Russia Beefs Up Syria's Air Defenses | MoA |

Syria ordered the S-300 systems in 2013 but Russia held back the delivery on Israel's request. Syria also had more urgent needs, especially for short range air-defense systems, which Russia delivered in large numbers. It were these systems that allowed the Syrian air defense to disable a high number of U.S. cruise missiles fired against it in April. The S-300, with a reach of up to 250 kilometers, will be able to target Israeli planes over Lebanon as well as deep within Israeli air space.

The delivery of the S-300s via transport planes from Russia already begun. There are several sub types of the system and a number of different radar combinations to guide them. There is no information yet about the exact types Syria will be equipped with and in what numbers. The first deployment will likely be around the capital Damascus.

Shoigu also announced that Syria's air defenses will now be equipped with Russian IFF systems:

"The command posts of Syrian air defense forces and units will be equipped with automated control systems only supplied to the Russian armed forces. This will facilitate centralized control over all forces and resources of the Syrian air defense, monitor the situation in the air, and ensure operative issuance of orders. Most importantly, we will guarantee the identification of all Russian aircrafts by the Syrian air defense systems," Shoigu said.

Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems are the holy grail of any air force. With IFF an air defense radar sends an secret challenge to any unidentified airplane it detects. If the code is correct, a friendly airplane will respond with an identification token. The systems use special frequencies, strong cryptography and a daily changing code that is kept ultra secret. (NATO procedures demand that two officers cooperate in any update of such codes.) Russia held back these codes from Syria to avoid them leaking to potential enemies. It is likely that Russian officers will be present at the Syrian air defense command posts to handle the issue.

○ Syria warns Israel will 'reconsider' before attacking again | Ynet News |
○ Israel holds security meeting following Russia's offer of S-300 defense system to Syria | XinhuaNet China |
○ Diplomat comments on Russia's decision to deploy S-300 systems in Syria | Tass |

Acquisitions as Corporate Money Hose - J. W. Mason

Recently, though, the Fed has begun reporting more detailed equity-finance flows, which break out the net issue figure into gross issues, repurchases, and retirements by acquisition. And it turns out that while buybacks are substantial, acquisitions are actually a bigger factor in negative net stock issues. Over the past 20 years, gross equity issues have averaged 1.9 percent of GDP, repurchases have averaged 1.7 percent of GDP, and retirements via acquisitions just over 2 percent of GDP. So if we look only at corporations' transactions in their own stock, it seems that that the stock market still is -- barely -- a net source of funds. For the corproate sector as a whole, of course, it is still the case that the stock market is, in Jeff Spross' memorable phrase, a giant money hose to nowhere.

I hope that the EU will ensure it is well protected from its unruly neighbour

A low tax low regulation off shore tax haven, exactly what I've been saying is the brexiteers most desired end-point

European tech firms urge tougher EU rules to offset US dominance
anti-trust petition

"Whatever your business, investing in a post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of Corporation Tax in the G20"
Theresa May tells Bloomberg business forum in NYC

Ryanair seeks tax law changes to deal with industrial relations issue, 20 Sep

Mr O'Leary told its annual general meeting on Thursday that the Republic's tax law required Ryanair to use Irish contracts, as staff worked on aircraft registered here and operated by a company based here.

Afterwards he confirmed that the airline had been lobbying the Government to change the law to allow the airline employ pilots and crew in other European countries under local contracts.

"Either there needs to be a change in Irish law or there needs to be changes in the double taxation agreements between those other European countries and Ireland, " he said. "We have been on it for some time."

Ryanair cancels 190 flights ahead of Friday's strike
"due to the 'unnecessary strike by a tiny minority of cabin crew' in Spain, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Italy, and Germany."

Ima call this story "Can't win for losing".
Pope defends China deal on pervs, says he will have final say on names

The deal gives the Vatican a long-desired say in the choice of bishops in China, though critics labeled the deal a sellout to the COMMUNIST government.
[...]
The Vatican said the absence of a deal could have led to a schism between Chinese Catholics that would have been difficult to heal.

"I think of the endurance of the Catholics who suffered. It is true that they will suffer. There is always suffering in an accord, but they have great faith," the pope said.

I've read, the past is never past.

Helen, think of the children.

it's not really freedom of religion tho, is it?

It's simply state controlled sunday observance with an RC flavour

... is trusting the UK (not) to implement customs control in an efficient and "frictionless" way.

EU warns UK again to recoup €2.7 billion China fraud bill

The European Commission today warned the U.K. for the second time to recover €2.7 billion in lost EU revenue stemming from the country's failure to stop a massive fraud network that allowed cheap Chinese goods to flood into Europe.

The Commission's warning is the next stage in the bloc's formal infringement procedure and follows up on findings from the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF that British customs played a central role by repeatedly ignoring warnings to take action over Chinese textiles and footwear entering the EU at a fraction of their cost of production.

Oh, and the cherry on May's cake: The UK has two months to act or the case could be referred to the EU's Court of Justice.

Searching the Internet for a bit ... came across two possibilities.

Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States is a 1971 nonfiction book written by American author Carl N. Degler.

Another study by Thomas E. Skidmore is ...

Fact and Myth: Discovering a Racial Problem in Brazil | Kellogg Institute |

Abstract

This paper examines prevalent attitudes towards race in Brazil's multiracial society. The author notes that, while there is a considerable literature on slavery and the struggle for abolition, relatively little work has been done on race in Brazil today even though color continues to correlate highly with social stratification. He argues that historically the Brazilian elite has been able to hold to a belief in white superiority and at the same time deny the existence of a racial problem by adopting an "assimilationist" ideology. This begins with the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thesis that Brazil was progressively "whitening,' and continues up to the present day with the widely held view that disproportionate Afro-Brazilian poverty is a legacy of socioeconomic disadvantage and not a result of discrimination. This official ideology has strongly affected the availability of data until recently and has generally been a dominant influence on mainstream academic research on race. The author traces the emergence of criticism of the "myth of racial democracy" from Afro-Brazilian militants and some social scientists, and gives a brief overview of the existing research on contemporary Brazilian race relations. He concludes by outlining a future research agenda for Afro-Brazilian studies.

Every Brazilian and every perceptive visitor knows that racial terms are not clearly defined in that society. The lesson is especially striking for North Americans and Europeans, who are used to a conventional black/white (or, at least, white/nonwhite) dichotomy. That polarization was institutionalized in U.S. racial segregation, a polarity that Europeans, unused to home-country contact with nonwhites in the modern era, instinctively understood.

But Brazil, like most of Latin America, is different. In the Caribbean and Latin America the European colonizers left a legacy of multiracialism, in spite of early attempts to enforce racial endogamy, i.e., the prohibition of marriage outside the same racial category. Multiracial meant more than two racial categories--at a minimum, three. The mulatto and the mestizo became the "middle caste," with considerable numbers attaining free legal status, even under slave systems. The result was a system of social stratification that differed sharply from the rigid color bifurcation in the U.S. (both before and after slavery) and in Europe's African colonies. There was and is a color (here standing for a collection of physical features) spectrum on which clear lines were often not drawn. Between a "pure" black and a very light mulatto there are numerous gradations, as reflected in the scores of racial labels (many pejorative) in common Brazilian usage.

This is not to say that Brazilian society is not highly color conscious. In fact, Brazilians, like most Latin Americans, are more sensitive to variations in physical features than white North Americans or Europeans. This results from the fact that variations along the color spectrum, especially in the middle range, are considered significant, since there is no clear dividing line.

○ Collective Degradation: Slavery and the Construction of Race

I've got no sense from scouring innerboob reporting how this tactical reinforcement will affect Erdogan's games with HTS et al. I gather thought, self-sorting in Idlib is escalating into a bloody mess.

In my semi-regular survey of origin stories published by innerboob, I recently came across a podcast interview with a historian who specialized in US slave trade. (When I relocate the link, I'll post it here.) iirc, The occasion for the interview is a Pulitzer Prize for the latest research into the origin of "white supremacy." The historian nailed the deed to a specific 15th century Portuguese document.

Now, the thesis of periodicity --before | discovery| after-- and instrumentality of "race" relationships that he develops from that seems to me to pertain also today to recurring, opportune discoveries of oppressed ethnic minorities such as The Ahwaz within a hegemonic "evil" (Greater Middle East<->Persians<->Medi) upon which racists operate. The historian, intentionally or not, seems to me to postulate a cognitive function in race schema that is systematically associated with value discovery. I paraphrase from memory.

BEFORE: ethnic heterogeneity within a population identified by geography
DISCOVERY: object permanence
AFTER: undifferentiated identity of a population by geography ("blacks", "whites")

Belgium could build island over abandoned poison gas grenades | The Guardian |

For almost 100 years 35,000 tonnes of poison gas grenades, abandoned by the fleeing Germans around first world war battlefields, have lain in steel barrels on the seabed less than a kilometre from the Belgian coastline.

A convoy of small boats dumped the cargo into the North Sea over a period of six months in 1919 when unloading it into the world's oceans was thought to be the best way to protect people from exposure to the toxic material.

The site was soon forgotten, only to be rediscovered under three metres of sand and silt by divers in 1971 during the expansion of the port of Zeebrugge. Building over the barrels was considered given the danger of gas leakage but the costs were thought to be too high. Monitoring was chosen over action.

Paardenmarkt: A Toxic Legacy of the Great War | Peace Palace - The Hague |

Along the Belgian coast, a narrow submerged sand-bank called 'Paardenmarkt' (Horse Market) extends from the Port of Zeebrugge to the Dutch border. Few people are aware that this sand-bank is one of the largest World War I ammunition dump sites in the North Sea. In fact, the figures are perplexing: at least 35.000 tons of German ammunition, at least a third of which are chemical shells, located just at about 500 meters off the Knokke-Heist beach, a main touristic attraction.

Only since 1988, the area has been marked on nautical charts. The official sea map shows an average depth of from 1.2 to at the most 4 meters. Five dotted lines are drawn on this sand-bank that form a pentagon. Neither fishing nor anchoring are allowed in this two square kilometers area. It is also forbidden for swimmers, divers and surfers. However, there are no warning signs and the area is only indicated by a few orange buoys.

Gevaarlijke erfenis uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog: gifgasgranaten gedumpt in de Noordzee bij Knokke

Happy Black History Y3 D265

"Mobile phone technology made landlines obsolete in sub-Saharan Africa years before Europeans began to give up their home handsets. ..."
well, yeah.

One minute the commies are against freedom of religion, the next they're for it --just when the biggest, onliest CHILD SLAVERY conspiracy on the planet has been EXPOSED by survivors everywhere.

I suppose, a UN Security Council meeting needs to be convened to PROBE this latest threat to human rights.

In other news:

'Shocking' sexual abuse of children by German clergy detailed in report

You are, of course, correct. Edited and amended.

Think about what happens when this starts affecting over-populated countries like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia that cannot afford to handle internal mass migration.

100 years later it's Novichok

The Vatican has always made accomodations for autocratic power. Religion is all about secular power, the spirituality BS is just the usp to fool the rubes. Can't keep the coffers full and the tables laden if you're out inn the cold.

So, why not cosy with the coming superpower?

And now all those people should be re-locating from the dusty, drought ridden plains of California.

But not yet. Every year demonstrates that the US SW has probably just over a decade before it collapses from lack of water, but somehow nobody seems to be grasping the inevitability. When the crunch hits, it's gonna be murderous

Interesting report on the history of British Petroleum, defeat of Ottoman Empire and the rise of Saudi Arabia with land compensation provided by the British.

Oil and Its Outcomes - Background To Help Understand The Middle East Crisis

After the 1890's, though little publicized, the search for secure energy in the form of petroleum would become of extreme importance to Her Majesty's Navy and government. A global war for control of oil was shaping up, one few were even aware of outside select policy circles Winston Churchill replaced Fisher as First Lord of the Admiralty but was a strong advocate of
Fisher's oil conversion. Churchill stated "We must become the owners or at any rate the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the oil which we require" The conversion of the British Navy under Churchill meant a high risk strategy as England had abundant coal but no then-known oil. By the first decade of the 20th Century securing long-term foreign petroleum sources had become an essential factor for British geopolitics.  

As oil emerged as the fuel of industry, it also came to be regarded as the fuel of war. The ability to discover, exploit, and maintain this invaluable commodity in the interest of the nation became a paramount concern. By 1909, a British company, Anglo-Persian Oil Company held rights to oil exploration in a 60-year concession from the Persian Shah near the border to Mesopotamia. In 1912, the company negotiated an agreement with Winston Churchill for controlling interest by the British Government in return for secure oil for the Royal Navy. Following the outbreak of war, Britain's majority stake position in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company assumed central importance. Persian oil production grew more than 10-fold- with the company meeting one-fifth of the Royal Navy's oil needs. The fact that Britain was able to maintain control of the majority of its Anglo-Persian assets during the war contributed to fueling the Allied war effort against Germany and the Ottoman Empire

...
The Saudi family has controlled much of the Arabian Peninsula since the 1700s. In 1905, the Saudis controlled very little, having lost their territory in a series of wars. The peninsula was divided into lots of little kingdoms and emirates. The Ottoman Empire controlled most of them, with the British Empire controlling the southernmost third of the peninsula. After World War I, the Saudis expanded to all of the purple area, as the British had promised for helping to fight the Ottomans. By the early 1920s, the British effectively controlled most of the peninsula, through protectorates, and mandates. In 1923, ibn Saud invaded the Hejaz and ousted Hashemite King Hussein. Abdicating in 1924, Hussein left the Hejaz to be assimilated into the Saudi kingdom.

○ Seven Sisters documentary - Al Jazeera
○ US Foreign Policy for Dummies - 3 Letter Word OIL
○ CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup (Overthrow of Dr. Mossadeq)
○ Churchill using poisoned gas in Mesopotamia

Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _"

Alahwaz News - March 2016

The ASMLA stressed that the profits attained by the Iranian regime from the sale of the oil and gas resources in Ahwaz are used both in the brutal oppression of the Ahwazi people, who are denied any share in or profit from their own resources, and in funding terrorist entities which actively work to destabilise security and stability in the Arab world and elsewhere.

The Ahwazi delegates explained that despite the massive resource wealth contained in Ahwaz (renamed Khuzestan province by the occupying Iranian regime in 1936), the Arab Ahwazi people are maintained in conditions of Third World poverty, denied any of the wealth from the oil and gas resources on their land, denied education, work and the most basic of human rights, with Ahwazi peoples routinely arrested, tortured and often executed for such `crimes' as speaking their native language or participating in any form of human rights activism.

○ Indigenous Ahwazi Arabs for Freedom and Democracy In Iran

The ASMLA representatives urged the international oil companies, investors and other delegates at the conference to meet both their legal and moral responsibilities by rejecting any collusion in the Iranian regime's ongoing abuse of Ahwazi peoples and its funding of terrorism through trade with the regime.

The ASMLA delegation also pointed out that, having been denied any legal recourse to claim their rights, Ahwazi resistance forces have targeted oil facilities for attacks in protest at the theocratic regime's inhumanity, with such attacks increasing in regularity in recent years. The most recent such attack took place on February 22 of this year against an oil installation in the city of Arjan in eastern Ahwaz. The attack by the ASMLA's military wing, the Brigades of the Martyr Mohiuddin Al-Nasser, resulted in massive losses of resources and equipment at the facility. The delegates added that such attacks will continue until the rights of the Ahwazi peoples are recognised.

○ New Terror Campaign Against Iran as Giuliani Predicts Regime Change | Tikun Olam |
○ After 35 Years, Iran Liquidates MKO Terrorist near Amsterdam

Rees-Mogg will be next Tory leader and will face off in a GE with Jez before Xmas.
At which point Monty Python will be superannuated, and Britannia will rule ad eternam in peaceful, harmonious prosperity. :)