Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday 28 March 2015

The European Union Times



Posted: 27 Mar 2015 07:05 AM PDT


Four US A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes are taking part in war games in Poland, as the nation expects about 10,000 NATO forces at drills this year. Moscow says the military build-up at Russia’s borders will have a negative long-term impact.
The A-10 aircraft are based in western Poland, at an airbase in Powidz, where they will be involved in a series of training missions until Friday, Polish army spokesman Artur Golawski said, as cited by Reuters.
The planes, designed to attack tanks, armored vehicles and other ground targets – arrived at the 33rd Powidz Transport Air Base on Tuesday, according to The Aviationist. They followed two C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft.
On Wednesday, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak (who is also deputy prime minister) said that he approved of the constant presence of NATO troops in his country. “We are striving for it and we are talking about it. We are preparing ground for the constant presence,” TASS quoted him as saying. Around 10,000 allied forces are expected to take part in this year’s drills.
The military exercises are supposed to come as a part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which aims at “reassuring NATO allies and partners of America’s dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region” following the recent developments in Ukraine.
Last Saturday, Lithuania’s capital Vilnius saw the start of operation Dragoon Ride – a convoy of US military vehicles, mostly IAV Stryker APCs, heading to a base in the German town of Vilseck in Bavaria via Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Lt. Gen Ben Hodges, the commanding general of US Army Europe, described the route as NATO’s Eastern European allies “that live closest to the Bear.”
In the Czech Republic, where anti-war activists launched the ‘Tanks? No thanks!’ campaign in order to protest against what they called a “provocative victory parade” near the Russian border, people were instructed not to throw tomatoes or eggs at a US military convoy, as they could face charges of up to three years behind bars.
Dragoon Ride demonstrated its weapons and military equipment, including Stryker armored fighting vehicles and Humvee military automobiles, in Lithuania, making stops in six cities. It continued its procession in Poland, where it was accompanied by military gendarmerie and military helicopters.
This week, the air forces of Finland and the US have started joint military exercises, later to be joined by Sweden, TASS reported. The drills are mainly taking place in the skies above the sea, not far from the western coast of Finland, and will also occur in international airspace.
At the beginning of March, six NATO warships participated in naval drills in the Black Sea. The operation, headed by the US, included anti-air and anti-submarine exercises. The 3.5 month series of joint exercises commenced in Bulgaria. About 350 US army officers, as well as US tanks, helicopters and armored personnel carriers, came for the drills.
The US also delivered over 120 armored units, including tanks, to Latvia this month. The country’s defense minister, Raymond Vejonis, welcomed the move, saying on Twitter that “the presence of our allies (US and NATO) in Latvia is a confirmation of solidarity and security in the region.”
Last month, the US deployed twelve A-10s in Germany, and in January NATO stationed additional troops in the three Baltic states – Romania, Bulgaria and Poland – as part of its new strategy.
Poland is one of the closest US allies in Europe, in addition to being one of the leading heralds of the so-called “Russian threat” in eastern Ukraine. The crisis there broke out last spring after Kiev sent its military to the Donbass region to suppress dissent against an armed coup in the capital. The internal conflict has already claimed over 6,000 lives, according to UN estimates.
Russia sees the recent actions as additional proof that NATO is an anti-Russian military bloc that has taken advantage of the Ukrainian conflict, using it as a pretext for a military build-up in Eastern Europe.
“NATO is developing its rapid response forces and is boosting its infrastructure near our borders, we are registering attempts to violate nuclear parity and the creation of the European and Asia-Pacific segments of the missile defense systems is being sped up,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the FSB collegium on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich reminded that Russia has all the means to counteract nuclear threats. He said at a regular media briefing that “it’s high time the US renounced destructive unilateral moves in the sphere of missile defense, then there would be no need to worry about their consequences,” TASS reported.
“Consistent US military build-up at the Russian borders in line with NATO’s plans to strengthen military presence and develop infrastructure at the so-called eastern flank…not only provokes tensions in the region, which has been considered one of the most buoyant in Europe, but also has long-term negative consequences,” Lukashevich added.
On Wednesday, Russia’s envoy to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, pointed out in an interview to Germany’s Das Erste TV that Russia hasn’t substantively increased the number of its military drills, while the military activity of NATO has escalated, “shaping a new military reality.”
“Today’s problem is not Russia’s military activity, but the increased military activity of NATO. Every other day new military exercises take place within the framework of The Readiness Action Plan of the alliance. The number of NATO drills has exceeded 200. The total number of tactical flights of the NATO air forces over the Baltic and Barents Seas, as well as bordering Russia regions last year exceeded 3,000, which is the double number of 2013 drills,” Grushko said, adding that the figures estimating Russian military activities in 2013-2014, along with current activity, have mostly remained at the same level.
The Pentagon acknowledged that over 1,000 American troops based in Europe have recently been moving across Eastern Europe to participate in the military exercises. The operation is set to “demonstrate the freedom of movement that exists within NATO,” according to military spokesman Steven Warren.
Another point of Russia’s concern is the possibility of US weapons deliveries to Ukraine. The conflict-torn country is already facing large-scale international drills instructed by the US this April, which are set to last until November. President Poroshenko said they mean “integration to the biggest defense structure in the world,” Interfax reported.
“Weapons supply activities from the US to Ukraine are fraught with a failure of a shaky truce in Donbass and outright threaten Russia’s security,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said, pointing out that it undermines the Minsk agreements and calls into question the plans of the US, as well as NATO.
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Posted: 27 Mar 2015 06:56 AM PDT

Andreas Lubitz was the co-pilot on board the Germanwings aircraft en route Barcelona to Dusseldorf.
Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who deliberately crashed a plane with 150 people onboard, had undergone psychiatric treatment, a fact that should prompt questions about whether the 28-year-old had been taking SSRI drugs which have been linked to numerous cases of mass murder and suicides.
“Lubitz had spent 18 months overall under psychiatric treatment, Bild reported on Friday, citing anonymous sources within Lufthansa, Germanwings’ parent company. The pilot was diagnosed with a “severe depressive episode” in 2009, the German daily says. It claims it got access to Lubitz’s profile, indicating the pilot had “psychological problems” and required a “special, exemplary regular medical examination,” reports RT.
Lubitz was also going through a personal crisis after breaking up with his girlfriend having previously taken a six month break from flight training due to “burnout-syndrome” or “depression”.
During a search of Lubitz’ apartment, German police also announced that they had discovered a “significant clue” that might help to determine why Lubitz deliberately crashed the Airbus A320. Authorities said that the item was not a suicide note.
“We have found something which will now be taken for tests,” Markus Niesczery from Dusseldorf Police told the Daily Mail. “We cannot say what it is at the moment, but it may be a very significant clue to what has happened.”
Ascertaining whether Lubitz was on or had come off anti-depression drugs should be a crucial part of the investigation given the clear connection between SSRI pharmaceuticals and incidents of suicide and mass murder.
As CCHR documents, psychiatric drugs have been involved in at least 31 different school shootings and other massacres over the last 25 years.
Despite it being reported that prescription drugs were found in the apartment of ‘Batman’ shooter James Holmes days after the Aurora massacre, it took nine months to find out exactly what those drugs were. Like Columbine killer Eric Harris, Holmes had been taking Zoloft, an SSRI drug linked with episodes of mania.
The connection between Zoloft and violent outbursts is well documented. Countless studies identify Zoloft as being responsible for more than 1,000 suicides and hundreds of episodes of mania and aggression.
There was also an apparent attempt to shield information concerning whether or not Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza was taking psychiatric drugs. In September 2013, we reported on the State of Connecticut refusing to release Lanza’s medical records over fears that divulging the identity of the antidepressants he was taking would, “cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications,” according to Assistant Attorney General Patrick B. Kwanashie.
Fort Hood gunman Ivan Lopez, who shot dead three colleagues and injured 16 others before turning the gun on himself in April last year, was also taking psychiatric medication before the shooting. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was also taking anti-depressant drugs when he massacred 16 Afghan civilians in 2012.
As the website SSRI Stories profusely documents, there are literally hundreds of examples of mass shootings, murders and other violent episodes that have been committed by individuals on psychiatric drugs over the past three decades. The number of cases is staggering, but the media has completely failed to generate a national conversation about the issue due to its obsession with exploiting mass shootings to demonize the second amendment.
In the aftermath of revelations that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the airliner, there has also been complete silence amongst the establishment press as to whether psychiatric drugs played a role, despite Lubitz’ known history of depression.
Pharmaceutical giants who produce drugs like Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil spend around $2.4 billion dollars a yearon direct-to-consumer television advertising every year. By running negative stories about prescription drugs, networks risk losing tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue, which is undoubtedly one of the primary reasons why the connection is habitually downplayed or ignored entirely.
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Posted: 27 Mar 2015 06:09 AM PDT


According to newspaper reports recently unearthed by several rights groups in South Africa, murders of South African whites are being disguised by issuing death certificates showing that they had died of “natural causes”. At least three such cases have come to light.
In a brutal murder, auto-electrician Henry Locke (41) was shot through the heart in front of his whole family on 5 October 2009. Afterwards, the ANC-controlled state issued a death certificate stating that he had died of “natural causes”.
Commenting on the certificate, published in the Johannesburg daily Beeld on 30 October 2009, his wife Amanda Locke (43) expressed shock, saying: “On the contrary, he was shot dead right in front of us, before our very eyes.” (Beeld archive here.)
“They did not say anything. They just shot him dead. On the spot where he was shot, he fell and died.
“How can the murder case continue if the death certificate states that he died of natural causes?
“It is impossible that he could have died of natural causes. It simply cannot be.”
Mr. Locke was shot in the heart on the Elands game farm near Cullinan, northeast of Pretoria, in front of his daughter, Monique (13) and son Dawie (23), a paraplegic. According to Mrs. Locke, the government officials told her that the bullet hitting her husband’s heart had caused a heart attack, therefore the cause was “natural”.
When the Beeld reporter contacted Mr. Ronnie Mamoepa, the spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs, he told her that he was “certain that the information on the death certificate was wrong” and that “the mistake would definitely be corrected”. To date, there has been no news of any correction.
After the publication of the report in Beeld, another case came to light. A woman writing under the name of “Elsabé” in the letters column on 30 October 2009 stated the following:
“In reaction to the report ‘Is being shot in the heart a “natural cause”?’ on the late Mr. Henry Locke, I wish to mention that my husband was shot on 14 July in the house where we lived on a smallholding in Raslouw in what was presumably an armed robbery.
“His death certificate, too, states that he died ‘of natural causes’.
“My impression is that such ‘mistakes’ are committed deliberately (to falsify statistics?) or it could be simply lazy officials.
“In a previous letter to Beeld I had stated that the crime mentioned on my husband’s police docket was ‘domestic robbery’.
“The report of the post-mortem is still not available, after three months.
“Such mistakes are pointed out in the media, but alas – nothing happens afterwards.
“We must realise that we are at the mercy of the elements.”
A third case took an even bizarre turn when a man initially thought to have been killed by a buffalo was shown to have been stabbed to death. This case was mentioned in the Beeld on 6 October 2009, so three such cases were reported within one month.
Mr. Roy Munks (65) of Dunnottar near Springs on the East Rand was wounded in the neck, damaging his artery. He was presumed to have had a heart attack due to the shock of being gouged by a buffalo.
However, two suspected robbers were being questioned the previous week when they admitted during the interrogation that they had been a party to Munks’s death. The men, whose names were withheld by police, were charged with murder and held.
The results of the post mortem on Munks found that he had bled to death after being gouged by the buffalo. The wounds on his body “were commensurate with the wounds possibly caused by a buffalo’s horns”. The police now believe that Munks was stabbed with knives because the attackers wanted to rob his farmhouse.
None of these stories was published in the English-language media of South Africa. A thorough search of fhe names and dates returned no results.
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Posted: 27 Mar 2015 04:31 AM PDT

Activists: Members of the National Union of Students (file picture) have asked for jazz hands rather than clapping in case it caused anxiety.
Young student union activists have asked other conference delegates to wave with ‘jazz hands’ instead of clapping or cheering speakers in case it ‘triggers anxiety’ among nervous members.
Hundreds were asked to wave in silence because other people found ‘whooping’ to be ‘super inaccessible’.
The request was made at the National Union of Students’ annual Women’s Conference in Solihull, West Midlands, which started yesterday.
NUS Women’s Campaign tweeted: ‘Whooping is fun for some, but can be super inaccessible for others, so please try not to whoop! Jazz hands work just as well.’
They then followed that with: ‘Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it’s triggering anxiety. Please be mindful! #nuswomen15′.
Critics have said the messages had ‘damaged feminism’.
Tara Hewitt tweeted: ‘This damages real equality nothing from conference will make a difference today but “jazz hands” nonsense damaged feminism’.
Others lampooned the instructions online.
@JLat55 tweeted: ‘Open palms can be triggering. Well, so can closed ones… you should just ban any outward expression of approval.’
The suggestions got more ridiculous and ironic with @BookGeek-T tweeting: ‘@nuswomcam @Little-G2 hi, jazz hands can be triggering because of the quick movement of the hands. I vote blinking rapidly instead. Thanks’.
Despite the jokes the NUS has said that it is important that they are inclusive.
Nona Buckley-Irvine, General secretary at the London School of Economics Students’ Union, said: ‘Jazz hands are used throughout NUS in place of clapping as a way to show appreciation of someone’s point without interrupting or causing disturbance, as it can create anxiety.
‘I’m relatively new to this and it did feel odd at first, but once you’ve used jazz hands a couple of times it becomes a genuinely nice way to show solidarity with a point and it does add to creating a more inclusive atmosphere.’
LSE SU women’s officer Gee Linford-Grayson added: ‘As someone who is new to the NUS conference culture it surprised me at first, but actually within a few rounds of jazz hands applause it began to make a lot of sense, as loud clapping and whooping can be intimidating and distracting when you’re speaking on stage.
‘Plus who doesn’t like jazz hands?!’
The annual event decides the female issues for the NUS to campaign on, and elects the campaign’s representatives.
An NUS spokesperson said: ‘The request was made by some delegates attending the conference.
‘We strive to make NUS events accessible and enjoyable for all, so each request is considered.’
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Posted: 27 Mar 2015 03:12 AM PDT


A new report released by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) today states that President Barack Obama became so enraged upon learning that a NATO forces “war game” on Tuesday downed Germanwings Flight 9525 over southern France, killing all 150 aboard, he shockingly refused to meet this Western alliances top commander, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg despite repeated requests to do so.
The NATO war game shootdown of Germanwings Flight 9525 (US Laser Test Destroys Germanwings Airliner Killing 150 Innocent Civilians) the Ministry of Defense (MoD) had previously reported was due to a failed US Air Force test of its High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) attempting to shoot down an ICBM reentry vehicle simulating a Federation nuclear attack upon Aviano Air Base in Italy.
The SVR in their report notes that President Obama became aware of the dangers this war game laser test posed to civilians airliners earlier this month after a similar test nearly caused the destruction of Lufthansa Flight LH1172 over France barely two weeks ago, and which exactly like Germanwings Flight 9525 on Tuesday, rapidly plummeted towards the ground before its pilots/controllers were able to regain control.


Most interesting to note in this SVR report, however, are its technical contradictions to what it calls the “massive cover operation” being employed by Western intelligence agencies to keep their citizens from knowing the truth of what happened to Germanwings Flight 9525, and are, instead, blaming everything on its co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz.
The cover operation being implemented against the Germanwings Flight 9525 disaster, this SVR report continues, is being conducted by a specialized intelligence unit of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called to the scene by the European Union, and who, like in all previous incidents of this kind, and without knowing any facts, forcefully assert that the incident/disaster was not caused by terrorism.
Contradictorily though, SVR experts in this report state, while on the one hand stating their assurance that this airliner was not downed by terrorism, these Western intelligence agencies, headed by the FBI, have now begun to flood their nations media with reports that co-pilot Lubitz was, indeed, a terrorist…who locked his own planes pilot out of the cockpit, then set it on a deliberate course causing its obliteration upon a French mountainside.
With visual evidence of the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash site showing it rained down in thousands of pieces causing a massive debris field covering hundreds of acres across numerous mountain ranges, and with no one single impact point being able to be indentified, which can only lead to the logical conclusion that it exploded in the air, this report says, the main goal of the Western intelligence agencies cover operation is to shift their publics attention away from what their eyes are telling them, forcing them to, instead, concentrate their minds on the “scapegoat” terrorist.


This long known cover operation tactic, this report explains, was, perhaps, most successfully used during the 11 September 2001 attack upon the US Pentagon when the American people were “convinced” that a hijacked airliner had struck it, in spite of the first CNN report stating it didn’t happen, and photographic evidence showing the hole left in that massive building was the size of a cruise missile, not an airliner.
Even more concerning of this cover operation, SVR experts in this report say, even if co-pilot Lubitz had initiated a Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) of Germanwings Flight 9525, the Lufthansa Aviation Center (LAC) at Frankfurt Airport would have detected it immediately via their Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) and corrected it remotely.
To the high technical proficiency of Lufthansa monitoring their aircraft, this report says, can be read in their own words of how their Aviation Center operates:
“Constant monitoring of all aircraft in the Maintenance Control Center Lufthansa Technik’s Maintenance Control Center monitors the technical status of the serviced aircraft worldwide, both on the ground and in the air, and controls necessary procedures. The structural statuses of the aircraft and the due dates for required and planned modifications and tasks are constantly tracked and monitored.
Everything that is part of fleet management is controlled here around the clock and around the world. At the Lufthansa Traffic Control Center in Frankfurt, staff compile all required data on the Lufthansa fleet operating worldwide using what is known as the ACARS system (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System), a data network using HF radio and satellites, and analyze it. Potential faults are immediately detected.”


With the Lufthansa Aviation Center, therefore, able to “immediately detect” and “control necessary procedures”, even of their flights in the air, like Germanwings Flight 9525, this report notes, it is inconceivable that they would fail to notice one of their airliners plummeting towards the ground in southern France and not remotely take control of it before it crashed.
In fact, so critically important to Lufthansa that it be able to control its airliners remotely in case of a crisis/emergency, this report says, was the deciding factor of their Airbus airliner purchases due to this aircraft having the worlds most sophisticated fly-by-wire (FBW) system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface.
In a fly-by-wire system, this report explains, the movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals transmitted by wires (hence the fly-by-wire term), and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the ordered response. The fly-by-wire system also allows automatic signals sent by the aircraft’s computers to perform functions without the pilot’s input, as in systems that automatically help stabilize the aircraft, or prevent unsafe operation of the aircraft outside of its performance envelope.
With Germanwings Flight 9525 clearly operating unsafely “outside of its performance envelope”, and with the Lufthansa Aviation Center monitoring it in real time and able to control this aircraft without the pilots input via its FBW system, this SVR report says, clearly shows that this airliner exploded in the air and was unable to be remotely controlled…and as the visual crash site evidence proves too.
Most unfortunately, however, this report concludes, is that the Western peoples will never know the truth of what happened to Germanwings Flight 9525 as their war mongering governments know the backlash they could expect should the truth be known.
Sadly though, this massive propaganda cover-up of the total destruction of Germanwings Flight 9525 won’t affect Iranian sports journalist Hussein Javadi, who took the last haunting photograph of this doomed aircraft as it began its last journey. Everyone else, of course, should start preparing themselves for all the sensational news soon to come supporting the cover-up…after all, these monsters have proved it works, and the people have more than proved their content with lies.


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