Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday 12 April 2015

The European Union Times


Posted: 11 Apr 2015 01:40 PM PDT

While debate over a nuclear deal with Iran continues, the White House used a cartoon bomb to demonstrate the benefits of the framework agreement struck with Tehran, a move that was surely meant to tweak Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has been a fierce critic of the framework deal hammered out between Iran and leading world powers earlier this month, but on Wednesday the Obama administration used his own imagery against him as it tries to convince Americans that the deal being worked on is the best way to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
On Twitter, the White House posted a message that referred to Netanyahu’s 2012 United Nations speech, in which the Israeli prime minister held up a cartoon drawing of a bomb with a lit fuse and drew a red line to indicate Iran’s proximity to obtaining a nuclear weapon. The tweet featured the exact same bomb drawing that Netanyahu had used previously, with the fuse notably snapped by a pair of scissors, and explained that the deal in progress would “shut down Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapon.”
The tweeted image explained several aspects of the framework deal, including the fact that Iran agreed reduce the amount of centrifuges it operates by 66 percent and not produce or stockpile highly enriched uranium.
Netanyahu’s ‘red line’ is still present, though the US administration uses it to argue that Iran would reach the nuclear threshold without the diplomatic solution. A blue line, meanwhile, can be seen at the bottom of the bomb indicating that, with the deal in place, Iran would have zero percent chance of obtaining a nuke.
Back in 2012, Netanyahu said, “At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs. That’s by placing a clear red line on Iran’s nuclear program.”
Since the framework for a nuclear deal was presented by the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and Iran, Netanyahu has blasted the accord, saying it would “threaten the survival of Israel” if finalized.
“A better deal would roll back Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure, and require Iran to stop its aggression in the region, its terror worldwide and its calls and actions to annihilate the state of Israel,” Netanyahu added on CNN. “That’s a better deal. It’s achievable.”
President Barack Obama, however, has pushed back strongly against opponents of the deal, arguing that it is the best way to ensure Iran does not try to obtain a nuclear weapon.
“It is a good deal. A deal that meets our core objectives,” the president said, adding the agreement would “cut off every pathway” Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon, and introduce the “most robust, intrusive inspections regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history.”
Obama also reiterated the US’ longstanding support for Israel and its security.
“The most important thing for Israelis is to know that they can defend themselves, and that they have America – the world’s most powerful country – there to protect them alongside their military and their intelligence operations,” he said to NPR Monday.
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Posted: 11 Apr 2015 01:14 PM PDT


Racist “president” Robert Mugabe’s apparent disgust at seeing a “white face” has elicited mixed reactions from people on social networking site Twitter.
Mugabe was in Soweto on Thursday visiting the Hector Pieterson Memorial. Exiting the museum, he was cheered by locals.
In a video clip taken by the SABC, Mugabe is seen walking past the crowds when the national broadcaster’s television journalist asked what emotions his return to Soweto evoked.
Mugabe was about to reply when he spotted a white South African journalist. He pushed the microphone away and said: “I don’t want to see a white face.”
Arts and Culture minister Nathi Mthethwa was standing next to Mugabe when he made the comment.
Some racist blacks on Twitter praised Mugabe for what he said.
Twitter user @PM_Plaatjie tweeted: “Thats why we admire him.”
While @B_Thabede said: “He was spot on.”
Other said they did not blame Mugabe for what he said.
“Hate is taught to us by previous experiences. Do you know how much Mugabe suffered by whitemen,” wrote @Ernestfigo.
Another user @ErythreanSea wrote: “After 500 years of deceit, deception and repression, who can blame Mugabe? Telling it like it is, straight up!”
There were also those who called Mugabe a racist for his comment.
Twitter user @wcmalan said: “Can I go fling (excreta) at his statue?” he said referring to the Cecil John Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town which was removed from the campus on Thursday.
Students started protesting last month to have the statue taken away and human excrement was thrown at the statue.
“Racist old twit,” tweeted @Judemymum.
Mugabe concluded his two-day State visit to South Africa on Thursday and returned home on the same day. If a white president of any white country would have told a black journalist “I don’t want to see a black face”… what would the outcome be? Well you know… the usual! Hysteric screams of “racism”… so why isn’t this old buffoon being called a racist by the international media, is the question that we would like to ask?
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Posted: 11 Apr 2015 05:44 AM PDT

Another economic crisis like the Great Recession is inevitable, according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who heads the bank that recently imposed capital controls and limits on cash withdrawals.
“Some things never change, there will be another crisis, and its impact will be felt by the financial markets,” he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders. “The trigger to the next crisis will not be the same as the trigger to the last one, but there will be another crisis.”
Dimon’s admission is particularly concerning considering that JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., has already enacted a $50,000 monthly limit on cash withdrawals and has also banned American customers from sending money outside the U.S.
Such restrictions would be enacted amid an economic crisis, financial analyst Gerald Celente predicted in 2011.
“With banks closed and economic martial law in place, restrictions will be set on the amounts, times and frequency of withdrawals,” he wrote in the Summer 2011 Trends Journal. “As we have cautioned before, it will be essential to have a stash of cash on hand.”
The total global debt is now at a record $199 trillion, an increase of $57 trillion since the Great Recession, and the largest banks in the U.S. have more than $40 trillion in exposure to risky derivatives.
“[Derivatives] can be incredibly complex, but essentially they are just paper wagers about what will happen in the future,” analyst Michael Snyder wrote. “The truth is that derivatives trading is not too different from betting on baseball or football games.”
“Trading in derivatives is basically just a form of legalized gambling, and the ‘too big to fail’ banks have transformed Wall Street into the largest casino in the history of the planet. When this derivatives bubble bursts (and as surely as I am writing this it will), the pain that it will cause the global economy will be greater than words can describe.”
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Posted: 11 Apr 2015 05:25 AM PDT
Members of the Boko Haram terrorist group at an undisclosed location in Nigeria.
The Chadian army says 71 soldiers from the Central African country’s units of government forces have been killed and 416 others injured during the two-and-a-half months of fighting with Nigeria-based Boko Haram Takfiri militants.
Chad’s army chief, General Brahim Seid, told reporters in the capital, N’Djamena, on Friday that the “valiant soldiers” had died since February 3 in the “just and noble cause of bringing peace and security” to the region.
The announcement comes a week after Boko Haram ambushed seven civilians on their way to a market in Tchoukou Telia near Lake Chad, which borders Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon.
Dimouya Souapebe, the deputy prefect of Baga Solan region, said some of the victims had their throats slit, while others had succumbed to fatal gunshot wounds.
On March 30, Kang Kyung-wha, the UN deputy humanitarian affairs chief, said Boko Haram militants have killed over 7,300 civilians in Nigeria and the neighboring countries since the beginning of 2014.
“Gross human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence and child trafficking, are frequently reported,” Kang said.
The South Korean UN official added that 1,000 people have been killed since the beginning of this year alone.
Kang further noted that in regions affected by the militant group, 300 schools have been damaged and only 40 percent of healthcare facilities are functional.
Nigeria’s President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to step up the fight against terror perpetrated by Boko Haram.
“I assure you that Boko Haram will soon know the strength of our collective will and commitment to rid this nation of terror and bring back peace,” Buhari said in his acceptance speech on April 1, after his victory in the recent presidential election.
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Posted: 11 Apr 2015 03:41 AM PDT

Radiation produced by the tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan has been confirmed off the coast of Canada, as the Japanese struggle to contain a number of leaks. The levels, however, are too low to pose a threat, scientists say.
Trace amounts of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 were discovered in samples collected on February 19 in the waters near Vancouver Island in British Columbia, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Kern Buesseler.
“Radioactivity can be dangerous, and we should be carefully monitoring the oceans after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history,” a statement from the institute read.
But they have insisted that marine and human life will remain unscathed, as the levels are extremely low: So low that a dental X-ray would expose a person to 1,000 times more radiation than swimming off the coast of Vancouver every day for an entire year. Radiation produced by the tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan has been confirmed off the coast of Canada, as the Japanese struggle to contain a number of leaks. The levels, however, are too low to pose a threat, scientists say.
Trace amounts of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 were discovered in samples collected on February 19 in the waters near Vancouver Island in British Columbia, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Kern Buesseler.
“Radioactivity can be dangerous, and we should be carefully monitoring the oceans after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history,” a statement from the institute read.
But they have insisted that marine and human life will remain unscathed, as the levels are extremely low: So low that a dental X-ray would expose a person to 1,000 times more radiation than swimming off the coast of Vancouver every day for an entire year.
By contrast, radiation found off the Fukushima coast in the immediate aftermath of the March 2011 catastrophe showed readings of a million times more Becquerels per square meter than the 5.8 Becquerels of Cesium-134 and 137 found off Canada.
A similar situation to Woods Hole’s report arose last year, 161 kilometers (100 miles) off the coast of northern California. Readings did not show an advance toward the rest of the US since then.
However, scientists need to be on the lookout constantly: Buesseler adds that “predicting the spread of radiation becomes more complex the closer it gets to the coast.”
Four years ago saw a catastrophic tsunami and earthquake batter the Japanese coastline north of Tokyo, setting off a catastrophic chain of events that involved triple nuclear meltdowns and displaced over 160,000 residents from the surrounding region. The world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, its consequences threaten to take decades to undo, as not only air but people’s livelihoods are suffering.
A number of radioactive leaks and other engineering difficulties have since plagued the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, with the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) struggling to contain the radiation with enormous amounts of money and technical ingenuity, albeit with varying success.
Management of the situation has likewise been marked by mishaps and scandalous revelations that have put a serious dent in TEPCO’s reputation. The plant’s operator announced a week ago its plans to disclose all data on radiation levels recorded at the site in response to mounting criticism over its lack of transparency.
Some situations involved outright negligence and further served to undermine public trust. In late February the company admitted to concealing a radioactive leak for 10 months, citing an ongoing investigation. Fishermen were left in “shock” as TEPCO, without knowing the true scale of the problem, chose not to inform anyone. The operator usually relies on them for permission to dump any radioactive materials in the water.
TEPCO, who’s been blamed for spending billions of taxpayers’ yen on failed initiatives to contain the radiation, also recently announced a plan to build a 400-kilometer chain of sea walls to fend off any future natural disasters. But that alone will cost a cool $6.8 billion, and there’s no telling what damage it would cause to marine life.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 09:25