Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday, 7 April 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 03 Apr 2014 03:09 PM PDT

Videos of bison seemingly fleeing Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming have sparked concerns among some bloggers that recent seismic activity could trigger the eruption of the park’s so-called supervolcano.
According to Epoch Times, multiple videos of such incidents have been posted online recently, one of which shows a herd of buffalo allegedly leaving the park and “running for their lives.” Although people behind the discussion acknowledge there’s no way to predict when the park’s massive volcano could erupt, they believe the reaction of the Yellowstone’s animals could signal some kind of alert.
On March 30, Yellowstone was struck by the most powerful earthquake it has experienced since 1980 – a 4.8 magnitude quake that did no damage, but that some believe could be connected to the various animals’ movements.

“Whether I believe this, or whether I don’t believe the story or not, I don’t know. I can tell you this story I saw this morning about the buffaloes running the street … whether or not it’s because of any activity in Yellowstone or not, I don’t know,” said blogger Jay Lee, according to the Times.
“But I’ll tell you this, whatever the case may be, that their running away from Yellowstone is an alert of some sort.”
Another video uploaded to YouTube, this time by self-described “survivalist” and “search-and-rescue expert” Tom Lupshu, claims, “Biologists aren’t sure if there’s been a stunning decline in the herd or if other factors have skewed the tally.” Lupshu also said that helium releases in the area are 1,000 times above normal levels, and accused the US Geological Survey of not reporting small quakes occurring near the volcano.
“Herds of bison running for their lives on the public roadways and they were not being chased or rounded up, the bison were running down the mountain slopes onto roadways running right past a filming crew,” he added. “They detect something vast and deadly. The Yellowstone Supervolcano is the only thing there that would fit the bill.”

The supervolcano – which was found last year to be 2.5 times larger than previously thought – has not erupted in over 640,000 years, leaving some to speculate that a blast is overdue. If and when it erupts again, the volcano could potentially spew ash over large swathes of North America and cause trouble around the entire planet.
“It would be a global event,” Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah told the Associated Press last year. “There would be a lot of destruction and a lot of impacts around the globe.”
Although Farrell said scientists don’t know enough to map out the next eruption’s likely arrival, he did say they’d know if magma was moving towards the Earth’s surface.
In another video, Lupshu said that increased seismic activity at Yellowstone could bring about the volcano’s eruption, but the Geological Survey has noted such activity is currently par for the course, and that between 1,000 and 3,000 earthquakes hit the area every year. The agency also stated that helium releases have “no implications about volcanic hazards.”
According to Epoch Times, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations also downplayed fears.
“There is no evidence that a catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is imminent,” the service said. “Current geologic activity at Yellowstone has remained relatively constant since earth scientists first started monitoring some 30 years ago. Though another caldera-forming eruption is theoretically possible, it is very unlikely to occur in the next thousand or even 10,000 years.”
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Posted: 03 Apr 2014 02:55 PM PDT

A Tokyo student along with fellow researchers has managed to float objects in a 3D space, using ultrasound.
Yoichi Ochiai, a University of Tokyo graduate, together with Takayuki Hoshi and Jun Rekimoto, have found out the way to levitate light objects and move them around in a 3D space.
Even though ultrasound levitation has been possible for nearly 40 years, Ochiai says this is still new.
“Nobody was able to move objects in a 3D space,” he says.
“I think as long as objects don’t move in a 3D environment, there’s not much use for this kind of technology, and my research here at Tokyo University was the first to pull it off.”
At the University of Tokyo Komaba campus, Ochiai’s installation is used to transport small white particles up, down and sideways, as if attached to a moving invisible net.
The device consists of four boards facing inwards, each equipped with multiple speakers. According to Ochiai, when he cranks up the wave frequency, ultrasound standing waves are capable of suspending lightweight objects in mid-air.
He then manipulates the ultrasound with his computer to move the suspended objects as if by magic.
“The benefit of sound waves is that you could control it very precisely,” says Ochiai.
“For example, you could pass something that is only one millimeter through something that is one millimeter, or move things only a few millimeters. So the pixels for screens and material in the electronics industry can be very small, but I feel like ultrasound is the best option available to move them around precisely.”
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Posted: 03 Apr 2014 02:37 PM PDT


IMF boss recycles scary mantra used in 2008 to bailout too big too fail banksters.
IMF boss Christine Lagarde has recycled the bankster mantra as the globalists push for a bailout of Ukraine. “Geopolitical tensions” in Ukraine “could cloud the global economic outlook” and “could have broader spill over implications,” she told an audience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Lagarde fails to mention the same Orange Revolution kleptocrats who bankrupted the country previously will do the same after the IMF bailout.
Last week the IMF set aside around $18 billion to “rescue” Ukraine’s destroyed economy the West blames on the rule of Viktor Yanukovich, a democratically elected president who was replaced by a junta installed by the State Department.
In addition to IMF booty, large numbers on either side of the partisan divide in Congress voted recently to kick in an additional $1 billion.
Lagarde also said Russia’s reaction to the manufactured crisis and the vote by 97 percent of Crimeans in a referendum to join the Russian Federation have contributed to destabilizing the country.
Ms. Lagarde did not mention what the IMF package will do to the average Ukrainian. The package “puts virtually all the pain on average Ukrainians,” writes Robert Parry. “There is nothing in the economic ‘reform’ package that extracts some of the ill-gotten gains from Ukraine’s ten or so ‘oligarchs,’ the multimillionaires and even billionaires who largely plundered Ukraine’s wealth after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.”
Parry notes what the corporate media has assiduously ignored: the IMF package will “reduce public spending, slash social programs, eliminate energy subsidies, devalue the currency, raise taxes, impose triggers for more austerity if inflation rises, etc.” and will, according to economists, “result in a 3 percent contraction of Ukraine’s already depressed economy, which fell into a severe recession after the Wall Street crash of 2008 and has been inching along at almost zero growth the past two years.”
The impending economic hardship and globalist looting of the country is scheduled to be implemented before Ukrainians have the chance to vote for a new government. This is a situation preferred by the IMF and the banksters because democracy and elections invariably get in the way of neoliberal fire sales and looting.
According to The New York Times, the United States and the European Union have decided not to press for early parliamentary elections because “the priority now is stabilization in Kiev and de-escalation with Moscow,” an escalation engineered to rekindle the Cold War, push more Eastern European nations into NATO, and pile up additional missile defense systems on the Russian border.
“Given such bleak economic prospects — and evidence of Western manipulation of the political process – is it any wonder that more than 90 percent of the voters in Crimea opted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia?” Parry writes.
Former congressman Ron Paul put it succinctly on Wednesday:
All this nonsense we hear now of bailing out Ukraine — it’s going to the bankers; it’s going for the politicians; it’s not really even going to help the people in Ukraine. It’s criminal. And yet the people here in this country are going to suffer.
These bailouts are always designed to bail out the banks. They are not designed to help the people — just like our bailouts were in ’08 and ’09. They were there to bail out the rich, the bankers, and the military industrial complex.
Finally, while a spate of polls show disapproval of military involvement in Ukraine in response to Russia, the establishment media has not yet conducted one asking Americans if they approve of sending a billion dollars to the faltering kleptocracy now run by a junta installed through fascist violence.
Such numbers, of course, for the global elite, are irrelevant. Increasing poverty is not simply a problem suffered by Ukrainians and others subjected to bankster austerity. It is also a fact of life in the United States.
On Thursday, the Associated Press reported the results of a General Social Survey poll. It reveals the number of Americans who consider themselves middle class is at the lowest level in the survey’s 40-year history.
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Posted: 03 Apr 2014 02:32 PM PDT
The guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun operates in the Black Sea March 19, 2014.
Another US warship is heading towards the Black Sea amid rising tensions between the United States and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
The US Navy officials have refused to identify which warship is taking part in the mission, reported Stars and Stripes, a website close to the US Armed Forces.
They said that the warship is being sent as a replacement for the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun. Truxtun sailed to the Black Sea from the Middle East to take part in military maneuvers with the Bulgarian and Romanian navies.
This comes as the USS Donald Cook and the USS Ramage are now stationed in the eastern Mediterranean. The two American destroyers are taking part in a military drill with the Greek and Israeli navies.
“We are making plans to meet the intent vocalized by (US and NATO officials) to lay out a sustainable maritime presence in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, but we do not have anything to announce at this time,” said Capt. Gregory Hicks of the US European Command.
Hicks added that the US Navy routinely operates warships in the Black Sea in a show of support to its allies in the region.
The development comes as Russia on Thursday denounced the US for the deployment of its warships in the Black Sea.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during a joint press conference with Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, called on American and NATO officials to explain about their increased military activities in the region.
“We have posed these questions to the North Atlantic Alliance. We are expecting not just any answer but an answer fully respectful of the rules we have coordinated.”
Russian Foreign Minister also criticized the US for what he called violating the Montreux Convention which is an international agreement signed in 1936. It restricts the passage through the Bosporus Straits and the Dardanelles of naval ships not belonging to Black Sea states.
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Posted: 03 Apr 2014 02:08 PM PDT

Australia’s highest court has officially admitted the existence of a third “non-specific” gender, putting an end to years of legal battle for sexual equality by the activist, Norrie.
From now on, not everyone on the koala continent will be forced to identify themselves as a man or woman when dealing with officials, and could describe themselves as gender neutral.
“The High Court… recognizes that a person may be neither male nor female, and so permits the registration of a person’s sex as ‘non-specific’,” the judicial body said in a unanimous judgment.
The ruling has brought a happy ending to the long legal battle fought by sexual equality campaigner, Norrie. For a few years, the activist fought for overturning the New South Wales state edict saying that gender is a “binary” concept connected with only men and women.
“I’m overjoyed,” said Sydney-based Norrie, who prefers to go by first name only.
“It’s been a long time from start to end but this has been a great outcome. Maybe people will understand now that there’s more options than just the binary. So while an individual might be male or female, not all their friends might be and maybe they might be more accepting of that,” Norrie said, as cited by AFP.
The 53-year-old Scottish-born campaigner was born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1989 to become a woman. However, the surgery didn’t answer Norrie’s sexual identification issues, hence the “non-specific” perception of self.
In February 2010, Norrie applied to the NSW Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages, demanding them to accept the “non-specific” gender for records, but the plea was refused. Norrie appealed several times to win the case.
According to the law, only a person who has undergone gender reassignment surgery can be referred to as “non-specific”, after presenting medical evidence to back up their claims, says the Human Rights Law Centre expert, Anna Brown.
Brown added, however, that it remained unclear who gender-neutral people would be able to marry.
“No one has actually looked at that question legally,” she pointed out, adding that there were few international precedents for the decision.
Same-sex couples are currently allowed to have civil unions or register their relationships, but the government doesn’t recognize their marriage under the national law.
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Posted: 02 Apr 2014 12:26 PM PDT
A general view of the building of Turkey’s Constitutional Court in Ankara.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ordered the government to unblock the social media website Twitter, which was banned in the country last month.
The top court ruled on Wednesday that the government’s ban on Twitter “violated Article 26 of the Constitution safeguarding freedom of expression,” and thus must be lifted.
It reportedly sent a statement both to the country’s telecommunications authority and the communications ministry to “do what’s necessary.”
The court case was brought by academics Yaman Akdeniz of Bilgi University in Istanbul and Kerem Altiparmak of Ankara University, as well as opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker Sezgin Tanrikulu.
It is, however, not yet clear if the court order, the second such ruling, will eventually lift the ban.
Last month, an Ankara administrative court also found the ban on Twitter against freedom of expression, after the Turkish Bar Association launched a legal challenge.
But the government appealed that verdict, and the ban remained in place.
Turkey blocked Twitter on March 20, after it was used to spread corruption allegations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his inner circle.
The ban ahead of the local elections in the country brought the Erdogan administration under fire at home and drew criticism from rights groups and Ankara’s Western allies.
Still Turkey blocked YouTube a week later following the publication of an audio recording on the video sharing website that implicated top Turkish officials discussing possible military operations in Syria.
Ankara condemned the leaking on YouTube as an act of espionage and said it had created “a national security issue.”
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Posted: 02 Apr 2014 10:47 AM PDT

Red is primarily associated with blood. No wonder the color is often present on national flags as a symbol of struggle for a just cause … What about the people who like red? Recently, researchers at the University of North Dakota found that the red color is associated with aggression. They proved it in an experiment, to which they invited volunteers.
There is a saying – “fools like red.” It is generally believed that people choose red because it attracts attention and catches the eye … Love for the red color and its shades speaks about the demonstration of aggression, rather than the desire to attract attention, U.S. psychologists concluded.
Individuals were asked what color they liked more – red or blue. At the same time, the volunteers were subjected to personality tests. It turned out that those who opted for red, were more prone to hostility in interpersonal relationships.
In the next stage of the research, the participants were offered to look at faded images, on which it was difficult to distinguish colors. They were asked to say, which color dominated on pictures – red or blue. The people, who named red as the dominant color, had more signs of potential aggression towards others (by 25 percent). For example, they were more often determined to fight back if other people’s interests affected the ones of their own.
Finally, the volunteers were asked to choose two scenarios of behavior in a given situation. Lovers of red would more often choose the scenario, in which they harmed another person. Lovers of blue made ​​it less often.
What is the secret? Scientists believe that such preferences are based on evolution changes. For example, in ancient times, warriors painted their bodies with red paint to look intimidating to enemies. Many wildlife species turn red when they sense approaching danger. Therefore, the red color is directly associated with danger. Suffice it to recall the notorious red cloth used in bullfights. Earlier studies also showed that people preferred red in a state of anger.
The red color is an irritant. Therefore, psychologists recommend to use red only in non-residential premises, where people do not spend much of their time – hotel lobbies, restaurants, etc., but never шт living rooms, especially bedrooms. In such circumstances, it is difficult to relax, but very easy to feel uncomfortable …
Red is subconsciously associated with sex. Remember the “Red light district” in Amsterdam. Red is also often used in the interiors of call houses. Red linens are usually used solely for sexual pleasure, not just for sleep.
The roots of the tradition go back to ancient evolutionary past. Thus, female baboons redden noticeably during ovulation, which becomes a signal to males that females are ready to copulate. Genital redness among practically all warm-blooded animals indicates willingness to sex. Humans are no exception.
A group of experts from the University of Rochester showed female volunteers pictures of one and the same man wearing shirts of different colors. Male volunteers were showed pictures of women in clothes of different colors. The result was the same: images in red clothing were defined as more attractive.
Those women who like red clothing and lingerie are traditionally referred to as “lady vamp” or “femme fatale”. It is believed that if a woman puts on a red dress, it means that she wants to find a sexual partner. This is also a demonstration of aggression directed to sexual intercourse.
According to psychologists, single women having no partners like to wear red outfits. Consciously or unconsciously, they tend to look provocative to increase their chances of being selected.
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Posted: 02 Apr 2014 09:08 AM PDT
British government will determine what is an acceptable degree of love and affection.
State decides how much love a child receives and scofflaws will be sent to prison.
Not loving a child to the degree mandated by a new standard established by the British state will result in a prison term for parents, according to The Telegraph.
Under a new “Cinderella Law,” denying children love and affection will now be considered a crime similar to physical and sexual abuse. Parents convicted under the law face up to ten years in prison.
The law will allow the intervention of police and government if it is determined parents are deliberately ignoring a child, not showing a degree of love determined by the state, and damaging a child’s emotional development.
The British government will also determine what is appropriate punishment for children. Parents running afoul of the standard will be prosecuted.
“Our criminal law has never reflected the full range of emotional suffering experienced by children who are abused by their parents or carers. The sad truth is that, until now, the Wicked Stepmother would have got away scot-free,” said Robert Buckland, a Conservative MP, part-time judge and activist for state intervention in child care.
“Emotional neglect must be outlawed, the term ‘willful’ should be replaced and the criminal law should be brought into line with its civil counterpart,” he said.
“The Government believes protecting children from harm is fundamental and that child cruelty is an abhorrent crime which should be punished,” a Ministry of Justice spokesman said, according to The Telegraph.
“Every child should be able to grow up in a safe environment. We are considering ways the law can support this.”
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Posted: 02 Apr 2014 08:14 AM PDT

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the death toll from the Ebola virus epidemic in Guinea has risen to at least 83.
On Wednesday, the UN agency said the fatality rate in the country so far stands at 65 percent with the virus mainly hitting those aged from 15 to 59.
The organization added that five new cases of the deadly disease have been recorded in the past 24 hours, increasing the total number of the cases to 127.
In Liberia, which borders Guinea, the virus also killed two people. Liberian officials are scrambling to bring the outbreak under control by imposing health and travel restrictions.
This comes after Doctors Without Borders has warned that the Ebola outbreak in Guinea is an “unprecedented epidemic” that is dangerously widespread across Guinea.
“We are facing an epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases in the country: Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou, Nzerekore, and now Conakry,” said Mariano Lugli, the organization’s coordinator in the Guinean capital, Conakry, on Tuesday.
Ebola is one of the most contagious viral diseases often resulting in death. The virus cannot be prevented with a vaccine and is untreatable with medication.
The deadly viral infection, which is spread by close contact, was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire, in 1976. There is no vaccine or specific treatment for Ebola and the disease kills up to 90 percent of its victims who suffer extensive internal and external bleeding.
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Posted: 02 Apr 2014 07:54 AM PDT

A massive 8.2 magnitude quake has struck off the coast of northern Chile, killing 6 people and sending a 2-meter tsunami wave. Over 900,000 people and 11 hospitals were evacuated along the coastline, government officials said.
Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated from low lying coastal regions after a tsunami warning returned to their homes Wednesday morning as damage from the the quake appeared limited.
Damages and fires had been reported throughout the region and many have lost power because of the quake.
The quake occurred Tuesday, 95 km (59 miles) northwest of the mining area of Iquique near the Peruvian border. The epicenter was located at a shallow depth of about 20 km (12 miles) below the seabed.
The Chilean navy said the first sign of the tsunami hitting the coast was within 45 minutes of the quake. The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said a tsunami measuring almost two meters had been generated.
Chile’s emergency ministry ONEMI said there have been reports of landslides causing some blockage on roads and highways.
At least six people have died following the quake, Chile’s Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo said. Many of the victims died from heart attacks or falling debris.
The country’s president, Michelle Bachelet, has declared the region around the epicenter a “disaster zone” and praised Chile’s emergency services for their swift response to the crisis.
Several aftershocks – ranging from magnitude 5 to 6.2 – were detected in the area following the earthquake.
Two major fires have been reported in Iquique following the quake, according to Publimetro. There have also been reports of looting in the city.
All of the Latin American Pacific coast is under threat for tsunami activity, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). In addition to Chile, a tsunami warning has been issued for Peru, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Tsunami watches for Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua have been cancelled.
Aleuy said the tsunami alert for Chile’s coast will last for at least another six hours after the quake, Reuters reported.

“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a bulletin. “It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also be a threat to more distant coasts.”

The Chile National Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI) ordered a preventative evacuation for the coastal areas of Arica, Parinacota, and Tarapacá, La Tercera reported.
Peruvian authorities have begun evacuating areas in the southern coastal region of Ica, RPP radio reported. About 200 people left the seaside town of Boca del Rio, Peru, according to AP. No injuries or major damage occurred, said Col. Enrique Blanco, regional police chief in Tacna, a city of 300,000 on the Chilean border.
Chile’s main mining companies said there was no serious damage to their operations.
Hundreds of earthquakes have occurred along Chile’s far-northern coast in the past two weeks. A 6.7 magnitude quake hit on March 16, causing the brief evacuation of 100,000 people in low-lying areas. No tsunami followed.
An 8.8 magnitude quake and accompanying tsunami hit central Chile in 2010, killing over 500 people and destroying 220,000 homes, among other damage.
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Posted: 01 Apr 2014 03:44 PM PDT

Many Western experts believe that the Ukrainian crisis has given a new impetus to the existence of NATO. Prior to the events in the neighboring country the military, politicians, and political scientists have tried to understand what the alliance would do in the future, in particular, after the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Now Washington and Brussels seem to have decided on the semantics – “containment of Russia.”
The statements of NATO leaders indicate that Russia is not seen as a partner. Russia is not acting as a partner, but rather, as an opponent, said last week NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. While he will be resigning soon, presumably the course towards “containment” will not change.
His deputy Alexander Vershbow said in an interview with Kommersant that if Russia was to question the key principles of the European security system stated in the Helsinki Final Act and violated its own bilateral agreements as it has done in the case of Ukraine, it would trigger a serious discussion about what this mean for the priorities of NATO.
A correspondent of Pravda.Ru spoke with a military expert Boris Podoprigorov about the prospects of the relations between Russia and NATO.
“There is much talk about the alliance revising its strategy with regard to Russia and focusing on “containment” of Russia. Do you think these arguments are justified?”
“With regard to the relations between Russia and NATO, it seems to me that there should be no understated or overstated estimates at any stage of our cooperation. I do not expect drastic changes. The relations between Russia and the Alliance over the two decades have been somewhere between C+ and C-.
“Generally, I do not expect any sudden changes. I think we should not overestimate any meetings with handshakes or any harsh statements exchanged between the parties with regard to certain events.
“I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist in this sense, and base my conclusions on my observations as a member of numerous Russia-NATO activities. If, instead of talking about the table ranking we talk about the content of those conversations, those negotiations that took place at this table, we have always had rather quiet, but not inspiring relations with NATO.”
“What do you think are the prospects of cooperation between Russia and NATO in light of recent events? Or is this something that is not even worth talking about at this time?”
“The format of our interaction remains the same. The substantial side, the agenda are essentially unchangeable.
 You know, I always wanted to be 30-40 minutes late for these meetings, because I knew that they always started with boring lectures of NATO officials about consensus. They had been trying to teach us this word for probably 15 years. I am serious, because I happened to attend about a hundred Russian-NATO activities.
I do not see any meaningful field for conversation now. Unfortunately, everything is as it was predetermined in the early 1990.”
“Judging by the comments of the alliance representatives, NATO seems like almost a victim of “Russian aggression.” Is this true?”
“I suggest we strictly differentiate between the information of counter-resistance and real events.
If we turn to Western sources, our hair will stand on end. There is a military column on route to Kiev; there are some events in Crimea. If we believe the propaganda, we just lose the thread of conversation.
In fact, nothing is happening. Unfortunately, we did not say this in a tough enough manner.
“Generally speaking, we have not even exceeded the number of the Russian military that can be stationed in Crimea under the Kharkiv agreements. Nobody had caught us doing this in a documented, evidential way.
“I think that our information sources should more specifically cover this topic. If you take the legal aspect, I emphasize, there have been no violations on our part. Let’s separate the emotions and essence of the matter.”
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Posted: 01 Apr 2014 03:25 PM PDT

Russia has warned Ukraine against integration with NATO, as Kiev approves a series of joint drills with the Western military alliance.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has warned Tuesday that Kiev’s previous attempts to move closer to NATO had strained ties with Moscow, as well as the relationship between Russia and the defense alliance.
“(Past attempts) led to a freezing of Russian-Ukrainian political contacts, a headache between NATO and Russia and … to a division in Ukrainian society,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Kremlin seeks a neutrality clause in Ukraine’s constitution to prevent it from joining NATO.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s parliament approved a series of joint drills with the Western military alliance, including two sets of joint exercises with the United States this summer.
Kiev also plans an additional set of war games with Poland, as well as joint ground operations with Moldova and Romania.
This is while NATO foreign ministers gathered in Brussels during a two-day ministerial meeting to evaluate their relations with Moscow.
The ministers plan to discuss new steps to reinforce eastern European countries and find ways of bolstering Ukraine’s armed forces.
Tensions between the Western powers and Moscow heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to become part of the Russian Federation following a referendum on March 16, in which nearly 97 percent of voters in Crimea said yes to reunion with Russia.
The move sparked angry reactions from the United States and the European Union, both imposing punitive measures against a number of Russian officials and authorities in Crimea.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has recently accused Russia of violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in an article for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
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Posted: 01 Apr 2014 03:08 PM PDT


Corporate press brazenly lies about bombshell audio tape.
The mainstream media has spun, mischaracterized and outright lied about a shocking leaked audio tape in which top Turkish military and political officials brazenly plan to stage a false flag attack on their own country in order to create a pretext for war on Syria.
Shocking details of dialogue between top Turkish officials reveals clear evidence of them scheming to launch a staged provocation against Turkish interests that would be blamed on Syria as a justification for military invasion.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan admitted the authenticity of the tape when he described the leaking of the audio as “villainous” and “immoral,” before moving to ban YouTube.
“I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey,” states Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence.
“It’s a direct cause of war. I mean, what we’re going to do is a direct cause of war,” adds Deputy Chief of Military Staff Yasar Guler.
Plans to attack the Suleiman Shah Tomb, which is in Syria but considered Turkish territory and guarded by Turkish special forces, are also discussed, with Al-Qaeda terrorists playing the role of patsies.
“Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us,” states Ahmet Davutoglu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“We can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary,” responds Fidan.
“Listen, listen commander if it’s a pretext we’ll give you one. I’ll send over four men and have them fire eight rockets on an empty lot. That’s not the problem! Pretexts can be arranged,” adds Fidan.
Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu responds by asserting that the staged attack will have “legitimacy” because it will be seen as a strike against Al-Qaeda and Turkey will have “the whole world backing us”.
“If necessary, we’ll mount an attack against that place (Suleiman Shah Tomb),” states Fidan, adding, “we’ll do the attack up front.”
To be clear, this confirmed audio tape represents ‘caught red handed’ concrete evidence of Turkish officials planning attacks on their own country to be blamed on Syria as a pretext for military invasion.
The officials also consider how the U.S. would react to the plan, fearing that it could backfire because Turkey may be perceived as weak due to its inability to protect its own interests.
Following yesterday’s bombshell revelation of the false flag plot, the mainstream media reacted in unison by ignoring the shocking content of the actual dialogue and instead making the story about how Erdogan banned YouTube, without specifically explaining why it was banned.
Innumerable news outlets euphemistically described the tape as containing discussions about plans for Turkish “intervention” in Syria, mischaracterizing the context and censoring the fact that the tape was a brazen admission of high Turkish officials planning a staged provocation as a pretext to attack Syria.
Reuters even reported that the conversation, “appeared to centre on a possible operation to secure the tomb of Suleyman Shah,” when in reality the conversation is about attacking the tomb, not securing it.
A BBC News report about the tape said it “relates to a discussion of possible military operations in Syria,” completely omitting the fact that the tape is centered around Turkey attacking its own interests in a staged provocation.
A CNN report goes to great lengths in exploring how and why the audio tape was leaked while failing completely to mention its actual content.
An L.A. Times report states that the tape discusses “possible military intervention in Syria”. Although the article quotes some portions of the tape, it completely omits key sections where Turkish officials admit they plan to launch false flag attacks.
Although a Washington Post article about the leaked tape prints the full transcript, the actual report mischaracterizes it by asserting, “The officials mull whether to strike — or even use ground troops — against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, a jihadist group rooted in Syria.” The article fails to mention anything about Turkish officials planning to “make up a cause for war” by launching an attack against their own country.
None of these major publications dared to reveal the actual core of the story – that the tape contains bombshell revelations of Turkish military and political officials planning attacks on their own country as a casus belli for war on Syria.
Only USA Today somewhat accurately covered the story, reporting that the tape revealed, “that top Turkey officials were plotting to fake an attack against their own country as an excuse to wage war on Turkey.”
Given Turkey’s NATO membership and its close ties with the United States, this scandal is at least on a par with the Benghazi stand down yet has received minimal and almost universally distorted media coverage given its staggering importance.
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Posted: 01 Apr 2014 03:04 PM PDT

The CIA base in Australia knows what happened to the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane, says a prominent analyst.
“The CIA base in Alice Springs, Australia, knows precisely what happened to that plane,” said Kevin Barrett in a Press TV interview on Monday, pointing to the base’s access to military radar and satellite coverage in the area.
He also stated that it would be impossible for radar systems in the region not to have picked up the whereabouts of the missing plane.
“It cannot have just disappeared. This makes no sense.”
Barrett said it only takes “a second or two” to squawk an emergency code “so there is no way that a plane is going to start having problems that are going to lead to a crash and it is not going to squawk that code.”
The American writer added that “the plane turned and flew in a westerly direction and must have been under some kind of control and “yet there was no emergency code, there was no hijack code, nothing like that.”
“This is very, very strange,” Barrett said.
He also dismissed official suggestions that the plane had crashed during its flight, reasoning that “passengers’ cell phones were ringing out days after the plane disappeared, meaning that they were not under water and they were powered on.”
The commentator speculated that the plane’s disappearance was a sort of a 9/11 conspiracy.
“We have so many parallels between this event and 9/11… So a lot of people are speculating that there was a 9/11-style plan and it may not have gone right,” he said.
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Posted: 01 Apr 2014 02:35 PM PDT

NATO has announced that it is suspending all military and civilian cooperation with Russia over the Ukrainian crisis, the bloc said in a joint statement.
“We have decided to suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia. Our political dialogue in the NATO-Russia Council can continue, as necessary, at the Ambassadorial level and above, to allow us to exchange views, first and foremost on this crisis,” the statement reads. The alliance plans to review its relations with Russia at a meeting in June.
The decision could affect cooperation on Afghanistan in areas such as training counter-narcotics personnel, maintenance of Afghan air force helicopters, and a transit route out of the war-torn country. Other projects around fighting terrorism, drug trafficking, and dealing with the disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction could also be impacted.
Despite the harsh public statement, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen backtracked when speaking to reporters after the ministerial meeting on Tuesday, apparently muddying the message the alliance wants to send. Rasmussen said that NATO expects Russia to continue working with the alliance on the important issues.
“I would expect the counter-narcotics projects to continue, I would also expect the Afghanistan-related cooperation projects to continue, the transit arrangements, as well as helicopter projects also because we have a joint interest in ensuring success on our mission in Afghanistan,” Rasmussen said.
NATO foreign ministers also urged Moscow in “to take immediate steps … to return to compliance with international law.”
The bloc said that it was stepping up its cooperation with Ukraine, promoting defense reforms and increasing the activity of a liaison office in Kiev.
The goal will be to modernize Ukraine’s armed forces, including through Ukraine’s involvement in more of NATO’s military exercises, according to Rasmussen. As of now, the efforts to modernize will come short of sending weapons to Ukraine.
Ukraine provided NATO members with a list of “technical equipment” it required for the nation’s armed forces, which did not include weaponry, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsya told a news conference after meeting with NATO ministers.
NATO and Ukraine issued a joint statement after a meeting of their ministers in Brussels. They said that they would “implement immediate and longer term measures to strengthen Ukraine’s ability to provide for its own security.”
A series of meetings in Brussels was called on Tuesday in response to what the bloc sees as Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. The bloc called on Moscow to reduce its troop number in Crimea to pre-crisis levels, withdraw them to their bases and taper military activities along its border with Ukraine.
Ministers ordered military planners to “develop as a matter of urgency a series of additional measures to reinforce NATO’s collective defenses”, a NATO official told Reuters. This might include sending troops and equipment to NATO allies in Eastern Europe, holding more exercises, taking steps to ensure NATO’s rapid reaction force could deploy more quickly, and a review of NATO’s military plans.
Military planners will come back with detailed proposals within weeks, the alliance official said.
The Republic of Crimea declared its independence from Ukraine following the March-16 referendum, in which 96.77 percent of the voters chose to rejoin Russia. Despite calls to boycott the vote and provocation attempts, 83.1 percent of Crimeans took part in the poll.
Crimea became part of Russia in 1783, but was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev – a move that ex-Soviet leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mikhail Gorbachev, has called a “mistake.” Following the fall of the USSR in 1991, Crimeans were forbidden to hold a referendum on independence from Ukraine, and a procedure for making such a referendum possible has never been clearly defined in Ukrainian law.
Many people in the predominantly Russian-speaking region also rejected the coup-appointed Kiev authorities, and some feared that nationalist radicals aligned with the opposition might launch a persecution of Russians living in Crimea.
However, a closer look shows that the neo-Nazi scare was not the only thing that concerned Crimeans about the coup-appointed authorities. One of the first moves of the post-coup Ukrainian parliament was an attempt to strip the status of regional minority languages, including Russian. The political program of the nationalist Svoboda party, which currently occupies four seats in the cabinet of ministers in Kiev, also clearly stated that it seeks to deprive the region of its autonomy and to make it an oblast (administrative division) instead of an Autonomous Republic. According to a common belief among the Russians living in Crimea, some of the Tatars, members of the Mejlis organization, also counted on the ex-opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party to support them in declaring the region a Tatar national autonomy, despite Russians and Ukrainians making up over 70 percent of the population and Tatars accounting for only about 12 percent of it.
Crimeans have also been consistently against Ukraine becoming a NATO state, and have staged protests against Ukrainian-NATO drills in the past. Polls showed that more than half the people living in Crimea considered NATO a “threat.”
Despite Ukraine’s non-aligned status enshrined in its Constitution, the coup-appointed authorities said they are considering changing the relevant part of the supreme law, just as NATO’s chief stated they were “intensifying” their cooperation with Ukraine.
Responding to such remarks, the Russian government reminded that pushing for NATO integration in Ukraine during Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency had in the past led only to a “widening of the split in Ukrainian society, the majority of which anything but supports the idea of Ukraine entering the NATO military block.”
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 22:12