'Butcher' Putin 'cannot remain in power': Biden

Yahoo – AFP, Aurélia END, 26 March 2022 

US President Joe Biden, with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz (c) visiting Ukrainian
refugees in Warsaw on Saturday (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

President Joe Biden on Saturday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "butcher" who "cannot remain in power" after meeting top Ukrainian ministers for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Within minutes of his comments during a visit to Warsaw, a White House official played down the remarks saying Biden "was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change". 

"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region," the official said. 

Biden compared Ukraine's resistance against Russia to the anti-Soviet "battle for freedom" and said the world must prepare for a "long fight ahead". 

"We stand with you," he told Ukrainians in a sweeping speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, which he began with the words of late Polish pope John Paul II: "Be not afraid." 

He said Russia had suffered a "strategic failure" in Ukraine and told ordinary Russians they were "not our enemy", urging them to blame Putin for the heavy sanctions imposed by the West. 

He also warned Russia not to move on an "inch" of NATO territory, reiterating the "sacred obligation" of collective defence for alliance members. 

"We will have a different future, a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light. 

"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," he said, concluding his address. 

Russian missile fragment 

Biden earlier on Saturday met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces. 

The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city centre -- opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees since the conflict started. 

Biden sat at a long white table between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, an AFP reporter saw. 

There were Ukrainian and US flags in the background. 

During the meeting Biden was flanked by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (far right, facing) and sitting opposite Kuleba and
Reznikov (front 3rd right) (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

Kuleba gave Biden the fragment of a Russian missile that struck a base in Yavoriv near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv close to the Polish border. 

"The invincible character of Ukrainians and Western ones, especially US ones, are the recipe for our victory," Kuleba said after the meeting. 

Kuleba said he had discussed new sanctions that could be imposed against Russia and how to ensure the current ones are properly implemented. 

Blinken and Austin "pledged continued support to meet Ukraine's humanitarian, security, and economic needs", State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. 

Biden last met Kuleba in Washington on February 22 -- two days before Russia launched its assault. 

Since then, Kuleba has also met Blinken in Poland, next to the border with Ukraine on March 5. 

'He's a butcher' 

The US leader later visited a refugee centre at the National Stadium in Warsaw where he met several refugees, including some from the city of Mariupol which has suffered the worst of Russia's assault. 

Asked by reporters what he thought of Putin's actions, Biden responded simply: "He's a butcher." 

"I remember what it's like when you have someone in a war zone and every morning you get up and you wonder, you are just wondering, you are praying you don't get that phone call," said Biden, whose son Beau served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumour. 

He also said he was "not sure" that Russia had changed its strategy in Ukraine after assertions by Russian officials that they were altering their war aims to concentrate on the eastern Donbas region. 

During his visit, Biden also told Polish President Andrzej Duda that NATO's collective defence was a "sacred commitment" for the US, adding: "You can count on that... For your freedom and ours." 

Duda told him that Poles felt a "great sense of threat" from the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine.

Trump widens the cracks in world order's foundations

Yahoo – AFP, Aurélia END, June 9, 2018

Leaders of the G7 participate in a working session of the G7 Summit in La Malbaie,
Quebec, Canada, June 8, 2018; US President Donald Trump has shown skepticism
and downright hostility toward multilateral institutions (AFP Photo/Ludovic MARIN)

Quebec City (AFP) - For decades, multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization and Group of Seven were widely accepted by Western governments as the best way to shore up world order.

Now, with Donald Trump in the White House and his "America First" foreign policy echoed in rise of nationalist and populist movements in Europe, the cracks in the concrete are growing ever wider.

Whether circumventing the WTO by imposing tariffs on its signatories, withholding funds from the UN or going it alone at an ongoing G7 summit in Canada, Trump has shown his disdain for organizations where American leadership was once a given.

"What worries me most is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the US," European Council President Donald Tusk said in Quebec on Friday as the rest of the G7 awaited the arrival of Trump.

The US president's skepticism and in some cases hostility towards international institutions was evident throughout his electoral campaign, even at one state declaring the NATO military alliance "obsolete."

'Very unfair'

While his views of NATO have softened -- at least in public -- since he took power in January last year, he has accused the WTO of having been "a disaster for us" and "very unfair" in its policing of global trade.

Similar arguments were used to justify the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, a painstakingly negotiated agreement that had been signed by every country bar Syria and Nicaragua by the time Trump announced his decision a year ago.

Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has warned that the world body's criticism of the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital will lead to a reduction in its funding.

Around the same time that the United Nations was created in 1945 -- an organization headquartered in New York and which relies on Washington for the lion's share of its funding -- other multinational organizations also began taking root.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which began work in 1948, was the precursor to the modern-day WTO, which now has more than 160 members.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both emerged from an agreement signed in 1944 at Bretton Woods in the northeastern US state of New Hampshire and soon became the main planks of the international finance system.

By tradition, the World Bank is led by an American while a European is at the helm of the IMF.

Multilateral institutions also began taking root on the other side of the Atlantic, including the Brussels-based NATO alliance which includes the United States and nearly all of Europe. Its birth came at a conference in Washington in 1949.

Its creation was followed soon after by the European Coal and Steel Community which initially included only six member nations but later morphed into the European Union, which is now a bulging club of 28 countries.

Brexit looms

That number should be reduced to 27 within the next 12 months when Britain leaves and the resentments towards the EU which prompted the British public to vote for Brexit are widespread.

Italy's new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who made his international entrance at the G7 summit, was propelled into office after the Eurosceptic Five Star movement joined a right-wing coalition in Rome that has evoked comparisons with Trump's rise.

French President Emmanuel Macron is among those who insist that multinational institutions are the best way to address grievances in the era of globalization as long as the bodies adapt and reform.

Ella Kokotsis of Toronto University's Munk School of Global Affairs said that Ronald Reagan also clashed with his peers at the start of his tenure in the White House four decades ago but he soon made common ground with his fellow Western leaders at the height of the Cold War.

But the differences appear more profound this time round.

"They (the other G7 leaders in the 1980s) were able to integrate Ronald Reagan into the fold quite quickly and he bought into the views of the rest of his G7 counterparts," she told AFP.

"Here we are seeing a different mood -- it's very unpredictable with Trump."

Related Article:

As G7 feuds, Xi and Putin play up their own club 

A large video screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping shaking hands with
Russia's President Vladimir Putin before the summit

Defence ministry will compensate technical staff made ill by carcinogenic paints

DutchNews, June 4, 2018

Photo: Ministry of Defence 

The defence ministry said on Monday that it will give financial compensation to hundreds of people who became ill after using highly carcinogenic paints. 

A deal has been worked out with the military unions and defence ministry workers who developed cancer and other ailments are now able to claim up to €40,000 for immaterial damage and €3,850 towards medical costs. 

‘The defence ministry has failed. I am sorry but I cannot turn back the clock,’ junior defence minister Barbara Visser told MPs. 

Last week it emerged that the government is liable for the health issues which hundreds of armed forces engineers have reported after being exposed to paint containing high levels of toxic Chromium 6. 

They had been involved in maintaining American Nato equipment at five bases between 1984 and 2006. 

The research, by the public health institute RIVM, showed that the defence ministry was aware of the health problems since 1973 but had had not shared this with doctors or soldiers. The RIVM began its research in 2014 after the scandal became public. 

In addition, the safety standards at the five locations where the equipment was maintained were not up to scratch. ‘The defence ministry’s prevention and care strategies did not meet the regulations,’ the RIVM report stated. 

More than 350 former defence workers have so far come forward to make a claim against the ministry.

Related Articles:

Defence officials knew about carcenogenic paint issue in 1987: Nos

'Defence ministry knew about carcinogenic paint for 15 years'

Britain 'furious' over US leaks on Manchester attack

Yahoo – AFP, May 25, 2017

"The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of
 information in order to protect operational integrity... the element of surprise,"
 said Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd (AFP Photo/Justin TALLIS)

London (AFP) - "Furious" British officials scolded their US counterparts on Wednesday following repeated leaks of shared material about the investigation into the deadly Manchester terror attack.

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd roasted the US Department of Homeland Security and other intelligence branches after the bomber's identity and details of the probe leaked out to US media before British officials felt ready to disclose them.

But shortly after the interior minister complained, The New York Times newspaper again scooped British authorities and other media by publishing photographs from the scene of remnants of the bomb.

The pictures were apparently taken by police investigators and, according to British government ministry sources, leaked by US counterparts they had been shared with.

"We are furious. This is completely unacceptable," a government ministry source said.

"These images leaked from inside the US system will be distressing for victims, their families and the wider public.

"The issue is being raised at every relevant level by the British authorities with their US counterparts."

The row -- which goes to the heart of the close intelligence-sharing relationship between the two allies -- provides an awkward backdrop to Prime Minister Theresa May's meeting with US President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday.

'It is irritating'

Rudd revealed the frustration going on inside the probe to find the suspected network behind bomber Salman Abedi.

"The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity... the element of surprise," Rudd told BBC radio.

"So it is irritating if it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again."

Asked if the US authorities had compromised the investigation, she said: "I wouldn't go that far.

People pause in front of candles and messages set up in front of floral 

tributes in Manchester on May 23, 2017, in solidarity with those killed and

injured in the May 22 terror attack at the Ariana Grande concert at the 

Manchester Arena (AFP Photo/Ben STANSALL)

"But I can say that they are perfectly clear about the situation and that it shouldn't happen again."

But the National Counter Terrorism Policing body said the investigation was being "undermined".

“We greatly value the important relationships we have with our trusted intelligence, law enforcement and security partners around the world," a spokesman said.

"These relationships enable us to collaborate and share privileged and sensitive information.

“When that trust is breached it undermines these relationships, and undermines our investigations and the confidence of victims, witnesses and their families.

"This damage is even greater when it involves unauthorised disclosure of potential evidence in the middle of a major counter-terrorism investigation.”

Bomber identity leaked

Twenty-two people, including several children, were killed on Monday when a bomb went off at a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande in Manchester, northwest England.

British-born Abedi was identified as the suspected suicide bomber responsible. His name first surfaced in US media reports Tuesday, based on briefings given to US officials by their counterparts in London.

Earlier, US media, also quoting US security sources, identified the assailant as a suicide bomber, well before British authorities confirmed that publicly.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan confirmed that Rudd, who spoke with DHS Secretary John Kelly by phone Wednesday, had raised the matter.

"They communicated to DHS as well as other US government agencies their concern over leaks about their investigation into the incident in Manchester -- information that's gotten into the press and public through US sources when the UK was leading the investigation and wants to protect the information," Lapan said.

"They've asked all of us to better protect the information that we have so as not to impede their investigation. We'll do whatever we can to honour that."

DHS and intelligence agencies contacted by AFP would not comment on whether they were the ones who leaked the information.

Hitler's 'destructive' wartime phone up for auction

Yahoo – AFP, February 17, 2017

This undated image obtained from Alexander Historical Auctions shows a
 phone belonging to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler which will be auctioned by
Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City, Maryland, on February 19,
2017 (AFP Photo/HO)

Washington (AFP) - Adolf Hitler's personal telephone, which the Fuehrer used to dictate many of his deadly World War II commands, will hit the auction block this weekend, the US house selling it announced.

Originally a black Bakelite phone that was later painted crimson and engraved with Hitler's name, the relic was found in the Nazi leader's Berlin bunker in 1945 following the regime's defeat.

Auction house Alexander Historical Auctions estimates its worth between $200,000 and $300,000.

On Sunday, the company, located in the eastern US coastal state of Maryland, will auction off more than a thousand items -- including the Siemens rotary telephone embossed with a swastika and the eagle symbolic of the Third Reich.

Alexander House dubbed the phone -- which Hitler received from the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's armed forces -- as "arguably the most destructive 'weapon' of all time, which sent millions to their deaths."

It said Hitler used it to give most of his orders during the last two years of World War II.

Russian officers gifted the device to British Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner during a tour of the bunker shortly after Germany's surrender.

Rayner's son inherited the phone and is selling it, its paint now peeling to reveal its original synthetic black resin surface.

Andreas Kornfeld of Alexander House told AFP estimates are set based on a number of factors, including "rarity and uniqueness," with the expectation that sale prices will exceed opening bids.

"It would be impossible to find a more impactful relic than the primary tool used by the most evil man in history," the auction house said in a statement. "This was not a staid office telephone."

"This was Hitler's mobile device of destruction."

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"Wild Cards" (3) - Nov 19 - 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)- (Text version)

Kryon.com, November 19, 2016

This live channelling was given in Wilmington, North Carolina

Lee Carroll

To help the reader, this channelling has been revisited [by Lee and Kryon] to provide even clearer understanding. Sometime information is even added or condensed. Often what happens live has implied energy within it, which carries a kind of communication that the printed page does not. So enjoy this enhanced message given in Wilmington, NC.

Greetings, dear ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service.

Today I want to talk about wild cards. I wish to help explain what or who they’ve been over time, but in order for this explanation to be understood and accepted and beautiful to your soul, you’re going to have to do some pretending.

Adjusting Your Attitude

If you were a scientist coming from another planet to observe Human history, you would need to do it without emotion or bias. I can tell the story about wild cards, both for your grandfathers and for you, but there is often emotion and bias involved. Because of this, I will say one thing, and you may hear another. Dear ones, it can’t be that way for you to understand this message.

Warning: What comes next has to be disengaged from what you think you know, or from the emotions of who you think you are, what you think has happened, or even from what you feel is historical. Remember, in his pretending scenario, you’re aliens coming from another planet to learn what has happened. You’re pretending so you will disengage. Pretend history will be told to you about a race you’re not part of. This is so you will have no attachment to anything as you listen. This is the only way you will understand this lesson today. It is the only way you will begin to understand the beauty of a spiritual system that pushes you when you need to be pushed.

Wild Cards Examined

Wild card, as used in spiritual language, is a term that is difficult to define. Wild cards can be events, they can be inventions, they can involve one Human or a few. They can be one of many things or many of one thing, but they follow a timeline that you can look at. We want to talk about some of the wild cards that you’ve had in the past, and some attributes of their occurrence that you might not have thought of.

The basic attribute of any kind of wild card is that it’s a surprise event. It’s often shocking, sometimes revealing, but always a surprise. We’re also going to do some of the numerology as we go, and also take a look at the energies that help define what the energy is around specific wild cards.

Numerology is an ancient system that helps define an energy around something. For instance, an event may seem to be one thing, but the numerology will tell a story around it that may be more explanatory. When you see what we will call synchronized numerology – the same numbers repeated around a wild card – it’s very telling, for there are no accidents.

Dear Kryon, you might ask, “Does spirit create wild cards for the planet?” Answer: No, you do. Your consciousness at a certain point in time gives an allowance for a wild card. Sprit is ready to enhance some wild card scenarios and not others. But the energy and consciousness of humanity allows for their occurrence.

A wild card can be a person, an invention, a thing, an event, a new system or a new paradigm that changes the planet. It is unexpected, sometimes startling and often dramatic in its influence. If it’s an invention, it has to be outside of the purview of what would normally have occurred through the evolution of science or the timing of expected scientific evolution. It is often a paradigm shifter, and it’s usually from one person. When you see that, you will know there it’s a wild card. It isn’t always an individual invention, and sometimes it’s collective. But, dear one, you can tell because every single wild card takes everybody by surprise.

Wild Cards in History

You’ve had a number of them, and I’ll list a few so you get the idea. You’ll also get to see a system of singularity that comes to inventors. You’ll see this as I go.

Tesla was a wild card. His ideas were unexpected, controversial and advanced to a degree that even to this day those in electronic engineering shake their heads. They will take a look at what he invented and will comment, “How is it possible for any one person to have seen that? If you study alternating current, it’s a conundrum. Phase relationships of alternating current are brilliant beyond brilliant.” This was Tesla.

However, what you know about him is only what he brought to you. Now, a brilliant mind like that would have other things, don’t you think? Indeed, he did, so you might ask, “Well, where are those other things?” The answer is that those other things were stopped cold – all of them. He only was able to promote the one thing that you needed for the planet. The brilliance of his mind had many other profound ideas, but he was unable to proceed. He saw ways to alter mass in his workshops, but couldn’t. He was frustrated that he didn’t have the elaborate tools to be precise enough to make it work on a regular basis. That’s just one. Transmission of electricity without wires through the ground was the other. However, it would not have been correct at the time for those things to have been presented to humanity. You weren’t ready, but you were ready for alternating current, one of the most needed inventions for the time. Tesla died frustrated, poor, in a small room and alone. He came to do one thing, and was stopped from anything else, then he passed. If you have analyzed the people who were wild cards in your history, there is a pattern.

Other wild card inventors have come into the planet just because the earth was ready for a specific invention. Remember, Spirit does not give the information, but allows for it to be released, often all at once, all over the earth. Let me give you some examples.

Another wild card is the Wright brothers. Isn’t it odd to you that it wasn’t that long ago that you got powered flight? It was just yesterday! Some of your relatives were alive when flight was discovered! Dear ones, the Chinese have been flying kites for thousands of years. Don’t you think that they knew the dynamics of a bird? Do you think that century after century after century occurred and nobody figured out how to sustain flight with any kind of power source? Two bicycle makers figured it out!

That’s odd enough, but the fact that they only beat the French by two weeks is something worth looking at. That’s odd! It’s almost like this profound invention was ready to be given to the planet simultaneously, all over the earth, at the same time. Whoever got to it first would be the ones who got the credit. The real oddity is the timing. It’s not logical that it was so hidden, then suddenly so many were working on it all at once.

The Wright brothers were here to show it to you, then stop. All they did was what you saw at Kitty Hawk. They never went past basic wing warping, and did not have first intuitive thought about ailerons, or the basics of flight control today. For them, it stopped there. Dear ones, there was great frustration, and perhaps even health issues from it, from having others take the basics and develop flight so fast beyond them. Dysfunction and sorrow followed them both, and they died without ever being able to participate fully beyond the initial invention. One died far earlier than the other, creating sorrow for the one left behind. They came to do what they did and move on. This is more common than you know with wild cards, especially when it comes to inventions that change this planet.

Who invented the radio? Was is the Italian Guglielmo Marconi, or our frustrated wild card Tesla? Marconi got the credit, but the invention was everywhere, ready to be claimed. The earth was ripe and ready for it, and it was delivered to the consciousness of the planet at the right time. But both men got it at the same time, apart from each other. I’m giving you things to think about.

We have told you that there are wild card inventions coming in the future. One in particular is ready, but you will not receive it until the time is right. It’s almost like there’s a thinking ceiling on what you can do. We even gave you some of the attributes of the coming invention, but not the one who will bring it. We’re not even concerned that you’ll do it in advance, because we know the wild card is coming. An invention is coming. It is an invention that will rewrite physics as you know it. You’d see the patterns in quantum fields, and there would be the big aha! It would be like reinventing the wheel.

“Kryon, why can’t we have it now? What’s stopping it?” We told you, it’s too easy to weaponize. When you reach the point where you won’t weaponize it, it’s yours. All this is coming. It’s natural, and it will come when it’s time just like the Wright brothers, just like Tesla, just like Einstein.

Einstein was a genuine wild card. He was not a quantum thinker at all, but what he presented is still alive and well today and they’re still looking inside the atom for the concepts he gave you. So I will make this statement: Einstein isn’t finished yet, because the very concepts that continue to be received from his work are going to be applied to the invention of the century. So the Einsteinean principles, even though they are not quantum, will be very much involved in what is coming. You might say he was a wild card and continues to be one. The joke is that his concepts last and last, outside of time, yet his main ideas were with time. If you asked Einstein if he was happy with what he brought to the planet, he would tell you no. He was frustrated that he didn’t get to do what he really wanted. Like Tesla, he felt that something was just “out of reach” and he didn’t get to do it.

Then there was World War II. Dear ones, pretend you are an alien scientist. Disengage your emotion. You’ve come in from another planet to look at this.

World War II (WWII) was not a wild card, but the man who created and enhanced it was. This planet was teetering on the edge of ultimate dark energy and destruction. Nobody expected it. The most despicable old energy card played itself out exactly as it should have, with the consciousness of this planet going to where it had brought itself. You had just finished World War I (WWI), yet WWII ignited and continued. So WWII was simply an extension of WWI. You did it again, only this time the weapons were getting bigger and more able to destroy all of humanity. Remember the prophecy of your scripture? You were headed for mass destruction. WWII would become World War III, and by the year 2000, you would be almost gone.

As I mentioned, WWII wasn’t the wild card, rather it was the man who led the lowest consciousness in recent history who was. He was the wild card, and you know of whom I speak. This wild card killed millions of people who were not even participants in the military portion of the war. Genocide had begun, a race war had begun, and many were following his lead. It showed the darkest side of humanity – more than you had ever seen before, and it almost targeted the demise of civilization if he had won.

It was a horror wild card, and the planet had created it. However, when it was over, the entire world took a breath and for a moment, just for a moment, there was a glimmer of realization: “This cannot go on, for we will do it again.” Many things took place due to this realization. Without the wild card, you would not have the European Union, you would not have the United Nations or any attempt at unity on Earth. Disengage from your logic and emotion, dear ones. These things were not created from Spirit, but rather from the depth of lower humanity. This is the dark side at its worst, showing itself with almost free reign, but the world objected to it and started to climb out of it. It was the beginning over half a century ago of what you’re starting to see now in the shift.

The amazing shift that you’re in right now is something that goes slow. It didn’t happen all at once. The Cold War was a natural occurrence out of the consciousness that was part of the end of WWII. But, dear ones, you could never have the shift if that Cold War had continued the way it was. Enter another wild card: The Soviet system fell over.

The Cold War could not continue, and it was stopped in the form it was in. Dear ones, for those reading now, that was one of the biggest wild cards of all. The consciousness of earth said “no” and it ended. That was a huge wild card. It changed everything; it wasn’t expected; nobody saw it coming, and it changed everything. It may not have changed things immediately to the way you want it right away, but it created that which you needed at that time.

Then there was Steve Jobs. He was a wild card. What he did had little to do with technology, for that would have happened anyway soon enough. Instead, it had to do with the paradigm of the business of music on Earth. He freed it, and the paradigm of how music is obtained and heard will never be the same. However, Steve Jobs did basically one thing for all of you, and then he died. Do you see any kind of connecting of the dots to some of the inventors who come and give you the one thing, then leave? If he had lived, would there be more? Yes, but you’re not ready for it. Consciousness has to support what happens.

Yes, it would seem we have left some things out – the invention of DNA, the atomic bomb, etc. However, these were not wild cards. These are your civilization, within a normal evolution of science. Wild cards are very unexpected things, and there are more coming your way.

The Wild Card of 2016

Remember: No emotion now. You have come from another planet and you’re looking at the end of 2016 – and there is the election. Understand without bias.

So for 2016, let’s do the numerology. You add the numbers and get nine. Nine is completion in simple numerology, and when you see a nine it often means the completion of something. Often it is of a time cycle, an energy or the completion of a paradigm. But it’s very strong.

The nines are stronger than many of the other numerological aspects and you feel them. The president-elect (at this writing) is a strong wild card. He is scheduled to become the 45th president. What a coincidence! Forty-five is a nine. A nine and a nine together are more than significant. They tell a story about what is happening. I will tell you something else. This story is not finished yet and there is more coming. You don’t know what you don’t know, so don’t make up your mind in advance about any outcomes. You’re from another planet, remember? There’s no emotion, no bias, no politics and nothing to judge. Look at it for what it is.

A big stick has just been inserted into what is normal and it’s going to be turned. As the big stick turns, other things will respond that never would have responded otherwise. I wish to tell you, dear one, old soul, relax with upcoming wild cards. They do what they do on purpose so that you will have a better civilization in the future. Sometimes they show you what won’t work, and sometimes they change paradigms that would have never changed otherwise. But what you have now is a profound wild card. That is the message.

It’s so common for you to respond certain ways when you are invested in the process. The knee-jerk reaction is expected or you wouldn’t be a Human. However, for this lesson, you’re from another planet and you’re looking down and you’re seeing it. Pretend.

Isn’t that interesting about a nine and a nine together? It means that truly the end of something is here. Perhaps it’s the end of the old way things were done? Perhaps it’s a shake-up of the system so it can correct itself? Don’t dare make up your mind where it’s going, because it’s not finished yet. However, wait a moment. Did you also realize that 2017 is a “one” year? Not only is the energy one of completion with a double nine, but it moves into “a new beginning” (the definition of a one in numerology).

I have more to tell you about numerology, and also something that will be clearer about this whole situation. I will give this to you in the next channelling.

Can you relax in the face of uncertainty when it’s your own country? Can you relax in the face of not knowing what’s next? When you’re so involved, can you disengage from either side of the fray? That is the test of a Lightworker.

There’s something else coming. Dear ones, this is beautiful. No matter what you think and no matter what your reaction is to this channelling, what is happening is correct for your time and needed for your immediate future. I will speak of this later. The beauty is when you step away and see how grand it is, that Spirit cares enough that it would allow a big stick to occur that would stir your complacency at this time. The real reason? The shift is here.

How do you feel? I want you to relax and smile at what the shift has brought you. For those of you who felt all the “shift talk” was nonsense, this may be your wake-up call. It’s real. Here it comes.

This is the message of the day. I am Kryon, in love with humanity, and for good reason.

And so it is.

KRYON

Heckler & Koch given negative "Closed Oyster" award for lack of transparency

A German association promoting investigative journalism has awarded arms maker Heckler & Koch with its "Closed Oyster" award. Netzwerk Recherche said the firm had attempted to have spies follow critical journalists.

Deutsche Welle, 5 July 2015

Announcing the award on Saturday, journalist Hauke Friederichs said that by awarding the "Closed Oyster" Netzwerk Recherche was sending a signal for transparency and freedom of access in media coverage.

In May, a defense ministry official was removed from his job after trying to get Germany's Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) to cover up negative reports about H&K's G36 rifle, which is used by the Bundeswehr. The company was said to have lobbied the government to do mobilize the spies.

Friederichs said at the awards ceremony, "In the conflict zones of the world Heckler & Koch is as well known as Daimler-Benz."

The new chair of Netzwerk Recherche, Julia Stone, said, "It is well known that Heckler & Koch is reluctant to answer questions of any kind and prefers to speak through lawyers, and has even threatened journalists."

Stone claimed Heckler & Koch had taken secrecy to a "new level."

Heckler & Koch CEO Andreas Heeschen rejected the allegations and said, "I would like at this point to emphasize once again that we have at no time discussed or demanded spying on journalists by the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD)."

Heckler & Koch is one of the world's leading manufacturers of small arms including pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, precision rifles, and machine guns. It employs about 650 people and supplies its weapons to NATO countries and also to Egypt, Bahrain, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The non-profit Netzwerk Recherche association was set up in 2001 by 35 journalists to promote investigative journalism in Germany. It works with journalists to aid their research, especially if officials impede the free flow of information.

It is the first time in the 13 years of awarding the "Closed Oyster" that the prize has been given to an arms manufacturer.

jm/bk (dpa, epd)

Related Article:

Defense Ministry official sought to quell reporting about the G36

US officers tell Congress that general blocked probe of hospital in Kabulaf

House hears of abuses that went uninvestigated because commanding officer allegedly feared 'bad news' getting out

guardian.co.uk, Karen McVeigh in New York, Tuesday 24 July 2012

One complainant said Lieutenant General William Caldwell had partisan
motives  in postponing any investigation until after the 2010 election.
Photograph: US navy/Reuters

The American general who led a Nato training mission in Afghanistan opposed an investigation into corruption and "Auschwitz-like" conditions at a US-funded hospital in Kabul for political reasons, US military officers told Congress on Tuesday.

One active-duty officer testified that the three-star general, Lieutenant General William Caldwell, who headed the training mission in Afghanistan, forced him to retract a request for an inspector general's investigation into the Dawood national military hospital.

Colonel Mark Fassl, said he was shocked when Caldwell brought up the 2010 congressional elections and said: "How could we do this or make this request with an election coming? He calls me Bill." Fassl, who was inspector general for the compound, said he believed it was a reference to President Barack Obama.

Two retired colonels who worked with training command also told the House oversight and government reform committee that Caldwell did not want an inspector general's report of the hospital. In testimony submitted ahead of the hearing, retired Colonel Gerald Carozza, who served as adviser to the US campaign in Afghanistan, said: "The evidence is clear to me that General Caldwell had the request for a probe [into the hospital] withdrawn and postponed until after the election and then, after the election, tried to intimidate his subordinates into a consensus that it need to move forward at all."

He went on: "The general did not want bad news to leave his command before the election or after the election."

At the hearing, officers described the extent of human suffering at the hospital, where the lack of care forced families of soldiers to empty "vats of blood draining from their wounds". When asked to describe the scene at the hospital, Fassl said it lacked basic facilities. Hygiene was poor and the hospital lacked soap, heat and the means to boil water, he said.

"There were open vats of blood draining out of soldiers' wounds, there was faeces on the floor. There were many family members taking care of their loved ones. The family members were emptying these vats of blood to help their patients out."

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Afghan soldiers often died from neglect or lack of food as some Afghan doctors and nurses demanded bribes for food. Fassl said he had expected Caldwell to insist on going to the hospital to find out what was going on.

Fassl said: "When I think about what we were trying to do in Afghanistan, which is build the army and police corps, how could we allow this type of suffering to go on when we should be showing the Afghan citizens that their soldiers matter?"

Caldwell is now head of the US army north command and senior commander of Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Colonel Wayne Shanks, spokeman for the command, said: "I am sure that Lieutenant General Caldwell would welcome the opportunity to respond to any inquiry, and I'm confident that once the facts are presented and examined, all allegations will be proven false."

'A dog and pony show'

At the hearing, the military officers spoke of the lack of discipline and rule of law that informed corruption in Afghanistan on a grand scale which prevented them from realising their mission. One committee member described as "the most honest and unvarnished assessment of Afghanistan that Congress has ever heard".

A memo written by another committee witness, retired air force colonel Schuyler Geller, a command surgeon attached to the training mission, confirmed poor treatment and corruption and that Caldwell did not want an inspector general's investigation.

Geller told the hearing that when military officials came to visit the hospital they got a "dog and pony show" that covered up the abuse.

Caldwell eventually agreed to request a limited investigation, but Carozza said it "would not mention the Auschwitz-like conditions at the national military hospital".

Committee officials said the inspector general has now opened two investigations in response to complaints over the response of Caldwell and a deputy, now Major General Gary Patton.

One concerns the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, which stops commanders from restricting subordinates' communication with the inspector general. The second involves allegations of reprisal from a complainant who alleged that Caldwell and Patton cited partisan reasons for requesting postponement of an investigation until after the 2010 elections.

Carozza said the committee should be considering a broader issue than conditions at the hospital. "What this hearing should about are attempts to over-control the message," he said in his testimony. "It is about some leadership that puts the best foot forward and relies on the hard built reputation earned by the military to soften any belief that there is a need to see the other foot."