Roberto Abraham Scaruffi: Just propaganda. Germans are genetically British-US-NATO whores...

Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Just propaganda. Germans are genetically British-US-NATO whores...

The European Union Times


Posted: 14 Jul 2014 09:29 AM PDT

As a never-ending stream of spy scandals put Washington-Berlin relations under unprecedented strain, Germans are increasingly asking themselves whether the country should be blindly following the US.
A recent poll for Der Spiegel showed that up to 57 percent of Germans would like Berlin to conduct policies more independent from the US, and an Op-Ed article by the publication asked more bluntly: “Germany’s Choice: Will It Be America or Russia?”
This question, previously unimaginable for Berlin, show just how deeply the US spy scandals are shattering German politics.
An unceasing row of intelligence scandals, that started over a year ago with revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have revealed that the US has been eavesdropping Germans, Chancellor Angela Merkel included, for years now.
The grandeur of the American eavesdropping effort against NATO allies forced German politicians to give the alliance with Washington a second thought.
The continuation of the spy scandals has put German elite in an “either/or” position, when they should either turn a blind eye on the current state of things and remain American protégé or dash away from American chokehold.
Though US Secretary of State John Kerry has told German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier that Washington and Berlin remain “great friends” despite the new spying scandal that rocked bilateral relations in recent two weeks, Germans themselves feel the friendship went wrong.
Ever since the creation of the post-WWII West Germany in 1949, the country remained in the orbit of American foreign policy, not least because of a large number of American bases deployed in the country. After reunion with the East Germany in 1990, relations did not change a jot over the next two decades.
According to Der Spiegel, Chancellor Angela Merkel would probably like to distance herself from the scandal if Americans stop putting her in awkward situations, such as tapping her phone.
But as German intelligence agency the BND has found out, the Americans never calmed down and continued spying, this time sneaking documents of the investigation of NSA intelligence activities in Germany, Der Spiegel said.
“If it is confirmed that the spying activities against the BND also targeted the work of the NSA investigative committee, it will be an unprecedented assault on the parliament and our democratic institutions,” Der Spiegel cited Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary leader of the SPD.
Last Wednesday Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, indicated that German-American relations had hit a new low, mentioning “profound differences of opinion” between Berlin and Washington. Next day the CIA’s station chief in Germany was asked to leave the country.
The abovementioned Körber Foundation study revealed another interesting fact: approximately equal number of Germans sees their country cooperating the most in the future with either the US or Russia.
For nearly a quarter of a century since the reunion of the country, Germans have actually not questioned which side they are on.
But two things that have been growing on over the last year sort of “awakened” Germans from quiescence.
The first is the NSA spy scandal that emerged in June 2013 and is still unwinding, which opened eyes of ordinary Germans being under constant surveillance from the US intelligence agencies.
The second one is the spreading civil war in Ukraine and economic sanctions against Russia promoted by Washington for alleged “support to Ukrainian separatists.” While for the US any sanctions Moscow would mean little economic losses, for Germany Russia is a major economic partner and cutting ties with Moscow would mean multibillion missed profit, hundreds of thousands of jobless citizens and giant losses for the economy in general.
Der Spiegel, a magazine that is well-informed on domestic policy, said: “Germany can no longer avoid the question of which side it supports.”
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Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:55 AM PDT

New figures show that Australia’s unemployment rate relapsed to a decade-high of six percent in June.
Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday showed a 0.1-percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate in June, matching the highest since July 2003.
This is while economists had expected the jobless rate to stay at the revised rate of 5.9 percent in May, up from 5.8 percent where it had been for several months.
The newly-released figures also showed that Australian employers were shedding full-time jobs over the past month as more people looked for work. According to the figures, the number of full-time jobs fell by 3,800 in June while part-time employment rose by 19,700.
Meanwhile, the ABS indicated that the total number of the people employed in June rose by 15,900 compared with an expected 12,000 rise.
Economists, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Treasury had warned that the unemployment rate would rise in 2014 as Australia exits an unprecedented boom in the country’s huge mining sector.
To encourage growth in other economic sectors across the country, the RBA has kept interest rates on hold at a record low of 2.5 percent since August last year.
“There is a bit of pessimism around the Aussie story in part because growth has slowed down a bit,” said former RBA economist Paul Bloxham. He added that the rebalancing from mining growth to growth in the non-mining sectors “has not been a perfectly smooth transition.”
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Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:48 AM PDT

Obama has become an expert in creating humanitarian disasters. He has already had this experience in Syria and Ukraine, and now it is time for the State of Texas. The U.S. president, bypassing the Congress, amnestied ten million illegal immigrants, which contributed to the uncontrolled growth of the flow of migrants and sharply aggravated the situation in southern states. For this act, Obama may face impeachment.
The scandal broke out on Tuesday. Texas Governor Rick Perry dared not to meet the president, who came to Texas for an official visit. “I appreciate the offer to greet you at Austin-Bergstrom Airport, but a quick handshake on the tarmac will not allow for a thoughtful discussion regarding the humanitarian and national security crises enveloping the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas,” Mr. Perry wrote to Obama earlier this week.
The governor expressed his concerns about the growing number of abandoned children, with whom one has to do something – to teach, to heal, to accommodate them. Two years ago, there were 2,500 homeless children reported, but this year the number is 52,000. Perry asked the president to strengthen border patrols, and have Predator drones and National Guard troops involved to monitor the border. In addition, the governor would like to see changes to the federal law that would allow quicker deportation of minors.
The problem is very serious, Alexander Petrov, a historian, Americanist, leading researcher at the Institute of World History believes. Together with immigrants, there is an illegal flow of drugs, weapons and prohibited stimulant drugs in the United States. Child immigration is a complex of problems associated with prostitution and child labor.
“Children’s rights are violated, children live in appalling conditions. This is an additional hotbed of crime,” said the expert. According to Alexander Petrov, the situation worsened due to the deteriorating economic performance in Mexico and other Central American countries. “We can now see quite a serious influx of immigration in states such as Florida, California, Texas, New Mexico. Texas is a donor state. It is no coincidence that many Texas residents voted for the Republican Party, and some of them even filed a petition for separation Texas from the federation.”
Let’s go back to Obama. In response to Perry’s rant, Obama said on Wednesday said he would not go to the problematic territories to “see the humanitarian crisis,” as does not think there is any. Such a trip would turn in a photo session, in which Obama is not interested. Instead, the president preferred to have a beer and play pool, the local press wrote. “This is not theater,” he said, adding, “I’m interested in solving the problem.”
Obama believes that the election race has started, as he called the Republican Congress to quickly approve the allocation of $3.7 billion for the additional funding of the State of Texas.
The scandal in Texas continued. Republican Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and candidate for Vice President of the United States in 2008, stated that it was time to impeach Obama. “It’s time to impeach, and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment,” she wrote on Breitbart.Com. The crisis at the border is the last straw, she added. According to Palin, without borders there is no nation, and Obama knows it. “Opening borders to illegal immigrants was intentional. This is fundamental transformation America,” she wrote.
Noteworthy, Palin is not the only one, who wants the impeachment of Obama. Many senators and members of the House of Representatives have expressed such an idea before too.
Many Americans also support the idea of ​​impeachment. According to surveys, about 60 percent of the population believe that the country is going in the wrong direction, and the U.S. political elite remains almost indifferent to their opinion. What are real chances for Obama’s impeachment? Two-thirds of the U.S. Senate will have to vote for the removal of the President from office. There are very little chances that this will happen, Aaron Blake wrote for The Washington Post. If impeachment becomes a normal way of expressing dissatisfaction with the president, then every American president risks falling under the procedure. If this becomes a norm in Washington, the U.S. government will be even more inefficient than it is now, the journalist wrote.
Will the border be closed? “Closing the border is currently impossible, as it will come into conflict with the policy of imperial messianism, which the United States pursues in the world,” Alexander Petrov told Pravda. Ru. “There will be additional leverage involved in terms of bureaucracy. There will be difficulties created in obtaining visas. It stipulates serious intellectual training to screen out the people who either don’t speak English or don’t represent the value associated with immigration,” said the expert.
The conclusion is the following: the leader of the United States is preoccupied with totally unnecessary questions of foreign policy, fueling wars away from the United States, and he does not follow the situation inside his country. Moreover, he does not even try to pretend that he is interested in it. In March, Texas announced an intention to secede from the United States, gaining supporters in the face of 29 states. In Texas, there is a belief that the territory of the republic was illegally annexed by Washington in 1845 and currently remains occupied. The movement of the Republic of Texas formed their own government, the judiciary system and law enforcement agencies. In addition, they periodically file large lawsuits against the U.S. government for “undermining the welfare of Texas.”
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Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:40 AM PDT
A wooden house collapses due to strong winds caused by Typhoon Neoguri in Naha on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa.
A powerful typhoon has stuck Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu after battering the Okinawa island chain, where it left three people dead.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency said typhoon Neoguri landed near Akune City, on the western coast of Kyushu Island at 7 a.m. local time on Thursday.
Kyushu Island is home to more than 10 million people and lies next to Japan’s biggest island of Honshu, where major cities including Tokyo and Osaka are located.
The Japanese government is set to hold a disaster-management meeting on Thursday to discuss how to best cope with the storm, which is forecast to move further along the Japanese archipelago after passing over Kyushu.
Neoguri crossed the Japanese island of Okinawa, just under 500 kilometers southeast of Kyushu On July 7. Authorities in Okinawa had advised 600,000 of the island’s 1.2 million residents to evacuate their homes amid storm surges and power cuts. According to reports, at least three people were killed and dozens more injured in the typhoon.
Local sources said a mudslide swallowed a house, killing a 12-year-old boy on Wednesday. Japan’s coastguard and local police also said a 62-year-old man was found dead after the typhoon knocked him off his boat in southwestern Kochi Prefecture a day earlier. The Japan’s NHK broadcaster also said an 81-year-old fisherman died in southwestern Kumamoto Prefecture.
Typhoon Neoguri damaged buildings, downed trees and cancelled hundreds of flights with gusts of over 250 kilometers (155 miles) per hour earlier this week. The typhoon’s winds, however, relatively slowed overnight, with the storm packing gusts of up to 90 kilometers an hour as it moved east at 25 kilometers per hour.
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Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:36 AM PDT

An artillery shell from Ukraine has hit a private house in the Rostov region of Russia, killing a citizen and leaving two more injured. The Russian Foreign Ministry promises heavy consequences.
Reportedly up to six mortar shells exploded on Sunday in the small Russian town of Donetsk, which has the same name as the Ukrainian city and is situated right on the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in Russia has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry where he was handed a note of protest in the strongest terms.
President Vladimir Putin voiced extreme concern over Ukraine’s offensive, adding that it is unacceptable for Ukrainian shells to reach Russia’s territory. The president said that such actions should be stopped, according to his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. Putin met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Sunday. The two leaders agreed that the situation in Ukraine is worsening and that it is necessary to resume the work of the international Contact Group on Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has called the shelling “an obviously aggressive act” on Ukraine’s part and warned it could have “irreversible consequences” with Kiev holding full responsibility for the provocation.
Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin promised a “rigorous and concrete answer” to the shelling of Russian territory that resulted in the senseless loss of life.
“We’re currently evaluating the situation, and the facts we’ve learnt risk a dangerous escalation of the tensions on the [Russian-Ukrainian] border, which puts our citizens in high danger,” Karasin told RIA news agency, stressing that harsh reaction would follow only after detailed analysis of the situation.
The National Security Council of Ukraine has already declared that Kiev’s troops involved in the operation in the east of the country have nothing to do with the shelling incident.
“Ukrainian troops are definitely not shelling the territory of the Russian Federation. We did not shoot,” said Andrey Lysenko, official representative of the information center of the NSCU.
The leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) denied allegations of staging a provocation against Russian citizens.
“We’re accustomed to being blamed for all Ukrainian shellings,” DPR’s vice-PM Andrey Purgin told Russian ‘Moscow speaks’ radio station.
Authorities in the Rostov region have confirmed the death of a 46-year-old man and injuries to four civilians, including two elderly women.
The man who died in a shell explosion was a father of four. One of the injured women suffered a shell fragment wound in the leg; another woman, reportedly 80-years-old, was shell-shocked in her house across the street from the explosion site.
Russia’s Donetsk has a population of approximately 49,000 citizens and has the Donetsk-Izvarino border entry point in the city on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
There have been a number of incidents lately involving Ukrainian troops deliberately shelling Russian border posts.
On Saturday a vehicle, carrying a squad of Russian border guards, came under fire from the Ukrainian side at the frontier between Russia and Ukraine.
On June 28, mortar shells from Ukraine hit Russian territory, damaging a building at the Gukovo border checkpoint and creating potholes in the ground in two villages.
The week before, on June 20, the Russian Novoshakhtinsk checkpoint in the Rostov region was shelled by mortars, Russia’s Border Service said.
Until today’s fatality, there had been no casualties, except for one Russian border guard suffering a head wound from a shell fragment.
The Ukrainian army has sometimes shelled border checkpoints, while refugees from Ukraine were trying to get through passport control to find shelter on Russian territory.
The number of incidents involving Ukrainian artillery shelling on Russian territory has increased of late. On July 3, the Novoshakhtinsk border checkpoint was shelled again. The next day, engineers and investigators, who came to disarm unexploded ordnances on the Russian side, came under mortar fire from Ukraine at the Donetsk border checkpoint. On July 5, about ten mortar shells exploded near the same border checkpoint.
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Posted: 13 Jul 2014 02:30 PM PDT

Germany has claimed a fourth World Cup crown in a 1-0 win against Argentina after extra time in the final in Rio de Janeiro. Substitute Mario Goetze was the hero, as he scored the only goal with seven minutes to go.
With that triumph Germany has become the first European nation to win the trophy outside of their home continent, which led to jubilant scenes both on the pitch and back home, with millions of fans celebrating their feat.
However, Joachim Low’s side had to do it the hard way, as they got off to a very slow start. Argentina was by far the better side during the first half, but Gonzalo Higuain and Lionel Messi missed two scoring opportunities. Higuain had also had a goal rightly disallowed for offside. Argentina was left to rue its wastefulness in front of goal as the match wore on and Germany began to dominate.
Neither side was able to score in normal time, which sent the game into 30 minutes of extra time. Argentina had its third excellent opportunity of the night, which fell to Rodrigo Palacio, but the Inter Milan forward failed to convert.
Substitute Mario Goetze, who had not made much of an impact on the tournament, was to be the hero. He received Andre Schurlle’s raking pass with aplomb, before showing excellent close control and firing an instinctive finish past the Argentinian goalkeeper.
Germany managed to withstand some late pressure and held on to claim a fourth World Cup and their first since West Germany and East Germany reunified in 1990.
Germany has gone close to winning the tournament in recent years, having reached the final in 2002, where they were beaten by Brazil, and the semi-finals in 2006 and 2010. Bastian Schweinsteiger, who received a cut below his eye after a challenge from Sergio Aguero failed to hold back the tears, as he embraced head coach, Joachim Low, who has under seen a revolution in German football, when he took over the helm eight years ago.
Captain Phillipp Lahm was left with the honor of hoisting the World Cup, which he wasted very little time in doing, with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel in close attendance.
Germany ended the tournament unbeaten, but will perhaps best be remembered for their 7-1 thrashing of Brazil in the semi-finals, which ended the host nations hopes of claiming a record sixth World Cup crown.
Football fans will now have to wait for another four years before the next edition gets underway, when it will take place in Russia.
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Posted: 13 Jul 2014 02:17 PM PDT

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has called a location service offered by iPhone handsets, a threat to the country’s national security.
The broadcaster attacked the device’s Frequent Locations function for allowing users to be tracked and information about them revealed.
The critical broadcast featured an interview with Ma Ding, director of the Institute for Security of the Internet at People’s Public Security University in Beijing.
If used against a journalist, the academic said, “One can deduce places he visited, the sites where he conducted interviews, and you can even see the topics which he is working on: political and economic.”
Apple, however, said it does not track users’ locations.
It said, “We appreciate CCTV’s effort to help educate customers on a topic we think is very important. We want to make sure all of our customers in China are clear about what we do and we don’t do when it comes to privacy and your personal data.”
Chinese state media have accused the company of providing user data to US intelligence agencies and have called for ‘severe punishment.’
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Posted: 13 Jul 2014 02:04 PM PDT

Israeli ground troops have entered northern Gaza to take out a number of missile launch sites.
After conducting countless sorties and bombing raids aimed at Hamas operatives in Gaza during the fifth day of Operation Protective Edge, but resulting in well over a hundred innocent civilian deaths in the past week, Israel, realizing it is not generating any brownie points with the international “humanitarian” media, finally did what it had threatened to do over the last few days – launch a ground assault.
Moments ago, the Israel military reported that Israeli ground troops had entered northern Gaza to take out a number of missile launch sites.
According to ABC, the move comes after weeks of growing tensions and nearly a week of escalating missile strikes from both sides.
The mission was launched early Sunday local time comes after the UN Security Council urged the two sides to reach a cease fire, and the Israeli government said it hit northern Gaza “with great force” to prevent more Hamas rocket attacks.
During the incursion there was an exchange of fire with militants that left four Israeli soldiers lightly wounded, according to the IDF.
The IDF troops returned to Israel after the mission, and no soldiers were left in Gaza, the Israeli military said.
Of course, this is merely the first incursion into Gaza with many more to follow, in what appears is catalyst to escalate the conflict further, with the only question being just how will either side as demanded by the UN de-escalate, and more importantly, if the US will finally step in or whether it will continue to demonstrate the kind of peculiar aloofness that has allowed everyone from China to Russia to France and now, to Germany, to indicate that the former hegemon is increasingly living in a multipolar world, in which the US is taken far less seriously. If and when said attitude results in an adverse dollar impact, that will be the time for the residents at the Marriner Eccles building to quietly depart the US for non-extradition countries.
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Posted: 13 Jul 2014 01:46 PM PDT

Canada’s unemployment rate has edged up to 7.1 percent as government data showed the economy unexpectedly shed thousands of jobs in June.
Canada’s jobless rate increased to 7.1 percent from 7.0 percent in May, marking the highest record in six months, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.
Economic growth also fell below expectations as the country shed some 9,400 jobs in June.
The total number of unemployed in the country now stands at roughly 1.3 million people.
The figures markedly highlight a stall in employment growth.
Experts say the report may also force Bank of Canada to trim its growth expectations for the economy in the next week’s monetary policy report.
Meanwhile, some believe the Canadian government is taking the wrong approach to fix the economy.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) last year urged Canada to take action on the country’s long-term unemployed as about 174,000 people have been without work for more than one year.
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Posted: 13 Jul 2014 01:38 PM PDT


Thousands have fled northern Gaza after Israel warned residents to leave the area to avoid airstrikes. At least 167 people, mostly civilians, have already died as a result of Operation Protective Edge, which entered its sixth day on Sunday.
Israel dropped leaflets in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, located near the border with Israel, urging residents to leave the region by midday Sunday and warning of airstrikes on Hamas sites.
Residents of the town, which has a population of 70,000, were told via the leaflets and telephone calls that “those who fail to comply with the instructions to leave immediately will endanger their lives and the lives of their families.”
At least 167 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including about 30 children have died as a result of airstrikes since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge began on Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported. More than 1,100 others have been injured.
Israel will “strike with might” in the Beit Lahiya area late on Sunday, a senior Israeli military officer told reporters earlier on Sunday, Reuters reported. The officer did not specify whether the offensive will expand from airstrikes to the ground.
“The enemy [Hamas] has built rocket infrastructure in-between the houses [in Beit Lahiya],” the Israeli officer said. “[Hamas] wants to trap me into an attack and into hurting civilians.”
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) issued an emergency warning in all five areas of the Gaza Strip on Sunday due to the “dramatic escalation in violence over the past few days and the massive assault on Gaza.”
Over the past 24 hours, UNRWA has opened a number of its schools as emergency shelters for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the organization said on its website. Five shelters have been open in Gaza since 8 a.m. local time, and 2,000 people have already sought refuge.
According to the organization, 45 Palestinians have been killed and 131 others injured over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Interior Ministry dismissed Israel’s warnings on Hamas radio, calling them “psychological warfare” and urging people to stay in their homes. This is the first time that Israel has dropped leaflets warming residents of upcoming airstrikes. Previously, the IDF used a “knock on the roof” technique – a warning shot fired at a house so that occupants could leave the premises before the building was destroyed.
According to Israel, more than 800 rockets have been fired by Hamas since the offensive began on Tuesday. Most of them have been intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system. No Israeli deaths have been reported.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed international calls for a ceasefire while defending his country’s offensive in Gaza during appearances on US television.
He urged Americans to imagine that their cities from the East Coast to Colorado were under the threat of rocket attack, with only 60 to 90 seconds to reach a bomb shelter. “That’s what we’re experiencing right now, as we speak,” he told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ program.
Netanyahu refused to discuss a ceasefire or give a timeline for Israel’s operation in Gaza. When asked if a ground invasion was imminent, he said his country would use any means necessary to accomplish its goal of degrading Hamas’ rocket-launching capability in order to restore security for Israeli civilians.
“Whether we’re at the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning I’m not going to tell you that right now – because we face a very, very brutal terrorist enemy,” he said on ‘Fox News Sunday.’
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Posted: 12 Jul 2014 03:49 PM PDT

Prototypes of the US Navy’s much vaunted electromagnetic railguns were unveiled this week. The new technology, capable of firing projectiles at up to 5,600 miles per hour, is set to revolutionize naval warfare.
The Navy demonstrated two working railgun prototypes aboard the USS Millinocket in San Diego, developed by the Office of Naval Research. The high-tech weapons function by using an electrical pulse which creates an electromagnetic force to propel a projectile.
In addition to supplementing or replacing traditional artillery aboard Navy vessels, railguns also offer a large price advantage over conventional missiles. Railgun projectiles are believed to cost about $25,000 per unit, 100 times less than traditional missiles, according to Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, Chief of Naval Research.
“We only have so many [missiles] on our ships. I can put hundreds and hundreds of these projectiles on our naval vessels with that gun system,” he said.
The downside to current railtech technology is a shorter projectile range, some 110 miles, as conventional missiles can still travel about twice as far, said Klunder.
“We think that it is part of our future,” he said. “And we think that it truly is going to make our adversaries very, very nervous in the future.”
One additional advantage of railguns is the absence of potentially dangerous propellants. According to John Perry of BAE Systems, which was awarded the prototype contract chosen by the US Navy, that could make future warships safer for the men and women serving aboard them.
“That means sailors no longer have to handle propelling charges and the safety and liability issues related to that,” said Perry.
The new railguns fit into the Navy’s current three-pronged plan to boost its firepower, which includes reviving its long-range missile capability lost after the retirement of the 600-mile-range Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile system. Defensive missiles would likely be replaced or enhanced by ship-based lasers, while railguns would complement (but not replace) offensive long-range missiles.
Despite any shortcomings, the main advantage of the railgun will be the unprecedented kinetic projectile speed, which is some six times faster than a bullet fired from a standard handgun and delivers 32 megajoules of energy.
“Literally it is like taking a huge freight train and going through the wall that’s a few feet to my left at over 100 miles an hour. Right through that wall,” said Klunder.
In anticipation of railgun deployments, the Navy is already building vessels capable of producing the energy needed for operating them – that being America’s newest and largest destroyer class, the Zumwalt. Three DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class vessels will be launched in the coming years.
The Navy predicts that railguns could be rolled out as soon as 2017, and plans to mount a prototype aboard a Joint High Speed Vessel the year prior for further testing.
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Posted: 12 Jul 2014 03:37 PM PDT

British people are pessimistic about Prime Minister David Cameron’s ability to achieve reforms to the European Union that he promised earlier, a new poll shows.
The newly-released results of a YouGov poll, conducted on June 26, showed that 42 percent of Britons do not believe the EU will be prepared to hand back any powers to member states, while another 29 percent think any concessions won by Britain will only be minor.
Cameron has pledged to renegotiate Britain’s terms of membership with the European Union, saying that the reforms are crucial to persuading Britain to stay in the bloc. He also threatened earlier in June that the UK would exit the EU if Luxembourg’s former premier Jean-Claude Juncker became the new president of the European Commission.
The 28-nation bloc voted 26 to 2 on Friday, electing Juncker to replace Jose Manuel Barroso.
The YouGov poll, which was conducted before Friday’s vote, showed that some 36 percent of respondents believed the prime minister’s opposition to Juncker would damage Britain’s ability to negotiate in Europe, while 33 percent said it would make no difference. Seven percent also said his stance would help.
The poll also found that if there was a referendum tomorrow, 39 percent would vote to stay in the bloc while 37 percent would vote to leave.
London-based think tank Open Europe on Saturday described Cameron’s handling of the battle against Juncker as a substantial defeat for the British prime minister, saying that it increases the risk of Britain’s exit from the EU.
Britain and Hungary were the only countries opposing the nomination of Junker as the EU commission’s new head.
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Posted: 12 Jul 2014 03:33 PM PDT

Temperature was 11.9F degrees lower than normal.
Antarctica continues to defy the global warming script, with a report from Meteo France, that June this year was the coldest Antarctic June ever recorded, at the French Antarctic Dumont d’Urville Station.
According to the press release, during June this year, the average temperature was -22.4c (-8.3F), 6.6c (11.9F) lower than normal. This is the coldest June ever recorded at the station, and almost the coldest monthly average ever – only September 1953 was colder, with a recorded average temperature of -23.5c (-10.3F).
June this year also broke the June daily minimum temperature record, with a new record low of -34.9c (-30.8F).
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 15:56