India-Afghanistan: Indian Minister of External Affairs Slaman Khurshid said on 15 February that India will provide helicopters to Afghanistan.
“We are giving them helicopters and we will be supplying them very soon,” Khurshid told reporters accompanying him on a day-long visit to the Afghan city of Kandahar, where he inaugurated an agricultural university built with Indian aid. “We also have been giving them some logistical support and we hopefully will be able to upgrade and refurbish their transport aircraft.”
Khurshid did not specify the number or type of helicopters to be provided to Afghanistan. Nor did he elaborate on transport aircraft contracts.
Phi Beta Iota: Complete article below the line. This may be one of the most important articles ever posted here. Between financial corruption and religious treason, the US Government and military are hosed. Incompetence is the third leg.
Maduro's government on Monday gave three U.S. Embassy officials 48 hours to leave the country, charging that the Obama administration is siding with opposition protesters.
Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said the senior U.S. consular officers were trying to infiltrate Venezuelan universities, the hotbed of the recent unrest, under the cover of doing visa outreach.
The three expelled officials — Breeann Marie McCusker, Jeffrey Gordon Elsen and Kristofer Lee Clark — all enjoyed the rank of second secretary, and two of them were vice consuls, Jaua said.
Phi Beta Iota: In 2013 the Charge d'Affairs Kelly Keideerling, Political Officer Elizabeth Hoffman, and Consular Officer David Moo were ordered to leave Venezuela, allegedly for causing power black-outs. There is no such thing as “visa out-reach.” Other than visiting US citizens in jail, consular officers are supposed to focus on issuing visas. As second secretaries they all have one prior tour. We have no doubt the Venezuelan government is quite certain that all three are CIA officers, and they probably have — with help from the Cubans — ample photographic and audio evidence of their non-consular activities.
Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will review plans to build up a trustworthy data protection network in Europe. The challenge is to avoid data passing through the US after revelations of mass NSA spying in Germany and France.
Merkel has been one of the biggest supporters of greater data protection in Europe since the revelations that the US tapped her phone emerged in a Der Spiegel news report in October, based on information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Earlier, France learned from reports in Le Monde that the NSA has also been recording dozens of millions of French phone calls, including those of the French authorities. According to the report, in just one month between December 10, 2012 and January 8, 2013, the NSA recorded a total of 70.3 million French phone calls.
As we said in the movie THRIVE, “Every phone call and email we send is collected and archived, and can be inspected at any time.”
Some viewers were skeptical… “they wouldn’t do that even if they could, which they can’t”. Fast forward to the days of Edward Snowden style wake-up calls, and it’s actually being admitted. Proven liar-to-Congress, James “No…Not wittingly” Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, has finally admitted that the NSA surveils this country’s entire domestic population.
The movement to end the Surveillance State is finally getting serious. With the failure by Congress to rein in the NSA — although the heroic Rep. Justin Amash nearly succeeded in doing so — activists on the state level are mounting a campaign that promises to hit Big Brother where it really hurts — by cutting off the NSA's water supply at its Bluffdale, Utah, Data Center.
A bill introduced in the Utah legislature by state representative Marc Roberts (R-Santaquin) would cut off the water supply to the NSA's massive facility which will gobble up 1.7 million gallons of water per day — in a state already hit hard by a region-wide drought.
The city of Amsterdam has approved a new set of rules that allows residents to rent out their homes on Airbnb with less red tape. Previously, Amsterdam required renters to secure permits in order to list on Airbnb, a move that wasn’t exactly a ban, but did serve as an obstacle to would-be hosts.
Under the new policy, citizens can classify their houses as “Private Rentals.” They’ll still have to pay taxes on the income, and renters that cross the line into running a business may be subject to investigation.
Airbnb’s Head of Global Public Policy David Hantman celebrated the rules as “great news” for the startup’s customers.
