Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Thursday, 15 May 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 14 May 2014 08:25 AM PDT

A troubling new report released by the Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters (EMERCOM) today states that President Putin has issued a dreaded “Black Notice” to all Russian ministries banning the foreign travel of all “vital and essential” civilian and military persons under the powers granted to him by Articles 87 and 88 of the Constitution.
The term “Black Notice” is used to describe a Presidential Decree as authorized byArticle 90 of the Constitution and has historically only been utilized in times of war or severe national threats such as natural disasters.
This report notes that this “Black Notice” order applies these travel restrictions to all employees like the country’s firefighters, ambulance drivers and rescue troopers and has also been imposed for parts of employees under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), including tens of thousands of police officers, prison guards, and other law enforcement agencies like the Federal Drug Control and the Federal Migration Service.
Others listed under this “Black Notice” are people with access to state secrets, like certain employees of the Foreign Ministry. According to estimates, they are around 250,000 people affected in all.
This latest “defensive war move” by Putin, this report notes, comes on the heels of Russian gas giant Gazprom (the largest extractor of natural gas and one of the largest companies in the world) giving a 2 June ultimatum to the US-backed right-wing fascist Ukrainian junta to pay its over $3.51 billion (US) gas bill or have all of its energy supplies cut off.
Important to note, this report says, is that Ukraine has already received the funds to pay off this staggering gas bill from the EU and IMF but has stated that they will “not pay a cent” unless Moscow agrees to the price that they want.
Furthermore, this report continues, even though Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky said Moscow would consider a compromise on natural gas prices with Ukraine only after its neighbor pays its debt for previous supplies, Ukraine still hasn’t used any of the funds received under a $27 billion international package to pay down its gas debt.
Though both the US and EU are continuing to exert war-like pressures against Russia in regards to Ukraine’s unpaid gas debt, this report notes, these same Western powers have been “abysmally silent” over Ukraine’s 26 April cutting off all water supplies to Crimea’s nearly 2.4 million civilians over a supposed debt of around $146,500.

Even worse, this report notes, are new reports coming from pro-federalist eastern Ukrainian regions who are now stating that at least 400 US commandos have now joined the military offensive against these once peaceful peoples, and in an international affront have begun illegally transporting combat troops using United Nations helicopters.
Most ominous, perhaps, in this report is its stating that the Security Council of Russia and the Committee for National Security and Defence of Cuba signed a memorandum on cooperation in Moscow earlier today and agreed to set up a joint working group, a move that comes at the same time the US started a nationwide nuclear drill after similar nuclear war games were held in Russia last week.
To if our world today is beginning to mirror the horrifying specter of the 13-day confrontation in October 1962 known as the Cuban Missile Crisis there remains little doubt as the Western world, led by the Obama regime, appears intent upon a tragic and catastrophic confrontation with Russia.
Even though Putin warned last week that militant nationalism like that being seen in Ukraine, which has led to the appearance of Nazi ideology, is raising its head once again in Europe, and a secret cable released by Wikileaks yesterday revealed that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Washington as far back as 2008 that US-EU-NATO meddling in Ukraine could split the country in two, the Obama regime appears intent upon pushing our world towards total war.
As to the “true” reason for this war wanted by the Obama regime and its EU allies we had explained in our 29 April report Armageddon Warned Near As Russia Orders “All-Out War” On Petrodollar, and which today has been further noted by many in the West, including the influential US alternative media website Infowars.com who in their article De-Dollarization: Russia Is On The Verge Of Dealing A Massive Blow To The Petrodollar warns the American people:
“Is the petrodollar monopoly about to be shattered? When U.S. politicians started slapping economic sanctions on Russia, they probably never even imagined that there might be serious consequences for the United States. But now the Russian media is reporting that the Russian Ministry of Finance is getting ready to pull the trigger on a “de-dollarization” plan.
The regions in eastern Ukraine that have just declared independence have given the government in Kiev until Wednesday to pull their forces out of eastern Ukraine or else face war. If a full blown civil war does erupt in Ukraine, it is going to take this crisis to a completely new level.
Unfortunately, most Americans are incredibly apathetic at this point and know very little about what is going on.
But in the end, this could have dramatic implications for all of us.”
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Posted: 14 May 2014 07:59 AM PDT

A “near-natural” prosthetic arm, that took eight years to develop and test, has been approved for mass production by the US Food and Drug Administration.
The DEKA Arm System has been affectionately dubbed “The Luke,” after Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker who received a robotic replacement for the hand he lost in a fight with Darth Vader in the 1980 film “The Empire Strikes Back.”
One of the developers, Dean Camen, the inventor of the Segway, says that the new type of a prosthetic limb will dramatically improve the lives of amputees. Tests have shown that subjects fitted with the arm were able to pick up grapes and raisins, use keys and locks, brush hair, open envelopes, pick up an egg without breaking it, eat cereal and even use chopsticks.
According to the recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) release, it “reviewed clinical information relating to the device, including a 4-site Department of Veterans Affairs study in which 36 DEKA Arm System study participants provided data on how the arm performed in common household and self-care tasks.”
The investigation revealed that approximately 90 percent of participants could perform activities with the robotic arm that they were previously unable to undertake, such as “using keys and locks, preparing food, feeding oneself, using zippers, and brushing and combing hair.”
The new artificial arm’s entirely new level of freedom, control and the near natural feel are a far cry from the plastic prosthesis and metal hooks which are currently in use in much of the world, and that have made little functional progress in the last 100 years since the use of wooden limbs, before technological advancement.
“The Luke” can perform multiple, simultaneous powered movements controlled by electrical signals from electromyogram (EMG) electrodes. They convert electrical signals into up to 10 powered movements, detecting electrical activity caused by the contraction of muscles close to where the prosthesis is attached and send signals to a computer processor in the prosthesis that translates them to a specific movement. The DEKA Arm System can be fitted for people with limb loss at the shoulder joint and mid-upper or lower arm, but it can’t be configured at the elbow or wrist joint.
“This innovative prosthesis provides a new option for people with certain kinds of arm amputations and may allow some to perform more complex tasks than they can with current prostheses in a way that more closely resembles the natural motion of the arm,” said Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
The retail price for the first-of-its-kind, life-altering limb replacement is yet to be set. The search for a suitable manufacturing partner is currently under way.
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Posted: 14 May 2014 07:14 AM PDT

Is the petrodollar monopoly about to be shattered? When U.S. politicians started slapping economic sanctions on Russia, they probably never even imagined that there might be serious consequences for the United States.
But now the Russian media is reporting that the Russian Ministry of Finance is getting ready to pull the trigger on a “de-dollarization” plan. For decades, virtually all oil and natural gas around the world has been bought and sold for U.S. dollars. As I will explain below, this has been a massive advantage for the U.S. economy. In recent years, there have been rumblings by nations such as Russia and China about the need to change to a new system, but nobody has really had a big reason to upset the status quo. However, that has now changed. The struggle over Ukraine has caused Russia to completely reevaluate the financial relationship that it has with the United States. If it starts trading a lot of oil and natural gas for currencies other than the U.S. dollar, that will be a massive blow for the petrodollar, and it could end up dramatically changing the global economic landscape.
The fact that the Russian government has held a meeting to discuss “getting rid of the US dollar in Russian export operations” should be front page news on every mainstream news website in the United States. That is how big this is. But instead, we have heard nothing from the big mainstream news networks about this so far. Instead, we have only heard about this from Russian news sources such as the Voice of Russia…
Russian press reports that the country’s Ministry of Finance is ready to greenlight a plan to radically increase the role of the Russian ruble in export operations while reducing the share of dollar-denominated transactions. Governmental sources believe that the Russian banking sector is “ready to handle the increased number of ruble-denominated transactions”.
According to the Prime news agency, on April 24th the government organized a special meeting dedicated to finding a solution for getting rid of the US dollar in Russian export operations. Top level experts from the energy sector, banks and governmental agencies were summoned and a number of measures were proposed as a response for American sanctions against Russia.
The “de-dollarization meeting” was chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov, proving that Moscow is very serious in its intention to stop using the dollar.
So will Russia go through with this?
After all, this wouldn’t just be a slap in the face. This would essentially be like slamming an economic fist into our nose.
You see, Russia is not just a small player when it comes to trading oil and natural gas. The truth is that Russia is the largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of oil in the world.
If Russia starts asking for payment in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, that will essentially end the monopoly of the petrodollar.
In order to do this, Russia will need trading partners willing to go along. In the article quoted above, the Voice of Russia listed Iran and China as two nations that would potentially be willing to make the switch…
Of course, the success of Moscow’s campaign to switch its trading to rubles or other regional currencies will depend on the willingness of its trading partners to get rid of the dollar. Sources cited by Politonline.ru mentioned two countries who would be willing to support Russia: Iran and China. Given that Vladimir Putin will visit Beijing on May 20, it can be speculated that the gas and oil contracts that are going to be signed between Russia and China will be denominated in rubles and yuan, not dollars.
And the reality of the matter is that China has seemed ready to move away from the U.S. dollar for quite some time. In a previous article, I included a quote from a French news source that discussed how China’s official news agency has even called for a “new international reserve currency… to replace the dominant US dollar”…
For decades the US has benefited to the tune of trillions of dollars-worth of free credit from the greenback’s role as the default global reserve unit.
But as the global economy trembled before the prospect of a US default last month, only averted when Washington reached a deal to raise its debt ceiling, China’s official Xinhua news agency called for a “de-Americanised” world.
It also urged the creation of a “new international reserve currency… to replace the dominant US dollar”.
For much more on what China is thinking, please see my previous article entitled “9 Signs That China Is Making A Move Against The U.S. Dollar“.
So why is the petrodollar so important?
Well, it creates a tremendous amount of demand for the U.S. dollar all over the globe. Since everyone has needed it to trade with one another, that has created an endless global appetite for the currency. That has kept the value of the dollar artificially high, and it has enabled us to import trillions of dollars of super cheap products from other countries. If other nations stopped using the dollar to trade with one another, the value of the dollar would plummet dramatically and we would have to pay much, much more for the trinkets that we buy at the dollar store and Wal-Mart.
In addition, since the U.S. dollar is essentially the de facto global currency, this has also increased demand for our debt. Major exporting nations such as China and Saudi Arabia end up with giant piles of our dollars. Instead of just letting them sit there and do nothing, those nations often reinvest their dollars into securities that can rapidly be changed back into dollars if needed. One of the most popular ways to do this has been to invest those dollars in U.S. Treasuries. This has driven down interest rates on U.S. debt over the years and has enabled the U.S. government to borrow trillions upon trillions of dollars for next to nothing.
But if the rest of the world starts moving away from the U.S. dollar, all of this could change.
In order for our current standard of living to continue, it is absolutely imperative that everyone else around the globe continues to use our currency.
So if Russia really does pull the trigger on a “de-dollarization” strategy, that would be huge – especially if the rest of the planet started following their lead.
The U.S. economy is already teetering on the brink of another major downturn, and there are a whole host of indications that big trouble is on the horizon. For much more on this, please see the article that I posted on Monday entitled “If Economic Cycle Theorists Are Correct, 2015 To 2020 Will Be Pure Hell For The United States“.
Just about the last thing that we need right now is for our petrodollar monopoly to be threatened.
It would be nice if things would calm down in Ukraine and the relationship between the United States and Russia could go back to normal.
Sadly, that does not appear likely any time soon.
In fact, the Ukrainian government has already admitted that “we are essentially at war“, and on Tuesday six Ukrainian soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in a convoy attack in eastern Ukraine.
The regions in eastern Ukraine that have just declared independence have given the government in Kiev until Wednesday to pull their forces out of eastern Ukraine or else face war.
If a full blown civil war does erupt in Ukraine, it is going to take this crisis to a completely new level.
Unfortunately, most Americans are incredibly apathetic at this point and know very little about what is going on.
But in the end, this could have dramatic implications for all of us.
Source
        
Posted: 14 May 2014 06:29 AM PDT
Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
Ukraine has accused Russia of stealing energy resources in Crimea and threatened to take Russia to court over its recent gas price increases.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that the Ukrainian government would take Russia to court unless it agreed to a gas supply contract based on market prices.
He also said that Ukraine would sue Russian energy giant Gazprom if they did not come to an agreement on gas prices by May 28.
“If I am not mistaken, they have 20 days left. This is the final call to Russia to sit at the negotiating table and find the solution,” he said.
Yatsenyuk claimed that Russia is using natural gas as a weapon against Ukraine and also that Russia was seizing tens of billions of US dollars worth of Ukraine’s assets and energy resources in Crimea.
A recent report shows that Ukraine’s gas debt to Russia is over $3.5 billion.
Gazprom announced on Tuesday that Ukraine had until June 2 to pay $1.6 billion, which it owes or Moscow would halt supplies.
Ukraine refuses to settle its gas debts, saying that Russia doubled the price following February protests, which resulted in the ouster of Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych.
Russia provides about half of Ukraine’s and 30 percent of Europe’s total gas demand with key pipelines on the Ukrainian territory.
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Posted: 14 May 2014 06:09 AM PDT

Italy is threatening to allow refugees currently residing within its borders to make forays into the rest of the European Union unless the EU increases assistance in managing the influx of migrants arriving via boats from North Africa.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano demanded on Tuesday that the EU step up its efforts.
“The European Union has two options: either it comes to the Mediterranean to put the EU flag on Mare Nostrum or we will let migrants with right of asylum leave for other countries,” Alfano wrote on Twitter.
The demand comes shortly after the Italian Navy was forced to rescue some 200 refugees and retrieve 17 bodies after a boat carrying African migrants sunk off the coast of Libya. The accident happened on Monday, some 100 miles south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Four-hundred people were thought to be trying to attempt the crossing from Libya.
The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom, did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for a statement.
On Monday, the Libyan government also said it was struggling to cope with immigrants attempting to depart the country’s shores for Europe.
“This was the second shipwreck in a week,” Admiral Mario Culcasi, commander of the Mare Nostrum task force set up to deal with the crisis, told Reuters. “They are a symptom perhaps of the difficulties that the smugglers are facing, above all in finding seaworthy boats,” he said.
Libyan Interior Minister Salah Mazek told a news conference last weekend, before the tragedy struck, that: “I’m warning the world and Europe in particular – if they do not assume their responsibilities, Libya could facilitate the transit of this flood of immigrants towards Europe.”
More than 4,000 migrants concealed in smugglers boats made it to Italy’s shores in the past week alone. At least 34,800 people have made the crossing already this year – compared to 43,000 across the whole of 2013.
Hundreds have died in overcrowded, rickety, and unstable boats while attempting the crossing. UN refugee agency UNHCR says it is uncertain why there has been a spike in immigrant numbers this year, though some have concluded that it is a result of Egypt becoming less accommodating for Syrian refugees, as well as Morocco becoming an increasingly difficult location from which to travel to Europe.
The situation is likely to deteriorate as weather improves, Chris Lom, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, told Reuters.
The topic of immigration is currently a high priority in the EU, with less than two weeks before European parliamentary elections. The issue affects the southernmost countries far more than the central EU block, and the south has long been demanding extra support to cope with the problem.
A large proportion of the migrants hope to travel on to economically secure countries; Italy’s employment rate remains at a nearly 40-year high.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:47