Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 04 Aug 2014 10:55 AM PDT

A stunning new report issued by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) on the mysterious “holes” recently discovered in two Siberian regions states that President Putin earlier today “administratively informed” both the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) and Institute of the Earth Cryosphere (IEC) that all information relating to this phenomenon is now classified as “Of Special Importance” due to its relation to what could “potentially be a national threat”.
“Of Special Importance” is the highest security classification level and refers to information which, if released, would cause damage to the entire Russian Federation. All relative data falling under this classification must, also, first be submitted to the Federal Security Services (FSB) highly secretive Scientific and Technical Services unit formed under Article 11 provisions prior to any of it being released to other state organs.

Of the phenomenon itself being investigated by the AARI and IEC compelling this order from Putin, this report says, are three massive holes of “uncertain/unknown” origin recently discovered in the above the Artic Circle regions of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug on the Yamal Peninsula, and on the Taymyr Peninsula located in the Siberian Federal District.
According to AARI/IEC data relating to these “nearly exact” holes, this MoD report continues, their surface opening measurements have been described as being: 80 meters (260 feet), 14 meters (45 feet) and 4 meters (13 feet) with varying depths “yet to be determined” due to their being partially filled with water thawed from the permafrost all of them were discovered in.
Further initial examination on one of these holes by Doctor-Scientist Marina Leibman of the IEC, this report says, revealed it to be of “recent origin” with her also stating her belief it was caused by a buildup and release of methane gas.

Subsequent reports, however, from both the AAIR and IEC reveal these holes to have possibly contained “unknown atmospheric objects” with MoD experts likening them to “hardened” missile silos [photo 2nd right] due to their cylindrical shape [photo 3rd right] and their apparently being drilled well into, and below, the permafrost layer.
Even more “puzzling” about these holes, MoD experts in this report say, was not the outward ejection of material from them, but there not existing anywhere near these three “blast craters” the amount of ejected material [photo bottom right] one could expect should an internal methane explosion have occurred. [See video HERE]
For example, this report continues, with the (approximate/classified) silo dimensions of a R-36 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) having a depth of 46 meters (150 feet) and a diameter of 12 meters (40 feet), the volume of material ejected would equal 57,455 cubic meters (188,496 cubic feet), an amount of ejected material not found even close to this number near any of the three holes examined.
What is more likely involved with these three holes, this report speculates, and based upon the “observed and examined” ejected material, was that each of these three holes contained “atmospheric objects” of “unknown/uncertain” origin which by their absence one can conclude they were “activated” and then launched.
To what could have “triggered/activated” these “atmospheric objects” into launching, this report continues, are the unprecedented magnetic fluctuations now occurring over the Siberian region which the European Space Agency (ESA) at a conference in Copenhagen in June warned about by stating that the Earth’s north magnetic pole is drifting south toward this area at an accelerating rate.

According to this recent ESA data, which showed that the dynamic magnetic field that protects the planet from radiation has weakened, measurements taken last year by Swarm satellites also confirmed that Earth’s magnetic field is weakening, with dramatic declines over the Western Hemisphere.
With the last magnetic pole reversal for Earth occurring over 780,000 years ago, but with knowing too that over the course of the last 20 million years the pattern of pole reversals has been at a steady 200,000-300,000 years, this MoD report concludes, it cannot be ruled out that these mysterious “atmospheric objects” recently ejected from Siberia may be some type of early warning system of a catastrophic event about to occur.
And based upon today’s order by Putin now classifying all of the data from these mysterious holes as being of the utmost importance to the Federation, one should certainly take heed as more evidence piles up that our Earth may be in more trouble than many realize.
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Posted: 04 Aug 2014 09:42 AM PDT
A Palestinian girl cries as her father, wounded in an Israeli air strike on the al-Shati refugee camp, is treated at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, on August 4, 2014.
Death toll from nearly one month of Israel’s relentless attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip has hit 1,865.
According to medical sources in the coastal enclave, Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion have claimed 1,865 Palestinian lives so far while more than 9,400 others have been wounded.
On Monday, Israel declared a seven-hour ceasefire in some parts of Gaza. However, shortly after the unilateral truce, which started at 10 a.m. (0700 GMT), an Israeli airstrike targeted a house at the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing a child.
“There is no truce. How could there be a truce,” said Ayman Mahmud, who lives in the neighborhood, adding, “They are liars! They don’t even respect their own commitments!”
Israeli army resumed its strikes after the end of the ceasefire. Two people lost their lives in the latest Israeli assaults on the coastal sliver.
Israeli military also says it is redeploying troops within Gaza while other forces are pulling out.
The development comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Monday statement that the military operation in Gaza “will continue until its goals are reached.”
Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza on July 8 and has since carried out thousands of airstrikes across the blockaded enclave. Israeli forces also began a ground offensive against the besieged Palestinian territory on July 17.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, has been launching retaliatory attacks against Israel.
The Israeli military says 64 of its soldiers have been killed in the conflict, but Hamas puts the fatalities at more than 150.
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Posted: 04 Aug 2014 09:28 AM PDT

A law student from Austria has filed a class action law suit against Facebook over privacy violations, urging the social network’s 1.32 billion users around the globe to join him in his legal battle.
Max Schrems, who has sued Facebook and several other top US tech companies before, filed his newest claim at the commercial court in Vienna on Friday.
The legal proceeding will run as a class action because the Austrian law allows a group of people to transfer their financial claims to a single person, Schrems, in this case.
The student invited other internet users to take part in the action at www.fbclaim.com using their Facebook logins.
“Facebook has a long list of violations,” Schrems wrote on Facebook Class Action website. “For this lawsuit we have chosen basic or obvious violations of the law: The privacy policy, participation in the PRISM program, Facebook’s graph search, apps on Facebook, tracking on other web pages (e.g. via the ‘like buttons’), ‘big data’ systems that spy on users or the non-compliance with access requests.”
The Austrian, who is looking for injunctions under EU data-protection law, wants to receive damages of 500 euros per user for the above mentioned violations by the social network.
“Our aim is to make Facebook finally operate lawfully in the area of data protection,” he said.
The users aren’t risking any money by joining the case as a German legal financing provider will bear the legal costs if Schrems loses.
In case of victory the 26-year-old student will receive the same 500 euros as any other class action claimant.
However, US and Canadian users won’t be able to participate as the lawsuit is filed against Facebook Ireland, which runs all of the company’s operations outside North America.
“We have this habit of pointing the finger at the US, but we’re not enforcing our rights anyway,” Schrems told Reuters. “If we can get a class action through like this, it will send out a huge signal to the industry overall.”
The Austrian appealed to the Irish High Court to rule on allegations that US companies, including Microsoft, Google and Facebook, helped the NSA harvest private data from EU citizens.
However, the Irish judges referred the case to the European Court of Justice, which hasn’t reviewed it yet.
“There are serious reasons to suspect that the Irish authorities have deliberately not taken action against Facebook. Many observers assume that this was based on political reasons,” Schrems wrote at Facebook Class Action website.
The Austrian court is in no way bound by any finding and decision made by the Irish authority, he added.
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Posted: 03 Aug 2014 07:22 AM PDT

Israeli agents were eavesdropping on US Secretary of State John Kerry as he was mediating last year’s futile Middle East peace talks, German magazine Der Spiegel has revealed.
Kerry made reviving diplomatic ties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority after a three-year freeze a central priority in the early months of his term as secretary of state. In June 2013, direct talks started, only to collapse completely months later, as the differences overwhelmed whatever desire for an agreement the parties had brought to the negotiations table.
But when the delegations were just starting their doomed effort in the US, Kerry was busy mediating. Some of the diplomatic calls with his counterparts in the Middle East were made not on secure, scrambled channels but on regular phone lines. The calls were intercepted by the Israeli secret services, Der Spiegel said Sunday, citing intelligence sources.
In addition to the Israelis, who used the eavesdropped information to get leverage during the talks, at least one other secret service was monitoring Kerry’s calls, Der Spiegel added.
The German magazine said the revelations could hurt already tense US-Israeli relations amid the ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Kerry made another attempt to mediate the current crisis, but failed to secure a lasting ceasefire.
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Posted: 03 Aug 2014 07:08 AM PDT
A Palestinian man carries an injured child following an Israeli airstrike on a UN school in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on August 3, 2014.
The United States has strongly condemned a deadly Israeli airstrike on a United Nations school sheltering about 3,000 displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, saying it is “appalled” by the “disgraceful” attack.
On Sunday, Israel launched another attack on a UN-run school in the town of Rafah, leaving at least 10 people dead and about 30 others injured. This was the third time in 10 days that a UN school has been targeted by the Zionist forces in their nearly month-long offensive against the besieged Gaza Strip.
The State Department in a statement issued on Sunday denounced the attack, noting that the school had been designated a protected location.
“The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which at least 10 more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
“The coordinates of the school, like all UN facilities in Gaza, have been repeatedly communicated to the Israeli” forces, Psaki stated.
“We once again stress that Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties,” she added.
Earlier in the day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the shelling of the school as “a moral outrage and a criminal act.”
“This madness must stop,” Ban said through his spokesman.
He added that the strike was “yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law” by Israel.
“This attack, along with other breaches of international law, must be swiftly investigated and those responsible held accountable. It is a moral outrage and a criminal act,” he said.
More than 1,850 Palestinians have been killed, including women and children, and over 9,300 others injured by the Israeli regime’s offensive against the coastal enclave despite pressure from the international community. The United Nations says over 80 percent of the fatalities in Gaza have been civilians.
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Posted: 03 Aug 2014 06:50 AM PDT

Unless the world reins in the demented criminals in Washington, the world has signed its own death warrant.
I just heard on National Public Radio two things that have totally destroyed what tiny bit of belief I still had in American leadership. I have concluded that the term “intelligent American” is an oxymoron.
American elites have decided that Americans are not sufficiently threatened by war and economic chaos, so they are bringing the ebola virus to America. National Public Radio reported that two people infected with the ebola virus, which cannot be cured and is usually deadly, are being brought to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
All it takes is one cough, one sneeze, one drop of saliva, and the virus is loose in one of the main transportation centers of the US.
Pandemic anyone? Little doubt but that most of the world would emit a great sigh of relief to be rid of Washington.
Allegedly the ebola carriers will be quarantined in special rooms. But we already know that American hospitals cannot even contain staph infections. http://rt.com/usa/177408-nightmare-bacteria-antibiotic-southeast/ What happens to the utensils, plates, cups, and glasses with which the ebola infected persons eat and drink? And who gets to clean the bed pans? One slip-up by one person, one tear in a rubber glove, and the virus is loose.
If we don’t die from ebola, we still have to dodge nuclear war. I heard part of Obama’s press conference. Obama accused Putin of doing everything that only Obama is doing.
If Obama believes what he told the press, he is utterly disinformed by his advisors. If he doesn’t believe the crude propaganda that he speaks, he is consciously leading the drive to war with Russia which probably means war with China as well and the end of us all.
Keep in mind that after eight years the US military was unable to successfully occupy Iraq and that after 13 years the US is unable to defeat a few thousand lightly armed Taliban in Afghanistan.
Russia and China are not Iraq, Libya, or Afghanistan.
War with Russia will be nuclear. Washington has prepared for it. Washington has abandoned the ABM treaty, created what it thinks is an ABM shield, and changed its war doctrine to permit US nuclear first strike. All of this is obviously directed at Russia, and the Russian government knows it. How long will Russia sit there waiting for Washington’s first strike?
Russia hasn’t done anything except get in the way, belatedly, of Washington’s lies that Washington uses to start wars. Russia (and China) went along with Washington’s lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Russia (and China) went along with Washington’s lies that Washington’s 13-year attempted conquest and occupation of Afghanistan had to do with finding Osama bin Laden. Washington (and China) fell for Washington’s deception that a UN resolution establishing a no-fly zone over Libya was for the purpose of preventing Gaddafi’s air force from bombing his own people, only to discover that Washington misused the resolution to send the NATO air force to overthrow the Libyan government.
When Washington drew a “red line” in the sand with regard to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against the outside forces that Washington had organized and sent into Syria to overthrow the government, all the while pretending that these Islamists mercenaries were the true spokesmen for democracy in Syria, most of the world knew that Washington was about to organize a chemical attack and blame Assad. When the Washington orchestrated attack happened on schedule, this time Russia and China did not fall for it. And neither did the British Parliament. Washington was unable to produce any evidence for the charges that Washington made and hoped would bring in at least the British to support Washington’s military assault on Syria. Russia, however, was able to produce evidence, and the evidence foiled Washington’s plot against Syria.
Russia’s intervention angered Washington, as did Russia’s intervention that blocked
Washington’s plot to attack Iran. Washington, devoid of all evidence and in contradiction to the reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency from inspectors on the ground in Iran that there was no diversion of uranium from the legal energy program to a weapons program, had Iran set up for attack. Iran was surrounded by about 40 US military bases and two of Washington’s fleets off its coast.
But in stepped Russia and worked out a deal, which Washington had to accept, that kept Iranian uranium enrichment at the low level used for energy, a level far below weapons requirements.
Two black marks agains Russia whose government prevented wars that Washington wanted. Russia (and China) were supposed to endorse Washington’s lies like the puppet states of Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan, countries that long ago gave up their sovereignty to Washington.
Unfortunately for Russia, Russia demonstrated that Russia had achieved sufficient power and influence to block Washington’s war plans and, thereby, brought into action against Russia the Wolfowitz Doctrine. I have cited this doctrine in recent columns, but you can google it and read it for yourself. The doctrine is the basis for Washington’s foreign policy and declares that the principle goal of Washington’s foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that could serve as a check on Washington’s hegemony over the world. (The doctrine explicitly mentions Russia but also applies to China.)
Washington is disturbed that Russia has twice foiled Washington’s war intentions and that the Parliament of the US Puppet State of Great Britain voted with the Russians.
Washington is also concerned with the growing economic and political relations between Washington’s EU puppet states and Russia. EU countries, especially Germany, have numerous and profitable economic connections with Russia, and all of Europe is dependent on Russian supplied energy.
Washington concluded that Washington was in danger of losing its control over Europe.
While the Russian government was asleep at the switch enjoying the Olympics, Washington pulled off its coup in Kiev.
Neoconservative Victoria Nuland, appointed by Obama as Assistant Secretary of State,
announced at a press conference last December that Washington had spent $5 billion
purchasing fifth column Ukrainian NGOs that can be put into street demonstrations to destabilize a government and on grooming and purchasing Ukrainian politicians who will serve as Washington’s stooges. Nuland, of course, described Washington’s purchase of Ukraine as “furthering democracy” in Ukraine.
Washington’s coup against a democratically elected government brought to power extreme elements that proclaimed their hatred of Jews and Russians. These elements destroyed Russian war memorials erected to remember Russia’s liberation of Ukraine from the Third Reich, passed legislation outlawing Russian as an official language, and engaged in violent physical attacks on the Russian speaking population.
Ukraine has always been an area of changing borders. As some have put it, “Ukraine is a country in search of borders.” When Ukraine was a Soviet province, Soviet leaders attached, for various reasons, traditional Russian provinces to the Ukraine Socialist Soviet Republic. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, pressure from Washington on a weak Russia resulted in the separation of Ukraine from Russia and this included Crimea, a part of Russia since the 1700s and Russia’s warm water port.
The Russian populations in the former Russian territories that Soviet leaders foolishly attached to Ukraine were alarmed by the extreme Russophobia of the government that Washington established in Kiev. The former Russian territories voted to rejoin their mother country and to depart the Russophobic US puppet state established in Kiev.
The Russian government accepted the request from Crimea, but not the requests from the other former Russian provinces in order to demonstrate to Europe that Russia was not provocative and not the source of the crisis. Putin even had the Russian Duma rescind his power to intervene militarily in Ukraine in order to protect the secessionist provinces.
This restraint hurt rather than helped the Russian government’s position. Washington
used its propaganda machine to label self-determination by Crimeans as “invasion and annexation by Russia of Crimea.”
Russia’s restraint with regard to requests to rejoin Russia from the other former Russian provinces resulted in a Washington encouraged military attack by its puppet government in Kiev against the separatist provinces that Russia refused to accept. Washington’s propaganda then succeeded in blaming Russia for the war that Washington launched on the separatist provinces.
Washington is not interested in the truth, and Russia cannot win a propaganda war with Washington which controls the world language, which is English, the language of Washington’s propaganda. The Western media consists of idiots who are enabling Washington’s drive toward war and the extermination of life on earth.
If the Russian government had accepted the separatist provinces request, there would be no war. The Ukrainian government is demented and controlled by Washington, but it is not going to attack territories acknowledged by Russia as its territory.
By showing restraint, Russia has convinced Washington that Russia is weak, and Washington has increased the pressure. Russia has convinced Europe that there is
no cost from Russia to Europe’s complying with Washington’s sanctions. By relying on good will, reasonableness, truth and evidence, Russia has misread Washington and its craven European puppets.
What Obama meant in his White House Press Conference today (August 1) when he said that Putin should use diplomacy–which Putin has been using to no effect–is that Putin should hand Crimea, over the objection of Crimeans and the Russian people, to Washington’s puppet government in Kiev so that Washington can evict Russia from its warm weather port and access to the Mediterranean Sea, thus making redundant Russia’s naval base at Tartus, Syria. Obama also wants Putin to send into the separatist areas of Ukraine, areas that traditionally were part of Russia, Russian military forces to subdue the breakaway territories for Washington’s puppet government in Kiev.
This is Washington’s “diplomatic” position. Only a totally demented person could regard Obama’s position as realistic.
As a person who is considered fair-minded by world media and who arrives at reasonable conclusions independently of Washington’s propaganda, I am often interviewed by foreign as well as US independent media organizations. As of late, the Russian media has turned to me on a number of occasions. What I have learned is that the Russian media is perplexed by Washington’s hostility to Russia.
Russia is not operating in the old Confederate South trying to turn the American South
against Washington for Washington’s rapine, murder, and destruction of the Southern culture, but Washington is operating in the Russian South trying to turn Ukraine, long a part of Russia, against Russia.
As Russians, except perhaps for the government, are unaware of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, they do not know that the main goal of Washington is to prevent the rise of all other powers that could limit Washington’s role as sole Unipower, Hegemon over Earth.
Instead of realizing the real threat, Russian media organizations ask me if the Russian budget can stand responding to sanctions from Washington and the EU by cutting off the energy supply to Europe.
Each time I hear this question I am astonished. Russia can shut down much of European industry and deprive the Europeans of heat in winter, and Russian media ask me if Russia can afford it?
Can Russia afford to be demonized by lies, to be driven into the ground by propagandistic sanctions that will hurt Europe and some US corporations, to convey the
image that Russia is so weak as to be helpless in the face of Western sanctions as to accept the sanctions without demonstrating the cost to Europe and the US?
Does Washington even have Russians brainwashed?
I am concerned about the crisis that Washington has orchestrated, because I believe it is leading to war, which will be nuclear. Are you ready to be destroyed over Washington’s lies about one Malaysian airliner? I am convinced that Washington is behind the destruction of MH-17, because Washington’s propaganda show was already ready and was instantly in performance. That Washington is responsible is the reason that Washington will not release its satellite photos of the area during the moment of the airliner’s destruction. That Washington is responsible is the reason that Washington replies to Russian hard evidence with lies and propaganda. It is Obama and Obama’s stooges in Kiev that refuse to negotiate, not Russia.
Russia has as many nuclear warheads as Washington, and Washington’s “ABM shield” is a farce. If the insane American government drives a crisis, which Washington alone created, to war, we will all die, and for what? The answer is: for a Washington LIE.
Do you want to die for a lie? Another Washington lie?
If you don’t, you had better let Washington know.
Russia cannot end this crisis unless it puts its foot down. I have previously made the case that Russia should take its case to the UN. Alternatively, the Russian government needs to engage Europe in two questions. One is does Europe want its energy supplies from Russia cut off, energy that Washington, despite its lies, cannot replace for 3 or more years if at all.. The other is does Europe want war with Russia and does Europe think that those idiotic countries that host Washington’s missiles won’t be nuked and exterminated?
The crisis in Ukraine will continue to Russia’s and all of humanity’s cost until Russia explains to the stupid, arrogant, hubris-filled West that the West’s criminal and aggressive actions against Russia bear a real cost, and that Russia is prepared to impose the cost.
The propagandized people in the West have no idea of the fate toward which their demented governments are driving them. Russia needs to make it clear to the brainwashed propagandized peoples in the West that Russia is not going to be a puppet state of the West or to accept gratuitous aggression from the White House Fool.
It would help to save life on Earth if China also made this clear.
The sooner the better.
Unless the world reins in the demented criminals in Washington, the world has signed its own death warrant.
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Posted: 03 Aug 2014 06:22 AM PDT

A human-dependent android has been set on a hitchhiking trip across Canada in search for an answer to an uncanny query.
Put together from household items, “hitchbot” started its journey on July 27 in Canada’s Atlantic port city of Halifax on a mission designed by McMaster University experts.
The project aims to see if robots can trust humans, “hitchbot” needing to look to humans to help it fare through thousands of kilometers of trekking.
Frauke Zeller, co-creator of the automaton, said, “Our aim is to further discussion in society about our relationship with technology and robots, and notions of safety and trust.”
“It cannot achieve its task of hitchhiking across Canada without the help of people, because it cannot move by itself,” she said.
It can strike up a conversation and can answer trivia questions by consulting information using its built-in computers.
And it will even tell you when it’s tired and in need of recharging from your car’s cigarette lighter.
The robot is small enough to fit into the backseat of a car, but still have enough heft so it would not be blown over by a gust of wind while hitchhiking on the side of the road.
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Posted: 03 Aug 2014 06:07 AM PDT

Over 380 people were killed and around 1,800 injured after an earthquake measuring from 6.1 to 6.5, according to different estimates, toppled thousands of buildings in China’s southwestern Yunnan province.
The majority of the dead were from Ludian County, which Chinese state television said was at the epicenter of the quake. Ludian authorities said at least 296 people were killed in their jurisdiction, where an estimated 12,000 houses collapsed and some 30,000 were damaged, BNO News reports.
At least 1,300 people from the county have been injured and 181 remain missing, Yunnan’s information bureau reported earlier, and it is unknown how many people could still be trapped under the rubble.
The quake also caused serious damage in Qiaojia County, where another 60 people were killed according to China’s Civil Affairs Ministry. Ten more people reportedly died in Huize County.
The overall death toll reportedly reached 381 by Monday morning local timewith over 1,800 injured.
The US Geological Survey has estimated the quake at 6.1 on the Richter scale, while previously reporting the strikes measuring 6.3. At the same time, the China Earthquake Networks Center said the magnitude of the quake was 6.5.
The quake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers, according to USGS.
“I felt a strong jolt on my fifth-floor home and some small objects in my home fell off the shelves,” a resident of Ludian told official Xinhua News Agency.
The quake toppled and cracked apart buildings, forcing people to rush into the streets.
About 12,000 homes collapsed in Ludian county, where some 429,000 people live and that is located around 366 kilometers (277 miles) northeast of Yunnan’s capital, Kunming.
“The aftermath is much, much worse than what happened after the quake two years ago,” Ma Liya, a resident of Zhaotong said. “I have never felt such strong tremors before. What I can see are all ruins.”
Local media is reporting that a school was reduced to rubble, among other buildings that were destroyed by the earthquake.
More than 2,500 troops have been sent to quake zone to help in the rescue.
The civil affairs authorities has sent 2,000 tents, 3,000 folding beds, 3,000 quilts and 3,000 coats to the quake region.
The Red Cross Society of China allocated quilts, jackets and tents for those made homeless by the quake, while Red Cross branches in Hong Kong, Macau and neighboring Sichuan province also sent relief supplies, AP reported.
Yunnan’s seismological bureau has said that the earthquake is the strongest to hit the province in 18 years, independent website Earth-Quake Report said. Yunnan is one of the most earthquake-sensitive provinces in China.
In 1970, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in Yunnan killed at least 15,000 people, and a magnitude-7.1 quake in the province killed more than 1,400 in 1974, AP reports. The last series of quakes in the Yunnan region in September 2012 killed 81 people and left 821 injured.
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Posted: 02 Aug 2014 07:04 AM PDT

A state of emergency has been declared in northwest Ohio after about 400,000 people were warned not to drink water as tests revealed the presence of a toxin in it.
Ohio Governor John Kasich declared a State of Emergency for all areas of the state that are supplied with water from the City of Toledo facilities.
Gov. John Kasich’s emergency order will allow the state to begin bringing water into the Toledo area. Meanwhile, stores around Toledo are reported to be running out of bottled water as residents rushed to stock up supplies.
At the same time, residents have been told not to boil the water because it will only increase the toxin’s concentration. Residents have also been warned not to cook using the city/county water as well as not use the water for bathing children.
Consuming the poisoned water could result in vomiting, diarrhea and health deterioration.
“These organisms are capable of producing a number of toxins that may pose a risk to human and animal health,” Toledo authorities said in a press-release.
Toledo’s mayor D. Michael Collins has said it was too early to say how long the water advisory will stay in place. More tests are being conducted and results are expected later Saturday.
According to Collins, no illnesses have been reported in connection with the water emergency.
“First and foremost, residents must remain calm,” the Toledo mayor said at a morning press conference.
The warning is affecting several suburbs of Toledo as well as a few areas in southeastern Michigan.
So far it is suspected that the toxin is possibly the result of algae blooms on Lake Erie, where the city takes it water.
Chemists testing water at Toledo’s Collins Park Water Treatment Plant had two sample readings for microcystin.
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Posted: 02 Aug 2014 06:52 AM PDT

A US space agency Mars rover that would launch in 2020 is to carry a device that will turn carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen.
The oxygen thus created could then be used to make rocket fuel and for future astronauts to breathe, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA.
“The 2020 rover will help answer questions about the Martian environment that astronauts will face and test technologies they need before landing on, exploring and returning from the Red Planet,” he has said.
“This is a real step forward in helping future human exploration of Mars by being able to produce your oxygen on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., has said.
Other proposals accepted for the unmanned USD-1.9-billion rover include advanced cameras and spectrometers for analyzing chemical composition, mineralogy and detecting organic compounds.
NASA has sent a series of robotic vehicles to Mars, the latest is the Curiosity rover which launched in 2012, and hopes to have people exploring the surface of Earth’s neighboring planet by the 2030s.
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Posted: 02 Aug 2014 06:43 AM PDT


Officials are importing Ebola into the U.S. which doctors have failed to contain in Africa.
Despite the fact that doctors in Africa cannot keep Ebola from spreading, United States officials brought an affected patient into the country only days after President Obama signed an executive order mandating the detention of Americans who show signs of “respiratory illness.”
The first known Ebola patient on U.S. soil, Dr. Kent Brantly, was flown into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, today after contracting the disease in Liberia during the latest outbreak in West Africa which has claimed the lives of over 700.
“Video from Emory showed someone wearing a white, full-body protective suit helping a similarly clad person emerge from the ambulance and walk into the hospital early Saturday afternoon,” CNN reported.
This has stoked concerns among the American public that Ebola could now spread inside the U.S., especially since the virus has been difficult to contain in Africa.
“It sounds like the perfect script for a horror movie: A virus with no vaccine and no cure kills hundreds of people; despite containment efforts, it keeps spreading, but it’s actually all too real in West Africa, where doctors have said Ebola is now ‘out of control,’” wrote Sheila M. Eldred for Discovery News.
Hospitals in America may not fare any better considering that antibiotic-resistant “nightmare bacteria” spread from one medical facility in 2001 to 46 states by 2013.
“Allegedly the Ebola carriers will be quarantined in special rooms, but we already know that American hospitals cannot even contain staph infections,” columnist Paul Craig Roberts wrote. “What happens to the utensils, plates, cups, and glasses with which the ebola infected persons eat and drink and who gets to clean the bed pans?”
“One slip-up by one person, one tear in a rubber glove, and the virus is loose.”
This really highlights the reckless nature of the global elite and government officials for importing a virus into the country which has no specific treatment and a mortality rate of up to 90%.
Similarly, state-funded universities and other facilities across the U.S. are maintaining weaponized viruses for so-called “bio-defense” under the Project Bioshield Act passed by Congress in 2004, but because these facilities are only moderately secure for the most part, there is a real risk that a deadly virus could escape into the public and affect millions of Americans in an outbreak on the same level as the pandemics which killed 80% of Native American populations by the 19th century.
The National Research Council found that one of these laboratories in Kansas, for example, has a 70% chance that a virus will spread from its lab in the next 50 years, even though the facility is designated as “maximum security.”
And it should also be pointed out that this is just one lab out of many in the nation, a good percentage of which have even less security.
There is no doubt that an accidental or an orchestrated release of a virus from one of these labs could result in the deaths of millions as well as a draconian government response to the outbreak, including martial law, through both the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act drafted in 2001 and President Obama’s latest executive order which mandates the apprehension and detention of Americans who merely show signs of “respiratory illness.”
Simply put, instead of preventing Ebola and other viruses from spreading within the U.S., Obama is readying his administration for a power grab if a major pandemic breaks out throughout the country.
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Posted: 02 Aug 2014 05:25 AM PDT

Argentina’s Economy Minister Axel Kicillof says his country is not in default amid an ongoing debt row with US hedge funds.
Ratings agency Fitch declared Argentina in “restrictive default” on Thursday after Buenos Aires failed to clinch a deal with representatives from the funds.
Kicillof, however, said his country has not defaulted and that the Argentinean government is open to agreements between private parties.
“Those that want to talk about default do it without knowing about the issues. They should come with the contract and explain how it can be that we are in a default. This doesn’t have a name, but if it did it wouldn’t be default,” he told a news conference on Thursday.
Argentina has so far refused to pay USD 1.3 billion to the debt investors as required under a recent US court ruling.
US District Court Judge Thomas Griesa had ordered Argentina to pay its debt “all together, without quotas, right away, now, in cash, ahead of all the rest” of bondholders.
Based on the verdict, Argentina has to make payments to both holdout bond investors and the holders of its restructured debt at the same time, which the South American country says cannot afford despite willingness to pay its debt.
Argentina is locked in a 12-year legal fight with creditors, who refused to participate in two restructurings that followed Argentina’s 2002 default on USD 100 billion in bonds. It has since twice restructured its debt in 2005 and in 2010.
“The government can’t pay more than the bondholders from 2010 and I’m tired of explaining that we can’t pay more because if we do they [bondholders] are going to say that we are paying them more and a whole bunch of cases are going surface with the same claim,” Kicillof said.
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Posted: 02 Aug 2014 05:14 AM PDT

Nearly a third of Conservative voters would prefer their party to enter into coalition with Ukip if it fails to win next year’s general election outright, a new survey reveals.
The 30 percent figure is only a fraction below the 31 percent of potential voters who would favour continuing the current Liberal Democrats partnership should there be another hung parliament in 2015.
Ukip voters, however, did not share the same Tory enthusiasm for coalition, with 39 percent of Nigel Farage’s eurosceptic party calling for any MPs they secure next May to remain outside any coalition deal.
This compares with 24 percent who said they should enter government with the Conservatives, 13 percent with Labour and 8 percent with Lib Dems.
The survey by pollsters TNS UK interviewed 1,191 adults in Britain between July 15 and 17. It found that the Liberal Democrats were the favoured party of coalition for both Conservative supporters (31 percent) and Labour supporters (32 percent) if either party fails to win an outright majority.
Liberal Democrat voters preferred a coalition with Tories rather than Labour by a margin of 36 percent to 26 percent, with 13 percent saying that the party should go into opposition rather than joining another coalition.
Some 27 percent of Labour voters said they preferred opposition to coalition, while Conservatives preferred shared power at 16 percent. If Ed Miliband were to find himself in coalition negotiations after May’s election, 29 percent of Labour supporters said they were unsure what he should do.
Meanwhile, TNS chief executive Michelle Harrison said it was questionable whether a Tory-Ukip coalition could be considered a “viable” option.
“Successive polls have indicated the possibility of no party winning an overall majority at the next election. In such an eventuality, this research suggests both Conservative and Labour supporters favour coalition with the Liberal Democrats,” said Dr Harrison.
“While it is perhaps no surprise that a sizeable number of Conservative supporters favour a coalition with Ukip, the probability of that being a viable option at the next election is open to question.”
Electoral system to trip up UKIP?
Although the race is much too close to predict a likely winner, or winning combination, Labour currently boast a seven-point lead on their rivals at 36 percent.
The Tories for their part enjoy the support of 29 percent of likely voters, Ukip is polling 19 percent and the Lib Dems squeezed into fourth place at 7 percent.
These figures at first glance seem to indicate sweeping gains for Ukip and mass losses for the Lib Debs. Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, however, is likely to deny Farage more than a handful of MPs.
Meanwhile, of those saying they would vote Lib Dem in 2015, 47 percent said they might change their minds over the coming nine months, raising concerns for the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. This compared to 34 percent of Ukip backers, 24 percent of Tory supporters and 22 percent of Labour voters.
Topping the agenda
David Cameron had hoped to woo voters back from Ukip by offering a referendum on Europe and a renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership. In a sign that voters have been unswayed by the pledge, the poll showed Europe was tenth out of a list of 10 possible policy priorities. Just 5 percent of those questioned named it as their top priority against 28 percent who said it was their lowest.
The issues topping the policy priority list were reducing unemployment, where Tories were rated the party most likely to deliver, and investment in health care, where Labour were most trusted.
Perceptions on the economy also featured in the poll, with some 34 percent of those questioned saying the UK’s financial situation had improved over the last year, against 14 percent who said it had got worse.
Just 29 percent expected it to get better over the coming year, while 59 percent said it would stay the same and 11 percent that it would decline. Perhaps indicative of the economic realities on the ground, 26 percent said it was harder to meet monthly household budgets now than a year ago, compared to just 11 percent who said it had become easier.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:54