Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday, 29 July 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 26 Jul 2014 12:47 PM PDT

Ukrainian troops have on many occasions used incendiary weapons and cluster bombs against militia-held cities, acts that are banned under the international law regulating warfare, the Russian military said.
The accusation was voiced on Friday by Major General Viktor Poznikhir, the deputy commander of the chief operations branch of the Russian General Staff. Earlier some media reports claimed that munitions, which are not allowed to be used against civilian targets, were used in eastern Ukraine by the Kiev troops in their assault on armed militias.
According to the general, the Russian military are certain of a number of such attacks by Ukrainian troops. Those include artillery shelling with incendiary shells on June 12 in Slavyansk, on June 24 and June 29 in Semyonovka and on July 7 in Lisichansk. There were also air strikes with incendiary bombs on June 21 in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk and on July 23 in Donetsk and shelling with cluster shells on June 24 in Semyonovka.
“We have sufficient proof that in the cities and villages of Ukraine I mentioned, ammunition based on phosphorus was used,” Poznikhir said. In all those instances characteristic fast-falling clusters of sparks were spotted in the air and massive fires on the ground were reported, proving that those were not illumination flares.
The evidence behind the ministry’s assessment includes eyewitness accounts, injuries sustained by the victims of the attacks and media reports from Ukraine, the Russian general said.
“The incendiaries were used against residential areas where only civilians were present at the time,” Poznikhir stressed. “We believe the Ukrainian side wanted to produce a demoralizing effect on the people and inflict serious damage to communal infrastructure, which would create the conditions for a humanitarian disaster.”
Most of the incidents mentioned by the general happened in or near Slavyansk, once the most defended strongholds of the Ukrainian militia, which for two months held out against the siege by Ukrainian troops. The city was eventually abandoned by militia forces, which regrouped and fortified other Ukrainian cities. Those are currently under Ukrainian attack.
The use of incendiary weapons against civilians or military objects located in civilian areas is forbidden by Protocol III of the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons. Ukraine is a signatory to the protocol. Cluster munitions are prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but Ukraine did not ratify that agreement.
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Posted: 26 Jul 2014 11:38 AM PDT

Scientists have begun installing mapping instruments on Mount St. Helens as means of mapping the volcano’s interior.
The project, called Imaging Magma Under St. Helens, or iMUSH, would further acquaint scientists to the volcano’s internal workings.
It intends to help improve warning systems prior to eruption.
The mapping devices, which would scan the volcano’s interior upon installation, are put inside 24-meter-deep boreholes.
Creation of each borehole requires a “shot,” firing each of which resembles taking place of a temblor roughly measuring two on the Richter scale.
Researcher Steve Malone said, “These shots are done at night to give the best chance of recording good signals without other vibrations being present such as from wind or vehicle traffic.”
The volcano’s eruption in May 1980 killed 57 people and caused more than USD one billion in damage.
“Mount St. Helens and other volcanoes in the Cascade Range threaten urban centers from Vancouver to Portland,” lead scientist Alan Levander of Rice University in Houston said in a statement.
“We’d like to better understand their inner workings in order to better predict when they may erupt and how severe those eruptions are likely to be,” he said.
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Posted: 26 Jul 2014 11:12 AM PDT

Buk missile system confused Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 with Ukrainian fighter jets.
A source within the Ukrainian defense department claims that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was accidentally shot down by Ukrainian troops during a military exercise in near Donetsk which took place on July 17.
“On July 17 the commanding officer of 156th Anti-Aircraft Regiment was instructed to conduct a training exercise of ground troops stationed near Donetsk, which involved deploying the troops, and carrying out a routine tracking and destroying of targets with the Buk-M1 missile,” the source told RIA Novosti.
Although actual use of the rockets was not intended, they were accidentally fired off when two Sukhoi Su-25 combat aircraft flew parallel with but at a different altitude than the Boeing 777, claims the source. When the three aircraft merged and became a single dot on the missile ‘s radar system, the Buk-M1 automatically chose the larger target, leading to the demise of MH17.
It is worth noting that RIA Novosti is Russian state media, although the veracity of the story is no less credible than YouTube videos uploaded by the Ukrainian government, which have been relied upon by both Kiev and Washington as the main source of evidence for the contention that separatist rebels were responsible for downing the airliner.
In addition, the information correlates with what former AP and Newsweek investigative journalist Robert Parry was told by his intelligence source, which was that the U.S. is in possession of satellite imagery which shows men wearing Ukrainian army uniforms firing the missile system that brought down MH17.
Given that Parry won awards for his work exposing the Iran Contra scandal, one would imagine that he has built up some credible and influential sources over the past few decades.
Kiev has failed to release transcripts from air traffic control communications which were seized by Ukrainian security services immediately after the incident, although pilots on board an Air India Dreamliner which was flying just 90 seconds behind Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 say they heard Ukrainian air traffic control give the order for the doomed plane to change route minutes before MH17 was shot down by a missile.
Russia has presented radar evidence which it claims shows Ukrainian fighter jets in the vicinity of MH17 shortly before it was shot down.
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Posted: 26 Jul 2014 11:02 AM PDT

A Russian security official says up to 40 shells fired by Ukrainian forces have fallen on Russia’s Rostov Province near the border with eastern Ukraine.
Vasily Malayev, a regional representative of Russia’s Federal Security Service branch devoted to border security, said Friday that some 30 shells had landed in a village in the Rostov region.
Malayev added that the shelling did not result in any immediate casualties.
Russia’s Investigative Committee commented on the shelling saying, Ukraine had targeted Russian authorities.
“Those who shot from Ukraine carried out the shootings purposefully with an intent to kill Russian law enforcement officials,” said the Committee.
The Russian Rostov region has recently seen numerous shells hitting the area, which borders Ukraine’s eastern Lugansk region, where Ukrainian troops are fighting pro-Russia forces.
On July 13, artillery shells from Ukraine hit the area, killing a 46-year-old man and seriously injuring two others. The fatal incident prompted Moscow to warn Kiev of “irreversible consequences, for which Ukraine will bear responsibility.”
The Kiev government has denied the deadly incident, saying no Ukrainian shells had fallen on Russian territory and has instead blamed it on the pro-Russian forces in the area.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking parts in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since mid-April.
Violence intensified in May after Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk held local referendums, in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the ongoing military campaign in Ukraine, which has also forced tens of thousands to escape to Russia, with the majority arriving in the Russian Rostov region.
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Posted: 26 Jul 2014 10:39 AM PDT

Britain’s Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has demanded the Foods Standards Agency (FSA) conduct an urgent inquiry into two UK factories’ alleged poor hygiene practices.
The factories are at the heart of a campylobacter scandal that could pose a serious risk to public health.
A body of contentious evidence amassed by Guardian journalists over a five month period has prompted Hunt to request comprehensive audits of the chicken processing factories alleged to have engaged in malpractice.
The evidence – covert footage, photographs, and the testimonies of whistleblowers revealed an array of unhygienic practices that create a fertile breeding ground for a dangerous and potentially lethal bacteria known as campylobacter.
Allegations specifically concerned 2 Sisters Food Group and Faccenda. 2 Sisters Food Group, which is owned by a pair of sisters, produces both fresh poultry and chicken for a selection of ready meals for supermarkets Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, M&S, and fast food chain KFC. Faccenda owns several farms and an abattoir that supplies chicken to Nando’s restaurants and Asda.
On Thursday, the FSA initially vowed to investigate the evidence against the factories, but subsequently reneged on that promise claiming it was satisfied that alleged hygiene breaches had been dealt with.
Within a matter of hours, however, Jeremy Hunt demanded the FSA investigate the matter thoroughly. The FSA followed with a confirmation it would have officials complete audits on the factories promptly; reviewing CCTV footage of activities within the firms, along with practices and procedures the staff employ.
The FSA claims it doesn’t believe the evidence the Guardian uncovered is indicative of a serious risk to public health. But it has resolved to carry out a “full safety audit” into the factories at the center of malpractice allegations nevertheless.
As a means of effectively combating health risks posed by campylobacter contamination, experts propose spraying poultry carcasses with acid after processing, or alternatively flash freezing the produce.
Chris Elliott, Professor of Food Safety at Queens University Belfast, argues rapid chilling of produce is an ideal means of tackling campylobacter.
“I’m very much in favour of the use of rapid chilling methods to reduce the spread of the disease. I see this as not impacting on the quality of the meat but significantly improving its safety”, he said on Friday.
Elliott argues the bacteria is an incredibly difficult organism to control.
“The bacteria has proven extremely difficult to control worldwide. Efforts in the UK and elsewhere to improve biosecurity on farms have not proven effective in reducing incidence. Improved processing of food, especially poultry will provide an important means of controlling the disease. However it is important to remember that proper storage of food, proper food preparation and cooking would dramatically reduce the number s of cases each year”, he argues.
Professor Elliott cautions Britain’s high levels of campylobacter in retail chicken must be urgently addressed. A cross-sectoral approach is crucial, he insists.
“It is very important that control of this disease remains as the number one food safety issue for the industry and government and joint efforts to control the disease are vital.”
The opposition Labour party has accused the government of “presiding over another food scandal.”
Huw Irranca-Davies, the Shadow Food and Farming Minister, assured on Thursday, “These are serious accusations of malpractice in the poultry slaughter and processing sector. If it is found that consumers have been put at risk we would expect swift and strong action to be taken to restore public confidence, including action against individuals and companies if appropriate.”
Davies has written to Catherine Brown, chief executive of the FSA, expressing concern that the body’s initial investigation into the scandal lacked depth and scope. Davies has requested the FSA conduct a comprehensive investigation and publish its findings.
The outcome of this “detailed audit” will be publicly announced following its completion, an FSA spokesman told RT on Friday.
Davies also inquired in his letter to the FSA whether the body’s failure to publish a quarterly report in which supermarkets and chicken factories would be named and shamed had been influenced by conversations with Downing Street.
But the FSA claimed on Friday “quarterly results cannot be interpreted in a meaningful way, so breaking results down by retailer and processor at this stage could mislead consumers”.
Nevertheless following Davies’ letter, the FSA confirmed on Friday plans to publish its quarterly results in the next few weeks.
“The FSA is now considering how to revise the survey sampling so that full results can be delivered more quickly. The first quarterly results will be released as planned without company names in the next few weeks”, an FSA spokesperson told RT.
While the body’s reversal of its decision to publish these results is a positive outcome for consumers, the data will be presented in an opaque form. Given no company names will be made public, questions about transparency remain.
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Posted: 25 Jul 2014 02:04 PM PDT

The Ukrainian militia have handed over to Malaysian experts the black boxes from the Malaysian Boeing-777 airliner that crashed in east Ukraine on July 17.
The Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DPR) Prime Minister Aleksandr Boroday handed over the black boxes from the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 early on Tuesday.
“Here they are, the black boxes,” Boroday told reporters. “According to the memorandum the Malaysian side must pass on the boxes to the experts from the ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization].”
Both sides signed a document, finalizing the procedure.
Colonel Mohamed Sakri of Malaysian National Security Council said that the two black boxes were “in good condition.”
Earlier, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak said an agreement had been reached with militiamen at the scene of the crash that the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 black boxes will be handed over to Malaysian authorities in Donetsk at 9pm Ukrainian time.
The bodies of 282 victims are being moved by train before being flown to Amsterdam for repatriation. At least three refrigerated train carriages with bodies of those killed have departed from the town of Torez, near the site of the crash, to the town of Ilovaysk and are on their way to Donetsk.
Malaysian aviation experts arrived in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, to investigate the crash of the MH17 flight. Earlier local militia said they found presumed data recorders at the site and would hand them over to international investigators.
The agreement states that investigators will have uninhibited access to the crash site to begin their investigation.
Prime Minister Najib Razak called for “continued communication in good faith” and hoped that “justice may be done”.
He said: “I wanted to give greater voice to the anger and the greif that I and many felt. But for now we have to work quietly in the service of a greater outcome.”
A truce in the 40 km radius zone around the Malaysian Boeing crash site has been agreed with Donetsk self-defense forces, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said.
While the West accuses self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine of tampering with evidence at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, there is yet to surface any evidence that sheds light on the exact events.
The Boeing 777-200ER, which was on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 298 passengers and crew, was shot down over Ukraine on 17 July. There were no survivors.
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Posted: 25 Jul 2014 12:51 PM PDT
One of the two black boxes recovered from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
The Netherlands government has confirmed that Malaysian officials have handed over the flight MH17 black boxes to Dutch officials.
“The black boxes from flight MH17 have been handed over by Malaysian experts to the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) that is leading the international investigation,” the Dutch Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
According to AFP, the black boxes from the downed Malaysian flight were handed over in Ukraine’s capital Kiev and are to be forwarded to Farnborough in Britain for the data to be downloaded.
“Experts from several countries, including the OVV, will travel with the black boxes to Farnborough to help with the investigation,” the ministry said.
Pro-Russian protesters handed over the black boxes to Malaysian experts on Monday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would do everything possible to pressure pro-Russians in eastern Ukraine to help with the investigation into crash.
The Russian president also warned that Ukraine’s military operations will hamper the work of international observers.
Meanwhile, US intelligence officials said that most likely the plane had been shot down “by mistake” by pro-Russian protesters, who did not realize it was a civilian passenger flight, and that no direct link to Russia had been found.
“Five days into it [following the crash] it does appear to be a mistake,” an official told reporters.
More international investigators have arrived in the country to help determine what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 to crash.
Flight MH17 was reportedly shot down over Ukraine’s volatile Donetsk region on July 17, while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, and all of its 298 passengers and crew on board were killed.
Pro-Russians in eastern Ukraine have accused Kiev of shooting down the plane. Some witnesses say they saw the passenger plane being attacked by a Ukrainian army plane.
The bodies of the victims will be transferred to the Netherlands on Wednesday for forensic analysis.
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Posted: 25 Jul 2014 12:37 PM PDT

A new CNN/ORC International poll released Friday indicates that over a third of Americans wish to see President Obama impeached and thrown out of office for consistently acting beyond his authority.
Overall, 33 percent say they want Obama impeached, with 57 percent of Republicans backing the move. Over a third of Independents also said they supported impeachment, with 13 percent of Democrats, more than one in ten, backing a move to impeach Obama.
Forty-five percent, a plurality, also said that Obama has sought to expand the power of the presidency too far. Only three in 10 said that the President’s actions have been about right, with 22 percent somehow believing he hasn’t gone far enough.
In addition to the impeachment view, 41 percent of Americans said they believed House Republicans should go ahead with a planned lawsuit against Obamacare.
On Thursday this week, the House Rules Committee approved a resolution authorizing the suit, led by Speaker John Boehner. The suit claims that Obama violated the Constitution by circumventing Congress and changing the new healthcare law’s employer mandate by executive order.
In a similar poll, conducted by Fox News, a 58-37 percent majority said they think Obama exceeded his authority regarding the health care law change. The poll found that 36 percent favor impeachment.
Most interestingly, almost four in 10 Democrats think Obama is guilty of executive overreach on changing the Obamacare law, while one in five Democrats favors impeaching their own party leader. The highest figures in favor of impeachment, 68 percent, were those who identified themselves as part of the Tea Party movement.
The President has regularly circumvented Congress and acted via executive order during his two terms in office, despite pledging not to do so, and criticising the practice during his election campaign.

Obama has even boasted “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” to underscore that he can and will act on his own to ram through policy and rally his own support when he feels like it.
In February when Obama stated his intention to act without Congress, it prompted fierce backlash. “President Obama is unusually brazen, in that most Presidents do not brag about their plans to rule by executive order in state of the union speeches.” former Congressman Ron Paul noted.
“Sadly, his pledge to use his pen to implement laws and polices without the consent of Congress not only received thunderous applause from representatives of the president’s party, some representatives have even pledged to help Obama get around Congress by providing him with ideas for executive orders.” Paul added.

“The Constitution’s authors would be horrified to see legislators actively adding and abetting a president taking power away from the legislature.” the libertarian icon urged.
From healthcare to gun control to gay rights to immigration, Obama has seemingly touted executive actions on every conceivable issue.
“I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing,” he said last month. “America cannot wait forever for them to act. And that’s why today, I’m beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.” he added during a press meeting.
While defenders of the President’s actions suggest that he has employed fewer executive orders than the vast majority of previous presidents, they do not take into account that executive actions do not and have not always come in the form of a signed order. Unilateral actions also include Presidential orders conveyed in writing in forms other than executive orders and proclamations, as well as so called ‘Discretionary actions’.
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Posted: 25 Jul 2014 11:53 AM PDT

Experts have reported the discovery in southern China of the world’s yet-biggest aquatic insect, which has been found to be a giant dobsonfly.
The specimen, discovered in China’s Sichuan Province, has been described as having long teeth and fearsome pincers.
So far also spotted elsewhere in China, as well as in northern Vietnam, and India’s Assam state, the largest one of the insects has been reported to have a 21-centimeter-long (8.27-inches-long) wingspan.
The previous record belongs to a South American helicopter damselfly, which had a wingspan of 19.1 centimeters (7.5 inches).
The newly-discovered insect is subsumed under the Megaloptera order.
Writing on the discovery, Bec Crew from Scientific American has said, “Just as this new find is so far pretty mysterious, members of Megaloptera are also fairly poorly known. As larvae, they spend all of their time in the water, only venturing out once it’s time to pupate and become adults. While they’re usually found in clean, clear streams, rivers, swamps, ponds and lakes, they’re also perfectly capable of sustaining themselves in muddy and polluted water, which makes them extra hard to spot.”
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Posted: 25 Jul 2014 08:33 AM PDT

The Prime Minister of Bulgaria Plamen Oresharski has resigned his post. His decision came after accusations by opponents of failing to cope with the worst banking crisis in 17 years.
The decision was supported by 180 lawmakers in the parliament, only 8 voted against, and 8 abstained, reports Bloomberg.
The Oresharski government lasted for only 16 months of the 4 years it was elected for. New elections on October 5 will see the country’s fifth prime minister since Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007.
“My cabinet worked in unprecedented conditions of hostility…Despite that we achieved good results. All business indicators improved in the year we ruled,” Reuters quotes Oresharski’s speech just before the vote.
The socialist Prime Minister resigned after the opposition, which gained in the recent European Parliament elections, accused him of bringing the country to ruin. There has been a catastrophic run on the country’s third and fourth-largest banks, which gave his political foes ammunition to force his departure.
The First Investment Bank, the country’s third-largest commercial lender, became an object of an unprecedented attack. Depositors began withdrawing cash, following a flood of SMS messages and posts on Bulgarian language websites warning the bank was close to collapse. The run on First Investment cost the bank 800 million lev ($550 million) in client deposits in one day.
Another lender – Corporate Commercial Bank AD – was placed under the supervision of the central bank on June 20 after it ran out of liquidity. It happened amid media reports of a dispute between the majority shareholder and a large depositor, a member of parliament who withdrew his funds.
The mass asset withdrawal left the banks just a step away from bankruptcy. The European Commission then agreed to extend a $2.27 billion credit line to the lenders.
“This government didn’t have the needed support and strength to carry out serious reforms. It depends very much on whether the government that will come after the elections will master the support and the will for painful reforms,” Bloomberg quotes Daniel Smilov, an analyst at the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia.
However,the outgoing Finance Minister Petar Chobanov said they were “leaving the country with a stable fiscal reserve, which exceeds $5.5 billion, despite baseless talk of bankruptcy… It gives room for flexibility.”
Oresharski’s departure leaves his successor to sort out country’s worst banking crisis since the 1990s, with the fate of its fourth-largest lender undecided.
One of key objectives the new government in Bulgaria is to make a decision concerning the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline which the European Commission is trying to halt.
The socialist party supported the construction; however the process was suspended when European authorities requested a check on compliance with EU legislation.
Boyko Borisov, the most probable candidate for a post of the Prime Minister of Bulgaria has announced that should he win, he would only continue the construction of the pipeline if the contracts correspond to EU rules. He also said he intends to exclude all the companies affected by the US sanctions lists.
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Posted: 24 Jul 2014 03:50 PM PDT

​An Alabama man says doctors mistakenly removed his penis during what was supposed to be a routine circumcision procedure, and now he has filed suit against the physicians and hospitals involved.
According to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday this week in state court, Johnny Lee Banks Jr. emerged from what should have been a standard circumcision surgery at Princeton Baptist Medical Center last month with more of him missing than he had anticipated.
“When the plaintiff … awoke from his aforesaid surgical procedure, his penis was amputated,” Al.com journalist Kent Faulk quoted from the lawsuit. The plaintiffs “never gave consent for the complete or partial amputation of (his) penis.”
“My client is devastated,” Banks’ attorney, John Graves, told Reuters this week.
The Associated Press reported that, according to the suit, Banks was never told ahead of the procedure that amputation could occur as a result. He and his wife are now suing the Princeton facility, Urology Centers of Alabama, the Simon-Williamson Clinic and two doctors in a suit that accuses them of medical malpractice, negligence and other wrongdoing. Attorneys for Banks insist their client has suffered extended pain and suffering during his recovery, has spent additional time in the hospital recovering and has been caused to spend more money. Additionally, Faulk reported, Banks’ wife also is claiming loss of consortium.
On their part, the defendants have so far fought the charges adamantly.
“We intend to defend all counts aggressively,” Baptist Health System Inc., which operates one of the facilities, responded to the charges.
According to the AP, representatives at Princeton Baptist Medical Center previously said the claims are without merit.
“When the facts become known this will be seen as an unfair attempt to damage the reputations of dedicated physicians and their outstanding clinics with sensational claims that are completely false,” added Will Axon, a defense lawyer representing both doctors named in Banks’ suit.
As peculiar as Banks’ predicament is, he is far from the only circumcision patient to suffer the same fate: as RT reported previously, a Kentucky men claimed in court that his penis was amputated after the doctors who operated on him in 2007 said they found signs of cancer and had “no reasonable option” other than removing the entire penis unbeknownst to the patient.
In the case of Banks, neither side of the suit has explained yet why, exactly, the plaintiff’s penis was allegedly removed.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:33