Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 07 Apr 2014 03:49 PM PDT

Rebels embattled against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have reportedly come into possession of high-powered anti-tank weaponry, the likes of which may have been supplied by the United States.
Images of rebels equipped with heavy arms have begun to circulate in recent days, and at least one news site has claimed that the source responsible is the US government.
On Monday, Israel’s Debkafile website reported that two moderate Syrian rebel militias — the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Revolutionary Front — have been supplied with advanced US weapons, including armor-piercing, optically-guided BGM-71 TOW missiles, thanks to the Pentagon.
According to Debkafile’s report, US Gen. Martin Dempsey — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs — asked officials in Israel last week to help get Saudi Arabian fighter jets stationed at the kingdom’s Faisal Air Base at Tabuk near Jordan positioned in a manner that would provide air cover as American forces moved the weapons into southern Syria. Debkafile attributed the claims to unnamed military sources.
Late last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that US President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah “appeared to narrow their disagreement on assisting Syrian rebels” amidst a meeting between the two. According to the Journal’s report, Obama administration officials said the meeting ended with the White House agreeing to increase its level of assistance to Syrian rebels.
“Senior US officials said their goal is to provide assistance to moderate Syrian rebels not just as a ‘counterweight’ to the Assad regime, but also to extremist elements of the opposition,” Carol Lee and Ellen Knickmeyer wrote for the paper.
At the same time, however, the Journal reporters said that the White House made it clear to the Saudis — who reportedly asked for America’s assistance — that Washington was not comfortable supplying certain weapons, including hand-held anti-aircraft missile launchers known as manpads, due to the “proliferation risk” involved with introducing those types of arms into the heart of Syria. The South China Morning Post also cited US officials as saying the Obama administration was considering supplying weapons and has recently “been able to develop deeper relations with the opposition.”

Then over the weekend, a blog that specializes in covering the Syrian conflict published screenshots from just-uploaded YouTube videos alleged to show rebels using the US-made tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided anti-tank missiles.
“Until more photos or videos of the missile and possible other locations pop up, it’s hard to tell who might have been the supplier. But most likely, the TOWs were indeed foreign-supplied to the rebels,” one blogger wrote. “Since the TOW missiles are made in the US such a transfer likely needs permission from the Obama administration.”
Iran’s Fars News agency also reported on Monday that their sources said the US has supplied the anti-tank missiles to the militants fighting against Assad.
According to Debkafile, the report — if true — marks “the first advanced US weapon to be deployed in more than three years of civil war.”
“Our military sources report that Syrian tank armor is not thick enough to withstand the BGM-71 TOW rockets. To save his tanks, Assad has shifted the brunt of his anti-rebel operation to heavy air force bombardments, which claim a heavy toll among civilians,” Debkafile continued. “Washington is therefore confronted with its next decision about whether to give the rebels sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons as well.”
On Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are going to continue to press in every way we can to assist the Syrian people.”
“We are constantly doing is reviewing and assessing what else we can do,” Carney said. “These kinds of discussions, when bad things continued o happen in a place like Syria, always can be reduced to the question of: is the US going to use its military forces to try and do something?”
Carney said the administration will assess all options before making a decision based on what the White House believes is the right course of action to take in support of the Syrian people and in support of the United States’ own national security interests.
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Posted: 07 Apr 2014 03:43 PM PDT

Thousands of Brazilian soldiers have fanned out in one of Rio de Janeiro’s most notorious slums to provide security less than three months before the FIFA World Cup.
The security push on Saturday is considered the latest attempt to drive drug gangs out of the infamous Mare slum, which is located near Rio de Janeiro’s international airport and is considered a haven for organized crime.
Some 2,700 soldiers, sailors and military police entered the slum that is home to 130,000 people.
The operation was aimed at providing long-term security ahead of the tournament, officials said.
Security forces have reportedly had 36 confrontations with suspects in the neighborhood during the past week. Sixteen people died, eight were injured and 118 were arrested in the clashes.
Moreover, some weapons, including 24 grenades, two machine guns, 100 pistols and rifles, and assorted bullets, plus over 1,000 tons of marijuana, cocaine and crack were seized.
With the aim of improving security in Rio, the police have implemented the widespread “pacification” program since 2008.
Since then, murders in areas with Police Pacification Units (UPPs) presence have dropped by 65 percent and by 48 percent in the city as a whole.
Rio, which will also host the 2016 Olympics, is scheduled to stage seven World Cup matches, including the July 13 final.
Brazil is facing Croatia in the World Cup curtain-raiser on June 12.
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Posted: 07 Apr 2014 03:34 PM PDT


Sweden was once wealthy, beautiful, and modern. But all that has changed. It has become as totalitarian as Saudi Arabia or Iran. Their immigration policies have overwhelmed the culture and the treasury of the Swedes. One U.N. report says that Sweden will soon be a third-world nation.
The worse it gets, the more restrictions there are on freedom and speech. Strict enforcement of the blasphemy laws under the sharia — “do not criticize or insult Islam.”
This video is chilling. One of Sweden’s biggest newspapers, Expressen, used criminal hackers to break into Disqus and get the email addresses and identities of commenters online, and to reveal the persons behind the nicknames or anonymous user IDs. The newspaper sent a reporter and a cameraman to one person’s home and asked them about things they had written on different websites. Expressen published the names and photos of some people, which led to at least one person losing his job.
The newspaper should have been shuttered and its editor(s) brought up on charges. But this is sharia, so it was the victims who were punished.
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Posted: 07 Apr 2014 03:17 PM PDT

People in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv have declared independence from Kiev following a same move by pro-Russians in Donetsk.
Protesters announced on Monday the formation of the Independent People’s Republic of Kharkiv outside the regional administration building.
They also held their own election of what they call national lawmakers.
Moreover, the demonstrators clashed with pro-Ukraine groups in front of the building.
Police tried to separate the two groups as they threw sticks and stones at each other.
Some 50 percent of the region’s inhabitants are ethnic Russians that believe Ukraine’s acting authorities will repress Russians.
Earlier in the day, people in the eastern city of Donetsk declared their independence and formation of the People’s Republic of Donetsk.
They demanded a referendum to be held by May 11 so they can join Russia. The head of General Administration of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Donetsk region, Roman Mykolayovych Romanov, who is in charge of 16,000 security forces, also defected to the new pro-Russian authorities.
Former Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, who was in the city, expressed disagreement with a referendum in eastern parts of the country.
Elsewhere in the southern Ukrainian city of Nikolayev, people raised the Russian flag atop the regional administration building. Rival rallies are also being held in the southern city of Odessa.
The demonstrations gained momentum after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17 and formally applied to become part of Russia. This came on the heels of a referendum a day earlier, in which 96.8 percent of Crimeans voted for reunion with Russia.
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Posted: 07 Apr 2014 02:43 PM PDT

Russia’s ONEXIM group, owned by tycoon Michael Prokhorov, has sold the technology and development rights for its Yo-mobil hybrid vehicle to the state-run NAMI institute for 1 euro. The falling ruble and slowing car market could triple the project cost.
The hybrid vehicle project was announced by Mikhail Prokhorov in 2010 and has more than 200,000 advance orders, it has now been put on hold.
Since 2010 “parameters of the project have changed, its cost could reach up to 450 million euro”, “while some hundred million euro had been already spent on research “, the Director of Investments at ONEXIM Valery Senko explained to Kommersant.
ONEXIM claims in a press release the company has one of the world’s best electric transmissions, and implemented the latest development in super condensers, and created an original construction of the body with the use of modern materials.
“All technological decisions which our team managed to develop and which were confirmed in the final prototype presented last summer were highly appreciated by industry experts. We had a number of offers from foreign companies to buy the project and its separate development,” the chief executive of Yo-mobil Andrey Ginzburg said.
“But today taking into account the new economic realities, the platform of the Yo-mobil can and shall be used in another direction. We’ve been working with NAMI for a long time and we understand that our development can receive broader applications in further development for both domestic automobile, and cargo and public transport,” Ginzburg added.

According to the chief executive of ONEXIM Dmitry Razumov, the sharp weakening of the auto market has made it impossible to go ahead with the project, and make a profit. “Primarily it was caused by growth of capital and operating expenses following the strengthening of the euro which as a result led to the inevitable increase in the finite price of the car.”
“In conditions of sharply falling demand in the market we also don’t see the opportunity to sell the number of cars needed to make the project profitable”, remarked Razumov.
The “environmentally-friendly” hybrid car was planned to be fuelled by either gasoline or gas, and have both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor.
The manufacturers expected to launch the car with initial price of around $10,000, which was expected to be coupled with low fuel consumption. The Yo-mobil was designed to have a range of 400 kilometers with a maximum speed of 130 kilometers per hour.
Prokhorov funded three Yo-mobil prototypes; hatchback, van and cross-coupe. Production was first planned to start in 2012, and then put off till 2015. In February it was postponed to and unspecified later date.
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Posted: 06 Apr 2014 08:04 AM PDT
NSA headquarters
US officials on Friday slammed plans to construct an EU-centric communication system, designed to prevent emails and phone calls from being swept up by the NSA, warning that such a move is a violation of trade laws.
Calling Europe’s proposal to build its own integrated communication system “draconian,” the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said American tech companies, which are worth an estimated $8 trillion per year, would take a financial hit if Brussels gives the initiative the green light.
“Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a ‘Schengen cloud’ by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them,” the USTR said in its annual report.
In the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing activities at the National Security Agency, which proved that much of the world’s telecommunication meta-data is being stored away in the United States, European countries – notably Germany and France – are desperate to get a handle on their own networks without relying on a meddlesome middleman.
Germany’s outrage over the revelations hit full stride last month when Der Spiegel, the popular daily newspaper, asked if it is “time for the country to open a formal espionage investigation” following yet more disclosures that Britain’s GCHQ infiltrated German internet companies and the NSA collected information about (German Chancellor Angela) “Merkel in a special database.”
Now, US trade officials are up in arms over proposals by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom (in which the German government owns less than 30 percent), to avoid passing communications to the United States, saying the move would give European companies an unfair advantage over their US colleagues.
“Any mandatory intra-EU routing may raise questions with respect to compliance with the EU’s trade obligations with respect to internet-enabled services,” the USTR said. “Accordingly, USTR will be carefully monitoring the development of any such proposals.”
If the European-centric plan gets the go ahead, it would require the dismantlement of the Safe Harbor agreement that allows US companies access to European data. It should be noted that despite the work of the NSA, Europe has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world.
US telecommunication and internet firms are now lobbying Washington to calm fears over privacy concerns in an effort to halt Europe’s move toward protectionism.
Similar criticisms were directed by the USTR at another American ally, Canada. The representative complained about privacy rules enforced in Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Nova Scotia, which do not normally allow public bodies to store and access private data of Canadians outside the country.
The USTR also criticized the Canadian federal government’s move to build a unified email system, which required data to be stored in Canada and thus prevented US companies from bidding. Bell Canada eventually won the $400-million contract.
“In today’s information-based economy, particularly where a broad range of services are moving to “cloud” based delivery where US firms are market leaders, this law hinders US exports of a wide array of products and services,” the report said.
Much like the EU, Canada has concerns over its dependence on US for routing telecommunications, with some 90 percent of all Canadian internet traffic going through the US. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority proposed in October 2013 building up domestic infrastructure, which would change this and protect the data from potential NSA snooping.
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Posted: 06 Apr 2014 07:24 AM PDT

Hungarians have begun voting in the country’s parliamentary elections, which are likely to bring another victory for the ruling right-wing Fidesz party.
Voting stations opened at 6:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) on Sunday and are due to close at 7:00 p.m. local time (1700 GMT), with exit polls expected soon afterwards.
The National Election Office announced that by 0700 GMT some 9.5 percent of voters had cast ballots, showing a decrease in turnout when compared with the same time in the Eastern European country’s most previous elections.
According to recent polls, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is expected to win between 46 and 51 percent of the vote in Sunday’s elections after four years in office.
The center-left opposition coalition is also facing a close race for second place with Hungary’s second largest party, the patriotic Jobbik party, as the coalition, composed of five leftist and centrist parties, is trailing on 21-31 percent and Jobbik close behind on 15-21 percent.
The premier said he hopes for a heavy turnout in the parliamentary elections, “so that no matter what kind of government there will be, it will be able to start its job with large popular support.”
Meanwhile, polls indicate that Orban’s Fidesz party could even retain the two-thirds majority it secured in the parliament in 2010.
The prime minister has pushed through a series of reforms over the past four years, including passing a new constitution and adopting uncontroversial economic policies. However, he has had repeated rows with the European Union (EU) over what he considers Hungary’s national interests.
Orban enjoys huge popularity among many voters for cutting bills and stabilizing public finances, but critics say he has restricted the freedom of media and other democratic institutions.
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Posted: 06 Apr 2014 05:02 AM PDT


On Friday, the uber-liberal loudmouth, Bill Maher, said there is a gay mafia. It wrecks the careers and reputations of people who do not tote the gay agenda.
“I think there is a gay mafia. I think if you cross them, you do get whacked,” Maher said during an exchange on the step down of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, who committed the unpardonable sin of making a thousand dollar donation eight years ago to support a ballot initiative, supported by 52 percent of Californians, that would have outlawed same-sex marriage. Guest panelist Carrie Sheffield noted Obama was against gay marriage at the time.
So much for the marketplace of ideas. In America today, you cannot go up against the liberal establishment and escape unscathed. The campaign launched on Twitter against Eich, who is considered a highly competent technologist – he invented Javascript, the browser programming language – was so intense and nasty he decided it would be best for the company if he stepped down.
So intense were the attacks, Eich took down his Twitter account and was forced to retreat from the medium he helped develop. “I will be less visible online, but still around,” he wrote in a blog post announcing his decision to step down.
Mozilla, a nonprofit company responsible for the Firefox browser, was obliged to pay homage to the gay agenda and submit to political correctness.
“Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard,” said Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker.
The establishment media, largely responsible for pushing the PC witch hunt, characterized Eich’s removal as “inevitable”:
Baker underscored what is going on in America today. Political correctness and the First Amendment are incompatible. Liberty will be sacrificed under the treads of the liberal juggernaut.
“Now that the bullies have Eich’s head as a trophy on their wall, they will put the heat on every other corporation and major employer,” warned Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor. “They will pressure them to refuse employment to those who decline to conform their views to the new orthodoxy.”
Nazism was a new orthodoxy in the 1930s. It swiftly removed Jews from all professional life in Germany. Its intolerance was ultimately responsible for mass murder.
Gay activists are not stoking ovens. But their mindset is a nearly indistinguishable form of authoritarianism.
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Posted: 06 Apr 2014 04:57 AM PDT

The United States is likely to experience a financial “doomsday” as a result of its imposition of sanctions on Russia following Crimea’s secession from Ukraine, an analyst tells Press TV.
Eric Draitser said in an interview with Press TV that Russia, which supplies more than one third of Europe’s gas, is a “great energy power” that “may decide to stop accepting US dollars to settle debts and US dollars for its energy reserves.”
“All of this is sort of a doomsday scenario from a financial perspective; but, it is all very much a possibility if the United States and Europe” escalate the situation, the analyst said.
Draitser held out the possibility of euro and dollar depreciation, which would, in turn, trigger “unrest in global markets.”
The analyst said Russia is in a position to make it harder for Europe to have access to gas, adding,
“It would fundamentally change the geopolitical calculus not only of the Europe but of the global economy more generally.”
On Tuesday, the US Congress approved a bill calling for new sanctions on Moscow over Crimea, which recently joined Russia.
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 the voters said yes to union with Russia.
On March 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law documents that officially made Crimea part of the Russian territory.
“I think everyone should be very keen to avoid a shooting war, particularly with a nuclear power such as Russia…, which obviously is a nuclear power,” said Draitser.
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Posted: 06 Apr 2014 04:07 AM PDT

On the 65th anniversary of NATO, the debate over the organization’s expansion remains highly contentious, with some viewing it as a broken promise to Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
NATO, an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty, was signed on April 4, 1949 when the US, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland joined the members of the Treaty of Brussels to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The idea of the alliance was to provide defense against a prospective Soviet invasion. In the early 1950s, the focus of the communism vs. capitalism fight shifted to Asia, where a series of bloody proxy wars played a major role in convincing Europeans that the Soviet Union and its allies were extremely dangerous and had to be contained at all costs.
Since the reunification of Germany, NATO has almost doubled in size – from 16 member states in 1990 to 28 currently.
Most senior Russian officials feel tricked by NATO and accuse the West of not following through with its commitments made during German reunification negotiations, when NATO agreed not to expand to the East.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president at the time, confirmed that there was a promise not to enlarge NATO, not even “as much as a thumb’s width further to the East.” But this commitment was never formally documented, and since then the alliance has grown drastically.
The US ambassador to Moscow at the time, Jack Matlock, told RT he personally objected to NATO expansion as it was done.
“We had no reason to expand the NATO military organization to the East until we had an agreement that would put Russia in a European defense structure,” he told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze.
The retired diplomat insists that the bloc’s expansion was fueled not by Washington, but by Eastern European countries, eager to get Western protection from a possible communist resurgence in Russia. The enlargement was not intended to offend new Russia, but it did, especially since the security architecture it provided did not include Russia.
“I must say that Russian government at that time came up with no good alternatives. I can’t just blame one side for this,” Matlock said. “I think it is unfortunate because I think there should have been a greater Western effort, American and West European, to make sure we had brought Russia into a security structure and that we have done more to encourage an understanding between the West Europeans and Russians.”

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, NATO has aggressively expanded eastward, especially in the past two decades. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined the alliance.
This was followed by the biggest expansion in NATO’s history; in 2004, seven new Eastern Europe member states joined the alliance – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The enlargement was topped off with a final advance in 2009, as Albania and Croatia joined the ranks.
Gorbachev repeatedly expressed outrage with US politicians and the broken promise.
As the alliance continued to expand to include Baltic States and Eastern European countries, so did distrust and tension.
“A powerful military bloc appearing near our borders will be perceived in Russia as a direct threat to the security of our country,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a 2008 press conference after talks with NATO had broken down.
The purpose of the power-bloc has been increasingly questioned in the 21st century, with many analysts wondering whose goals are being served.
Russian ambassador to NATO Aleksandr Grushko told reporters on Wednesday that NATO’s expansion process has exhausted itself.
“It proved to weaken security, not to remove dividing lines, but to move them to the east and stir up psychology of front-line states. We see that the countries that join NATO more than others begin to demand additional guarantees and additional protection measures,” the diplomat said.
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Posted: 05 Apr 2014 11:22 AM PDT

In one of its most shocking reports since the beginning of the Ukrainian Crisis, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) is warning today that President Putin has ordered the immediate implementation of “Project Double Eagle,” which when fully realized will cause all global energy supplies to be purchased in gold thus, in effect, ending the US Dollar reign as the global reverse currency and collapsing both the United States and European Union economies.
“Project Double Eagle,” this report says, calls for The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) to begin production of 5 Ruble Gold Coins containing .1244 Troy Ounces of .900 Pure Gold, with a diameter of 18mm, emblazoned with a shielded and crowned double eagle, and which will become the worlds alternative to both the US Dollar and Euro in purchasing energy supplies.
Critical to note, this report continues, “Project Double Eagle” includes the creation of a new “national payment settlement system” which will allow Russia to build a foundation that could very soon offer an alternative to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) banking system and allow nations around the world the chance to move away from the American Dollar and US hegemony.
The cause behind Putin’s “furious” reaction in ordering “Project Double Eagle” today, this report says, was the “illegal and absurd” blocking of a remittance from the Russian embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, to Sogaz Insurance Group by the largest US bank, JPMorgan this week through SWIFT and which Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich responded to by stating:
“If by this the American financial company wanted to ‘score points’ in the eyes of the White House, it has obviously overplayed. Washington has to understand: any hostile action towards the Russian diplomatic mission not only represents a breach of the international law, but is also fraught with counter measures, which will inevitably affect the work of the US Embassy and consulates-general in Russia.”
Aside from Putin’s implementation of “Project Double Eagle,” this report notes, he further ordered Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia and all of Eastern Europe, to halt the issuance of consumer loans in foreign currency, a move the highly influential American financial website Zero Hedge warned “[lit] the fuse that takes away Russia’s choice whether or not to depart the petrodollar voluntarily, and makes it a compulsory outcome.”
Important to note about SWIFT, this report says, is that it is the “glue” that holds the global monetary system to the US Dollar and that this “bank of central banks” works as the medium for currency exchanges, and has been the pivot point for global commodity and energy transactions tied to the reserve currency, but which a Russian system based on gold would “destroy in a fortnight.”
Also to join Russia’s new gold-denominated global banking alternative to SWIFT, this report says, will be other BRICS nations (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) that have unanimously and, in many ways, forcefully backed Russia’s position on Crimea against both the US and EU.
With the US now having to pay it oligarchs 26% of its available tax revenues as interest payments, this report continues, and with the European Union now being warned it would cost them $215 billion to stop Russian gas imports, the CBR has been able to raise Russian gold holdings to over 1,040 tonnes showing its strength against Western central banks living on printed money alone.
To sustain “Project Gold Eagle” against the inevitable US-EU backlash, this report notes, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is reporting that the Natalka Project has already begun production and is able to supply the CBR with an “endless supply” of gold to further the success of this new global currency for energy supply purchases.
Note: Russia has the second largest gold reserves in the world at 12,500 tonnes (over 400 million ounces) and the Natalka Project, located in the Magadan region, is considered one of the largest gold deposits in the world and has 32 million ounces of proven and probable reserves and a total resource of 60Moz+ and began production this month.
Most ominous in this report to mention, however, is its warning that the annexation of Crimea has become a “catch-all justification” for the US to escalate its military presence virtually anywhere even remotely close to Russia, and that NATO forces are planning massive buildups in the Caucus region nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan aimed at splitting Russia too.
And to the absolute absurdity of US-NATO war propaganda against Russia in order to justify their troop buildups, this report concludes, none need look any further than NBC News, which earlier this week posted an article by their reporter, Jim Maceda, titled Tour of Ukraine-Russian Border Finds No Signs Of Military Buildup, but then turned around and today published one titled No Sign of Russian Troop Withdrawal From Ukraine Border.
As to how Russia can “withdrawal” troops that aren’t even there NBC News won’t say, but neither does it expect any of its readers/viewers to notice their war-hype hypocrisy either it appears.
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Posted: 05 Apr 2014 10:06 AM PDT

At least 1,000 protesters have gathered in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the industrial capital of the region, demanding that authorities respect their right for self-determination by allowing them to stage a Crimea-style referendum.
The rally was held in the city’s central Lenin Square. Demonstrators held Russian flags and signs which read, “The Republic of Donetsk.”
The protesters called for a general all-Ukrainian strike and distributed leaflets declaring April 18 a referendum day.
“Today a referendum remains a sharp political and social issue in Donbass region. People do not leave squares and require to hold [a referendum]. The fight for a referendum is accompanied by protests against rising prices for gas, electricity and food. The socio-patriotic movement ‘Eastern Front’ offers trade unions to hold a general strike on April 18. The goal of the strike is to require that the authorities hold a referendum and introduce a moratorium on the increase of tariffs and utilities,” said the leaflet, according to local media reports.
Residents then marched from the square to the city council building. Law enforcement officers in riot gear gathered near the building.
The protesters demanded that local authorities meet them at the location. According to reports, a group of city council deputies came out of the building.
Demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Referendum” and “Berkut,” as well as “Russia” and “Taruta (the new Donbass governor recently appointed by the Kiev government) needs to go!”
Earlier, the press service of the city council reported that authorities had not received any requests or notifications from social organizations or political parties about the Saturday rally.
Deputies of the city council, Igor Ponomarenko and Igor Sviridov, promised to meet residents at Lenin Square on Sunday, according to local media.
On March 1, Donetsk City Council made a decision to support the residents in their calls for a referendum. The deputies of the city council said that the decision on whether to hold a referendum is currently being considered by the court prosecutor, and the next hearing will take place on April 22.
On Friday, a group of people gathered at the German consulate in Donetsk to protest against what they say is German interference in Ukraine’s domestic affairs. They have signed a petition asking Berlin to stop meddling.
“We ask you to convey to the leadership of your country our request of non-interference in Ukrainian internal affairs by Germany,” the petition reads.
“We ask you, based on Germany’s international authority, to warn other countries from this, not to enkindle war and not to support fascism in Ukraine,” said the people’s statement, as quoted by local media.
After President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted by an armed coup in February, the Donbass region has been gripped by protests against Kiev’s coup-imposed government. Thousands of demonstrators have been demanding to hold a referendum to decide on the future of the region – just like in Crimea, which refused to recognize the country’s new authorities.
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.
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Posted: 05 Apr 2014 09:13 AM PDT


Connection between violence and SSRI medication emerges yet again.
Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley acknowledged that Fort Hood gunman Ivan Lopez was taking psychiatric medication before the shooting, underscoring yet again the clear and consistent connection between mass shooting incidents and SSRI drugs.
“Was he on any sort of medications….SSRI’s, anti-depressants, anything of that nature,” an Infowars reporter asked Milley, to which the General responded, “He was on medications that’s correct.”
In a subsequent report, officials also admitted that Lopez had been prescribed Ambien, a sleeping pill associated with accidents and aggressive outbursts.
34-year-old Lopez, who shot dead three colleagues and injured 16 others before turning the gun on himself, returned from Iraq suffering from “mental problems,” according to officials.
The obvious link between psychiatric drugs and violent outbursts is a common theme that crops up in almost every mass shooting incident, yet the media is routinely loathe to make the connection.
After it emerged that Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis “had been treated…. by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems,” the press showed little interest in discovering what drugs Alexis had been taking. The only medication currently offered by the VA for mental problems are SSRI drugs.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was also taking anti-depressant drugs when he massacred 16 Afghan civilians in 2012. SSRI medication, which is known to cause violent outbursts, is routinely used to treat PTSD, which goes some way to explain why there are so many stories about both active duty and returning troops carrying out acts of inexplicable violence on a regular basis.
Despite it being reported that prescription drugs were found in the apartment of ‘Batman’ shooter James Holmes days after the Aurora massacre, it took nine months to find out exactly what those drugs were. Like Columbine killer Eric Harris, Holmes had been taking Zoloft, another SSRI drug linked with violent outbursts.
As the website SSRI Stories profusely documents, there are literally hundreds of examples of mass shootings, murders and other violent episodes that have been committed by individuals on psychiatric drugs over the past three decades. The number of cases is staggering, but the media has completely failed to generate a national conversation about the issue due to its obsession with exploiting mass shootings to demonize the second amendment.
Pharmaceutical giants who produce drugs like Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil spend around $2.4 billion dollars a year on direct-to-consumer television advertising every year. By running negative stories about prescription drugs, networks risk losing tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue, which is undoubtedly one of the primary reasons why the connection is habitually downplayed or ignored entirely.
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Posted: 05 Apr 2014 08:57 AM PDT

Four weeks after the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner, a Chinese search vessel has discovered pulse signal in the South Indian Ocean.
According to the Chinese Xinhua news agency, the Chinese ship, part of the multinational search effort, detected a “pulse” signal in South Indian Ocean waters on Saturday.
Sources say a black box detector deployed by the vessel picked up the signal in the designated search area, but it’s not clear whether the signal is related to the missing Malaysian plane.
Australia, which is coordinating the multinational search effort, has not made any comments.
The hunt for the missing Malaysian jetliner entered its fourth week with search teams launching intensive underwater operations to find the plane’s black box.
Up to 13 aircraft and eleven ships are scouring the South Indian Ocean where the airliner is believed to have crashed with 239 people onboard.
They are for the first time using high-tech devices to locate the black box recorders before their batteries run out.
The Boeing 777-200 vanished from radar screens on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Dozens of flights by a multinational taskforce have so far failed to find any trace of the lost plane.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has vowed that his country would not give up on the search for the missing plane.
There is growing frustration among the family members of the missing passengers as search operations drag on.
The relatives of the 239 passengers who were onboard the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 have been accusing Malaysian authorities of withholding information regarding the fate of the plane.
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Posted: 05 Apr 2014 07:16 AM PDT

Russia has expressed its regrets over NASA’s decision to halt cooperation with its Russian counterpart. However, experts agree that the measure will affect NASA and mutual international work, but will not significantly harm Russia.
“Well, this is a US decision,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday, commenting on NASA’s decision to suspend “the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation.”
The statement by the space agency, publicly released on Wednesday, cited the “ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” by Russia as a reason for the measure.
For now, the suspension will not affect NASA and Roscosmos joint work “to maintain the safe and continuous operation of the International Space Station.”
Three Russians, two Americans, and one Japanese astronaut are onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
But NASA is eager to focus on returning human spaceflight launches to America, so as not to rely on Russia. Since the US space shuttle program was shut down in 2011, Russia’s Soyuz rocket remains the only way to carry supplies to the ISS and launch humans into space.
“We regret that the US administration and those who make such decisions are unable to conduct obvious situational analyses and separate US long-term interests from some ongoing short-term goals,” Ryabkov said.
However, the ISS is not the only sphere of cooperation between NASA and Russia. NASA actively collaborates with the Russian Space Research Institute (IKI RAN). So, it is yet to be seen how the halt in relations will affect other areas of mutual work.
“It is still unclear how this will impinge on IKI,” Aleksandr Koptev, a NASA representative with the Russian Mission Control Centre, said as cited by Itar-Tass. “But by making such a decision they only harm themselves,” he added.
There is no doubt that Washington’s freeze on cooperation will hurt the global space partnership and have a “rather significant” impact on space exploration projects worldwide, Ivan Moiseyev, scientific head of Russia’s Space Policy Institute predicted.
“Modern space science is a global phenomenon that benefits all countries,” Moiseyev told RIA Novosti news agency. “It means that many large-scale projects require an international effort. A freeze on cooperation will spur a serious backlash against the international space program.”
This view was echoed by a retired Soviet cosmonaut, Georgy Grechko.
“Work in space, involving such difficult missions and experiments, is always international, such as with a mission to Mars. There won’t be Russian, European, American and Chinese spacecraft flying separately to Mars; this will be an international project,” Grechko told RT.
However, Grechko, who has 3 space flights and a spacewalk on his resume, said he was not surprised by NASA’s decision.
“I’m not surprised by this: once again, politics is destructively interfering with scientific-technical work,” he said. “Of course, they gave in to political pressure. That is sad. I am 82 and I can say that it has always been the case that politics spoils scientific-technical programs.”
Grechko assumed that NASA itself understands nothing about how the decision on Crimea was made, and it just had to obey the government.
“Because the money still comes from the government,” he said. “This is a loss for everyone. Space should be about all countries working together and so this is a loss not just for Russia, but for all countries.”
At the same time, NASA’s decision is unlikely to have any catastrophic impacts on the Russian space exploration industry. It will simply have to adjust its projects to the new reality, Moiseyev said.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:31