Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday 5 December 2014

The European Union Times



Posted: 04 Dec 2014 05:27 AM PST

Argentinean state workers have gathered in the capital, Buenos Aires, in protest against low pay, Press TV reports.
The demonstrators have also been demanding an end to labor taxes and an emergency year-end bonus.
“Federal workers from all Argentinean provinces, we are the pride of this country as we defended it in the darkest time … in the 90s. We are still standing and we will continue our fight regardless of the government’s intention to bring us down to our knees,” the Association of State Workers’ Julio Fuentes said.
The government has so far rejected all the demands made by the workers and insists Argentinians are receiving the highest wages in all Latin American countries.
Last month, unionists affiliated with the CTA labor union requested a 4,000-peso (468-dollar) year-end bonus and an emergency payment of 9,000 pesos (1,053-dollar) for pensioners. They also asked for the Complementary Annual Salary to be exempt from income taxes.
Over the past months, workers with all state agencies and sectors have staged protests and walkouts over the country’s 2015 budget, which includes a range of austerity measures.
In October, unions representing the workers accused the administration of President Cristina Kirchner of taking neo-liberal measures very similar to those adopted by the extreme right-wing governments in the 90s.
As a result of the country’s struggling economy, the government in Argentina has been forced to tighten its budget.
Argentina is also 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.
After Buenos Aires failed to reach a deal over its debt back in August, ratings agency Fitch said Argentina was in “restrictive default.”
Argentina has an inflation rate of 42 percent.
Recent studies show that there has been a sharp rise in the number of young and skillful Argentinean people leaving their country over economic hardships.
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Posted: 04 Dec 2014 05:22 AM PST

A brand new television show that will be premiering on MTV titled “Growing Up Greek” has sparked outrage and protest within the Greek-American community.
The “reality” show, follows the infamous “Jersey Shore” template. In this case it portrays a group of young “Greeks” in Tarpon Springs, Florida who get publicly intoxicated, partake in senseless violence, and debase actual Greek culture into an insulting and defamatory caricature.
The Greek community of the United States has labored tirelessly to create a reputation for hard work, charity, family values, and pride. A petition created by Greek-Americans has garnered thousands of signatures calling for the show’s cancellation on the basis that it completely misrepresents the actual Greek experience in America.
Alas, we encounter the following question:
IF GREEKS DIDN’T CREATE “Growing Up Greek”, THEN WHO EXACTLY DID? MTV is a branch of Viacom Inc., which is controlled by executive chairman Sumner Redstone (real name: Sumner Murray Rothstein) as well as President and CEO Phillippe Dauman, both of whom are Jewish. Additionally, 3 of 5 major Viacom Inc. shareholders (Phillippe P Dauman, family of the late Alan C Greenberg, and George S Abrams) are also “the chosen”. Finally, the two Presidents of Viacom Media Networks who are in charge of micro-managing the company’s broadcasting wing are Doug Herzog and Van Toffler, also members of the “tribe”. Even among the mid level executives of this show, people can be found such as Lauren Dolgen, daughter of Viacom former chairman Jonathan Dolgen. She is known for “wholesome family shows” such as “16 and pregnant“.
Greek-Americans who are outraged by this show should start discussing who is behind its production, rather than simply complaining about the phony theatrics seen by these “Greeks” broadcast on the television screen.
“Growing Up Greek”, constitutes little more than a hate motivated attack by the tribal media monopoly designed to libel and mock Greeks and Hellenism.
“Growing Up Greek” is by no means a new phenomenon and Viacom Inc has encountered similar controversy time and time again. In 2010 the Italian-American community united in protest against MTV’s “Jersey Shore” for celebrating drug abuse, promiscuity, low-life behavior, and portraying the Italian people as hedonistic animals. In 2013 a similar program titled “Party Down South” was created based on the insistence of Viacom executives and it portrays American Southerners in an equally malicious fashion. These programs are marketed as “reality shows”, but it is common knowledge that they are actually scripted and the cast members are instructed by producers on how to act to keep the programs “entertaining”.
Effectively, Viacom’s television shows do not represent any ethnic group accurately, they are instead insight as to how Zionists perceive the rest of the world, as well as the self-destructive behavior they want young people in these communities to mimic after watching their programs.
It is no coincidence that Italian-Americans, Greek-Americans, and American Southerners are targeted by Zionists with this type of slander. Why is that?
These ethnic groups in particular are renowned for being conservative and family oriented, yet do not have the economic, political, and especially media clout to effectively defend themselves from this sort of sick degradation.
We encourage Greeks and non-Greeks to join together to get this vile program off the air, by signing the petition, boycotting its sponsors, and refusing to watch any and all TV stations owned by Zionist Viacom.
Channels Owned by Viacom Inc: MTV, CMT (Country Music), VH1, Logo (homosexuality-oriented channel), Palladia, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Spike TV, BET (Black Entertainment Television) and TV Land.
As of December 2nd the Zionist organizations masquerading as institutions with the intention of defending Greeks from defamation, AHEPA and Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) have ignored numerous requests to comment on this issue.
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Posted: 04 Dec 2014 05:10 AM PST

According to AP, Texas is leading a 17-state coalition in suing over the Obama administration’s recently announced executive actions on immigration.
A year ago, following the whole Supreme Court farce, a bevy of states proved there are more than just “idiot voters” left in the US, when they decided to sue Obamacare outright over one or more of its provisions. They were promptly shut down by a judicial system that is as corrupt as the government itself (needless to say, both working at the behest of their true financial puppetmaster: Wall Street). And yet, in the aftermath of the now epic fiasco that is Obamacare, and not to mention the violent reaction to the administration as demonstrated in the midterm elections, the president may have a tougher time to brush away the next round of adverse reactions against his latest hugely unpopular executive order, one involving the amnesty of over 5 million illegal immigrants.
According to AP, Texas is leading a 17-state coalition in suing over the Obama administration’s recently announced executive actions on immigration.
While many top Republicans have denounced Obama’s unilateral illegal immigration clemency move designed to spare as many as 5 million people living illegally in the United States from deportation, or, as some put it, win the democrats 5 million heretofore non-existing voters, earlier today Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott took it a step further Wednesday, filing a lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. And once he did, the seal broke and everyone wanted in on the action, and Texas was quickly joined by 16 other, mostly southern and Midwestern states, including Alabama, Georgia, Idaho and Indiana.
Abbott argued Wednesday that Obama’s action “tramples” portions of the U.S. Constitution. Which, let’s be honest here, never stopped the “constitutional scholar” before.
The lawsuit raises three objections: that Obama violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution that limits the scope of presidential power; that the federal government violated rulemaking procedures; and that the order will “exacerbate the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, which will affect increased state investment in law enforcement, health care and education.”
To be sure this won’t be the first time Texas and Obama don’t see eye to eye. Or last. Wednesday’s announcement marks the 31st time the attorney general in this fiercely conservative state has brought action against the federal government since Obama took office in 2009. The only other high-profile lawsuit against the immigration action has come on behalf of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
House Majority Leader John Boehner told lawmakers this week that the GOP-led House may vote to undo Obama’s executive action, but the move would be mostly symbolic, as Obama would certainly veto such legislation and the Democratic-led Senate would go for it, either.
Abbott wasn’t alone: Potential 2016 presidential candidate and current Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who leaves office in January, also spoke out against the executive order earlier Wednesday, saying it could trigger a new flood of people pouring across the Texas-Mexico border. Perry and Abbott also have said the order will promote a culture of lawlessness.
Perry said at a news conference that Obama’s 2012 executive order delaying the deportation of children brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents triggered an unprecedented wave of unaccompanied minors and families, mostly from Central America, crossing into the U.S. this summer.
“In effect, his action placed a neon sign on our border, assuring people that they could ignore the law of the United States,” said Perry, who has deployed up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border.
The federal lawsuit involves the following states: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Then again, one may wonder about the theatricality of all of the above: if republicans were truly fed up with the authoritarian head of the republic, they would just impeach him and be done with it. The fact that despite the howls of displeasure they have yet to do anything substantive, once again merely shows that both democrats and republicans are merely two all too eager parties on the receiving end of kickbacks by what we earlier dubbed, the world’s biggest organized crime syndicate.

All those who want to get to the bottom of corruption in America, are urged to focus on Wall Street first, foremost, and only. Everything else is nickel and diming smoke and mirrors.
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Posted: 04 Dec 2014 04:22 AM PST
American poultry producers exported 267,000 metric tons of chicken valued at USD 303 million to Russia in 2013.
Russia has decided to impose restrictions on poultry imports from the United States because of “harmful residues.”
Russia’s Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service (VPSS) said on Thursday that the new decision would come into effect as of December 5.
VPSS said it made the decision due to “the ongoing identification of harmful residues and banned substances coming from the US poultry products, including the presence of tetracycline.”
On Wednesday, Russia also limited poultry imports from Germany and beef from Italy, Hungary and Montenegro.
The EU and the United States have slapped several rounds of economic sanctions against Russia over Moscow’s alleged involvement in the Ukraine crisis.
In August, Russia responded to Western sanctions by imposing a one-year ban on the import of certain food products from the EU, US, Canada, Australia and Norway.
The products subject to the ban are beef, pork, poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables, cheese, milk and other dairy products.
The US exports of food and agricultural products to Russia totaled USD 1.3bn in 2013. Among those affected are American poultry producers, who exported 267,000 metric tons of chicken, valued at USD 303 million to Russia last year.
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Posted: 04 Dec 2014 04:07 AM PST
Sydney actress says she’s the victim of brutal police assault…
A video showing three Sydney police officers brutally beating a young woman has gone viral, with over 750,000 views on Facebook. During the clip, the victim is repeatedly hit with a police baton and appears to be kicked in the head by a male officer.
Police brutality has been hitting the headlines in the US, but now it seems the unfortunate trend has made its way to Australia. The woman in question, Claire Helen, who works as a model and actress and was on the receiving end of recurring blows from a police officer, said: “It was the most frightening and humiliating experience of my life.”
Law enforcement officers allege that Helen punched a policewoman in the mouth, as well as resisting arrest, an action that the model stringently denies. “They pushed me down. They hit me and kicked me. They pulled my dress over my head,” she said, speaking to Channel Nine. Onlookers could be heard shouting, “Let her go,” and, “She’s not resisting arrest.”
Helen, who is 1 meter, 60 centimeters tall and weighs 55 kilograms, insists she was just enjoying a quiet night out when she was accosted by law enforcement officers, who were much bigger than her.
“We weren’t drunk. We’d been with people playing soccer and went out to have a few drinks. I’m not the sort of person who goes out getting pissed on a Wednesday night. I’m trying to make it as a model and actress. I can’t go out every night getting wasted. I definitely don’t ever get in circumstances like this,” she told Channel Nine news.
The incident happened in the Kings Cross area of Sydney, which is home to a number of bars and nightclubs, after Helen and a group of friends haggled over a taxi fare, according to police. The law enforcement agency also added that a male member of the group punched the taxi driver in the stomach.
However, Helen alleges that the taxi driver had charged the group the wrong amount, which led to the trouble starting.
“He had the meter running before we got in, so we got out,” she said. “He said something to us and we said something back, but then he pushed one of my friends and called the police. Then the police showed up and you saw what happened,” she added, Channel Nine reported.
The video has taken the internet by storm and has already been viewed by over three quarters of a million people on Facebook. Many users criticized Helen and defended the police. One woman wrote: “She deserved it. You’re supposed to respect your elders and respect the law,” with another adding, “She’s not resisting arrest?? Really… I thought that if you weren’t resisting they would’ve had the cuffs on you 1 sec into the video… she got what she deserved…. hopefully that taught her a lesson.”
Kings Cross Superintendent Michael Fitzgerald said he was satisfied police had used appropriate force, adding: “Police are not punching bags, neither are taxi drivers.”
Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross, Sydney
He added that police have reviewed CCTV footage of the incident, and they say it justified why they took such a heavy-handed approach.
“I have viewed the footage that has been uploaded on social media,” Fitzgerald said. “But I’ve also had the opportunity to view the entire CCTV from the City of Sydney cameras which shows the entire incident. [It] clearly shows the female offender punch the female police officer in an unprovoked assault which caused the wrestle that you see on YouTube,” Fitzgerald added, ABC News reported.
The officer who repeatedly struck Helen with a police baton will not face any charges, police said. Helen and three men have been arrested with a range of offences, including assaulting a police officer, assault, affray and resisting arrest. They have been granted bail until a court hearing on January 6.
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