Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday, 7 September 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 06 Sep 2014 08:51 AM PDT

A new rapid reaction force, likely numbering at least 4,000 and ready to be deployed within 48 hours, will be created in Eastern Europe, after a decision by the 28 NATO member states following a conference in Wales.
“This is a demonstration of our solidarity and resolve,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the summit, largely dedicated to Ukraine, and attended by the country’s President Petro Poroshenko, wrapped up.
“Should you even think of attacking one ally, you will be facing the whole alliance.”
NATO said the reason for the new unit is “a security environment which is more unpredictable than ever, including Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, violent extremism in the Middle East and instability in North Africa.”
“This spearhead will include several thousand land troops ready to deploy within a few days with air, sea and Special Forces support,” said Fogh Rasmussen.
The Baltic States and Romania have already offered to host the force, whose exact numbers have not been agreed, with Downing Street saying it will likely number 4,000 and Warsaw 5,000. Poland, the largest NATO state in Eastern Europe, is expected to house the headquarters.
The Baltic States have been among the most vocal advocates of NATO strengthening in the region, but the organization is bound by a 1997 agreement with Russia, which bars it from placing permanent bases in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. This can be circumvented by staging constant rotations of “exercises” that can in practice amount to the same thing.
The new force will be the vanguard of the existing NATO Response Force (NRF) that began operations a decade ago. The 25,000-strong NRF can take up to a month to deploy.
“We must be able to act more swiftly,” said UK Prime Minister David Cameron, whose country said that it will provide up to a quarter of the new force’s troops.
Georgia coming in, Ukraine told to wait
Fogh Rasmussen rebuffed Moscow’s warning that if Kiev made steps to join NATO, it would undermine the chances of reaching a lasting compromise in Ukraine.
“No third country has a veto over NATO enlargement. NATO’s door remains open. Each country will be judged on its merits,” said the former Danish Prime Minister.
Nonetheless, Ukraine, which has made intermittent moves towards joining the alliance in the last decade and whose Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk called for membership earlier this week, is not currently being considered, despite being granted a symbolic aid package from the alliance on Thursday.
“The alliance must stick to previously made statements that such an opportunity may appear possible only in the long-term future,” said Norway’s Conservative prime minister, Erna Solberg.
“Ukraine is still a neutral state, bounded by its regulations and the security situation in the region. The whole of Ukraine must undergo essential changes before it joins NATO,” she added.
On the other hand, Georgia, which fought a war with Russia in 2008, has made progress: it was included on the shortlist of countries looking for ‘enhanced co-operation’ with NATO, alongside Australia, Finland, Jordan and Sweden.
“We agreed on a substantive package of measures for Georgia… that will help Georgia advance in its preparations towards membership of NATO,” said Fogh Rasmussen.
The Polish capital Warsaw has been chosen as the venue for the next NATO summit in 2016, after Fogh Rasmussen said that the choice of location would “send a strong signal of Polish involvement in the alliance and a very visible presence by NATO in the eastern regions of the alliance.”
Source
        
Posted: 06 Sep 2014 08:36 AM PDT

Pro-Russians have accused Ukrainian government forces of breaking the ceasefire deal just hours after it went into effect, pledging to pursue their independence drive in the east.
A leading member of the parliament established by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said on Saturday that Ukrainian units had launched several missiles toward the pro-Russian militants’ positions in the east after the ceasefire took effect at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Friday.
“The ceasefire’s terms are not being observed,” Vladimir Makovich said, adding, “At 9:00 pm [on Friday], we saw several missiles launched on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, and also a heavy armored column moving from the (neighboring southwestern region) of Zaporizhia.”
He emphasized that pro-Russian forces will pursue independence in the east.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, accused pro-Russian militants of violating the ceasefire.
He said Ukrainian forces have come under attack on 28 occasions, 10 of them after the ceasefire.
The Ukrainian government and pro-Russia forces signed a 12-point pact on Friday in the Belarus capital, Minsk. The truce came into effect at 1500 GMT that day.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east has been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since the government in Kiev launched military operations in mid-April in a bid to crush the protests.
Violence intensified in May after the two flashpoint regions of Donetsk and Lugansk held local referendums, in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine.
Source
        
Posted: 06 Sep 2014 08:28 AM PDT
Murderer: John L Wilson Junior, 38, is in court today charged with the first-degree murder of 14-year-old Kelli O’Laughlin, in her suburban Chicago home.
The man charged with stabbing a 14-year-old teen to death after she interrupted hum burglarizing her suburban Chicago home sent chilling text messages to her mother from the girl’s stolen cell phone, a court heard today.
The heartbroken mother of Kelli O’Laughlin – who found her daughter lying face down in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor on October 27, 2011 – took to the stand Friday for the first day of the murder trial of John L. Wilson, Jr.
Brenda O’Laughlin revealed how she first believed Kelli had committed suicide after finding her with a knife nearby at their home in Indian Head Park and called 911.
Keli died in hospital that night, but at about 11.30am the next day, Brenda started receiving disturbing texts from her daughter’s smart phone, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
‘Hello Brenda,’ read the first message.
‘She wanted to tell you something before I killed her,’ read another text.
At 12.30pm, Brenda’s cellphone showed an incoming phone call from Kelli’s phone, but she didn’t answer.
At 3.04pm, she received the text: ‘You’ve got two minutes to text me before I break the phone.’
She replied to that message asking: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
Then, according to The Huffington Post, came the most haunting text.
Leafy: Locals said the incident at 6309 Keokuk Road, pictured, came after summer burglaries in the area in which a suspect used Google to target homes.
Homicide: Kelli O’Laughlin,was remembered by school friends as a happy, fun girl who always wore a smile.
‘You will know soon when I come see you,’ it said.
The other person added something about how he or she is looking at photos on Kelli’s phone.
Brenda texted back: ‘Can you send me a picture of you, so I can look at you a lot?’
There was no reply, and the phone was turned over to police.
The prosecution says that Wilson, a 38-year-old parolee, used a landscaping rock wrapped in a red knit cap to smash a window and break into the O’Laughlin’s $500,000 house.
They claim Kelli surprised Wilson in the family room during the break-in when she got home from school about 3.40pm.
Wilson grabbed an eight inch carving knife from a butcher’s block and stabbed Kelli in the neck, back and chest.
One of the wounds pierced her aorta.
He then dragged her body from the family room into the kitchen, before ransacking the home.
Wilson fled with a bowl of coins, an iPod Touch and Kelli’s phone.
Prosecutors say he caught a cab home and used the coins to pay for the fare.
Kelli was discovered by her mother at around 5.30pm.
Fond memories: The popular teenager was known for her sweet and happy nature.
Wilson was arrested on November 2, after police tracked Kelli’s cell phone.
Agents learned that Kelli’s phone had been traveling with another around Chicago.
They allege the second phone belonged to Wilson.
However Wilson was not in possession of Kelli’s phone when he was arrested.
DNA recovered from the knit cap matched Wilson.
Three witnesses also identified him from a line up.
Wilson has an extensive history of criminal violence, including a combined nine years spent in prison for carjacking in 1993 and aggravated battery in 2001.
His most recently received an 11-year sentence for robbery.
He was taken into custody in August 2002 and paroled on November 16, 2010, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Wilson’s attorney, John Paul Carroll, questioned whether Kelli had committed suicide during his opening statement.
Brutal murder: Kelli O’Laughlin, 14, was stabbed to death in her own home in October 2011. The murder trial for her killer started this week.
He informed the jury that, if she did not, they have to decide whether the police have charged the right person with her murder, The Sun-Times reported.
Carroll said no blood was found on any of the clothes that Wilson was wearing the day Kelli died.
He said the police did not thoroughly investigate other possible suspects, such as the landscapers who were working at the O’Laughlins’ house the day of the crime.
Carroll added that while DNA belonging to other people were also found on the knit cap, not just Wilson’s.
The prosecution say Wilson was visiting a woman in the area and, when she was not home, he started casing the area for houses to rob.
The trial continues.
Source
        
Posted: 06 Sep 2014 07:53 AM PDT
A new species of titanosaur unearthed in Argentina.
The new fossil remains excavated in southern Argentina have represented the most complete giant sauropod dinosaur ever discovered.
The skeletal analysis of the found bones demonstrated size of the beast measured 26m from head to tail and weighed in at almost 60 tones, as heavy as 14 African elephants.
The palaeontologists also unravel that the skeleton belongs to a giant titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur which was still growing at the time of its death.
The study on the discovered 70% of the key bones reveals that the young animal’s life was cut short in a catastrophic flood, according to the study report appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.
A local farm worker first stumbled on the remains in the desert near La Flecha, about 250km (135 miles) west of Trelew, Patagonia.
This giant herbivore lived in the forests of Patagonia between 95 and 100 million years ago, based on the age of the rocks in which its bones were found.
“It will be named describing its magnificence and in honour to both the region and the farm owners who alerted us about the discovery,” the researchers said.
The study was led by Kenneth Lacovara from Drexel University, Philadelphia, US.
Source
        
Posted: 06 Sep 2014 07:41 AM PDT

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front party, says the EU is to blame for the crisis in Ukraine as it forced the situation where Kiev had to choose between East and West.
Now that France is joining sanctions against Russia over the alleged direct interference in the political crisis in Ukraine and Paris is considering suspending the €1.2 billion deal of two Mistral helicopter carrier ships ordered by Russia, the leader of the biggest parliamentary faction of the French parliament has her own opinion on Ukraine’s turmoil.
“The crisis in Ukraine is all the European Union’s fault. Its leaders negotiated a trade deal with Ukraine, which essentially blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia,” Le Pen told Le Monde daily in an interview.
Le Pen has been a long-standing critic of Europe’s foreign policy and does not see how Ukraine could join the bloc.
“The European Union’s diplomacy is a catastrophe,” Le Pen told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze in an exclusive interview in June.
“The EU speaks out on foreign affairs either to create problems, or to make them worse.”
“Ukraine’s entry into the European Union; no need to tell fairy tales: Ukraine absolutely does not have the economic level to join the EU,” Le Pen told RT.
In her fresh interview with Le Monde, the National Front leader had a positive attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and the economic model he builds.
“I have a certain admiration for the man [Putin]. He proposes a patriotic economic model, radically different than what the Americans are imposing on us,” said Marine Le Pen.
As for France’s decision to suspend the delivery of the first of two Mistral helicopter carrier ships to Russia, it only shows Paris’ obedience of American diplomacy, Marine Le Pen said earlier.

“This decision (not to deliver Mistral ships) is very serious, firstly because it runs contrary to the interests of the country and shows our obedience of American diplomacy,” Le Pen told France’s RTL radio.
France’s National Front and its leader Marine Le Pen, a party renowned for its anti-immigrant and anti-EU rhetoric, achieved unprecedented results at the latest EU elections, claiming nearly 25 percent of the votes and winning the election.
“Our people demand one type of politics: they want politics by the French, for the French, with the French. They don’t want to be led anymore from outside, to submit to laws.” These were the National Front’s slogans that garnered a quarter of French voters earlier this year.
President Francois Hollande’s popularity in France has hit a record low – just over 13 percent, according to estimates from the TNS-Sofres pollster, reported Reuters on Thursday.
Full of confidence, the National Front leader Marine Le Pen has no doubt she can head the national government today.
“I’m ready to be prime minister and implement the policies that the French are waiting for,” she said. “Hollande would be the president for representation and inauguration ceremonies, but that’s it. The government decides the policies and the political path to follow. He would have to submit to it, or he would have to go,” Le Pen told Le Monde.
Source
        
Posted: 05 Sep 2014 03:53 PM PDT
Last president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev
Ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has again blamed the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine on the hasty and thoughtless breakup of the USSR. He noted that a peaceful outcome could only be reached through resumed dialogue between Russia and the US.
The former Soviet leader expressed these opinions in the afterword to his latest book of memoirs called “After the Kremlin” – soon to be released. The afterword was published before the book by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Gorbachev writes that in his view the Ukrainian conflict can only be settled through dialogue, both inside the country and at an international level. He points out that leading nations were largely to blame for the current dire situation, as from the very beginning they were testing Ukraine’s integrity. EU countries, and first of all Germany and France, have already understood this and are taking steps to de-escalate the crisis, which is a good thing, the ex-president says.
Gorbachev also emphasized that good relations with Russia must become a priority in Ukraine’s foreign policy and this should also be understood and accepted by Western nations. Leaders of these nations should stop dragging Ukraine into NATO because these attempts would result in nothing but strife between Ukraine and Russia.
However, according to Gorbachev the main role in the settlement must be played jointly by Russia and the United States. These nations stand out because they are permanent members of the UN Security Council and can wield significant influence on the organization. The jointly prepared resolution could become a powerful factor with the potential to reverse the negative course of events.
Further development could be a broad dialogue between all Ukraine’s actors, with the ultimate objective of saving the country and reaching national accord. This will be very difficult after all the accusations, the enmity and the bloodshed, but there is no other way, Gorbachev wrote.
The ex-president again repeated his opinion that the roots of the current turmoil lie in the hasty breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. He added that back then the Ukrainian authorities sabotaged the process of the peaceful transformation of the USSR, despite Gorbachev’s best efforts.
“They did not listen to my suggestions and warnings. They forgot that relations between peoples always require extreme caution and attention to the consequences of every step. Some people might say that this is a thing of the past. But the past is connected with the present by many threads and it again and again reminds us of politicians’ mistakes,” the ex-Soviet leader writes in his book.
In March this year, Gorbachev wrote about the Ukrainian turmoil on his website and called for mass media to stop adding to the tension in order to prevent what he called “a tragic schism between two brotherly nations.” At the same time, Gorbachev stated that he would prefer not to get personally involved in any talks and diplomatic contact.
On Friday, the two parts of the Ukrainian conflict – the Kiev government and the self-defense forces of the eastern regions started peace talks in the Belarus capital of Minsk, with the participation of Russia and the OSCE. Before the start, all sides expressed the hope of reaching a peaceful settlement to the crisis, which involves a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners.
Source
        
Posted: 05 Sep 2014 03:43 PM PDT

A tie-up between electronic car pioneer Tesla Motors and mobile phone company China Unicom is to see the setting up of a charging network for electronic vehicles across the country.
Peggy Yang, a spokeswoman for Tesla, which already has 200 dedicated charging outlets across China, said the project eyes setting up of 400 charging points in 120 cities.
She said the new plan includes a further 20 supercharging facilities, which can recharge EVs up to 16 times more quickly.
China eyes five million electronic vehicles on the road by 2020 and has offered generous incentives for electric cars. The country is mulling a charging infrastructure investment program worth a total of USD 16 billion.
China Unicom, the second-biggest mobile phone company in China, will pay the costs for maintenance and electricity.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that China could become the company’s biggest market.
“I think it’s really important. I think it could be as big as the U.S. market maybe bigger,” Musk said. “I don’t want to get overexcited about it,” he, however, noted.
A robust charging network in the country could play a key role in garnering demand for Tesla’s Model S and its upcoming Model X.
Source
        
Posted: 05 Sep 2014 03:05 PM PDT



Well this was all a stunt conducted by an American journalist disguised as an ISIS terrorist but hopefully the title did get your attention in order to inform you about a severe problem with the US border. Infowars reporter Joe Biggs crossed the U.S. border from Mexico dressed as an ISIS militant to illustrate how easy it is for anyone to get into America despite warnings that Islamic State terrorists are plotting to carry out attacks on the homeland from their base in Juarez.
Just miles from the center of El Paso, Texas, Biggs was able to cross a river from Mexico into America dressed as a jihadist, while simulating a beheading and waving an ISIS flag.
“We dressed up as an ISIS jihadi to be as obvious as possible and to show and illustrate just how wide open the border really is,” states Biggs.
Last month, James O’Keefe also demonstrated the porous state of the U.S. border when he crossed an unguarded footbridge in the upper Rio Grande while dressed as Osama Bin Laden.
Biggs’ stunt is shocking given that ISIS militants are currently operational in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
According to an alert released by watchdog group Judicial Watch which cites high level law enforcement and intelligence sources, “Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED).”
“Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to “carry out an attack on the border,” according to one JW source. “It’s coming very soon,” according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as “ISIS and Al Qaeda.”
As we previously reported, the Vice President of the Border Patrol Council was silenced from commenting on the risk of an assault on the U.S. border by ISIS.
A recent report by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) found that illegal immigrants from over 75 countries are crossing into the U.S. from Mexico, including individuals from Syria where ISIS has announced the establishment of its Islamic caliphate.
Yesterday, Senator Rand Paul urged the White House to, “secure our own borders and immigration policy from ISIS infiltration,” pointing to the ISIS terror threat to the southern border.
The fact that it is so easy for ISIS militants, drug dealers and other terrorists to cross into America via the largely unguarded border while ordinary Americans face routine harassment at the hands of the TSA merely for flying within the country highlights the ludicrousness of the Obama administration’s claim that it is adequately protecting the homeland.
Last month, the TSA admitted that illegals were allowed to board planes within the United States without having to show any form of proper identification.
Source
        
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:41