SATAN 2: PUTIN TELLS U.S. 'YOU WILL LISTEN TO RUSSIA NOW' AS HE DEPLOYS HYPERSONIC NUCLEAR ICBM

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is developing a new generation of advanced nuclear weapons including a hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can reach almost anywhere in the world and cannot be shot down by anti-missile systems.

Putin made the claim during his annual presidential address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow. He officially unveiled a new hypersonic nuclear-capable ICBM called the RS-28 Sarmat and said it would be able to strike anywhere in the U.S.—adding that testing of the weapon is now complete. NATO calls the nuke “Satan 2”.

A video was played during the speech showing off the weapon’s alleged capabilities, reported RT, Russian state media. Putin said other countries only listen to Russia when it creates new weapons systems, reported Sputnik, another of Russia’s state organs. “You will listen to us now,” he added.

Russia's RS-28 Sarmat, called Satan 2 by NATO, a hypersonic ICBM Putin claims can hit anywhere in the U.S. and which has been deployed in the south of his country.RT SCREENSHOT

There have been media reports about the RS-28’s development since 2014. But Putin’s speech claims testing of the weapon is finished—and he said it is already deployed in the south of Russia, Sputnik reported.

Claims made in the Russian media about the RS-28’s capability state that it carries a payload powerful enough to destroy an area the size of Texas and has a propulsion system so advanced that it can defy existing missile defense systems.

Putin’s nuclear grandstanding comes at a time when he is pushing to expand Russia’s sphere of influence, especially in the Middle East. After the U.S. and its allies including Britain decided not to fully enter the conflict in Syria back in 2013, after the Assad regime was accused of using chemical weapons on his own people, Russia stepped in to support the Syrian government militarily and financially as it attempted to regain control of the country.

Now it is using its foothold in Syria to cement its influence in the region and push the U.S. back. In a statement to the House Armed Services Committee, General Joseph L. Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), warned that Russia's presence in Syria threatened America's ability to "dominate the airspace".

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including the State Duma parliamentarians, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and other high-ranking officials, in Moscow, Russia March 1, 2018.REUTERS/MAXIM SHEMETOV

Votel accused Russia of acting as “arsonist and firefighter” in Syria by “fueling the conflict in Syria between the Syrian Regime, YPG, and Turkey, then claiming to serve as an arbiter to resolve the dispute”.

He said Russia’s role in Syria established Moscow “as a long-term player in the region, and the Kremlin is using the conflict in Syria to test and exercise new weapons and tactics, often with little regard for collateral damage or civilian casualties.”

Votel warned: “An increase in Russian surface-to-air missile systems in the region threatens our access and ability to dominate the airspace.”

Russia and the U.S. are the two most heavily armed nuclear powers in the world. The U.S. State Department said America has 652 deployed ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers, while Russia has 527. It said the U.S. possesses 1,350 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers, while Russia has 1,444.

And the U.S. claims 800 deployed and nondeployed nuclear launchers, while Russia is estimated to have 779. Both powers are obliged by nonproliferation treaties to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.

Putin is also facing a presidential election at home in March 2018 though he and his allies are accused by his opponents of rigging it in his favor, something he denies, and he is expected to win by a landslide.

(newsweek)

Girl dies in 'weather-related' crash as snow chaos continues to grip UK – as it happened
Nicola Slawson, Nadia Khomami,Matthew Weaver and Claire Phipps
Fri 2 Mar 2018 05.34 GMT

Calif. couple arrested after children found in plywood hovel, dozens of cats in trailer

By Meagan Flynn March 2 at 1:24 AM

A California couple has been accused of child abuse after deputies found their three children living in what they described as a large plywood box. (Reuters)

A California couple has been accused of child abuse after deputies found their three children living in what they described as a large plywood box on a remote property without running water or electricity or adequate food. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest Thursday, saying it appeared the children had lived in there for four years.

Mona Kirk, 51, and Daniel Panico, 73, have been charged with willful cruelty to a child and are being held in the Morongo Basin Jail on $100,000 bond. Despite the nature of the charge, officials later clarified that the family’s situation appeared to stem from poverty, which had not been specified in the sheriff’s original news release.

Deputies discovered the trailer home and plywood structure while conducting routine checks in the area around 11 a.m. Thursday on the 7000 block of Sunfair Road, in a remote area of Joshua Tree, Calif., according to the news release from the sheriff’s department.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested a Joshua Tree, Calif., couple after coming upon this site. (Morongo Basin Sheriff Station)

At first, deputies thought they had found an abandoned trailer home and a large box in the desert. The box was about 20 feet long, 10 feet wide and 4 feet high.

When deputies went inside the trailer, they found about 30 to 40 cats roaming freely.

Site of arrest in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Google Maps)

Then they found the children. According to the sheriff’s department, the children, ages 11, 13 and 14, had been living in the rectangular plywood hovel for about four years.

“The victims were found to have an inadequate amount of food and were living in an unsuitable and unsafe environment due to the conditions located on the property,” the sheriff’s news release said.

The deputies contacted county Children and Family Services, which took custody of the children.

Kirk and Panico, who were located on the property, were arrested.

Despite the willful cruelty charges against Kirk and Panico, Capt. Trevis Newport of the Morongo Basin Station told the Los Angeles Times that it didn’t appear the couple had been confining the children to the plywood structure for malicious purposes, as in the case of the Turpin children, whose parents allegedly chained them in their rooms in nearby Perris, Calif. Newport said this case only appeared to be the result of poverty.

“They’re homeless,” Newport said. “It’s a shelter, the shape of a box … nowhere near what it sounded like when it came out.”

Newport clarified that, although the family had inadequate access to food, as described in the news release, the children did not appear malnourished. They were not enrolled in school, and it was not clear whether they were home-schooled, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“It’s just tragic that these children were being raised in conditions like this,” Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, told the newspaper. “There are services available to help these folks, and clearly they chose not to ask for any help.”

Joshua Tree, located in the Mojave Desert and just north of Joshua Tree National Park, is home to 7,414 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About 29 percent of them live in poverty, 22 percent of whom are children. The median income is $34,970.

It’s about 90 minutes east of the home where investigators discovered the Turpin child-abuse case in neighboring Riverside County, involving 13 children and adults ages 2 through 29 who had been allegedly locked up in a room smelling of human waste. David A. Turpin and Louise A. Turpin were charged last month with multiple felony counts of torture, child abuse, abuse of dependent adults and false imprisonment after one of the children managed to escape the home through a window and call police.

David and Louise Turpin face up to life in prison if found guilty of the charges.

VIDEO: POLICE KICK HUNGRY HOMELESS MAN OUT OF MCDONALD'S AS HE QUIETLY EATS MEAL

A video posted to Facebook of police kicking a homeless man out of a McDonald’s restaurant in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, while he tries to eat a meal bought for him out of sympathy by another customer has already attracted more than 55 million views.

But the man who shot the footage and argued with the officer in question has since come out to defend her against a torrent of negative and abusive comments about the way she handled the situation.

The video was uploaded to Facebook by Yossi Gallo, who also filmed the February 28 incident and bought the McDonald’s meal for the homeless man. And it’s sparking anger as it goes viral across the web.

A screenshot from Yossi Gallo's Facebook video showing a homeless man being removed from McDonald's in Myrtle Beach as he quietly eats a meal paid for by another customer.YOSSI GALLO/FACEBOOK

In the video, a Myrtle Beach police officer is telling the homeless man he must leave the McDonald’s premises as he tries to eat his meal. Gallo can be heard berating McDonald’s staff for calling the police to have the homeless man removed. “You guys suck,” Gallo tells staff, repeatedly, and says he’ll never eat in the restaurant again.

A McDonald’s manager approaches Gallo to ask him to stop shouting. “This is how I talk, I talk loud, if the officer has a problem with that, the officer is going to arrest me,” Gallo replies.

“You’re being disorderly,” the manager tells Gallo.

“I’m not being disorderly,” Gallo says. “The guy, he didn’t even ask me for food. And I saw him across the street and I bought him over here and gave him food.”

The officer responds: “We’re here because apparently he asked multiple people, OK? Multiple people have complained, so it’s not just you, OK? If management is asking you to quiet down, quiet down.”

Eventually, after remonstrating with the manager and the officer about receiving a receipt and a refund, Gallo and the homeless man are forced to leave the restaurant. Gallo invites the homeless man to jump in his car so they can get food somewhere else.

“You know what you’re doing is wrong,” Gallo tells the officer in the McDonald’s parking lot. “You know that already. Deep inside you, you know that.”

( https://www.facebook.com/100009579155336/videos/1931110113884942/ )

Speaking to Myrtle Beach Online, Gallo said he is overwhelmed by the response to the video as comments pour in to praise his actions. “But also I want to say a lot of those comments...are bashing the police officer,” he said.

“A lot of them were saying very mean and cruel things to that police officer, and by all means if I ever got in trouble and I would want to be confronted by a police officer, that's the police officer I would want to be confronted by. She was very nice, she was very polite.”

He added: “I was very upset. I was acting out of anger. Obviously, I don't just walk into restaurants and yell.”

When asked why he helped the homeless man, Gallo said he has “a place in my heart for homeless people and people in need”.

“I think that a lot of my blessings in life, with things that I was successful in, I think that comes from helping people because I love to give, I love to help others,” he said. “If someone feels that I'm doing this to show off, then by all means please show off...why don't you do that as well, and if everyone does that, we'll have a beautiful world, wouldn't we?”

Myrtle Beach Police Department put out a statement as the video went viral on Facebook.

“Officers were dispatched to the location after receiving a call, from an employee of the business, that a male was in the parking lot asking people for money,” the statement said.

“Upon arriving at the restaurant, an employee approached the officer and indicated the male was inside the establishment. The employee requested the officer issue a trespassing warning and asked that the person leave the premises.

“The officer advised the male of the request made by the business and issued the warning. A bystander, who was videotaping the incident was also trespassed from the location, at the request of the manager, for what management deemed as disorderly behavior.

Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — Last week, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced a grant of $160 million for “development projects” in the Maldives, a country located in the Indian ocean that is currently battling an economic and political crisis.

“As part of the support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Saudi Fund for Development and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has pledged $160 million in support of the Maldives and its brotherly people for the development projects including the airport development and fisheries sector of the Maldives,” a statement on the Maldives presidency website said on February 18.

Foreign debt is viewed with great enthusiasm by the current governments in the Asia-Pacific region, but not so much by the rest of the population. Former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed recently warned that its monumental debt to China has put the country at risk of a “land grab.”

“We can’t pay the $1.5-2 billion debt to China,” Nasheed told the Nikkei Asian Review in an interview.

If the Maldives falls behind on its payments, China will “ask for equity” from the owners of various islands and infrastructure operators, and Beijing will then “get free hold of that land,” he also reportedly said.

Just days ago, the current President, Abdulla Yameen, extended the state of emergency that was implemented in early February. Fortunately for China, the focus has quickly shifted from China’s influence in the country to the Gulf’s growing involvement, particularly Saudi Arabia’s.

“It is unfortunate that certain countries are assisting the deep state,” Mohamed Aslam, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) legislator and member of the House Economic Committee, told Al Jazeera. He also said:

“The Maldives, at present, is in a state of flux politically and socially. It is also under siege by an organised and systematic strategy developed and implemented by radical Islamists with the intention of infiltration and subsequent total control of key departments of the state.”

In 2015, the Maldives approved a law to allow foreigners who invest more than $1 billion to own land in perpetuity. While this may not seem like that big of a deal, having a five-minute conversation with anyone in the Asia-Pacific region will immediately tell you otherwise because land is everything to local inhabitants of the Asia-Pacific. As the New York Times articulated last year:

“But Mr. Ahmed [a local resident] and others here are bracing for a life change they fear could be catastrophic, after the Maldivian president’s announcement in January that leaders of Saudi Arabia were planning a $10 billion investment in the group of islands where Mr. Ahmed lives, known as Faafu Atoll.

“Most alarming to the residents were reports that the government was breaking with a longstanding policy of leasing the islands that are home to some of the world’s premier resorts and selling the atoll outright to the Saudis. The inhabitants fear they might be moved off the islands.”

However, despite the potential loss of land ownership, Saudi funding for any country comes with some more disturbing strings attached. As Fareed Zakaria has explained:

“In Southeast Asia, almost all observers whom I have spoken with believe that there is another crucial cause [behind the ‘cancer’ of Islamic extremism] – exported money and ideology from the Middle East, chiefly Saudi Arabia. A Singaporean official told me, ‘Travel around Asia and you will see so many new mosques and madrassas built in the last 30 years that have had funding from the Gulf. They are modern, clean, air-conditioned, well-equipped – and Wahhabi [Saudi Arabia’s puritanical version of Islam].’ Recently, it was reported that Saudi Arabia plans to contribute almost $1 billion to build 560 mosques in Bangladesh. The Saudi government has denied this, but sources in Bangladesh tell me there’s some truth to the report.”

As The Week also explained in 2015, Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars “investing heavily in building mosques, madrasas, schools, and Sunni cultural centers across the Muslim world. Indian intelligence says that in India alone, from 2011 to 2013, some 25,000 Saudi clerics arrived bearing more than $250 million to build mosques and universities and hold seminars.”

According to the New York Times, Saudi Arabia has “for decades spread its conservative strand of Islam in the Maldives by sending religious leaders, building mosques and giving scholarships to students to attend universities.”

It should therefore come as no surprise to anyone that the South China Morning Post reported that Indian intelligence sources are claiming hundreds of Maldivians have joined ISIS in Syria. ISIS essentially holds the world ransom with Saudi Arabia’s strict strain of Islam, a mere coincidence one can be sure.

India, for its part, also has a deep interest in claiming the Maldives for itself, though it was noticeably left out when President Yameen sent envoys to Saudi Arabia, China, and Pakistan to request help in its current political crisis.

China sees the Maldives as a key part of its One Belt, One Road initiative, and Beijing does not necessarily view Saudi Arabia’s desire to inject itself in the region as a bad thing. In fact, the South China Morning Post lamented that Saudi Arabia is doing so in its bid to assert itself as a more viable partner in China’s rapidly expanding economic projects as opposed to its major arch-rival, Iran, with which China also has a cooperative relationship.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media