Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Thursday, 29 January 2015

The European Union Times


Posted: 28 Jan 2015 02:43 PM PST


Generals say Israel faces greatest existential threat since establishment of the state.
Israel has vowed a “disproportionate” response after two IDF soldiers were killed and seven wounded by an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah in the Har Dov area near the Lebanon border.
The apparent attack follows the killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi during an Israeli airstrike in the Golan Heights area of Syria. The January 18 attack also killed six members of Hezbollah.
On Monday, Iran warned of a response to the attack that killed Allahdadi.
“We told the Americans that the leaders of the Zionist regime should await the consequences of their act,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told IRNA. He said Israel had “crossed our red lines.”
“We absolutely condemn any such threats that come in any form,” State Department spokeswomanJen Psaki responded after the message was delivered to the United States through the Swiss embassy. The U.S. and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since the Iranian revolution in 1979.
Following the attack on the IDF along the border, mortars hit an Israeli military position on Mt. Hermon. The mortar attack resulted in a closure of the site and the evacuation of civilians from a nearby ski resort, according to the BBC.
Israel then reportedly hit Hezbollah operational positions along the border. Lebanese officials said at least 50 shells were fired into the villages of Majidiyeh, Abbasiyeh and Kfar Chouba near the Shebaa Farms area.
The Lebanese villages were targeted “to send a message to the Syrian regime that we view it responsible for what occurs on its territory and that there is a price to pay for allowing Hezbollah to use your positions,” IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN.
The Israeli response killed a Spanish UNIFIL member in Ghajar, a village on the Israel-Lebanon frontier.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, was established by the United Nations following the adoption of Security Council Resolution 425 and 426 in 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman contacted his counterpart in Spain to convey Israel’s condolences for the death.
Lieberman blamed Hezbollah for the attack and also said Israel blames the Lebanese government for any attack initiated from its territory. He also said Israel will respond in a “forceful and disproportionate manner” to the retaliation for the killing of Amirabdollahian.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country is prepared to launch a forceful response to the attacks.
“At this moment, the IDF is responding to events in the north. To everyone who is trying to challenge us at the northern border, I recommend that they look what happened not far away from the city of Sderot, in Gaza: Hamas took its hardest hit since its formation. And the IDF is prepared to act strongly on all fronts,” Netanyahu said.
Israel military action in the Gaza in response to crude rocket attacks by Hamas resulted in the death of more than 2,100 Palestinians during Operation Protective Edge conducted last summer. 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel also died.
War Preparations Predate Latest Skirmish
On January 20, Major General Eyal Ben Reuven, a former deputy head in the Israeli Defense Forces, said Israeli intelligence has determined Iran and Hezbollah are planning to attack Israel in the northern Galilee region of the country.
On January 22, a Jewish newspaper, Hamodia, reported on a massive military buildup:
The IDF continued its massive buildup in the north, even though it was decided to grant Shabbos leave for soldiers who had initially been slated to stay on duty throughout. Military sources indicated, however, that this did not mean a reduction in the level of readiness.
On the contrary, they expect the present high alert level to continue for a prolonged period. Therefore, it was decided to permit some soldiers to go home, and in the coming weeks to allow others to go home.
Military traffic on roads leading north was heavy all through Thursday afternoon, as reinforcements streamed to the border area.
A significant number of the troops are being posted within residential communities in the north, in order to bolster the general feeling of security. Others are concentrating in military bases and strategic points in the Golan.
According to Al-Monitor’s “Israel Pulse,” Israel faces an existential threat not experienced since the establishment of the Jewish state in October, 1947. The newspaper cited senior IDF officers, quoted by Arutz Sheva, who said Hezbollah will attempt to capture Israeli territory.
“According to Israeli sources, Hezbollah is training its commando forces to make a surprise incursion into Israel, take over a community (such as a kibbutz or a moshav — a cooperative community — or even a small town like Shlomi). It will try to inflict as much damage as possible and hold out for as long as possible, taking hostages that will allow its troops to pull back safely home into Lebanon,” writes Ben Caspit for Al-Monitor.
Source
        
Posted: 28 Jan 2015 02:32 PM PST


The judicial investigation into the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman brought to light the shady links between the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency with the Argentine Intelligence Services. Nisman had filed a criminal complaint against the Argentine president for obstructing the probe of the AMIA Jewish community center bombing which took place in 1994.
According to Wikileaks the prosecutor had secret ties with the US and the Israeli spy agencies. Following his death, President Cristina Kirchner disbanded the Intelligence Secretariat and announced a sweeping reform of the national intelligence system.
The former Intelligence Secretariat, also known as “SIDE”, had also been heavily scrutinized by human rights organizations and social movements for alleged hatching of political operations against the government and its allies abroad.
A brand new Federal Intelligence Agency will replace the former organization. Experts warned that totally new procedures and an overall staff reshuffle must be carried out to guarantee effective changes in the intelligence services.
The new intelligence agency to be created after Congress approval will focus on the prevention of international threats coming from terrorism, drug dealing, human trafficking and other crimes. President Kirchner also stressed that, first and foremost, its actions and procedures must be in accordance with the National Constitution and respect the Human Rights act.
Source
        
Posted: 28 Jan 2015 01:36 PM PST


The dollar shows a steady growth with regard to other until recently stable world currencies. But is the dollar that strong? After all, the U.S. has a state debt of 18 trillion dollars and can declare a technical default at any moment. Recent rise of the Swiss franc showed that the dollar is far from being a safe haven for investors.
Global capital flows are extremely unstable
It is important to understand that global capital flows are extremely unstable today. Central banks all over the world have printed huge amounts of bank notes – trillions of currencies in dollars, euros, yens, etc. And these sums must generate profit or at least not to devalue.
If you have 10,000 or even 10 million of some assets at your disposal then you will keep them in a bank but if you have hundreds of billions you must find a safe place for them. Traditionally institutional investors (insurance and pension funds, investment companies of different kind) preferred to invest currency in some western government bonds and then to “leave off investments”, as it were.
The situation has drastically changed today. Investors are not sure at all if they benefit from government bonds, e.g. American Treasuries. Because the U.S. government may shutdown again with an 18 trillion dollar debt and Central Bank can go bankrupt in a blink of an eye. Japan can declare default on its huge debt (over 200% of GDP), and the euro region can fall apart.
As a result, capital is trying to assess risks and switches from one major global currency to another. The one that in investor’s opinion is the safest right now. Today the U.S. dollar is preferred, but it is not a vote of confidence to the American currency. It is just voting against all others, at it were.
Surprise from Swiss franc
It is just that bankruptcy of the U.S. is less expected than bankruptcy of the European Union. But situation can change in no time and not in terms of bankruptcies. The recent situation with the Swiss franc is a proof of that. Since September 2011 the Swiss National Bank (SNB) have established an exchange rate ceiling of 1.2 franc/euro. SNB purchased foreign currency at a very low rate and provided high liquidity for its banks.
But a few days ago SNB cancelled a peg with the Euro, and franc got 30% more expensive in several hours with regard to Euro and Dollar. This could never happen a year ago. Why has it happened? Because the game that included Dollar, Yen and Euro, has suddenly expanded by one player and it turned out that Dollar is not so preferred. The surge of the Swiss franc rate triggered a mini crisis on financial markets but in a few moments it made holders of the Swiss franc richer due to the growth of purchasing power of their money.
Today the Swiss can buy considerably more Spanish oranges, German beer and Italian tomatoes for 1 franc. And most importantly – real estate, gold and other assets. The next candidate to impose an “unpegged policy” is any currency that will cancel a peg with the U.S. dollar or Euro. Then happy owners of, for example, Hong Kong dollar will instantly become richer.
Who will demonopolize the U.S. dollar?
“The currencies market is very speculative now, Aleksey Sokolov, Rector of the Training Center “Finam”, told Pravda.Ru. What we see is rather the decline of the Euro than growth of the Dollar. There are plenty of questions to the United States today for people to invest in the American currency so totally. If the U.S. defaults regularly then the dollar will hardly be of any value in this case. Hence, retreat to the dollar is such a very traditional approach to speculation, if anything happens then invest in the dollar, and I think if the end of the era of such an approach is not coming now, then it will in the near future”.
“When the program of quantitative easing of money printing was going full blast in the United States, we did not see high strengthening of the dollar neither against other currencies, nor against Euro in particular,” Maksim Shein, chief strategist of BCS Financial Group, told Pravda.Ru.
“But as soon as the program was scrapped in the U.S., and it is still going in Europe and Japan, and their Central Banks continue to print money, then in this situation we see strengthening of the American dollar, respectively. Moreover, rates of economic growth in the United States are higher than in Europe and Japan. Accordingly, it leads to strengthening of the American currency,” the expert said.
There is one more fundamental factor, it is a market one and is related to various concerns of investors. According to Maksim Shein, what happened to the Swiss franc is a pure surprise, unexpectedness. “No one knew that such decision will be made. Hence, we see heavy losses suffered by many forex companies that did not stand it. The currency market is always unpredictable. It seems to make slight fluctuations for a very long time, but sometimes there are strong swings caused by some or other events of monetary, non-monetary or political nature,” the expert said.
According to Aleksey Sokolov, a currency of some small state cannot demonopolize the dollar on the currency market, currencies of states that have a large scale foreign program are more interesting in these terms. “By the way, it could be our currency – rouble, or the yuan,” Aleksey Sokolov said.
It seems that the only thing to do is to break up the peg with the dollar, in this context the yuan is far more independent.
Source
        
Posted: 28 Jan 2015 01:28 PM PST


The new Greek government has spoken out against the EU partners over the statement that lays the blame for Saturday’s fatal attack on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Russia. Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria voiced similar objections earlier.
The government, headed by Prime Minister Alexis Tripras, said in a press release on Tuesday that “the aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states, and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece.”
“In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement,” Tsipras added.
He voiced his “discontent” in a phone call to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini.
The government, headed by Prime Minister Alexis Tripras, said in a press release on Tuesday that “the aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states, and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece.”
“In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement,” Tsipras added.
He voiced his “discontent” in a phone call to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini.
One EU diplomat reportedly said that Greece had attempted to remove the line blaming Russia for the Mariupol killing. Also, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia tried, and failed, to “water down” the communiqué, the EU Observer website stated.
It’s the first time that such a situation – a retroactive abjuration of an EU line – has happened, EU Council official stressed.
Foreign affairs analyst Serja Trifkovich told RT that other countries might follow suit and oppose Brussels’ policies on the Ukrainian crisis.
“It’s very difficult in the EU to break the ranks. Now that Greece has made a move, I confidently expect that the Hungarians in particular, but perhaps also Slovakia and Cyprus, will [find] the courage to say no to the dictate from Brussels.”
The EU statement on Russia and Ukraine also urged for more sanctions, for considering “any appropriate action” against Moscow.
One of the measures being mulled is to block Russia from the global interbank SWIFT payment system.
Economist Max Fraad Wolff told RT that this would be a drastic measure.
“Let’s be fair and honest here: if you’re cut off from SWIFT, your ability to have any kind of normal business flow with the global commerce community is hampered.”
However, what he envisages is that “cooler heads will prevail” and that “we won’t see Russia cut off from the SWIFT system,” as it is “in very few parties’ long-term interests.”
Source
        
Posted: 28 Jan 2015 08:58 AM PST


A truly astonishing report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) states that a “massive killing operation” organized and funded by the Obama regime has been uncovered and is responsible for the deaths of at least 45 people, including a top US movie director and his family, numerous bankers and nearly the entire family of a top American computer expert.
According to this report, the SVR first became aware of this Obama killing operation when two of its financial analysts, Victor Podobnyy and Igor Sporyshev, were contacted by a senior Vnesheconombank (VEB) computer technician named Evgeny Buryakov in New York City this past month.
The VEB is a Russian state corporation (a non-profit) that is a former Soviet bank and has no Russian banking license (i.e. Vnesheconombank is not a bank) and is not subject to the law on banks and banking activities.
Translated to the English language, its name means “Bank of Foreign Economic Activity”, though it is commonly called the “Russian Development Bank”, and it refers to itself as “the state corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs”.
The Russian government uses VEB to support and develop the Russian economy and to manage Russian state debts and pension funds. It is a part in the government’s plan to diversify the Russian economy, and to do so it receives funds directly from the state budget. The bank was instituted in 1922.
One of the main programs of the VEB is to include procedures which would enable it, under applicable legislation, to identify customers, customers’ representatives, beneficiaries and beneficial owners, assess customers’ risks, as well as risks of using VEB’s services in order to legalize (launder) illicit gains and finance terrorism, and timely detect customers’ transactions that are subject to mandatory control, as well as spot unusual transactions, document and store information about customers and their transactions, as well as take measures to counteract legalization of illicit gains and terrorism financing.


Raising the concerns of VEB computer technician Buryakov, this report continues, was a “buried algorithm” within the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) that linked to the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) National Clandestine Service (NCS) director Frank Archibald, and which over the course of this past year alone had dispersed nearly $100 million. [Note: SWIFT provides a network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable environment.]
Upon the VEB’s discovery of this CIA “buried algorithm”, this report says, computer technician Buryakov then traced the dispersement of these illegal/illicit funds discovering they linked to the early January killings of the anti-establishment US independent filmmaker David Crowley, his wife Komel, 28, and their 5-year-old daughter, Rani, IT executive Don Pyle, 55, his wife and four grandchildren killed three days later, and whose company was monitoring the Pentagon, FBI, NSA and US Army, and nearly all of the 36 bankers found dead during the past year.
Under established VEB procedures (i.e. Russian law), this report continues, computer technician Buryakov contacted the SVR at the Russian New York City embassy where he turned over the evidence he had accumulated and his assessment of same.
The SVR then, following accepted international criminal procedures, this report says, then contacted their American counterparts requesting further substantiation from both the CIA and the US State Department on the information discovered by the VEB.
Within hours of this SVR’s request, however, analysts in this report state, NCS director Archibald was ousted from the CIA, SVR analysts Podobnyy and Sporyshev (both of whom were under diplomatic cover) were ordered to leave the United States, VEB computer technician Buryakov wasarrested by the FBI and charged with spying, and the Obama regime threatened to cut Russia off from the SWIFT banking system.
In response to this aggression against the Federation, it should be noted, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned the Obama regime that Russia’s reaction will be “unlimited” if the SWIFT payment system is used as an instrument against the country, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich, in commenting on the US arrest for spying of VEB’s computer technician Buryakov stated, “The American authorities have once again decided to resort to their favorite practice of drumming up spy passions.”
Important to note, this SVR report concludes, is that the CIA’s vast killing operation against all of its enemies predates the Obama regime as evidenced by the 1997 murder of Hollywood screenwriter andCIA spy Gary Devore, who was mysteriously found killed without his hands just prior to his making a movie detailing the true reason for the Bush regimes attack against Panama, and which was to recover the “sex tapes” showing top American officials having sex with underage children.
Source
        
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 10:48