European Investment Bank seeks cooperation with BRICS bank (Source rt.com) EIB and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) agreed to broaden cooperation to support investment in“strategically important projects.” “We hope to reach such an agreement with NDB [New Development Bank] soon… We are always open for that,” said Hoyer. Speaking at a news conference at the EU Embassy in China, he also expressed hopes for productive cooperation between AIIB and the BRICS bank, along the same lines as “the European Investment Bank had with the World Bank on some concrete projects.” The EIB is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its 28 member states. It provides low-interest loans for projects aimed at improving infrastructure, energy supply, and environmental protection in Europe and developing countries. The New Development Bank created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa started in July 2015 with initial authorized capital of $100 billion. The goal of the bank, headquartered in Shanghai, is to fund infrastructure projects in emerging economies for sustainable development. Last month, the BRICS bank approved its first package of loans. The $811 million investment will be directed at renewable energy projects in Brazil, China, South Africa and India. The bank estimates the renewable energy field projects with a combined capacity of 2.37MW can help reduce harmful emissions by four million tons annually.

FROM THE GREEN REVOLUTION TO GMOS: LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS (Source truepublica.org.uk) What can we do about the powerful transnational agribusiness companies that have captured or at the very least heavily influence monsanto-wants-to-know-why-people-doubt-science regulatory bodies, research institutes, trade agreements and governments? How can we assess the safety and efficacy of GMOs or their other technologies and products when narratives and decision-making processes have become distorted by these companies? Through the ‘green revolution’ chemical-intensive model of agriculture these corporations and their  Rockefeller powerful backers promoted and instituted, they have been able to determine what seeds are to be used by farmers, what is to be grown and what inputs are to be applied. This, in turn, has adversely effected the nutritional content of food, led to the  vandana shiva climate change drought and india’s looming food and water crisis over-exploitation of water and diminished drought resistance, losing million tons of soil annually due to erosion government “ degraded soil,  ” undermined biodiversity, food bowl cancer polluted the environment,  “green-revolution trapping india’s farmers in debt”destroyed farmers’ livelihoods and so much more: With 60 years’ farming experience behind him, “Save outlined many of these impacts in his open letter to Indian officials some years back. These powerful corporations increasingly hold sway over a globalized system of food and agriculture from seed to plate. And with major mergers within the agribusiness sector in the pipeline, power will be further consolidated and the situation is likely to worsen. While scientific innovation has a role to play in improving agriculture, the narrative about farming has been shaped to benefit the interests of this handful of wealthy, politically influential corporations whereby commercial interest trumps any notion of the public good.

Anonymous Hits New York Stock Exchange, World Bank, The Fed, & Vatican — Total Media Blackout (Source thefreethoughtproject.com) A global media blackout of Anonymous’ ongoing worldwide attacks on the “corrupt banking cartels,” the hacking collective has now taken down some of the most prestigious institutions in global governance. OpIcarus has recently taken offline the World Bank, the New York Stock Exchange, five U.S. Federal Reserve Banks and the Vatican. After announcing a  anonymous-fires-opening-massive-assault-global-banking-cartel global call to arms against the “corrupt global banking cartel,” the hacker collective, known as Anonymous, in conjunction with Ghost Squad Hackers, have taken more than 30 central banks offline, including striking many targets at the heart of the Western imperialist empire. An Anonymous press release explained the intention behind the operation: “The banks have been getting away with murder, fraud, conspiracy, war profiteering, money laundering for terrorists and drug cartels, have put millions of people out on the street without food or shelter and have successfully bought all our governments to help keep us silenced. We represent the voice of the voiceless. We are uniting to make a stand. The central banks which were attacked in recent days were attacked to remind people that the biggest threat we face to an open and free society is the banks. The bankers are the problem and #OpIcarus is the solution.” Operation Icarus was relaunched in conjunction with a video release announcing the beginning of a “30-day campaign against central bank sites across the world.” Since that time, the scope and magnitude of the attacks have increased exponentially, with Anonymous, Ghost Squad Hackers, a number of Sec groups and Banned Offline coordinating attacks — each focusing on separate financial institutions in an effort to maximize the number of targets hit.

Harrowing scenes of Venezuela on the brink of collapse (Source Washington Post) The lines outside Venezuelan supermarkets can stretch for hours, snaking down sidewalks and right-angling around corners. Each one is like a hissing fuse. Will they explode? Venezuela withers away a little more each week. Another food staple or medicine or industrial part goes missing, bringing the breaking point closer. The national guard troops policing the supermarket lines grip their riot shields and truncheons tighter, looking ever more jittery.It all is a waiting game. The government of President Nicolás Maduro is waiting for a rise in oil prices to save it from catastrophe. It is waiting for rainfall to rescue its hydroelectric plants and end the rotating blackouts that have cut the work week for state employees from five days to two. The government is holding on to hopes of another loan from China, or any other creditor willing to lend it a little breathing room. The government knows it better put something on the supermarket shelves for Venezuelans to wait for. Venezuela’s political opposition is also watching the fuse, and sometimes trying to fan it, but its street protests look small beside the food lines. The opposition took control of parliament in December, but that didn’t matter. Maduro disregards their laws, their votes, their condemnations and warnings. They’re bystanders too, for the most part. For how much longer? The waiting game goes on. Venezuela’s neighbors are playing it, too, wondering if the crash can be softened and how far it may ripple. U.S. officials think the end is close. But all manner of experts and outsiders have been saying that about Venezuela for a while now, and the lines just get longer.

11 states file lawsuit challenging Obama’s transgender directive (Source rt.com) Texas and 10 other states will sue the Obama administration over a directive that forces states to adjust their policy to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. Texas’s action was announced on Twitter by Texas Gov. Greg Abbot (R) on Wednesday, where he thanked his attorney general for deciding to bring the suit forward. The other states that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs are Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Utah, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Maine, Arizona and Maine. The filing accuses the Obama administration of “running roughshod over commonsense policies” that protect children and asks a judge to declare the move unlawful. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is expected to discuss the lawsuit in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. The Education Department’s directive, which was made earlier this month, orders public schools to create policies allowing transgender students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. The lawsuits are part of a national transgender bathroom usage controversy, which erupted following the passage of a bill in North Carolina that required that people use the bathroom corresponding to their biological gender.

US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations (Source cnbc.com) The U.S. Defense Department is still using — after several decades — 8-inch floppy disks in a computer system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation’s nuclear forces,  HYPERLINK “http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/677454.pdf” \t “_blank” a jaw-dropping new report reveals. The Defense Department’s 1970s-era IBM Series/1 Computer and long-outdated floppy disks handle functions related to intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft, according to the new Government Accountability Office report. The department’s outdated “Strategic Automated Command and Control System” is one of the 10 oldest information technology investments or systems detailed in the sobering GAO report, which calls for a number of federal agencies “to address aging legacy systems.” The report shows that creaky IT systems are being used to handle important functions related to the nation’s taxpayers, federal prisoners and military veterans, as well as to the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Will the November US Presidential Election Bring “The End of the World”? (Source globalresearch.ca)

“We have been watching for nearly a month a steady buildup of American and NATO forces along Russia’s borders – on land, on sea and in the air. There has been nothing like this on Russia’s borders, such an amassing of hostile military force, since the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.” So concludes America’s leading Russian expert, Professor Stephen Cohen (Princeton and New York University). Professor Cohen asks if Washington is sleepwalking and needs to wake up or whether Washington has gone crazy and intends war. Pepe Escobar advises Washington to “beware what you wish for: Russia is ready for war. Escobar reports that recently the Rand Corporation, “essentially a CIA outpost,” concluded that “Russia could overrun NATO in a mere 60 hours, if not less.” On the level of nukes and missile systems, Russia is four generations ahead of the US military/security complex, which is mainly interested in inflating profits with cost overruns. US weapons systems are simply outclassed. Nevertheless, the Russian high command is concerned with the Russian government’s low-key response to Washington’s aggression. The generals blame the “Atlanticists Integrationists” who infect Putin’s government. This faction is believed to be organized around Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and believes Russia should make concessions to Washington in order to be accepted as part of the West. The incompetent Russian central bank and neoliberal economists are part of the faction whose goal is to be part of the West regardless of its impact on Russian independence from Washington’s Empire. Stephen Cohen and Alastair Crooke, a former British secret agent, almost alone in the West have noticed that the Russian military and predominant part of the government that emphasizes national sovereignty are putting pressure on President Putin to eliminate those in the government who are willing to compromise Russia’s independence in order to gain acceptance by Washington.

Senate Confirms First Openly Gay Army Secretary (Source Yahoo) The Senate today confirmed Eric Fanning to be secretary of the Army, making him the first openly gay leader of a U.S. military branch. The confirmation of Fanning, who has been serving as the acting Army Secretary since November 2015, was eight months in the making. After President Obama nominated Fanning for the post back in September 2015, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) put a hold on the nomination in an effort to pressure the administration against moving detainees from the  Guantanamo Bay,  Cuba detention facility to a military base in his home state, Fort Leavenworth, as the White House had considered doing. On Tuesday, Roberts came to the floor to announce that the  Department of Defense had assured him that there was insufficient time left in President Obama’s tenure to execute such a detainee transfer to the mainland United States. “I believe that because of last week, in a private meeting with Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, I received the assurances I needed to hear to release my hold on Mr. Fanning,” Roberts said on the Senate floor just before the unanimous vote to confirm Fanning. “Practically speaking, the clock has run out for the president,” he continued. The vote to confirm Fanning was by unanimous consent, meaning every senator agreed to support his confirmation before it came to the Senate floor. Roberts added that he never had any personal animus against Fanning and that he believes he will do an excellent job as Secretary of the Army.

China says it’s ready if US ‘stirs up any conflict’ in South China Sea (Source cnbc.com) China’s attempts to claim a nearly 1.4-million-square-mile swathe of open ocean are without precedent and probably without legal merit, but Beijing continues to assert its right to the economically critical zone — and increasingly puts its claims in military terms. Speaking to a small group of reporters in Beijing on Thursday, a high-ranking Chinese official made his warning clear: The United States should not provoke China in the South China Sea without expecting retaliation. “The Chinese people do not want to have war, so we will be opposed to [the] U.S. if it stirs up any conflict,” said Liu Zhenmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Of course, if the Korean War or Vietnam War are replayed, then we will have to defend ourselves.”.

Investors are pulling billions from global stock market funds (Source businessinsider.com)

Stock markets haven’t had a great week. Investors are increasingly concerned that global shares are hitting a ceiling. According to analysts at Jefferies, the investment bank, global equity funds “recorded their fifth consecutive weekly outflow, at a net $7.3 billion (£4.9 billion).” Funds investing in European stocks were the among worst hit, seeing withdrawals of $3.1 billion, extending their outflow streak to 11 weeks, the longest since September 2007, according to Jefferies. Investors also pulled $4.9 billion of equities from Japanese stock market funds after the Bank of Japan surprised the market by leaving interest rates unchanged in April. Analysts had expected more easing measures.  US stocks weren’t immune to the outflows either, experiencing withdrawals of $1.8 billion. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley pointed out that funds investing in emerging markets saw their heaviest outflows since September last year – the month after China’s stock market saw heavy losses.

U.S. debt dump deepens in 2016 (Source CNN Money) Central banks are dumping America’s debt at a record pace. China, Russia and Brazil sold off U.S. Treasury bonds as they tried to soften the blow of the global economic slowdown. They each sold off at least $1 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in March. In all, central banks sold a net $17 billion. Sales had hit a record $57 billion in January. So far this year, the global bank debt dump has reached $123 billion. It’s the fastest pace for a U.S. debt selloff by global central banks since at least 1978, according to Treasury Department. Treasuries are considered one of the safest assets in the world, but some experts say a sense of panic about the global economy drove the selloff. “It’s more of global fear than anything,” says Ihab Salib, head of international fixed income at Federated Investors. “There’s still this fear of ‘everything is going to fall apart.'” Judging by the selloff, policymakers across the globe were hitting the panic button often and early in the year as oil prices fell, concerns about China’s economy rose and stock markets were very volatile. In response, countries may be selling Treasuries to prop up their currencies, some of which lost lots of value against the dollar last year. By selling U.S. debt, central banks can get hard cash to buy up their local currency and prevent it from losing too much value. The leader in the selloff: China. “We’ve seen Chinese central bank foreign reserves fall dramatically,” says Gus Faucher, senior economist at PNC Financial. “Their currency is under pressure.” Between December and February,  China’s central bank sold off an alarming $236 billion to help support its currency, which China is slowly letting become more controlled by markets and less by the government. In March, China sold $3.5 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds, Treasury data shows.