pipeline moved from going through Bismarck (where it was originally planned) to going through Native land? Is it because Bismarck residents are whiter and have more political power, and thus a government that is less likely to cross them than a more disadvantaged and less politically powerful section of society? Water Protectors Hit with Police Brutality and Chemtrails Even if you believe the DAPL is in the right, how can the Government justify the police brutality dished out? The police used water cannons in already freezing conditions, which was widely and sharply denounced as inhumane. The police also used rubber bullets and conducted illegal strip searches on the protectors. In one video a woman claims some water protectors were being sprayed with chemtrails. There have also been unverified reports of cell phone jamming. Standing Rock 2017 Will Continue Standing Rock may have temporarily disappeared from the headlines, but the fight is not over. You can be sure that the oil company is either continuing anyway (and paying the relatively low fines) or considering doing so. There are 3 different camps at Standing Rock: Oceti Oyate (the main camp north of the Cannonball), and Rosebud and Sacredstone (on the south of the Cannonball). They have not always been in good communication with each other, so it has been hard to verify information. Ever since the Dec. 4th announcement, the elders (such as Chairman David Archambault in this video) have asked supporting people to go home because of the bitter cold and to make the camps more sustainable. The Standing Rock battle in 2017 will still be about access to correct information. Meanwhile, the people there are still in need of basic supplies such as firewood, propane and food. If you feel called to donate, the best way is via these 2 links – this for the legal fund, and this for food. Thanks so much to Mark Morey for assistance in providing information for this article. About the Author Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com (FaceBook here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance *Sources embedded throughout article. This article (Standing Rock 2017: The Fight is Not Over) was originally created and published by* The Freedom Articles and is re-posted here with permission. http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/01/05/standing-rock-2017-fight-not/ Category: Waking Times
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/7/2017 11:15:36 AM
	Hundreds Of US Tanks Arrive In Europe To Support NATO Anti-Russian Buildup by Tyler Durden Jan 6, 2017 12:43 PM As we reported yesterday, Lithuania confirmed the presence of U.S. special forces inside its territory, stating the deployment’s purpose is to train local forces and act as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Supposedly, the move is in response to a “escalation” by Vladimir Putin, who has been deploying nuke-ready missiles in the Russian province of Kaliningrad located in the heart of central Europe. This move has prompted the neighboring Baltic states to become “highly concerned” about Russian military activity. Furthermore, sometime during the spring of 2017, NATO is expected to send battalions of 800 to 1,200 troops to each of the Baltic States and Poland. Themainstream media has even dubbed NATO’s recent buildup the alliance’s “biggest military buildup on Russia’s borders since the Cold War.” Even Great Britain will be sending fighter jets, as well as troops to Romania in order to counter Russia in the region. Over the last several years, Russia has made it abundantly clear in the past that its deployment of missiles is a deterrent against NATO expansion along its borders, in what is effectively a cat-and-mouse game that continues to be played with catastrophic consequences, and which neither side can win. Meanwhile, as part of the latest conventional arms race, on Friday hundreds of U.S. tanks, trucks and other military equipment arrived by ship in Germany to be transported by rail and road to eastern Europe as part of a NATO buildup that has drawn Russia’s ire. According to Reuters, two shiploads arrived in the northern port of Bremerhaven and a third was due in a few days, bringing the fleets of tracked and wheeled vehicles for use by around 4,000 U.S. troops being deployed for exercises in NATO states near Russia. U.S. and Polish forces will participate in a large “massing” exercise in Poland at the end of January as part of a series of measures aimed at reassuring U.S. allies in Europe after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine. Beginning in February, U.S. military units will spread out across Poland, the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany for training, exercises and maintenance. “The best way to maintain the peace is through preparation,” Major General Timothy McGuire told reporters when asked if the large deployment was meant to send a message to Russia. He also admitted that “this is just showing the strength and cohesion of the alliance and the U.S. commitment to maintain the peace on the continent.” It is also a provocation specifically designed to provoke Putin into further escalation, something which Obama also did last week with the expuslion of 35 Russian diplomats. NATO countries say their planned deployments to eastern NATO countries are purely defensive, but Russia has rebuked what it sees as an aggressive western buildup in eastern Europe. In addition to U.S. troops going to Poland, NATO members Germany, Canada and Britain are also sending battalions of up to 1,000 troops each to the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They say the four battalions, backed by additional U.S. forces on rotation, are justified by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Those actions alarmed the Baltic states, which worry they could be the next targets of Russian pressure. Among their equipment will be 87 Abrams M1A1 tanks, 20 Paladin artillery vehicles and 136 Bradley fighting vehicles. The equipment will be used by the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, arriving this month from Fort Carson, Colorado for the first of what Washington promises will be back-to-back nine-month rotations in the “foreseeable future.” The Army is also sending its 10th Combat Aviation Brigade with about 50 Black Hawk and 10 CH-47 Chinook helicopters and 1,800 personnel, as well as a separate aviation battalion with 400 troops and 24 Apache helicopters. Amid this dangerous escalation, voices of reason were few and far between. One of them belonged to Germany’s Left party, which has called for closer ties with Russia, said Berlin had a historic obligation to work for peace and disarmament, and it would protest against the deployment. “Tanks never create peace anywhere,” said Christian Goerke, who heads the party in Brandenburg state. “Quite the contrary, a troop deployment of such a scale is part of always increasing buildup and provocation.” Unfortunately both the US Military-Industrial complex, and the US government, stubbornly pretend not to recognize this simple logic. This article (Hundreds Of US Tanks Arrive In Europe To Support NATO Anti-Russian Buildup) by Tyler Durden originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was used with permission. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/7/2017 3:36:46 PM
	January 6, 2017 \| Darius Shahtahmasebi (ANTIMEDIA) — According to an estimate conducted by Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and national security expert Jennifer Wilson, a CFR research associate, President Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs in 2016. Syria was hit with 12,192 bombs, the highest number of any country on Obama’s hit list. Iraq came in a close second, receiving 12,095 bombs. Altogether, the peace prize laureate dropped at least 26,171 bombs in seven countries last year. As noted by Zenko and Wilson, the estimates are relatively conservative: “In President Obama’s last year in office, the United States dropped 26,171 bombs in seven countries. This estimate is undoubtedly low, considering reliable data is only available for airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and a single “strike,” according to the Pentagon’s definition, can involve multiple bombs or munitions. In 2016, the United States dropped 3,027 more bombs—and in one more country, Libya—than in 2015.” Zenko’s figures were lower for 2015. He estimated 23,144 bombs were dropped in that year — almost 3,000 less than 2016. This marks a sharp increase in Obama’s trigger happiness when it comes to the use of advanced weaponry, though the targets of the bombs remained the same: the vast majority of his 2015 bombs (22,100) were dropped in Iraq and Syria in 2015. If a peace prize-winning president can detonate this many bombs in 7+ nations, we should all be very wary of what’s to come. This article (A Nobel Peace Prize Winner Dropped 26,000 Bombs in 2016) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org.Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org. (theantimedia.org)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/7/2017 5:11:35 PM
	Japanese company replaces office workers with artificial intelligence Justin McCurry in Tokyo Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30% Photograph: Toru Hanai/REUTERS Justin McCurry in Tokyo Shares 31k A future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) AI system is installed this month. Maintaining it will cost about 15m yen (£100k) a year. The move is unlikely to be welcomed, however, by 34 employees who will be made redundant by the end of March. The system is based on IBM’s Watson Explorer, which, according to the tech firm, possesses “cognitive technology that can think like a human”, enabling it to “analyse and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video”. The technology will be able to read tens of thousands of medical certificates and factor in the length of hospital stays, medical histories and any surgical procedures before calculating payouts, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. While the use of AI will drastically reduce the time needed to calculate Fukoku Mutual’s payouts – which reportedly totalled 132,000 during the current financial year – the sums will not be paid until they have been approved by a member of staff, the newspaper said. Japan’s shrinking, ageing population, coupled with its prowess in robot technology, makes it a prime testing ground for AI. According to a 2015 report by the Nomura Research Institute, nearly half of all jobs in Japan could be performed by robots by 2035. Dai-Ichi Life Insurance has already introduced a Watson-based system to assess payments - although it has not cut staff numbers - and Japan Post Insurance is interested in introducing a similar setup, the Mainichi said. AI could soon be playing a role in the country’s politics. Next month, the economy, trade and industry ministry will introduce AI on a trial basis to help civil servants draft answers for ministers during cabinet meetings and parliamentary sessions. The ministry hopes AI will help reduce the punishingly long hours bureaucrats spend preparing written answers for ministers. If the experiment is a success, it could be adopted by other government agencies, according the Jiji news agency. If, for example a question is asked about energy-saving policies, the AI system will provide civil servants with the relevant data and a list of pertinent debating points based on past answers to similar questions. The march of Japan’s AI robots hasn’t been entirely glitch-free, however. At the end of last year a team of researchers abandoned an attempt to develop a robot intelligent enough to pass the entrance exam for the prestigious Tokyo University. “AI is not good at answering the type of questions that require an ability to grasp meanings across a broad spectrum,” Noriko Arai, a professor at the National Institute of Informatics, told Kyodo news agency. (the guardian)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/7/2017 5:56:12 PM
	BANGLADESH POLICE KILL ‘MASTERMIND’ OF ISIS-CLAIMED DHAKA CAFE SIEGE BY JACK MOORE ON 1/6/17 AT 7:40 AM Bangladeshi police say they have shot dead the “mastermind” of the cafe siege that left 20 hostages, mostly foreign nationals, dead in Dhaka last year. Police shot two suspected radical Islamist militants dead in a dawn raid on Friday in the Bangladeshi capital, Inspector General of Police A.K.M Shahidul Haque told AFP news agency. The Bangladeshi government has stated they were part of a group of Islamist militants responsible for the siege on the Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1, 2016, which either shot or hacked to death 18 foreign nationals, although the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) also claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims included nationals from Italy, Japan and India. Bangladeshi security personnel stand guard after gunmen stormed a restaurant in Dhaka's high-security diplomatic district early on July 2, 2016.STR/AFP/GETTY Police have identified the main suspect killed as Nurul Islam Marzan, a 30-year-old commander of a splinter faction of the Islamist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) who had been on a wanted list for his involvement in the cafe attack. The other suspect shot dead was 35-year-old Saddam Hossain, who Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzamn Khan said was the “leader of killers in most of the sensitive killings in the northern region[of the country] including a Japanese citizen,” Reuters reported. Khan was referring to the killing of 65-year-old Kunio Hoshi, who died after unidentified assailants attacked him in the country’s northern Rangpur district in 2015. “Marzan and his associate Saddam died in an encounter with police,” Inspector General Haque said. “He [Marzan] was the operational commander of July cafe attack. He was one of the masterminds of it.” As well as Marzan, Bangladeshi authorities believed Canadian citizen Ahmed Chowdhury to be a fellow mastermind of the attack. They killed him in a raid near Dhaka in August 2015. Police have killed 40 Islamist militants suspected of direct or indirect involvement in the cafe siege in the months following the attack. Bangladeshi security services are battling against a severe threat to national security in the form of radical Islamists who have targeted foreign nationals, secular writers, Christians, Hindus and LGBT rights activists. In addition to the Dhaka siege, both Al-Qaeda and ISIS have claimed separate attacks in the country in the last year. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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