son of US VP Joe Biden, is joining the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer.

Son of US VP Joe Biden appointed to board of major Ukrainian gas company

May 15, 2014

Sad indeed. Apparently, here at home we do not have areas needing improvements that could benefit from Mr. Biden Jr. talents, education, and experience – I am sure Ukraine will be saved now that he is there.

Hunter Biden, son of US VP Joe Biden, is joining the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer. The group has prospects in eastern Ukraine where civil war is threatened following the coup in Kiev.

Biden will advise on “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities” to “contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine.”

Joe Biden’s senior campaign adviser in 2004, financier Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden’s, also joined the Bursima board claiming it was like ‘Exxon in the old days’.

Gazprom is demanding Kiev pays $485 per 1,000 cubic meters, raised from $268.50 after Moscow was forced to cancel several discounts agreed upon under Yanukovich’s tenure as president. Kiev rejects the new price as “politically motivated” and says it will only pay its debt if Gazprom lowers the price back to $268.50

These vastly underreported stories are some of the biggest ones to fly under the mainstream media’s radar this year.

Most underreported news stories of 2013

Published and Edited time: December 31, 2013

From Aaron Swartz to Assange, Monsanto to Manning, fracking fears, Iraq carnage and more, here are RT’s “Top 13 of 2013.”

Wal-Mart has pledged a made-in America campaign.

Rebuilding U.S. manufacturing jobs is resonating even more these days.

AP story: by ANNE D’INNOCENZIO and MIKE SCHNEIDER

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spearheaded an effort Thursday to bring together retailers, suppliers and government officials so they can figure out how to bring more manufacturing jobs to the United States.

The world’s largest retailer hosted its first two-day U.S. Manufacturing Summit in Orlando, hoping to capitalize on the company’s recent commitment to drive more manufacturing in the U.S. The “made in the USA” campaign could boost Wal-Mart’s image, which is constantly under attack by labor-backed groups who have criticized the retail behemoth as a destroyer of U.S. jobs rather than a creator.

The goal of the summit was to start “connecting the dots” with a dialogue among the 500 manufacturers, officials from three dozen states, eight governors and U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker at the conference, said Bill Simon, president and CEO of the company’s U.S. division.

“It could be difficult for one at a time, all of us on our own,” Simon said. “The best way to overcome the challenges is to talk to one another.”

The summit comes seven months after the Bentonville, Ark.-based discounter pledged that it planned to buy $50 billion more U. S. made goods over the next decade. That’s the equivalent of just more than 10 percent of what Wal-Mart will sell at retail this year. Wal-Mart said that if other merchants do the same, it would mean an additional $500 billion in American-made goods over the next decade.

Several companies were quick to get into the spirit at the summit. Kevin Toomey, president and CEO of Kayser-Roth Corp., a North Carolina-based legwear manufacturer, said his company would create over 100 jobs with a $30 million investment, and sock manufacturer Renfro Corp. announced a $10 million investment would bring 195 U.S. jobs.

Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric Corp., announced that the company would be bringing 150 manufacturing jobs to plants in Illinois and Ohio where high-efficient lighting will be built. The $30 million investment will be at plants in Circleville, Ohio; Bucyrus, Ohio; and Mattoon, Ill.

“We wanted to be a part of this,” Immelt said. “This is a first step.”

To be sure, even if Wal-Mart is successful in getting key retailers and suppliers on board, experts say it won’t rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing industry. But the movement could help stem the tide of jobs flowing to China and elsewhere that has been occurring in the last two decades.

Some experts are skeptical, pointing out that Wal-Mart led the migration of manufacturing jobs overseas in search of the cheapest labor, veering away from the principles of its late founder Sam Walton, who espoused buying American-made goods.

In fact, Burt Flickinger III, president of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group, says what will be brought back will only be a fraction of business sent overseas.

“It’s a very positive PR move for the company,” Flickinger said. “But it took two decades to unwind the American manufacturing base and it will take two decades to bring it back.”

This is not the first time that Wal-Mart has pledged a made-in America campaign. It pushed a similar program in the mid-1990s that fizzled because it couldn’t get enough low-priced goods to sell to its low-income shoppers. But executives vow its efforts this time around go well beyond a marketing campaign and involve dissecting each of its 1,300 product categories, from bath towels to gadgets, to determine which can be made here.

It’s also reaching out to state and local officials to work with suppliers to explore rebates, training and other programs to attract U.S. makers. Additionally, the discounter also says it’s changing the way it does business with suppliers, giving multi-year commitments for basic goods where it makes sense, instead of season-by-season ordering.

Rebuilding U.S. manufacturing jobs is resonating even more these days. The nation’s unemployment rate of 7.4 percent, while now at a 4 1/2-year low, is still well above the 5 percent to 6 percent typical of a healthy economy.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart and other major retailers have been under fire for not doing a better job monitoring worker safety in factories overseas. That pressure increased after a factory collapse this past spring in Bangladesh, killing 1,129 people. That was the deadliest incident in the history of the garment industry.

But what could really propel the movement this time around is pure economics: Labor costs are rising in Asia, while oil and transportation costs are high and increasingly uncertain.

Rising wages have erased some of the competitive advantages China had in manufacturing, Wal-Mart’s Simon said, and manufacturing jobs offer a path into the U.S. middle class.

“We think we can map out opportunities and put some systems in place and commit to this for the long term,” Simon said. “There’s nothing less than the future of our country at stake here.”

Wal-Mart said several manufacturers had told executives privately they had defined “tipping points” at which making goods overseas will no longer make sense. Wal-Mart says it doesn’t believe that its customers should pay any more for made-in-America goods and is focusing on working with suppliers to make sure the prices are in line with what shoppers want to pay.

“It’s an economic advantage when you have the wind in your back, instead of having the wind in your face,” said Hal Sirkin, a senior partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group and an expert on manufacturing. He is serving as a consultant to Wal-Mart. He believes that the movement could create 100,000 more jobs in the next decade.

Wal-Mart, with more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and about $460 billion in total sales, has proven that it has the clout to get other suppliers and merchants on board. For example, in 2009, Wal-Mart created a coalition among stores, suppliers, government, nonprofit organizations and academic experts for a sustainability index that measure whether goods were made in a responsible way and whether the materials are safe.

Wal-Mart has said that items made, sourced or grown in the U.S. account for about two-thirds of the company’s spending on products for its U.S. business, according to data given by suppliers. But analysts say that much of its clothing, home furnishings and consumer electronics are made elsewhere.

One company to sign up is Sleep Studio, which is now working with Wal-Mart to produce memory foam mattress toppers. Before, all of the discounter’s toppers were produced by manufacturers overseas. This year, 20 percent will be made in the U.S.

CEO Michael Rothbard said Wal-Mart worked with the company to streamline the costs, eliminating $10 from the price tag. The New York-based company has factories in California and Georgia.

“The selling process was really intense,” Rothbard said. “We had to convince them our products offered unique benefits, and that we could meet their needs.”

OPINION: I can promise that it will cause you to look at this controversy in a whole new way.

The logo of the National Security Agency (NSA) (AFP Photo)

Edward Snowden: Traitor Or Hero?

July 26, 2013,  opinion by Chip Wood:

Count me among those willing to speak out. I’d love to see us bring to justice those officials who have “abused power, seriously and repeatedly violating the Constitution of the United States.” Wouldn’t you?

In today’s column, I’m going to share an extraordinary email exchange between a former U.S. Senator and Edward Snowden, the infamous betrayer of Washington secrets. I think I can promise that it will cause you to look at this controversy in a whole new way.

By now, you can almost feel a bit sorry for Snowden, the whistle-blower extraordinaire who has been forced to remain in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for more than a month. I’ve been stuck at a lot of different airports over the years, and it was never fun. And none of them, thank God, was in Russia.

Now comes word that the Russian authorities will finally permit Snowden to leave the airport while they consider his application for asylum. I have no idea why it took so long. Like bureaucracies everywhere, the ones in Moscow apparently move at their own glacial pace.

So what do you think? Is Snowden a traitorous dog who deserves the harshest penalties the United States can impose on him (if U.S. authorities can ever get their hands on him, that is)?

Or is he an authentic American hero who sacrificed a comfortable life to bring us the truth about how far our government has gone to snoop on all of us? Even the members of the intelligence committees in Congress, who supposedly knew all about the secretive surveillance being carried out by the National Security Agency and other government watchdogs, say they have been shocked to learn of the extent of what was going on.

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to ask more than 1,000 liberty lovers what they thought of Snowden. I was the master of ceremonies at something called FreedomFest, an annual conference that describes itself as “the world’s largest gathering of free minds.” Most of the attendees would probably describe themselves as libertarians, although traditional conservatives were certainly well-represented, both in the audience and at the podium.

When I asked the audience for their opinion of Snowden and what he did, I expected them to be fairly evenly divided. It was not even close. Fewer than 10 percent raised their hands when I asked if they thought he should be prosecuted for revealing state secrets. The overwhelming majority — by a rough estimate, more than 85 percent of the audience — said he deserved our praise and thanks for helping to expose what one speaker referred to as “the surveillance state.”

Shortly after returning home, I received a fascinating email exchange between Snowden and a former politician I remember fondly. Gordon J. Humphrey was a two-term Senator from New Hampshire. Here is the message he sent Snowden, via Glen Greenwald, the writer for The Guardian in London who broke the story of Snowden’s incredible disclosures:

___________________________________________________________________________

Mr. Snowden,

Provided you have not leaked information that would put in harms (sic) way any intelligence agent, I believe you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution.

Having served in the United States Senate for twelve years as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, I think I have a good grounding to reach my conclusion.

I wish you well in your efforts to secure asylum and encourage you to persevere.

Kindly acknowledge this message, so that I will know it reached you.

Regards,

Gordon J. Humphrey

Former United States Senator

New Hampshire

______________________________________________________________________________

Humphrey received the following email from Snowden. Its authenticity was also confirmed by Greenwald.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Mr. Humphrey,

Thank you for your words of support. I only wish more of our lawmakers shared your principles – the actions I’ve taken would not have been necessary.

The media has distorted my actions and intentions to distract from the substance of Constitutional violations and instead focus on personalities. It seems they believe every modern narrative requires a bad guy. Perhaps it does. Perhaps, in such times, loving one’s country means being hated by its government.

If history proves that be so, I will not shy from that hatred. I will not hesitate to wear those charges of villainy for the rest of my life as a civic duty, allowing those governing few who dared not do so themselves to use me as an excuse to right these wrongs.

My intention, which I outlined when this began, is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them. I remain committed to that. Though reporters and officials may never believe it, I have not provided any information that would harm our people – agent or not – and I have no intention to do so.

Further, no intelligence service – not even our own – has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China).

You may rest easy knowing I cannot be coerced into revealing that information, even under torture.

With my thanks for your service to the nation we both love,

Edward Snowden

_____________________________________________________________________________________

So what do you think of that? When he talks about media distortions that are being done “to distract from the substance of Constitutional violations,” Snowden sounds like a columnist for Personal Liberty Digest™, doesn’t he?

And when he wonders if “loving one’s country means being hated by its government,” he sounds like many of our readers.

Right now, there’s only one thing keeping me from coming down 100 percent on the side of “hero.” And that is the path Snowden has chosen to follow since those first incredible disclosures.

When the story first broke, I was impressed that this obscure contractor was willing to turn his life upside down to expose the truth about the NSA’s massive surveillance efforts. “Good for him,” was my first reaction. What an incredibly brave thing to do, I thought, knowing that he would immediately become the declared enemy of the most powerful government on Earth.

But it’s not civil disobedience if you’re not willing to face the consequences of your actions. I hoped that Snowden would come back to the United States and face his accusers in an open and public trial. Instead, he fled to China and then on to Russia — two countries that aren’t exactly known for a commitment to the freedom of their own citizens. And if he ever gets permission to leave Russia, he’s indicated that he might like to settle in Venezuela or Bolivia — two countries that are a lot closer to a “dictatorship of the proletariat” than anything resembling the Constitutional protections that we have long taken for granted.

What’s next? Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s Russian attorney, told CNN: “As far as I know, he’s planning to stay in Russia to learn Russian culture, Russian language and (to) live here.” If he does, it won’t be anything like his life in Hawaii before all this happened, where Snowden himself said he lived in “paradise.”

Our government has asked Russia to extradite Snowden back to the United States, but it doesn’t sound like Russian President Vladimir Putin has any intention of granting that request. (There is no extradition treaty between the two countries.) Putin has said that Snowden will need to “stop his work aimed at harming our American partners” if he wants to remain in the country.

Meanwhile, both Venezuela and Bolivia have said they would be delighted to grant asylum to Snowden. And Nicaragua has said it would do so “if circumstances permit,” whatever that means.

Oh, and one more thing. When Greenwald contacted Humphrey, to confirm the authenticity of his original email, Humphrey expanded on what he wrote Snowden:

______________________________________________________________________________

I object to the monumentally disproportionate campaign being waged by the U.S. Government against Edward Snowden, while no effort is being made to identify, remove from office and bring to justice those officials who have abused power, seriously and repeatedly violating the Constitution of the United States and the rights of millions of unsuspecting citizens.

Americans concerned about the growing arrogance of our government and its increasingly menacing nature should be working to help Mr. Snowden find asylum. Former Members of Congress, especially, should step forward and speak out.

____________________________________________________________________________________

In the meantime, I think we owe Snowden a huge “thank you” for what he’s done to expose the Big Brother surveillance taking place in what used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now it seems we’re the not-so-free and the not-very-brave.