Russia, Turkey Tensions Heating Up: Putin Surrounds Turkey with Military Presence (Source pjmedia.com) Vladimir Putin was dead serious when he warned Turkey that it would “regret more than once” shooting down a Russian fighter yet. Not only has the Russian president announced all kinds of sanctions against Turkey, but he’s now also surrounding the Islamist-led country with his military. As Hurriyet Daily News reports, Putin has sent 14 helicopters to Erebuni air base in Armenia. Half of these helicopters are armored Mi-24 attack helicopters, while the other seven are Mi-8 model transport helicopters. Meanwhile, Putin has also sent a submarine called the Rostov-on-Don to the Mediterranean. Russia has a naval base there, and the Russian president is apparently looking to give it a major boost: the submarine is armed with Caliber cruise missiles. As if that doesn’t make his aggressive intentions clear enough, Putin has also stepped up its presence at the Hmeymim air base outside Latakia in Syria. This air base is now home to 55 Russian fighter jets, “including SU-30 fighter jets and SU-24, 2U-25 and SU-34 bombers along with seven Mi-24 and five Mi-8 helicopters.” These jets are with Pantsir-S1, Buk-M2, S-200, Pechora-2M and S-400 air defense batteries.  Obviously weapons of aggression, not of defense. Putin says they’ll be used against ISIS and other groups fighting against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, but their presence will undoubtedly make Turkey nervous, not in the least because Putin’s also stepping up his military presence in other places in the region. And there’s more: the air base is also fortified

Russia just put the finishing touches on 6 Arctic military bases (Source businessinsider.com) Russia has finished equipping six new military bases throughout the Arctic in a move to recreate the country’s military presence to levels it had during the Cold War, Russian news agency Tass reports. The six military bases are located throughout Russia and are placed on both the country’s northern shore and on outlying Arctic islands. The locations are now fully equipped with the materials and amenities necessary for long-term deployments of soldiers to the region.  “According to the General Staff’s execution documents, the work for the deployment and equipment of six military bases on the Arctic islands and in the polar part of mainland Russia is completed,” a source familiar with the militarization told Tass. Now that the bases are complete, Moscow will begin moving “hundreds of Russian military servicemen” to the bases starting in 2016.

Radiation from Japan nuclear disaster spreads off U.S. shores (Source Reuters) Tests of hundreds of samples of Pacific Ocean water confirmed that Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant continues to leak radioactive isotopes more than four years after its meltdown, said Ken Buesseler, marine radiochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Trace amounts of cesium-134 have been detected within several hundred miles of the Oregon, Washington and California coasts in recent months, as well as offshore from Canada’s Vancouver Island.  Another isotope, cesium-137, a radioactive legacy of nuclear weapons tests conducted from the 1950s through the 1970s, was found at low levels in nearly every seawater sample tested by Woods Hole, a nonprofit research institution. “Despite the fact that the levels of contamination off our shores remain well below government-established safety limits for human health or to marine life, the changing values underscore the need to more closely monitor contamination levels across the Pacific,” Buesseler said in an email. In March 2011, a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that struck the Fukushima nuclear plant, 130 miles northeast of Tokyo, causing triple nuclear meltdowns and forcing more than 160,000 residents to flee from nearby towns. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. Last year, Woods Hole reported detectable radiation from about 100 miles off the coast of northern California, and in April radiation was found off Canada’s shores. The latest readings measured the highest radiation levels outside Japanese waters to date some 1,600 miles west of San Francisco. The figures also confirm that the spread of radiation to North American waters is not isolated to a handful of locations, but can be detected along a stretch of more than 1,000 miles offshore.

Russia Threatens Military Response For NATO Inviting Montenegro (Source valuewalk.om) With the world standing at the brink of a nuclear war over a NATO member state shooting down a Russian fighter jet, NATO has picked the most untimely moment to invite Montenegro to become its 29th member. The formal invitation from NATO triggered a furious response in Russia, the foreign ministry of which has already threatened the Alliance with “confrontation,” according to AFP. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Wednesday that NATO’s expansion to the east “of course cannot but lead to reciprocal actions from the east, that is from the Russian side, in the interests of providing security and supporting the parity of our interests,” according to the French news agency. Putin himself has not yet commented on NATO’s latest move, but his response could be devastating for NATO and the world as a whole, in case the Russian President musters up the courage to use nuclear weapons. NATO’s invitation for Montenegro to join the Alliance comes at the most inopportune time, with Moscow still considering its every option of how to respond to Turkey downing the Russian warplane last week. With many analysts saying Putin is “likely” to opt for a nuclear confrontation with NATO, one thing is certain: NATO’s invitation to Montenegro will not go unnoticed. “This sort of initiative has the real potential to bring about confrontation. It will not promote peace and stability in the Balkans nor in Europe in general,” the Russian foreign ministry warned, and added that “it will only further complicate relations between Russia and NATO.”

Putin Rails Against the US – and Asks Oligarchs to Bring Their Money Home (Source The Fiscal Times)

In a wide-ranging speech to Russia’s Federal Assembly, roughly the equivalent of the State of the Union address in the U.S., President Vladimir Putin blamed the United States for the current turmoil in the Middle East, insulted the leadership of Turkey and announced that he has extended by six month an amnesty period that allows criminals and oligarchs to bring wealth hidden overseas back to Russia. Putin delivered his remarks in a week that has been marked by an increasingly tense war of words between Russia and Turkey, follow the decision by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to order the downing of a Russian bomber that reportedly strayed into Turkish airspace for 17 seconds during operations on the Syrian border. Officials from the Russian Ministry of Defense gave a major press conference in which they claimed to present proof that the terror group ISIS has been earning millions of dollars a day shipping oil stolen from Iraq and Syria into Turkey for resale abroad. Further, the Kremlin alleged that Erdogan and his family are personally involved. The Turkish president angrily denied all the accusations, but Putin repeated them, with the additional suggestion that Erdogan and other Turkish leaders were being subjected to some sort of divine punishment that has impaired their judgment. Speaking of the decision to shoot down the plane, which resulted in the death of one of its pilots as well as a marine killed in a rescue attempt, he said, “We will never forget their collusion with terrorists. We have always deemed betrayal the worst and most shameful thing to do, and that will never change. I would like them to remember this – those in Turkey who shot our pilots in the back, those hypocrites who tried to justify their actions and cover up for terrorists.

APPLE BOSS: NEXT GENERATION OF CHILDREN ‘WILL NOT KNOW WHAT MONEY IS’ (Source London Telegraph) The next generation of children born in Britain “will not know what money is”, the boss of Apple has predicted. Tim Cook, the chief executive of technology giant, forecast the death of cash by the time current university students have a family. Cash is still used for more than half of payments by consumers, according to Payments UK, the industry body, but its popularity is falling as people switch to cards and smartphone apps such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet. Answering questions from students at Trinity College Dublin, Mr Cook said: “Your kids will not know what money is.” In an outspoken address, he also vowed to deepen his fight against the so-called snooper’s charter. Mr Cook reiterated comments made to The Telegraph this week, stating that his company was commitment to full protection of customers’ data from hackers.

Secret Kremlin Data “Accidentally Leaked”: Russia’s New Nuclear Submarine Weapons System (Source RT) The Kremlin has confirmed “some secret data” was accidentally leaked when Russian TV stations broadcast material apparently showing blueprints from a nuclear torpedo, designed to be used against enemy coastal installations. During President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with military officials in Sochi, where the development of Russia’s military capabilities were being discussed, a number of TV crews were able to capture footage of a paper that was certainly not meant for public viewing. The presentation slide titled “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” showed some drawings of a new nuclear submarine weapons system. It is apparently designed to bypass NATO radars and any existing missile defense systems, while also causing heavy damage to “important economic facilities” along the enemy’s coastal regions. The footnote to the slide stated that Status-6 is intended to cause “assured unacceptable damage” to an adversary force. Its detonation “in the area of the enemy coast” would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that the region would not be used for “military, economic, business or other activity” for a “long time.” According to the blurred information provided in the slide, the system represents a massive torpedo, designated as “self-propelled underwater vehicle,” with a range of up to 10 thousand kilometers and capable of operating at a depth of up to 1,000 meters. It remains unclear if such a system is indeed being developed or the slide was presented as just one of the options the Russian military could hypothetically offer. However, according to the leaked paper, the weapons system could be developed by the Rubin design bureau for marine engineering, and may potentially be delivered using nuclear-powered “Project 09852” and “Project 09851” submarines.

IMF PREPARED TO BLESS YUAN AS RESERVE CURRENCY (Source blacklistednews.com)

The IMF has given Chinese officials strong signals in meetings that the yuan is likely to win inclusion in the current review of the Special Drawing Rights, the fund’s unit of account, said three people who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. Chinese officials are so confident of winning approval that they have begun preparing statements to celebrate the decision, according to two people. At least $1 trillion of global reserves will convert to Chinese assets if the yuan joins the IMF’s reserve basket, according to Standard Chartered Plc and AXA Investment Managers. While the SDR is not technically a currency, it gives IMF member countries who hold it the right to obtain any of the currencies in the basket to meet balance-of-payments needs. The equivalent of about $280 billion in SDRs were created and allocated to members as of September, compared with about $11.3 trillion in global reserve assets. SDR status is significant as “a seal of approval” from the IMF that the yuan is indeed an internationalized currency, AXA analysts said in May. The yuan can get a potential weighting of about 13 percent, according to an estimate by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in March. HSBC Holdings Plc said in an April note that the yuan’s share could be 14 percent, reflecting China’s importance in global exports.

Putin Signs Military Cooperation Agreement with King Abdullah (Source globalresearch.ca)

Sputnik News, RT International, the Jordan Times and Reuters said Russian and Jordanian officials agreed to establish a “special working mechanism” to share information on counterterrorism operations in Syria. “Under an agreement between His Majesty King Abdullah II and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the militaries of the two countries have agreed to coordinate their actions, including military aircraft missions over the Syrian territory,” Sergey Lavrov explained. He urged other nations to join their coalition against a common enemy. Jordan’s communications minister Mohammad Momani said “military cooperation…between (both countries) concerns southern Syria and aims to ensure security of the Kingdom’s northern frontier.”

“Jordan remains an active member of the international coalition fighting the Da’esh terror group.” Coordination between both countries isn’t new, he added. It’s been developing for some time at all levels.Reuters said “Moscow’s deal with Jordan could mark a shift in the alliances engaged in the Syria conflict.” Jordan’s ambassador to Moscow Aiad al-Majali said establishing a “special working mechanism” to share information on Syrian operations increases military cooperation between both countries to an unprecedented level.

Sophisticated Electronic Warfare Gives Russia The Edge (Source valuewalk.com) It is becoming quite a common theme for the drones flown by the international conflict-monitoring group Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to experience problems. Every time they enter the southeastern parts of Ukraine, the drones bump into the same problem: on-the-ground Russian troops jam them into virtual blindness. However, all this should not come as a huge surprise considering that for years, the Russian army has been performing extensive research on making full use of EW when it comes to having the edge over the enemy. Equipment such as the Krasukha04, which jams radar and aircraft, has been used perfectly during operations in Ukraine and Syria, leading American military officials to admit that they’re scrambling to catch up with the Russians. According to the commander of U.S. Army units in Europe, Lt. General Ben Hodges, Russia’s EW capabilities in Ukraine are “eye-watering,” while Ronald Pontius, deputy to Army Cyber Command Chief Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, once said, “You can’t but come to the conclusion that we’re not making progress at the pace the threat demands.”