Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday, 1 June 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 31 May 2014 03:20 PM PDT

China is calling on banks to stop using IBM servers and replace them with local-made machines amid fears that the nation’s financial security might be compromised via the US-based company’s servers, a Bloomberg report has revealed.
The new request comes amid an intensified spy scandal between China and the US.
The People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance have been asking banks to suspend operation of the International Business Machines (IBM) servers as part of a trial program, while the Chinese government analyzes security risks concerning the use of the servers. Bloomberg cited four sources familiar with the matter.
The complete analysis is to be transferred to a working group on internet security headed by President Xi Jinping.
IBM responded that it is not aware of such a policy. “IBM is not aware of any Chinese government policy recommending against the use of IBM servers within the country’s banking industry,” Bloomberg quoted IBM spokesman Jeff Cross as saying. “In fact, news reports now state that China’s National Development and Reform Commission has not heard of any alleged directive to that effect. IBM is a trusted partner in China and has been for more than 30 years.”
The news follows an announcement that state-owned Chinese companies will cease to work with US consulting companies like McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group over fears they are spying on behalf of the US government.
Spy allegations between the US and China escalated after a grand jury in the US indicted five members of the Chinese military with hacking into American computer networks and engaging in cyber espionage on behalf of a foreign government.
The individuals, all allegedly officers of an elite cyber squad within the People’s Liberation Army, US federal prosecutors said on Monday — are accused of hacking six American entities and stealing valuable trade secrets and other sensitive business information on behalf of China.
China has labeled Washington’s take on cyber-spying as a “complete disregard for moral integrity” and has accused the country of taking advantage of its geopolitical hegemony to spy on others, according to a Chinese report by an internet information body published this week.
Beijing has said Washington’s methods involve broad-scale attacks against the Chinese government. It also accused the US of being a “robber playing cop,” and more recently said the US is a “mincing rascal” involved in “high-level hooliganism.”
China announced last week that it would be investigating providers of important IT products and services following the row.
The country’s foreign ministry announced that it is suspending activities of the Sino-US internet working group. Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system was banned from government computers last week.
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Posted: 31 May 2014 03:01 PM PDT

Flights across Australia have been affected by a vast ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in neighboring Indonesia.
According to reports, the majority of flights in and out of the city of Darwin in northern Australia were cancelled on Saturday due to the volcanic eruption.
Hundreds of passengers have been stranded at Darwin International Airport and it is not clear when the flights will resume.
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss has warned that more flights across the country might be grounded because of the volcanic ash plumes.
“Depending on wind and other weather conditions, the ash has the potential to affect flights to and from other airports, including Brisbane, during coming days,” he said.
The active volcano located on the Sangeang Island, south of Indonesia archipelago, began spreading ash and fumes as high as 20 kilometers on Friday.
Indonesia’s Volcanology and Geological Center has asked local people to stay away from the region.
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Posted: 31 May 2014 02:57 PM PDT

Movement leveraged by establishment, along with push to legalize illegal immigration, will be a tool of political domination.
Time, the weekly news magazine founded by CIA operative Henry Luce, is pushing the transgender agenda as the next civil rights movement.
A photo of Laverne Cox, the star of Orange Is the New Black, a comedy-drama television show produced by Netflix, is featured on the cover of the June 9 edition of the magazine.
Evan McMurry, writing for Time’s website, says Cox talked with the magazine “about the movement’s growing ownership of its narrative, what the world still needs to learn about trans people, and the role of the internet and social media in easing the isolation of transgender teens.”
Cox says America is now “in a place now where more and more trans people want to come forward and say ‘This is who I am.’”
“If someone needs to express their gender in a way that is different, that is okay, and they should not be denied healthcare,” Cox said. “They should not be bullied. They don’t deserve to be victims of violence.”
Healthcare, bullying and violence are hot button social issues routinely exploited by Democrats as they build their political base for the next election cycle.
Liberals and progressives are working to turn homosexual and so-called transgender issues into the next civil rights movement. This movement will be leveraged by the establishment, along with the push to legalize illegal immigration, as a tool devised to dominate and control the political life of America.
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Posted: 31 May 2014 02:39 PM PDT
British Prime Minister David Cameron
Te British prime minister has threatened that his country will exit the European Union if former Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker becomes the president of the European Commission.
According to German news magazine, Der Spiegel, David Cameron made the comments on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday.
He reportedly told German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who supports Juncker for the post, that the appointment would “destabilize his government to such a point that it would bring forward a referendum on whether to exit the EU.”
Political analysts say a referendum on EU membership in the UK, which is slated to be held in 2017, will probably lead to a no-vote.
Cameron, who believes that a reformer must take the EU’s top post, reportedly said, “A figure from the 80s cannot resolve the problems of the next five years.”
Some other EU leaders, including Swedish Premier Fredrik Reinfeldt and Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban, have also voiced their opposition to Juncker.
Merkel, however, threw her weight behind Juncker on Friday.
The EPP “with its top candidate Jean-Claude Juncker has become the strongest political power which is why I am now conducting all talks exactly in this spirit, that Jean-Claude Juncker should become president of the European Commission,” Merkel said.
The European People’s Party (EPP), to which both Juncker’s and Merkel’s parties belong, won 213 out of 751 seats in the European Parliament elections last week.
The group chose Juncker as its candidate for the presidency succeeding Jose Manuel Barroso.
EU leaders traditionally choose the commission’s head on their own, but under current rules, they have to take into account the results of the European Parliament elections.
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Posted: 31 May 2014 02:27 PM PDT

The California Senate killed a bill that would enact a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state. The ban’s proponents blame lobbying by the oil industry, which spent nearly $1.5 million in three months fighting the bill.
The proposed legislation, introduced by Democratic state Sens. Holly J. Mitchell and Mark Leno, would have prohibited all well stimulation treatments (which includes fracking) until a scientific study evaluated all health and environmental effects for both onshore and offshore drilling. It would have also forced the state’s Natural Resources Agency to create fracking regulations.
The bill was defeated when four of 24 Democrats joined all 12 Republicans senators in voting “nay,” while three other Democrats abstained, preventing the moratorium from gaining a majority. The loss comes even though two-thirds of voters in the Golden State said they supported the ban, and a majority of voters said they would be “more likely” to vote for a legislator who supported it as well, a recent survey on the issue by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates found.
“This is the second time a house of the California state legislature has soundly rejected a moratorium on a routine practice that’s been deemed safe repeatedly,” Dave Quast, California director of Energy in Depth, an oil industry-backed group, told Reuters.
He said fracking in California creates jobs, increases state revenue and lessens the state’s dependence on oil imports.
The oil lobby, led by the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), spent nearly $1.5 million in California during the first three months of 2014 alone, Truth Out reported. Altogether the industry spent more than $56 million on lobbying the California Legislature from 2009 through 2013. Californians Against Fracking estimated that oil lobbyists spent $15 million solely on defeating the bill.
“The overwhelming majority of Californians who support a moratorium on fracking will not stop fighting fracking and the public health risks, earthquakes, and climate change linked to this toxic extraction process,” Zack Malitz of California-based progressive group Credo told Reuters.
Fracking opponents called the four Democrats who voted to block the ban “shamelessly unprincipled,” according to Reuters. The Sacramento Bee noted that the four are known to be “business-friendly.”
Republican lawmakers, who voted unanimously against the moratorium, said the state approved a fracking study last year with the understanding that the oil industry’s activity would be closely monitored until the study is complete, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“In Kern County, we have been safely fracking for decades,” GOP Sen. Andy Vidak told the Times. “[The moratorium] would lead to a heavy reduction of jobs.”
Jobs may not have been the only economic loss the state would have faced with a ban. According to a state Senate Appropriations fiscal summary of the bill, a fracking moratorium would cost California “at least in the mid-tens of millions” of dollars in lost revenue. However, the state will already be missing out on projected fracking revenue because of downgraded estimates of the Monterey Shale’s productivity.
Last Thursday, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) cut the Monterey Shale oil formation estimate by 96 percent to just 600 million barrels from 13.7 billion, due to a lack of extraction technology. That amount of oil is only enough to meet U.S. oil consumption for 32 days, Think Progress reported. Supporters argued that the new estimates were precisely why bill needed to pass.
“There’s not going to be a giant oil boom in California’s near future, and the state, as a result, is not going to add 2.8 million new industry jobs or see its tax revenue increase by $24.6 billion annually, as oil and gas interests had claimed,” Robert Gammon wrote in an East Bay Express op-ed. “In fact, there’s likely not going to be a boom at all. And so, if the state were to enact a ban on fracking now, it probably would have little to no impact on California’s economy.”
“As such, there’s no reason for the governor and lawmakers to continue to back a controversial practice that involves shooting massive amounts of water and toxic chemicals deep into the earth and has been linked to groundwater and air pollution and to earthquakes,” the Express editor argued. “In short, it’s long past time for state lawmakers and the governor to catch up to the general public. California doesn’t need to be fracked.”
Gov. Jerry Brown (D-Calif.) could halt fracking via executive order, but Reuters notes, “The odds of that happening are slim.” Brown has said multiple times, including earlier in May, that fracking is good for the state. In the meantime, localities, including the city of Beverly Hills and Santa Cruz County, have enacted bans. Other areas of the state are mulling regional bans as well.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 20:21