CLG: Has Blackwater been deployed to Ukraine? Notorious U.S. mercenaries 'seen on the streets of flashpoint city'', Magnitude-6.9 earthquake hits off Calif. coast, et al

News Updates from CLG10 Mar 2014

http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Previous edition: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Ticket purchase adds to mystery (which Google relegated to the sp*m bin, of course. Google subscribers: Google Filter Instructions for CLG Newsletter.)

Has Blackwater been deployed to Ukraine? Notorious U.S. mercenaries 'seen on the streets of flashpoint city' --Russia claims 300 hired guns have arrived in country 09 Mar 2014 Speculation was growing last night that American mercenaries had been deployed to Donetsk after videos emerged of unidentified armed men in the streets of the eastern Ukrainian city. At least two videos published on YouTube earlier this week show burly, heavily armed soldiers with no insignia in the city, which has been gripped by pro-Moscow protests. In one of the videos onlookers can be heard shouting 'Blackwater! Blackwater!' as the armed men, who wear no insignia, jog through the streets. Donetsk was this week the scene of civil unrest as pro-Russian elements among its citizens seized control of the regional administration headquarters and another government building.

'Blackwater' footage: Who are the mercenaries in Ukraine? 09 Mar 2014 Videos have emerged on YouTube alleging that the US private security service formerly known as Blackwater [currently called Academi] is operating in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Western press is hitting back, accusing Russia of fabricating reports to justify "aggression." The authenticity of videos allegedly made in downtown Donetsk on March 5 is hard to verify. In the footage, unidentified armed men in military outfits equipped with Russian AK assault rifles and American М4А1 carbines are securing the protection of some pro-Kiev activists amidst anti-government popular protests.

US deploys fighter jets, 300 soldiers to Poland --Four F-15 planes also sent to Lithuania 09 Mar 2014 The United States is sending a dozen F-16 fighter jets to Poland as a part of a training exercise, amid continuing [US-fomented] tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the Polish defence ministry said on Sunday. Three hundred US service personnel will also be sent to Poland as part of the exercise. The deployment in Poland comes after Washington announced it was also sending four F-15 planes to Lithuania to strengthen surveillance in the airspace around the Baltic.

Shots fired in air during raid at Crimea naval base 10 Mar 2014 Unidentified armed men [aka Blackwater aka Academi?] fired in the air as they moved into a Ukrainian naval post in Crimea on Monday in the latest confrontation since Russian military groups seized control of the Black Sea peninsula. President Vladimir Putin says Moscow is acting to protect the rights of ethnic Russians, who make up a majority of Crimea's population, after Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in what Russia says was an unconstitutional coup. In other armed action, Russian forces took over a military hospital and a missile unit.

Crimea creates own military by swearing in self-defense units 10 Mar 2014 Volunteers from self-defense units are taking an oath of allegiance to the people of Crimea as the autonomous republic puts together its own military in order to respond to possible provocations from the coup-imposed government in Kiev. Around 180 Crimean citizens have already joined the local army, as oaths were taken in the republic’s capital of Sevastopol on Monday and Saturday. All of the recruits were “carefully checked because they will be handed weapons,” Aleksandr Bochkarev, head of the Crimean self-defense forces, told RIA-Novosti.

In response to U.S. sanctions over Ukraine, Russia may freeze weapons inspections 08 Mar 2014 Russia broadened its war of words with the United States over Ukraine on Saturday when the Ministry of Defense said it would consider stopping international inspections of its nuclear weapons in response to threatened sanctions from the West. "The unfounded threats towards Russia from the United States and NATO over its policy on Ukraine are seen by us as an unfriendly gesture," the ministry said in a statement distributed to Russian news agencies. Those threats, the statement said, have created new circumstances, giving Russia the right to pull out of the inspections required under the START treaty with the United States and a separate agreement with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Stolen passports booked onto second flight 10 Mar 2014 Thai police said Sunday they were investigating a "passport ring" as details emerged of bookings made in Thailand with stolen European passports for the vanished Malaysia Airlines flight. Two European names -- Christian Kozel, an Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi of Italy [who had their passports stolen] -- were listed on the passenger manifest of the flight MH370, but neither man boarded the plane, officials said. Flight information seen by AFP shows that tickets were booked in Maraldi and Kozel's names on March 6, 2014, and issued in the Thai city of Pattaya, a popular beach resort south of the capital Bangkok. The e-ticket numbers for their flights are consecutive and both were paid for in Thai baht.

NORAD training exercise over eastern Colorado Springs draws attention --The exercise comes after a busy weekend for NORAD. 10 Mar 2014 Residents of eastern Colorado Springs watched an impromptu airshow Monday morning as a pair of fighter jets escorted an airliner into Peterson Air Force Base during a training exercise. The sight had some worrying that the transport had been hijacked or suffered some other in-flight emergency. "From what I have read, this is the procedure if there is some type of in-flight emergency," said Steve Learning who spotted the planes over his neighborhood near Barnes and Marksheffel roads just after 10:40 a.m.

Expanded security measures in place for Boston Marathon 10 Mar 2014 It is a security plan aimed at preventing another chaotic scene like last year's Boston Marathon. Dozens in law enforcement are filing into the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. The plan includes 35 hundred law enforcement officers, and 400 National Guard troops. [If your goal is 'preventing another chaotic scene like last year's Boston Marathon,' be sure that Craft International's mercenaries don't show. --LRP]

Edward Snowden Urges SXSW Crowd to Thwart NSA With Technology 10 Mar 2014 With lawmakers slow to pass legislation curbing NSA surveillance, it's up to the technology community to step in and devise solutions that will better protect online communications from snoops, said Edward Snowden, speaking today from Moscow at the South by Southwest conference in Austin. The massive surveillance being done by the NSA and other governments has created "an adversarial internet," he said, "a sort of a global free-fire zone for governments, that’s nothing that we ever asked [for]; it's not what we wanted. It's something we need to protect against..."[T]hey're setting fire to the future of the internet. And the people who are in this room now, you guys are all the firefighters. And we need you to help us fix this."

Federal Prosecutors Seek Records on Port Authority Chairman 10 Mar 2014 Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey related to the business interests of its chairman, David Samson, people familiar with the matter said Monday. The demand for records came last week as scrutiny of Mr. Samson--a close ally of Republican Gov. Chris Christie--has increased since allegations emerged that the Port Authority closed George Washington Bridge access lanes for political purposes. The inquiry was launched by prosecutors from Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office.

Magnitude-6.9 earthquake hits off Calif. coast 10 Mar 2014 A powerful magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast Sunday night, the United States Geological Survey reported. The quake hit about 50 miles west of Eureka and occurred at 10:18 p.m. PDT, 4.3 miles beneath the seabed, according to the USGS. It was followed by about a half-dozen aftershocks, including one of magnitude-4.6.

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