81 Illegal Migrants Suddenly Show Up On Chios

We keep on sending them home, and they keep on illegally crossing into Greece. Not 10, not 30, not 50 but 81 illegal immigrants were picked up by the Hellenic Coast Guard from different beaches on the island of Chios on Saturday, local reports said. The same reports noted that the immigrants were trapped in coves that were inaccessible by land and were rescued by the fire brigade and a Super Puma helicopter.

Strangely there was no information released about the nationality of the immigrants and certainly there was no information on how they got there, but a number of wrecked rubber dinghies were reportedely spotted off the island’s coast.

There were no reports of fatalities or injuries, nonetheless they were taken to a local hospital for checkups.

CYPRUS - An Unexpected Geopolitical Giant

(antifon) - Cyprus has quite a few things going in its favor. First, international law. Unless the UN member Republic of Cyprus decides to cancel itself, and why should it, that's all there is in as far as the law is concerned, a Cyprus spanning all corners of the island, legally speaking. Second, the same legal entity, legal as per the highest law of the earth, the UN charter, is also a member of the European Union, the greatest and most tightly knit intranational grouping since the end of WWII, and a member of EU-17, the hard European core that uses the same currency.

A EU that more and more develops into a federation, with constant alignment of the economic, trade, political and defense mechanisms of its member states. Yes, it will be a while before it can speak with one voice, but it is a reality that hardly anyone can ignore or diminish, save a few Turkish live political caricatures.

Lastly, Cyprus has an exclusive economic zone with hydrocarbon reserves, in one of the most geostrategic areas of the globe, that render it one of the most valuable members of the Union, both for its supply capacity as well as the independence it provides the Union away from monopolisitic and non-dependable supply routes that originate from Russia, Azerbaijan and the Middle East, and need to travel through a number of precarious, politically or militarily, spots before reaching Europe.

There are few in the west that would pursue a course of action that would force Cyprus to award undue leverage on Europe via an ethnic Turkish voice in Cypriot matters.

And the more "Turkey" is perceived as having an identity crisis, all the more leaning towards an Islamic version of democracy, an oxymoron really, the more the need for a stable, functioning European Republic of Cyprus, away from constitutional experiments whose purpose would be to serve either archaic British narrow interests, or "Turkey" 's outladish and hypocritical (just ask what language 20 million of its Kurds speak) demands or even Turkish Cypriots' naive, preposterous and self-centered interpretation of what is considered a fair solution for a circa 12% minority community within a unitary state!

If you do not see Cyprus as a giant today, then you are short-sighted, politically speaking.

Olympic-Aegean Merger Delayed Until Oct. 16

The European Union’s Competition Commission has put off the final decision regarding the proposed merger between Greece’s Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines until October 16, following additional concessions made by Aegean, according to a report in Kathimerini.

Meanwhile there are growing reports claiming that Turkish investors are interested in buying out the airline. After checking our sources, HellasFrappe could not prove this to be true. In fact the stories that are currently rumoring such an event are basically coming from Turkey and not Greece.

Conspiracy or Truth - M.Hastings Was Investigating CIA Director at Time of Deadly Crash

The widow of Michael Hastings confirmed that the investigative journalist was working on a story on CIA Director John Brennan when he was killed in a fiery car crash in June. In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan on August 5, Elise Jordan said that the story on Brennan will appear in an upcoming issue of Rolling Stone. The story apparently relates to Brennan’s role in targeting journalists who were working on government secrets.

By Matthew MacEgan
Global Research

In its report on Hasting’s investigations, San Diego 6 Newscited an email from obtained by WikiLeaks, which alleges that “Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists” who reveal government secrets. It was an internal communication within Stratfor, a global intelligence company with connections to the US state, with a subject line stating that the message was for internal use only and should not be forwarded.

The email went on:

     “There is a specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my). Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode.”

Hastings died in the early hours of the morning on June 19, when his Mercedes exploded after apparently crashing into a palm tree in Hollywood, California. The vehicle burst into flames and the engine was launched 100 feet down the street. One witness compared the sound coming from the blast to a bomb explosion that shook nearby houses.

While initial eyewitness testimony indicated that Hastings had been speeding, new evidence is surfacing that questions such statements. According to the same San Diego 6 News report, a surveillance video taken from a nearby restaurant has been studied and shows that Hastings may have only been traveling as slowly as 35 mph when the collision took place.

According to San Diego 6 News:

     “That revelation is important because Jose, an employee of ALSCO, a nearby business, and a witness to the accident, told KTLA/Loud Labs (Scott Lane) the car was traveling at a high rate of speed and he saw sparks coming from the car and saw it explode BEFORE hitting the tree.”

Hastings, who was 33-years-old when he died, had received threats from government officials in response to his work. In one of his books, he revealed that a staffer of General Stanley McCrystal, whose career was ended in part by an exposé written by Hastings, had told him, “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write.”

In response to recent attention to Hastings’ death, a CIA spokesperson told reporters that, “any suggestion that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on Constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless.” However, the connection between the death of Hastings and the leaked CIA email raises serious questions about the death. Los Angeles Police Department officials have declared that there is no evidence of foul play.

Hastings was best known for his Rolling Stone exposé that led to the removal of McCrystal as chief of command in Afghanistan.

Following his death, friends of Hastings explained that the journalist had been in a particularly agitated state following the revelations of NSA spying by Edward Snowden in early June. Hastings was meeting with a WikiLeaks lawyer just hours before the crash.

Another San Diego 6 News report from July included an interview with Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs, a close friend of Hastings, who explained that journalist’s body was returned to family members in an urn, which was not in line with their wishes. The fact that his body was returned in this fashion raises even more suspicion regarding his death.

Biggs also released an email sent out by Hastings prior to his death with the following subject line: “FBI Investigation, re: NSA.”He suggested that his associates at BuzzFeed request legal counsel before speaking to “the Feds,” before adding, “I’m onto a big story and need to go off the rada[r] for a bit.”

Reportedly, Hastings, who frequently posted to social media web sites, made no such posts during the final week of his life.

In reference to this email, Biggs told reporters, “This wasn’t an accident, and I will continue to investigate his death.”

MYSTERY SOLVED - CIA Finally Declassifies Area 51

credit RT

The US government has admitted to the existence of a top-secret site in the Nevada desert, but the declassification will probably do little to calm ‘conspiracy theories’ over UFOs and other rumors involving the place.

George Washington University's National Security Archive obtained a CIA history of the U-2 spy plane, a high-altitude surveillance aircraft, through a freedom of information request, and released it Thursday.

National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson says he requested the information back in 2005 and received a version a few weeks ago.

According to the Archive’s website, the new information “is notable for the significant amount of newly declassified material with respect to the U-2 (spy plane project),” which provides the names of pilots, codenames and cryptonyms, as well as a map of the secret site where the jet was tested in the 1950s.

The story of Area 51 begins with the CIA searching for a reliable place to test the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft at a time when the military showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union was in high gear.

US pilots found what they were looking for at Groom Lake, a desert salt flat, on April 12, 1955, according to “The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance,” an internal CIA history of the U-2, written by Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach.

     “President Eisenhower also approved the addition of this strip of wasteland, known by its map designation as Area 51, to the Nevada Test Site,” the authors wrote.

The U-2 spy plane flew at an altitude of 70,000 feet, which made some believe UFOs were buzzing Earth.

     "High-altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect – a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs)," the report states.

Richelson says the new document shows the CIA is becoming less secretive about Area 51's existence, and the activities that took place there.

     "It marks an end of official secrecy about the facts of Area 51," he told The Las Vegas Sun. "It opens up the possibility that future accounts of this and other aerial projects will be less redacted, more fully explained in terms of their presence in Area 51."

However, judging by the number of conspiracy theories involving Area 51, the release of the information may only serve to intensify rumors as to what else may have taken place on this lonely stretch of wasteland in the Nevada desert, which remains off-limits to this day.

Area 51 has come to be associated with a number of so-called urban legends, perhaps most famously the Roswell UFO incident that occurred on July 7, 1947 when an airborne object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico.

The US government said the crash involved a military surveillance balloon, but other reports said the object was a spacecraft containing extraterrestrial life.

Ever since the 1970s, speculation has been rife as to what really crashed in Roswell.

http://rt.com/usa/cia-area51-roswell-us-577/