Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday 2 December 2014

The European Union Times



Posted: 01 Dec 2014 02:08 PM PST


There is as yet no method to mimic Jesus Christ and turn water into wine, but German chemical engineers have proved they can perform miracles of alchemy. They are now finalizing the assembly of a rig that changes water into gasoline.
The German company says it has developed an engineering installation capable of synthesizing petroleum-based fuels from water and carbon dioxide. The ‘power-to-liquid’ rig converts gases extracted from water into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
“I would call it a miracle because it completely changes the way we are producing fuels for cars, planes and also the chemical industry,” Nils Aldag, Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of Sunfire GmbH told RT’s Ruptly video agency.
The Dresden-based company expects the technology to have a big impact on the future fuel market.
The electrically-powered installation uses a process known as Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, first developed by German chemists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch in 1925.
The Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) reaction converts colorless, odorless, incombustible carbon dioxide gas (CO2) extracted from water, and hydrogen gas generated from water vapor, by electrolysis into liquid fuels such as diesel, jet kerosene and other chemical products.
The conversion process takes place in a series of reactors at temperatures between 150 and 300 degrees Celsius.
However, the F-T fuel technology “will always be more expensive” than getting conventional liquid hydrocarbon fuels from oil or coal, Aldag warned.
“What is important is that the value creation happens at the place where you use the fuel,” he said. So there will be no crude oil transportation costs and expensive infrastructure. “You are producing the fuel right where you are actually going to use it,” Aldag stressed.
One might think that much cheaper conventional fuels will always be a sure bet, but this depends on the given conditions. The Pentagon has already been working in this direction.
The US military has spent up to $150 per gallon on alternative jet fuels made from algae, which is a good bit more than the approximately $3 per gallon that traditional jet fuels currently cost in the US.
Although $150 seems a lot for a gallon of gas, the US has spent a fortune on fuel during its 13-year campaign in Afghanistan. The military themselves estimate that the cost of delivering fuel to remote bases is $400 a gallon.
Sunfire believes the technology will be refined, and after obtaining regulatory permission they hope to offer it for commercial exploitation by 2016.
While Nils Aldag considers the technology has a bright future, the will to use it needs to gain momentum.
“I think in a very long time it will actually have an impact on geopolitics. What you always have to know is that the quantities that are required in these industries are so big that it would be difficult for such a technology to make a significant impact in a short period of time,” said Aldag.
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Posted: 01 Dec 2014 01:57 PM PST
Health inspection and quarantine researchers work in their laboratory at an airport in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China.
China has recently approved home-grown Ebola tests that comply with international norms to fight the spread of the deadly disease.
In a brief statement on Friday, the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said top health authorities approved three home-grown Ebola test reagents to be used against the virus.
The tests have been developed by top health research centers in China, namely Daan Gene Co., Ltd of Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen Puruikang and Shanghai ZJ Bio-Tech.
The statement did not detail how fast the reagents can diagnose an Ebola virus infection but said the tests will be reserved for contingency purposes.
“These (products) provide key technological safeguards for China to diagnose the Ebola virus and defend against any epidemic situation,” said officials with the CFDA.
No cases of Ebola have been reported in China, which is home to over 1.3 billion people.
There is no known treatment for Ebola, which is a form of hemorrhagic fever with diarrhea, vomiting, as well as internal and external bleeding as its symptoms. The virus spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that over 16,000 people have been infected with the deadly virus and around 7,000 have lost their lives as a result of it.
Most of the new deaths were recorded in Liberia, which along with Sierra Leone and Guinea, is the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
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Posted: 01 Dec 2014 01:53 PM PST


Former Massachusetts Governor and failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes Republicans should “swallow hard” and pass a permanent amnesty bill in the wake of President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty that even Romney conceded would encourage more illegal immigrants to enter the country.
Romney recently told Spanish-language Univision that Obama is “giving people false hope” and “communicating to people outside this country, ‘Hey, get into the United States illegally and stay, because they’ll always let you stay.’”
Romney’s solution is for Congress to pass a “permanent clarification of our immigration laws so that people know where they stand,” because Obama’s executive amnesty is only temporary.
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Posted: 01 Dec 2014 12:48 PM PST


The most popular name for baby boys in the UK is Muhammad, according to a new chart for 2014 compiled by BabyCentre. The name, also spelled as Mohammed and often given after the Muslim prophet, has seen an enormous gain in popularity, jumping 27 ranks.
“Traditionally Mohammed is often given to the first-born boy in Muslim families,” managing editor at parenting website BabyCentre, Sarah Redshaw, told the Mirror. “The increase of other Arabic names in the top 100 shows the ever-increasing diversity of the UK today.”
The name surged from its 27th place in 2013 to number one, beating Oliver, Jack, and Noah, according to the website’s chart. Prior to reaching number one on the national level, the name Muhammad received a top spot in London.
BabyCentre says it “combines names that sound the same but have different spellings,” without which the list could display a different picture.
Other trending baby boy names for Brits included Teddy, as it climbed the most in 2014. Kian and Jonathan were the highest new entries, followed by Omar, Ali, and Ibrahim further down the list.
The top baby girl name was Sophia. The Arabic female name Nur made its first appearance on the list this year, taking the 29th spot.
British parents have also been influenced by celebrities. For example, the popularity of the name Miley fell after pop star Miley Cyrus’ controversial behavior, the chart suggested.
Meanwhile, names from the hit TV show Game of Thrones – such as Emilia, Daenerys, and Tyrion – gained in popularity.
The list of popular baby names is compiled every year by BabyCentre. Below is a list of the UK’s 10 most popular baby names for 2014:
1. Mohammed 2. Oliver 3. Jack 4. Noah 5. Jacob 6. Charlie 7. Harry 8. Joshua 9. James 10. Ethan
1. Sophia 2. Emily 3. Lily 4. Olivia 5. Amelia 6. Isla 7. Isabella 8. Ava 9. Sophie 10. Chloe
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Posted: 01 Dec 2014 10:22 AM PST


A truly grim Ministry of Defense (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that President Putin has ordered over 2,000 top military officers to immediately begun duties at the National Defense Control Center (NDCC) which is, in fact, Russia’s “wartime government” headquarters in Moscow as “global war nears”.
According to this report, Putin’s order came immediately after his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara earlier today wherein an agreement was reached to increase Russian energy supplies to Turkey in exchange for that NATO member’s pledge of neutrality in any future Ukrainian conflict.
Important to note, this report says, is that the crisis in the key transit nation of Ukraine has imperiled Russian gas supplies to Turkey as winter fast approaches, but which this agreement will allow to be alleviated.
As we had previously reported on too, MoD reports from earlier last month appear to show that it is in preparations for a blitzkrieg attack upon the eastern regions of Ukraine, and which would secure those pipelines vital for Turkey’s energy security.


Even more ominously, with the NDCC being put on combat duty today, this new wartime control center, ordered built by Putin on 8 May 2013, is also the new headquarters for the Control Center of Strategic Nuclear Forces which oversees issues of use of weapons of mass destruction, and when combined with the 5,000 additional bomb shelters he ordered built in Moscow completed in 2012, appears to show Russia is preparing for all-out war.
As to whom Russia is preparing for war against Putin left doubt last month when he stated: “No matter what our Western counterparts tell us, we can see what’s going on. NATO is blatantly building up its forces in Eastern Europe, including the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea areas. Its operational and combat training activities are gaining in scale.”
And as to why the Obama regime-led Western alliance is provoking Russia to war, one of the best explanations, perhaps, was articulated this past week by the former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, and current Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute,Doug Bandow, who warned:
“The principle danger to America comes from hubris, the conviction of U.S. elites that they have been anointed by God to run the world. And their assumption that the rest of the world wants to be run by them. As a result, Washington constantly foments hostility, generates chaos, exacerbates conflicts, attempts social engineering, and makes other nations’ battles its own.”
Also, as the Obama regime has already launched a full-scale economic war against Russiawith what London’s Guardian News Service warns is a “high stakes gamble” due to the US-Saudi Arabia secret deal to flood the world with cheap oil, the American-German freelance journalist, historian, and economic researcher William Engdahl further warns in his article titled The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria:
“The US-Saudi oil price manipulation is aimed at destabilizing several strong opponents of US globalist policies. Targets include Iran and Syria, both allies of Russia in opposing a US sole Superpower. The principal target, however, is Putin’s Russia, the single greatest threat today to that Superpower hegemony.
The strategy is similar to what the US did with Saudi Arabia in 1986 when they flooded the world with Saudi oil, collapsing the price to below $10 a barrel and destroying the economy of then-Soviet ally, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, ultimately, of the Soviet economy, paving the way for the fall of the Soviet Union.
Today, the hope is that a collapse of Russian oil revenues, combined with select pin-prick sanctions designed by the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will dramatically weaken Putin’s enormous domestic support and create conditions for his ultimate overthrow.
It is doomed to fail for many reasons, not the least, because Putin’s Russia has taken major strategic steps together with China and other nations to lessen its dependence on the West. In fact the oil weapon is accelerating recent Russian moves to focus its economic power on national interests and lessen dependence on the Dollar system.
If the dollar ceases being the currency of world trade, especially oil trade, the US Treasury faces financial catastrophe. For this reason, I call the Kerry-Abdullah oil war a very stupid tactic.”
Critical to note too about this coming Obama regime war against Russia is the US Military and their fighting record, most succinctly stated by the Counter Punch News Service who wrote this past week:
“Keep in mind, the glorious US military has spent the last 13 years fighting sheep herders in flip-flops in Afghanistan in a conflict that, at best, could be characterized as a stalemate. And now the White House wants to take on Russia? Can you appreciate the insanity of the policy?”
And unlike their “flip-flop wearing” foes in Afghanistan, the Asia Times News Service this week warned what the Obama regime would be facing in a war with Russia:
“Wanna play war, boy?
Now for the “threat” of nuclear war in Europe – bogus or otherwise. It’s pointless to compare the strategic nuclear capabilities of the US and Russia based on numbers, but not on quality.
Take the compounded GDP of US, Germany, France and the UK and compare it to Russia; it’s a victory by landslide. Then examine the strategic nuclear scenario, and it’s a totally different story. GDP alone does not “win” anything.
Consider some of the basics:
Russian ICBMs armed with MIRVs travel at about 18 Mach; that is way faster than anything in the US arsenal. And basically they are unbeatable.
The S-400 and S-500 double trouble. Moscow has agreed to sell the S-400 surface-to-air missile system to China. The bottom line is this will make Beijing impermeable to US air power, ICBMs and cruise missiles. Russia, for its part, is already focusing on the state-of-the-art S-500 – which essentially makes the Patriot anti-missile system look like a V-2 from World War II.
The Russian Iskander missile travels at Mach 7 – with a range of 400 kilometers, carrying a 700 kilogram warhead of several varieties, and with a circular error probability of around five meters. Translation: an ultimate lethal weapon against airfields or logistic infrastructure. The Iskander can reach targets deep inside Europe.
And then there’s the Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA. Talk about a real near-future game-changer.
In a nutshell, both Moscow and Beijing know the US surface fleet is obsolete – and undefendable. A few thousand S-400 and S-500 systems are enough to block a US nuclear attack. Think of a hefty batch of S-400s positioned at the enclave of Kaliningrad; that would turn NATO air operations deep inside Europe into an absolutely horrendous nightmare. On top of it, good ol’ NATO fighter jets cost a fortune. Imagine the effect of hundreds of destroyed fighter jets on a European Union already financially devastated and austerity-plagued to death.”
To if the American people are even aware of the catastrophic global war the Obama regime is attempting to launch there remains no evidence, but is really no surprise since even before the illegal Iraq war started by President Bush was exposed by British intelligence agent Katharine Gun in 2003, the US mainstream media still refuses to tell their people the truth.
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