Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday, 17 March 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 16 Mar 2014 03:52 PM PDT

A grim report prepared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is stating today that within 24-hours of this aircrafts “diversion” to the highly secretive Indian Ocean US military base located on the Diego Garcia atoll, no less than four flights, within the past week, containing top American and Chinese disease scientists and experts have, likewise, been flown to there.
According to this report, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (also marketed as China Southern Airlines flight 748 through a codeshare) was a scheduled passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, when on 8 March this Boeing 777-200ER aircraft “disappeared” in flight with 227 passengers on board from 15 countries, most of whom were Chinese, and 12 crew members.
As we had previously noted in our report “Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines “Capture” By US Navy,” the GRU had previously notified China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) of its suspicions regarding this flight due its containing a “highly suspicious” cargo that had been offloaded in the Republic of Seychelles from the US-flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama.
First arousing the GRU’s concerns regarding this “highly suspicious” cargo, this report continues, was that after its unloading from the MV Maersk Alabama on 17 February, its then transfer to Seychelles International Airport where it was loaded on an Emirates flight bound for Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, after first stopping over in Dubai, the two highly trained US Navy SEALS who were guarding it were found dead.

The two US Navy SEALS protecting this “highly suspicious” cargo, Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, were found dead under “suspicious circumstances” aboard the MV Maersk Alabama, this report says, further raising Russian intelligence suspicions as they were both employed by the Virginia Beach, Virginia-based maritime security firm The Trident Group which was founded by US Navy Special Operations Personnel (SEAL’s) and Senior US Naval Surface Warfare Officers and has long been known by the GRU to protect vital transfers of both atomic and biological materials throughout the world.
Upon Flight 370’s departure from Malaysia on 8 March, this report continues, the GRU was notified by the MSS that they were going to divert it from its scheduled destination of Beijing to Haikou Meilan International Airport (HAK) located in Hainan Province (aka Hainan Island).
Prior to this planes entering into People Liberation Army (PLA) protected zones of the South China Sea known as the Spratly Islands, however, this report continues, Flight 370 “significantly deviated” from its flight course and was tracked by VKO satellites and radar flying into the Indian Ocean region and completing its nearly 3,447 kilometer (2,142 miles) flight to Diego Garcia.
In a confirmation of the GRU’s assertion that Flight 370 was, indeed, flown to Diego Garcia, this report says, satellite transmission data analyzed by US investigators showed that this planes most likely last-known position was in a zone about 1,609 kilometers (1,000 miles) west of Perth, Australia in the Indian Ocean..

Most troubling to the GRU about Flight 370’s “diversion” to Diego Garcia, this report says, was that it was “nearly immediately” followed by some of the top disease scientists and experts from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDCP) embarking to Diego Garcia on at least four flights.
As to why both American and Chinese disease experts were taken to Diego Garcia where Flight 370 is now known to be, this report says, has as yet not been answered by either of these governments after repeated Foreign Ministry requests for “explanations and clarification.”
What is to be known, this report says, is that as Malaysia has been forced to admit Flight 370 was, indeed, “diverted” from its flight path as the GRU had previously reported, and as at least 25 nations are now involved in searching for it, it remains a mystery as to what is actually occurring.
Also known, this report concludes, is that Diego Garcia as a designated ETOPS emergency landing site for flight planning purposes of commercial airliners transversing the Indian Ocean, and as one of 33 emergency landing sites worldwide for the NASA Space Shuttle, it is “inconceivable” that any type of aircraft, let alone Flight 370, can fly anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere without being tracked, monitored and recorded in totality.
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Posted: 16 Mar 2014 03:46 PM PDT

The United States says it does not recognize the outcome of the referendum held in the Ukrainian region of Crimea and is preparing to impose retaliatory penalties against Russia if it annexes the strategic peninsula on the Black Sea.
“The United States has steadfastly supported the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine since it declared its independence in 1991, and we reject the ‘referendum’ that took place today in the Crimean region of Ukraine,” said a White House statement.
The statement added that the vote on whether the region should separate from Ukraine and rejoin Russia was “not necessary” while denouncing it for being held under “threats of violence and intimidation”.
“This referendum is contrary to Ukraine’s constitution, and the international community will not recognize the results of a poll administered under threats of violence and intimidation from a Russian military intervention that violates international law.”
Washington believes the new Ukrainian government should be involved in any decision about the future of Crimea.
The White House statement said that Kremlin will have to face “increasing costs” from the US and its allies due to what it called “dangerous and destabilizing” actions by Russia with regard to Ukraine.
“As the United States and our allies have made clear, military intervention and violation of international law will bring increasing costs for Russia — not only due to measures imposed by the United States and our allies but also as a direct result of Russia’s own destabilizing actions.”
Meanwhile, American officials reiterated that Washington and the European Union are preparing to take retaliatory measures against Moscow in case it refuses to back down from its position.
They also threatened Russia with additional penalties if the country takes any action on eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said that West’s retaliatory steps against Moscow would hurt the Russian economy and weaken its influence in the world.
“President Putin has a choice about what he’s going to do here. Is he going to continue to further isolate himself, further hurt his economy, further diminish Russian influence in the world, or is he going to do the right thing?” he said.
This as Electoral Commission of Crimea region says an absolute majority of the Crimeans have voted to break away from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.
The commission says half of ballots are counted and 95% of participants voted in favor of joining Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told US President Barack Obama that the referendum complies with the international law.
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Posted: 16 Mar 2014 03:34 PM PDT

Exclusive investigation: The 239 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may still be alive. This stunning realization is now supported by considerable emerging evidence detailed in this article. At the same time, the “vanished” Boeing 777 may also be in a hanger in Iran right now, being retrofitted with nuclear weapons and turned into a suicide bomb to be deployed over a major city in the Middle East. This possibility is discussed in detail, below, with supporting evidence.
The idea that Flight 370 passengers and crew may still be alive is not a bizarre theory. Even Reuters is now reporting that U.S. authorities have stated, “…it’s also possible the plane may have landed somewhere.”
Here’s the evidence in support of this emerging “piracy” theory of what may have happened to Flight 370 and why the people who may have diverted it might also be planning on turning it into a weapon:
Five critical pieces of astonishing supporting evidence that Flight 370 passengers may still be alive
Please understand that I do not wish to create false hope for all those families who have greatly suffered through this ordeal. My heart goes out to them, and we can only hope these 239 passengers and crew are, indeed, being kept alive somewhere to be used as a bargaining chip for ransom or political purposes. Here’s the substantial evidence in support of this theory:
• Fact #1: No crash debris has been located, despite an exhaustive search
The search for debris has involved over two dozen nations and is unprecedented in aviation history. If the plane had crashed in the ocean anywhere near its intended flight path, the debris almost certainly would have been located by now.
• Fact #2: The plane’s transponder appears to have been manually turned off several minutes before other communication systems stopped transmitting
As the Associated Press reports, “…key evidence for ‘human intervention’ in the plane’s disappearance is that contact with its transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system quit.”
This almost certainly means someone deliberately disabled the transponder (the device which transmits location to air traffic controllers).
Why would someone do that? Because they don’t want to be tracked as they change course and take the plane to a new destination.
A Reuters article adds more detail:
Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe.
This adds some evidence to the idea that the plane may have been diverted to the Middle East. Together with the suspicion of stolen passports and the identities of those who traveled with them, this starts to paint a more clear picture in support of piracy as the underlying explanation, with possible ties to Iran (see more below).
What’s especially fascinating to me in all this is that once the transponder was turned off, this massive aircraft apparently went into “stealth mode” where nobody could track it. Although this seems to defy the laws of physics and radar, we cannot argue with the fact that the plane was apparently untraceable as it flew for four hours after the transponder was turned off.
• Smoking Gun Fact #3: The plane’s engines continued to broadcast performance data to satellite for four hours after radar contact was lost
This fact is really the smoking gun in all this. The Wall Street Journal has posted an excellent investigative article revealing that Boeing’s own people have confirmed the plane kept flying four hours after disappearing off radar. As the WSJ reports:
The investigators believe the plane flew for a total of up to five hours, according to these people, based on analysis of signals sent by the Boeing satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of certain onboard systems to the ground. Throughout the roughly four hours after the jet dropped from civilian radar screens, these people said, the link operated in a kind of standby mode and sought to establish contact with a satellite or satellites. These transmissions did not include data, they said, but the periodic contacts indicate to investigators that the plane was still intact and believed to be flying.
Obviously, this system cannot continue to transmit data if the plane has crashed or exploded. The existence of these signals is very nearly conclusive proof that the aircraft continued flying and did not crash or explode. This eliminates most of the scenarios which would result in the death of passengers, and it strongly supports the piracy / hijacking scenario.
• Fact #4: The mobile devices of many passengers continued to stay online for days after the disappearance
The Washington Post has reported that phones of Flight 370 passengers were active and online for several days following the disappearance of the plane:
…a few relatives said they were able to call the cellphones of their loved ones or find them on a Chinese instant messenger service called QQ that indicated that their phones were still somehow online. A migrant worker in the room said that several other workers from his company were on the plane, including his brother-in-law. Among them, the QQ accounts of three still showed that they were online, he said Sunday afternoon. Adding to the mystery, other relatives in the room said that when they dialed some passengers’ numbers, they seemed to get ringing tones on the other side even though the calls were not picked up.
This evidence also fits the piracy theory remarkably well. If the plane was diverted and landed with passengers alive, their mobile devices could have indeed stayed online by automatically connecting to cell towers. The pirates or kidnappers may have overlooked this and failed to confiscate and destroy the mobile devices, allowing them to connect as long as they had battery life remaining.
• Fact #5: Black box transponders are not broadcasting homing signals because the plane never crashed
Normally, when aircraft crash into the ocean, their black boxes emit homing signal transmissions so they can be located. But no signals were ever detected from Flight 370 black boxes.
Now that seems to make sense: if the plane was hijacked / pirated, then it never crashed and the black boxes are still intact, sitting on the aircraft. This may be why they cannot be found (and why there is no wreckage or debris).
Could passengers still be alive?
If the plane kept flying for four more hours, then it was obviously being piloted with an intent to take it somewhere for some specific purpose. Anyone sophisticated enough to disable the transponder in-flight would have also been sophisticated enough to plan the final destination and landing of the aircraft.
As Reuters now reports:
Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday.
Anyone pirating a jetliner and diverting it to another location really only has two key assets to work with: The aircraft itself, and the passengers onboard.
Obviously, acquiring a large aircraft like a Boeing 777 would be a huge asset for terrorist groups who could turn it into a weapon. If this is the intent, then the passengers on board would most likely be killed, as they would serve no particular purpose to the hijackers. Sadly, this remains one of the possible outcomes of piracy, and I don’t want to publish any false hope that might mislead families who have lost loved ones. Realistically, the odds of the passengers being alive right now are probably no better than 1 in 3, in my estimation. But that’s better than zero chance.
A second possibility is that the passengers themselves are going to be used as bargaining chips in an elaborate K&R (kidnap & ransom) scheme. It’s also possible that selected passengers have special value in some way we don’t yet realize, and only they will be kept alive as bargaining chips while the others are killed by the hijackers. Sadly, this is another likely outcome of all this.
And yet, despite all the very negative possible outcomes, there does remain a legitimate scenario in which the passengers and crew of Flight 370 remain alive at this very moment, long after their plane was diverted to an unknown location and safely landed. If this is the case, then we would expect to sooner or later hear from the hijackers with their list of demands for the safe return of the passengers. Such demands, if they ever materialize, would no doubt be multinational in nature.
On the more pessimistic side, if the hijackers only sought the aircraft and not the passengers, then we will probably never hear from them until the day a Boeing 777 flying without a transponder in “stealth mode” delivers a terrorist weapon of some sort to whatever city is being targeted.
Turning a Boeing 777 into a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon
A Boeing 777 is a very large aircraft and can obviously be outfitted with a wide variety of weapons systems by anyone with sufficient knowledge and technical skills (not to mention a soul of pure evil).
According to the Boeing website, the 777 has a “revenue payload capacity” of 112 tons, or about 102,000 kg.
With that sort of enormous carrying capacity, a Boeing 777 could be outfitted with elaborate, high-volume chemical spraying weapons, air-dropped biological weapons or of course a nuclear weapon capable of destroying an entire city. Technology also exists to remotely control large aircraft, and Iran in particular has already demonstrated its technical ability to seize control of U.S. military drones through a process of GPS-spoofing. In support of this feat, Russia just recently “electronically captured” another U.S. drone over Crimea.
Shockingly, the next time the world sees this aircraft may be when it deploys itself over a city like Tel Aviv and detonates a large nuclear weapon at altitude. The reason I deliberately choose Tel Aviv in this example is because there appears to be a possible link with Iran in all this, and the Iranian government leadership has reportedly said it wishes to see Israel wiped off the map. The elaborate nature of this aircraft piracy, if indeed this is the true explanation, also smacks of state-sponsored involvement. This is not the kind of operation that can be pulled off by a couple of yahoos trying to score some quick cash.
The fact that this aircraft was able to fly undetected for at least four hours after the transponder was turned off means the plane can very effectively be used as a “stealth” weapon of sorts, and it could theoretically be deployed over major cities across Europe, Asia, the Middle East or even North America.
Where is Flight 370 now? Pakistan, Iran both potentially in range of the landing
According to this Boeing web page, the 777 has a cruising speed of around Mach .84, or around 650 miles per hour.
If the aircraft cruised for four hours after the transponder was turned off, it could have flown nearly 2600 miles, putting it just within reach of Pakistan, and possibly even southeast Iran if it flew at a slightly higher speed and had sufficient fuel. The Iran Shahr Airport, located less than 100 miles from the border of Pakistan, is conceivably within range and sits at an altitude of around 2,000 meters. This airport has a runway length of 7,711 feet, and according to page 16 of this document on the Boeing website, the required runway length for landing a Boeing 777 is less than 7,711 feet as long as the runway is not wet. This is true even if the aircraft is fully loaded and flying at maximum weight.
The aircraft was actually designed to take advantage of shorter runways. Even Boeing itself says the 777 “uses a new semi-levered gear, which allows it to take off from fields with limited runway length.”
Thus, Flight 370 could have conceivably and successfully landed in Iran. Remember, too, that the aircraft was “using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe,” according to Reuters (link above).
This flight path, however, would have put it directly over India, and it is difficult to imagine the Indian government not noticing a Boeing 777 aircraft flying over its airspace without a transponder. Then again, the Malaysian government seems to have no idea where the plane went, either, and so we may be dealing with regional military incompetence on these matters, or possibly some amazing new stealth technology that was somehow deployed on the plane.
To help explain where this aircraft could have gone, I put together this flight range map, showing the possible locations where Flight 370 could have flown in the four hours after it disappeared from its intended flight path:

Notice that this range encompasses North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan and even part of Iran.
An interesting area of investigation in all this would be to find out how much fuel the aircraft was loaded with, and determining whether that fuel load could allow it to fly four or even five more hours.
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Posted: 16 Mar 2014 03:29 PM PDT
Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
Ukraine’s interim prime minister says the country will likely sign a long-awaited political accord with the European Union next week.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk made the announcement on Wednesday, after talks with US President Barack Obama at the White House.
“I’m sure that next week Ukraine is to sign the political part of the association agreement and to make a very solid and strong step in order to make Ukraine an integral part of the European Union,” Yatsenyuk told a think tank in Washington following the meeting.
Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said that the deal could be signed possibly during the next EU summit, scheduled for March 20-21.
“We agreed to sign the political part of the association agreement with Ukraine as soon as possible, probably at the next EU summit,” Merkel stated.
The association agreement between the EU and Ukraine was initially to be signed last November. However, the former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, rejected the deal in favor of closer ties with Russia.
The rejection triggered months of anti-government protests that led to Yanukovych’s ouster on February 23.
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Posted: 16 Mar 2014 03:18 PM PDT

Over 95 percent of voters in the Crimean referendum have answered ‘yes’ to the autonomous republic joining Russia and less than 5 percent of the vote participants want the region to remain part of Ukraine, according to preliminary results.
With over 75 percent of the votes already counted, preliminary result show that 95.7 percent of voters said ‘yes’ to the reunion of the republic with Russia as a constituent unit of the Russian Federation.
The preliminary results of the popular vote were announced during a meeting in the center of Sevastopol, the city that hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
The overall voter turnout in the referendum on the status of Crimea is 81,37%, according to the head of the Crimean parliament’s commission on the referendum, Mikhail Malyshev.
Over a half of the Tatars living in the port city took part in the referendum, with the majority of them voting in favor of joining Russia, reports Itar-Tass citing a representative of the Tatar community Lenur Usmanov.
About 40% of Crimean Tatars went to polling stations on Sunday, the republic’s prime minister Sergey Aksyonov said.
In Simferopol, the capital of the republic, at least 15,000 have gathered to celebrate the referendum in central Lenin square and people reportedly keep arriving. Demonstrators, waving Russian and Crimean flags, were watching a live concert while waiting for the announcement of preliminary results of the voting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the citizens of the peninsula have been given an opportunity to freely express their will and exercise their right to self-determination.
International observers are planning to present their final declaration on the Crimean referendum on March 17, the head of the monitors’ commission, Polish MP Mateush Piskorski told journalists. He added that the voting was held in line with international norms and standards.
Next week, Crimea will officially introduce the ruble as a second official currency along with Ukrainian hryvna, Aksyonov told Interfax. In his words, the dual currency will be in place for about six months.
Overall, the republic’s integration into Russia will take up to a year, the Prime Minister said, adding that it could be done faster. However, they want to maintain relations with “economic entities, including Ukraine,” rather than burn bridges.
Moscow is closely monitoring the vote count in Crimea, said Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Karasin.
“The results of the referendum will be considered once they are drawn up,” he told Itar-Tass.
The decision to hold a referendum was made after the bloody uprising in Kiev which ousted President Vladimir Yanukovich from power. Crimea – which is home to an ethnic Russian majority population – refused to recognize the coup-appointed government as legitimate. Crimeans feared that the new leadership would not represent their interests and respect rights. Crimeans were particularly unhappy over parliament’s decision to revoke the law allowing using minority languages – including Russian – as official along with the Ukrainian tongue. Crimeans staged mass anti-Maidan protests and asked Russia to protect them.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 15:40