Support to NATO #39;s priorities - Joint ISR
The NCI Agency played an important enabling role in the largest ever test of NATO #39;s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities that beg...
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RUSSIA PREPARES FOR WAR - Putin Orders Snap Military Drills on NATO Border
SUBSCRIBE to ELITE NWO for Latest on NEW COLD WAR 2.0 / NEW WORLD ORDER / ILLUMINATI / BUILD UP TO WW3 / CURRENCY WARS http://www.youtube.com/EliteNWOAgenda ...
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RUSSIA PREPARES FOR WAR - Putin Orders Snap Military Drills on NATO Border - Video
NATO I Super TNT petarde- TEST i PREGLEDAVANJE
Nato je jako jako jaka petarda. Ima 5 grama baruta kao MegattroN!!! Ispriavam se sto sam rekao da je dole barut nije barut nego gips. Zurio sam se pa sam pogrijeio.
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Joseph Stalin honoured in NATO Country (Holland) !
CCCP Dictator Stalin honoured in Holland/ Netherlands Warsaw Pact vs NATO The Hague/ City of Justice International Court of Justice The Hague NATO member Holland/ The netherlands.
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Should NATO defend Ukraine if Russia attacks? Anthony Holmes
I think NATO should help Ukraine if Russia attacks because Ukraine #39;s leader had just fled into Russia because he was scared of Russia starting a war. NATO shouldn #39;t help Ukraine if Russia attacks...
By: Paul Bogush
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Should NATO defend Ukraine if Russia attacks? Anthony Holmes - Video
Ukraine News Dec 22-Finland and France say NO to NATO
1) Dnipropetrovsk authorities stop convoy headed for Donbass 2) Rossiya Segodnya opens memorial plague to honor of Andrei Stenin 3) Finnish Prime Minister not ready for possible NATO ...
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Ukraine News Dec 22-Finland and France say NO to NATO - Video
MOSCOW In a sign of Ukraines hardening attitude toward Russia, Ukrainian lawmakers on Tuesday voted to remove a legal barrier to joining the NATO defense alliance.
The move swiftly provoked an angry response from Russia, even though NATO itself shows few signs of accepting Ukraine as a member any time soon. But this years bloody conflict in Ukraines east has shifted the countrys feelings about the value of the Western alliance. A plurality of Ukrainians now favor joining NATO, a stark change from recent years when just a small fraction did.
Ukraines decision comes as Russia struggles with a weakened ruble and growing concerns about economic instability.
The vote in Ukraines parliament had no immediate practical effect on the countrys relationship with NATO. But it ended Ukraines non-aligned status, put into place as a way of reassuring Russia that its neighbor would not join NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited his fear of Ukraines joining NATO as a reason he annexed Crimea in March.
The proposal to eliminate non-aligned status passed easily, with 303 of the Ukrainian parliaments 450 lawmakers in support. After the vote, legislators stood up and applauded.
Finally we corrected a mistake. 303 votes and Ukraines non-aligned status is out, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. There is no alternative to Euro-Atlantic integration. Glory to Ukraine!
Russian leaders reacted immediately with harsh denunciations, warning Ukraine and NATO that no good could come of the decision.
This is counterproductive and only escalates confrontations and creates an illusion that by adopting such laws it might be possible to settle a profound domestic crisis in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, Interfax reported.
He called instead for dialogue inside Ukraine, where Russian-supported rebels in the east have waged a war that has claimed more than 4,700 lives.
A day earlier, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned on his Facebook page that application for membership in NATO would turn Ukraine into a potential military adversary for Russia.
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Ukraine votes to take step toward NATO, immediately angering Russia
Last winter's revolution in Kiev upset Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to enlist Ukraine in a new, Kremlin-led bloc that could rival both Nato and the European Union.
And Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military blocs as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4,700 in the eastern Ukrainian rust belt in the past eight months.
Putin's view of Nato as modern Russia's biggest threat has only been reinforced by this year's dramatic spike in East-West tensions over Ukraine.
"In essence, an application for Nato membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned in a Facebook post on Monday.
He said that Ukraine's rejection of neutrality and a new Russian sanctions law that US President Barack Obama signed on Friday "will both have very negative consequences".
"And our country will have to respond to them," Medvedev added.
Perhaps the most immediate threat will be to delicate peace talks this week in the Belarussian capital Minsk that Poroshenko announced on Monday.
Poroshenko said the deal for Kiev and rebel negotiators to meet in the presence of Russian and European envoys on Wednesday and Friday was struck during a joint call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande the West's top mediators on Ukraine.
The last two rounds of Minsk consultations in September produced a truce and the outlines of a broader peace agreement that gave the two separatist regions partial self-rule for three years within a united Ukraine.
A pro-Russian separatist stands guard near Donetsk's Sergey Prokofiev International Airport (Reuters)
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KIEV: Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday (Dec 23) in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war. Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status - a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars.
President Petro Poroshenko had vowed to put Ukraine under Western military protection after winning an election called in the wake of the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president. "Ukraine's fight for its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty has turned into a decisive factor in our relations with the world," Poroshenko told foreign ambassadors in Kiev on Monday night.
Ukraine assumed neutrality under strong Russian pressure in 2010. It had sought NATO membership in the early post-Soviet era but - its once-mighty army in ruins and riven by corruption - was never viewed as a serious candidate.
Last winter's revolution in Kiev upset Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to enlist Ukraine in a new bloc he was forging in order to counterbalance NATO and the European Union. And Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military blocs as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4,700 in the eastern Ukrainian rustbelt in the past eight months.
Putin's view of NATO as modern Russia's biggest threat has only been reinforced by this year's dramatic spike in East-West tensions over Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that Kiev "put an end to confrontation" and stop adopting "absolutely counterproductive" measures that only stoked tensions between the two sides.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said even more bluntly that "in essence, an application for NATO membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia". Medvedev warned that Ukraine's rejection of neutrality and a new Russian sanctions law that US President Barack Obama signed on Friday "will both have very negative consequences". "And our country will have to respond to them," he wrote in a Facebook post.
Perhaps the most immediate threat will be to delicate peace talks this week in the Belarussian capital Minsk that Poroshenko announced on Monday. Poroshenko said the deal for Kiev and rebel negotiators to meet in the presence of Russian and European envoys on Wednesday and Friday was struck during a joint call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande - the West's top mediators on Ukraine.
REBELS NON-COMMITTAL
The last two rounds of Minsk consultations in September produced a truce and the outlines of a broader peace agreement that gave the two separatist regions partial self-rule for three years within a united Ukraine. But the deals were followed by more fighting that killed at least 1,300 people. The insurgents' decision to stage their own leadership polls in violation of the Minsk rules effectively ended political talks between the two sides.
A new meeting in Minsk had been hampered by Kiev's refusal to discuss lifting last month's suspension of social security and other benefit payments to the rebel-run districts. Ukraine's leaders suspect the money is being stolen by militias in the Russian-speaking Lugansk and Donetsk regions and used to finance their war.
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KIEV - Ukraine took a historic step towards NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war.
Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status - a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars.
President Petro Poroshenko had vowed to put Ukraine under Western military protection after winning an election called in the wake of the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president.
"Ukraine's fight for its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty has turned into a decisive factor in our relations with the world," Poroshenko told foreign ambassadors in Kiev on Monday night.
"European and Euro-Atlantic integrations - that is Ukraine's XX course," Poroshenko tweeted moments after the 303-8 vote.
Ukraine assumed neutrality under strong Russian pressure in 2010. It had sought NATO membership in the early post-Soviet era but - its once-mighty army in ruins and riven by corruption - was never viewed as a serious candidate.
Last winter's revolution in Kiev upset Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to enlist Ukraine in a new bloc he was forging in order to counterbalance NATO and the European Union.
And Moscow had set Kiev's exclusion from all military blocs as a condition for any deal on ending the pro-Russian uprising that has killed 4,700 in the eastern Ukrainian rustbelt in the past eight months.
Putin's view of NATO as modern Russia's biggest threat has only been reinforced by this year's dramatic spike in East-West tensions over Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that Kiev "put an end to confrontation" and stop adopting "absolutely counterproductive" measures that only stoked tensions between the twos ids.
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KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Ukraine's Parliament voted Tuesday to abolish its neutral, non-aligned status and direct its attention to future NATO membership.
It voted, 303 to 8, to eliminate the status, which has kept the country from entering military alliances, adopted under pressure from Russia in 2010. Prior to the vote, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the change "will lead to integration in the European and the Euro-Atlantic space" and away from Russian influence.
President Petro Poroshenko has said a better assimilation with the West is a Ukrainian priority, and NATO membership is a goal, although not an immediate one. Speaking to foreign ambassadors Monday, Poroshenko said Ukraine's "fight for its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty has turned into a decisive factor in our relations with the world."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a Facebook post that the Ukrainian refutation of neutrality would have "negative consequences," adding NATO membership for Ukraine would turn the country into a "potential military adversary of Russia."
Andrei Kelin, Russian representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the body overseeing peace negotiations between Kiev and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, told Russia's Interfax news agency Moscow would "negatively respond" to Ukraine's attempts to join NATO.
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Smoking Gun: Who Hacked Sony?
A presentation by a former NSA analyst revealed it #39;s feasible for the NSA to hack a large corporation, such as Sony Pictures, and blame it on a foreign country such as North Korea. from...
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Digital cold war: Documents show the National Security Agency has been monitoring information about the workings of Huawei. Photo: Bloomberg
Washington: United States officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the US for fear that the company would create "back doors" in its equipment that could allow the Chinese military or Beijing-backed hackers to steal corporate and government secrets.
But even as the US made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors - directly into Huawei's networks.
The agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei's sealed headquarters in Shenzen, China's industrial heart, according to NSA documents provided by former contractor Edward Snowden.
Huawei: The NSA created back doors into the Chinese company's networks, leaked documents show. Photo: Bloomberg
It obtained information about the workings of the giant routers and complex digital switches that Huawei boasts connect one-third of the world's population, and monitored communications of the company's top executives.
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One of the goals of the operation, code-named "Shotgiant", was to find any links between Huawei and the People's Liberation Army, one 2010 document made clear.
But the plans went further: to exploit Huawei's technology so that when the company sells equipment to other countries - including US allies and nations that avoid buying US products - the NSA can roam through their computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if ordered by the president, offensive cyberoperations.
"Many of our targets communicate over Huawei-produced products,'' the NSA document said. "We want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products," it added, to "gain access to networks of interest" around the world.
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Legislative overhaul: Under the Obama administration's proposal, the National Security Agency could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order. Photo: AFP
Washington: The Obama administration is preparing to unveil a legislative proposal for a far-reaching overhaul of the National Security Agencys once-secret bulk phone records program in a way that if approved by Congress would end the aspect that has most alarmed privacy advocates since its existence was leaked last year, according to senior administration officials.
Under the proposal, they said, the NSA would end its systematic collection of data about Americans calling habits. The records would stay in the hands of phone companies, which would not be required to retain the data for any longer than normal. And the NSA could obtain specific records only with permission from a judge, using a new kind of court order.
In a speech in January, US President Barack Obama said he wanted to get the NSA out of the business of collecting call records in bulk while preserving the programs capabilities. He acknowledged, however, that there was no easy way to do so and had instructed Justice Department and intelligence officials to come up with a plan by March 28, this Friday, when the current court order authorising the program expires.
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As part of the proposal, the administration has decided to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to renew the program as it currently exists for at least one more 90-day cycle, senior administration officials said. But under the plan the administration has developed and now advocates, the officials said, it would late undergo major changes.
The new surveillance court orders envisioned by the administration would require phone companies to swiftly provide records in a technologically compatible data format, including making available, on a continuing basis, data about any new calls placed or received after the order is received, the officials said.
They would also allow the government to seek related records for callers up to two calls, or "hops", removed from the number that has come under suspicion, even if those callers are customers of other companies.
The NSA now retains the phone data for five years. But the administration considered and rejected imposing a mandate on phone companies that they hold onto their customers calling records for longer than the 18 months that federal regulations already generally require a burden that the companies had resisted and that was seen as a major obstacle to keeping the data in their hands. A senior administration official said that intelligence agencies had concluded that the impact of that change would be small because older data is less important.
The NSA uses the once-secret call records program sometimes known as the 215 program, after Section 215 of the Patriot Act to analyse links between callers in an effort to identify hidden terrorist associates, if they exist. It was part of the secret surveillance program that then president George W. Bush unilaterally put in place after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, outside of any legal framework or court oversight.
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A total of 19 months after NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed details of the National Security Agencys massive surveillance program, the debate has simmered down and a legislative fix looks unlikely.
At the heart of Snowdens disclosures was that the NSA has access to meta-data of millions of phone calls and is also able to access emails, transcripts from online chats and troves of other data directly from internet companies.
While several bills have been introduced and even voted on in Congress, a legislative fix looks unlikely.
In July of 2013, the Amash-Conyers Amendment, sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, would have effectively ended NSA collection of data, but narrowly failed the House of Representatives by a vote of 217-205. 211 votes were needed for the bill to pass that day.
More recently, the USA Freedom Act, which would have made some reforms passed the House by a vote of 303-121 in May. Amash sponsored the original bill, but voted against it because it was watered down after changes were made and in his opinion, did not go far enough in reforms. While it passed the House, it failed in the Senate in November, when it could not receive 60 votes to move forward.
One of the bills sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, blamed the failure on other Senators who were fear mongering, thus stalling debate on the bill.
The program has seen some challenges in court. Several district courts have heard the case against the program, one judge in the D.C. district court called the program likely unconstitutional and almost Orwellian, but other courts have issued opinions in favor of the program.
Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science at Iowa State, said the court challenges will likely not spur any changes, rather it is up to Congress.
Itll be up to Congress. At the root of this is application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is an act of Congress, Deam said. Almost all the issues surrounding things that have been leaked are connected to FISA, so to the extent that people are going to react to that, theyre going to have to [make changes] through legislation.
Several students at Iowa State said they do not approve of the program.
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Jurors are not likely to see longtime Etan Patz murder suspect Jose Ramos at the upcoming trial of Pedro Hernandez the person charged with the notorious crime.
A Manhattan judge indicated he wont let Ramos, a convicted pedophile who was dating Patz's babysitter in 1979 when the 6-year-old went missing, take the stand at Hernandezs murder trial if he plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Ramos lawyer said he would.
It seems to be if the witness chooses to take the Fifth, that's it I just don't see that happening, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley said.
Hernandez's attorneys Harvey Fishbein and Alice Fontier can still present evidence relating to Ramos's history as a suspect in Patz's disappearance, including a 1988 statement in which he discusses his relationship to the sitter, the judge has said.
Ramos who was transferred last week from a Pennsylvania prison to New York City as a material witness for the impending trial is expected to be brought to court on Tuesday to formally be asked about his willingness to testify.
Hernandez gave police and prosecutors a full confession to the crime in 2012, which prosecutors argue is a reliable and key piece of evidence.
Hernandez's lawyers contend hes mentally ill and was coached into confessing.
Jury selection is slated to begin Jan. 5.
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CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga.
Allegations of unlawful public strip searches and bogus arrests by officers from the Forest Park Police Department are now detailed in a lawsuit against the department and the city.
The lawsuit alleges the department's specialized VIPER unit violated the Fourth Amendment rights of several people without probable cause to search or warrants to arrest.
"'Stand right here. Unbuckle your pants.' I was like, 'Unbuckle my pants for what?' plaintiff Terry Philips told Channel 2s Kerry Kavanaugh.
"Told me I had to pull my pants down, bend over, squat and cough for him, said plaintiff Jeffrey Meehan.
The men say traffic stops in 2013 ended with Forest Park police officers strip-searching them in public."When he came back, I'd seen tears," said Tamara Parker.
Parker says she and Terry Philips had just left a grocery store when an officer pulled them over for an expired tag. They said they had the paperwork proving otherwise, but the officer wouldnt listen.Jeffery Meehan says he was in the back seat of a friend's car when the driver was stopped for not using a blinker. He says they were pulling out of a parking lot and making a right-hand turn when they were stopped.
Meehan says he was searched three times.
"I asked him why, was I being (put) under arrest. He said 'No you're not', but he said, 'You're going to go to jail if you don't do what I'm telling you,'" Meehan told Kavanaugh.
Another couple says they were home asleep when Forest Park officers broke down their front door.
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Officers under fire for alleged unlawful strip searches, arrests
On the last day of the Winter Session, the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Amendment Bill 2014 that offers protection from demolition to the residents of unauthorised colonies in the Capital, till 2017.
The Bill provides an extension to the existing Act, which gives protection to unauthorised colonies from demolition for a period of three years from January 1, 2015.
The two sides buried their disagreements to come together to pass the Bill, taking a humane view of the issue. The Opposition parties made it clear that they were supporting the Government in passing the Bill because it offers protection to people in need who live in these unauthorised colonies and would have to face eviction in the dead of the winter, unless the Bill was passed.
The agreement was however, disrupted after BJP's Vijay Goel commented against the Congress and a united Opposition rose in protest.
Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, while piloting the Bill, said lakhs of people in Delhi live in slums and unauthorised colonies and it is imperative to seek a long-term solution to the problem. He said the government is open to good examples from across the country and will study the slum redevelopment models being followed in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Mr. Naidu accepted suggestions from the Opposition on focussing on rehabilitation and said steps will be taken towards regularisation of unauthorised colonies in Delhi.
An amendment was moved in the Bill that provides unauthorised colonies which have come up till June 1,2014 will be entitled for regularisation; the earlier cutoff date was February 8, 2007.
The Minister also said providing housing for all is a major challenge for the government and the national housing plan is now in its final stages.
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December 20 and 22, 2014, 10:00 a.m. The University of Iowa should consider developing a course for entering undergraduates first semester that exposes them to the values underlying the First Amendment, the history of protest movements in this country and on this very campus.
-- Nicholas Johnson
So it is with free speech its a good idea, and also the law. With two distinctions from the law of gravity.
(1) The law doesnt always apply.
Although the First Amendment to our Constitution merely forbids Congress to make a law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, the courts interpret congress to mean all government action things done by city councils, school boards, and yes, state universities like the University of Iowa. But that means the First Amendment gives you no protection from restrictions on your speech at the family dinner table, or in the corporate workplace.
Courts also permit governments to restrict freedom of speech in a variety of contexts how companies can advertise and label their products and new stock offerings, restrictions on sound trucks blasting messages throughout suburban neighborhoods after midnight, and a prohibition on airline passengers telling jokes as they pass through TSA security.
(2) And even when free speech is legally protected, its not free.
Speech is free like food is free in a Michelin four-star Paris restaurant. You tell the waitperson what you want, its presented before you, and you eat it. Only after the final cup of coffee, when youre preparing to leave, do you pay the price.
This speak-now-pay-later quality of free speech made the news recently from Iowa and California.
Serhat Tanyolacar, a visiting assistant professor in the University of Iowa art department, declaring that he was displaying the horrifying truth, the fact of racism, put a seven-foot sculpture of a klan robe on the universitys central campus. It was covered with prints from newspapers stories of our countrys racist past. The artists intent not that its necessarily relevant appears to have been one of encouraging more serious discussion of what has long been an American problem, to trigger awareness by putting in historical context the current demonstrations and other reactions to a number of police shootings of unarmed African American males.
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Zhang Jinran
China Daily
Publication Date : 23-12-2014
China's top legislature will review the first amendment to the Law on Air Pollution Prevention and Control since 2000.
The amendment is a necessary move to improve the national campaign to control air pollution, which has more sources today, the environmental protection minister said on Monday.
"The previous amendment is not effective in controlling current multiple pollution sources, and isn't working in ongoing efforts," Zhou Shengxian said on Monday while handing in the new draft to the National People's Congress Standing Committee.
The new draft was finished amid growing calls throughout the country for controls on air pollution, he said.
Based on the ministry's annual report on air quality, only three of China's major 74 cities in 2013 had air pollution within acceptable national standards. The average number of days with smog in the country in 2013 was 35.9, the most since 1961.
Coal-consumption sources contribute more to air pollution than they did 14 years ago, with such sources now including industrial production, Zhou said.
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