Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday 12 May 2015

The European Union Times



Posted: 11 May 2015 07:56 AM PDT


Nigel Farage has withdrawn his resignation as leader of UKIP, initially tendered as pledged after losing his South Thanet seat on Thursday.
UKIP Chairman Steve Crowther said in a statement: “As promised Nigel Farage tendered his official resignation as leader of UKIP to the NEC.”
However, Crowther says the offer was “anomalously rejected by the NEC members who produced overwhelmingly evidence that the UKIP membership did not want Nigel to go.”
“The NEC also concluded that UKIP’s general election campaign had been a great success,” Crowther added.
“We have fought a positive campaign with a very good manifesto and despite relentless, negative attacks and an astonishing last minute swing to the Conservatives over fear of the SNP, that in these circumstances, 4 million votes was an extraordinary achievement,” he added.
Therefore, Nigel Farage withdrew his resignation “and will remain leader of UKIP,” Crowther added.
“In addition the NEC recognized that the referendum campaign has already begun this week and we need our best team to fight that campaign led by Nigel.”
“He has therefore been persuaded by the NEC to withdraw his resignation and remains leader of UKIP,” Crowther confirms.
Farage tendered his resignation after failing to secure his target seat of South Thanet in Kent, south east England. He came in second place with 16,026 votes (32 percent), losing to the Conservative candidate Craig Mackinlay with 18,838 votes (38 percent).
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Posted: 11 May 2015 07:42 AM PDT


The ‘off grid family’ who had their ten children seized by police and CPS last week face a court hearing later this morning which will determine whether they get their kids back after almost $40,000 was raised for the family in just the last few days alone.
As we reported on Friday, Joe and Nicole Naugler had their children taken after cops arrived at their 27 acre rural property in Breckinridge County, Kentucky following an anonymous tip about the kids living in “squalor”.
“A couple faces a hearing Monday to regain custody of their 10 children, whom Child Protective Services put into foster care Wednesday following a confrontation between their mother and a Breckinridge County sheriff’s deputy,” reports KMOV.
Audio from the arrest of Nicole Naugler highlights the anguished confrontation she had with law enforcement officers before her children were taken;
Deputy: You are standing the chance of having your children removed.
Nicole Naugler: For what, under what grounds?
Deputy: Let me just finish…
Nicole Naugler: For what, for not complying? I have constitutional rights, I have rights as a parent and my children won’t speak to anybody without my permission, without an attorney or a lawyer.
Deputy: Ma’am, sit down!
Nicole Naugler: You cannot kidnap my son!
Deputy: You’re gonna be under arrest.
Nicole Naugler: You can shoot me dead, shoot me dead but you won’t kidnap my son!
Deputy: Ma’am, You need to sit down in that car!
Nicole Naugler: Shoot me!
The Nauglers claim they are merely following a “back to basics” free range lifestyle and are being targeted by authorities due to them living off grid and insisting on following their own education curriculum.
The family’s Facebook page contains enough photographic evidence to suggest that the kids are living a happy, albeit austere lifestyle, although critics claim that the Nauglers are raising their children in tents filled with garbage.
“The allegations were that the family was residing in a tent, mother had given birth in a tent, there is no running water or septic, none of the children were enrolled in school and the father threatened a neighbor with a weapon,” states the Cabinet for Health and Family Services report on the family.
The couple shot back at the allegations with an FAQ on their website which addressed the living and sanitary conditions at the property.
“We have a pond and we haul in potable water. It’s actually common here as a lot of wells have high sulphur content. We are building a water collection system. We have a composting toilet,” states the post.
The couple asserted that they are planning to build a larger cabin in the summer to accommodate the family, as well as disputing the claim that they live in a “tent”.
“We live in a cabin. It has walls, floor, a metal roof even. The tarps are to cover the walls that do not have siding. There is also a tarp that covers the outdoor area so we can have shade. The cabin is open. It can be closed in bad weather. We have a great balance of seasons. It doesn’t stay cold for long. We have a wood stove. We don’t use it in the spring/summer, but you can see the chimney for it in the photos. They told me it was acceptable. We may choose to add a fence for the trash and recycle bins.”
A post on the family’s Facebook page invited supporters to attend the court hearing this morning to peacefully express their views.
“Our supporters come from all races, incomes, religions, and political persuasions. We encourage any who wish to express themselves to peaceably assemble outside the courthouse starting at that time and to be respectful of law enforcement and media. No one will be allowed inside. Please be peaceful, prayerful, and positive as we anticipate the safe return of our 10 children. Finally, we ask that firearms, weapons, and threats not be a part of this assembly. Thank you for your unending support,” states the post.
GoFundMe page set up in support of the family has raised almost $40,000 in just the last few days alone.
Given the concern over the kids’ living conditions, the best solution would probably to put the cash and any further money raised towards building a small house or cabin for the family, which would go a long way towards getting the authorities off their backs for good.
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Posted: 11 May 2015 06:51 AM PDT
A German frigate rescuing shipwrecked people from the Mediterranean, 130 nautical miles off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Britain drafting UN security council resolution that would authorise mission to hit vessels used by human traffickers for dash across Mediterranean.
The European Union has drawn up plans for military attacks in Libya to try to curb the influx of migrants across the Mediterranean by targeting the trafficking networks. It is to launch a bid on Monday to secure a UN mandate for armed action in Libya’s territorial waters.
Britain is drafting the UN security council resolution that would authorise the mission, said senior officials in Brussels. It would come under Italian command, have the participation of around 10 EU countries, including Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, and could also drag in Nato although there are no plans for initial alliance involvement.
On Monday, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s chief foreign and security policy coordinator, is to brief the UN security council in New York on the plans for a “chapter seven” resolution authorising the use of force. The British draft is believed to call for the “use of all means to destroy the business model of the traffickers”.
This would entail having EU vessels in Libyan territorial waters, including the Royal Navy flagship HMS Bulwark – currently in Malta – and deploying helicopter gunships to “neutralise” identified traffickers’ ships used to send tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on the short but highly risky voyage from the Libyan coast to the shores of southern Italy.
An MoD spokesperson said: “Working closely with Italy and EU partners, HMS Bulwark and three Royal Naval Merlin Helicopters are providing wide ranging search and rescue capabilities in the Mediterranean, already rescuing over 100 people. The UK is now considering how best to support the proposed EU mission to counter the smuggling networks.”
Libyan militias, jihadi groups, and Islamic State affiliates believed to be in cahoots with the trafficking networks are said to have heavy artillery and anti-aircraft batteries deployed close to the coast. Attacks on EU vessels and aircraft could trigger an escalation and force Nato to get involved, said policymakers in Brussels.
Following a visit to Beijing last week, Mogherini believes the Chinese will not block the mission at the security council. Her staff are also confident that Russia can be persuaded against wielding its security council veto despite the intense animosity between Moscow and the west over the Ukraine conflict.
The Italian government, which is leading the drive for military action and which would command the mission which would be headquartered in Rome, said at the weekend that the Russians were “ready to cooperate”.
Libya’s ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told the Associated Press that he had not been consulted on the plans and opposed them.
Following intensive talks over the past week in Brussels, six EU states have committed to taking part, with several more expected to offer participation. All 28 member states are said in Brussels to support the proposed campaign.
The plans are to be discussed by EU foreign ministers next week and then be put to an EU summit next month in response to the mass migration across the Mediterranean and the soaring rates of drownings.
Separately from the push in New York for EU military action, Brussels is also calling for new and binding rules establishing a quota system of sharing refugees among the EU’s 28 countries.
The European Commission is to unveil a new European “migration agenda” on Wednesday which contains the controversial and highly divisive proposals, pushed by Germany and rejected by Britain and east European countries.
“The EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states,” says the commission proposal obtained by the Guardian. By the end of the year Brussels is to table new legislation “for a mandatory and automatically-triggered relocation system to distribute those in clear need of international protection within the EU when a mass influx emerges”.
The proposals will lay bare deep divisions between national governments over immigration, with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, backing the scheme and Britain and most countries of eastern Europe fiercely resisting.
Germany and Sweden between them take almost half of asylum-seekers in the EU and Berlin is predicting that the number this year could almost double to around 400,000 in Germany alone, two-thirds of the total number in the EU last year.
“Some member states have already made a major contribution to [refugee] resettlement efforts. But others offer nothing,” the commission paper complains. It also insists that Europe has to open up legal avenues for migrants to enter the union safely, a notion that is strongly opposed by Theresa May, Britain’s home secretary.
“Such vulnerable people cannot be left to resort to the criminal networks of smugglers and traffickers. There must be safe and legal ways for them to reach the EU,” the commission document says.
On Friday, Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary and a leading hardliner on immigration, described the commission proposals as “mad” and pledged to defy Brussels.
“The European concept of ‘someone letting immigrants into their country’ and then ‘distributing’ them among the other memberstates is a mad and unfair idea,” he said.
Brussels is proposing to invoke “emergency mechanisms” by the end of the month obliging the 28 countries to share the numbers of “persons in clear need of international protection and “to ensure a fair and balanced participation of all member states to this common effort. This step will be the precursor of a lasting solution.”
The new blueprint, to be unveiled by commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos on Wednesday, includes a distribution “key” system based on various criteria from national wealth levels to unemployments rates to determine what proportion of refugees the 28 countries should each admit.
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Posted: 11 May 2015 05:34 AM PDT
Former US presidential candidate Ron Paul
Americans are being forced to sacrifice their liberty more than ever since the 9/11 attacks, says former US Congressman Ron Paul.
“The sacrifice of liberty is not of concern for most Americans today,” this is not new, said Paul, as it “has gotten especially bad in America since 9/11.”
In a video posted on his Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Liberty on Saturday, the former Republican presidential candidate said that Americans “now live in a society where safety and security are to be sought at all costs.”
The September, 11, 2001 attacks, also known as the 9/11 attacks, were a series of strikes in the US which killed nearly 3,000 people and caused about $10 billion worth of property and infrastructure damage.
They were also used by the administration of former president George W. Bush to wage wars against Afghanistan in 2001 and against Iraq in 2003.
Those wars cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars and contributed to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 that in many ways the US still hasn’t recovered from, Paul noted.
In addition, Paul said “many Americans have become deeply worried as a consequence of the economic crisis that started in 2008.They have lost confidence in their future financial security that continue to deny our nation’s bankruptcy.”
This has prompted Americans to opt for dependency on the government even if it requires the use of force to get what they want to ease their fears about the future of America, he stated.
A violation of liberties by the US government has been a hot topic in recent years across the 50 states of America.
Just earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) admitted to having compiled a “Terrorist Screening Database” with the names of persons suspected or alleged to be involved in terrorism.
The list contains the names of over a million people, who have been convicted of no crime and given no chance to defend themselves.
This is just one example of many liberty violations by the US government, according to experts who also allege that this is due to the federal government’s exercising of extra powers that, in essence, contradict the Constitution of the United States.
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Posted: 11 May 2015 05:24 AM PDT


As Russia restores its military-industrial cooperation with Cuba it may soon reopen the Lourdes signal intelligence center near Havana, claims a senior member of the State Duma Security Committee.
“I think that in the nearest future we can restore the radio intelligence base in Lourdes that had been used first by the USSR and then by the Russian Federation,” MP Dmitry Gorovtsov (Fair Russia) said in comments to RIA Novosti.
“Under conditions created on the international arena as a result of the US pressure and anti-Russian sanctions, cooperation with the Cuban Republic will develop in the direction of restoring the relations that our countries had up to mid-1980s,” he added.
However, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the military base issues as he briefed reporters about the recent talks between Russian and Cuban leaders in Moscow.
“I cannot tell you anything about the bases’ opening. The issue was not on the agenda,” Peskov said.
The Lourdes spy base, AKA the SIGINT facility, was opened in 1967. The largest Soviet signal intelligence center abroad, it was manned with 3,000 personnel and operated throughout the Cold War. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the base was downscaled, but continued operation. In 1993, Raul Castro, then-Defense Minister of Cuba, said Russia received 75 percent of signal intelligence on America through Lourdes.
However, after 1992, when Russia was asked to pay Havana hundreds of millions dollars to keep the facility open, Moscow started pondering its closure. In addition, in 2000 the United States made the closure of Lourdes a key condition for rescheduling or forgiving any Russian debt to the US.
In 2001 the Lourdes intelligence center stopped its operations.
In July 2014, Russian business daily Kommersant reported that Russia had sealed a deal with Cuba to reopen the facility during Putin’s visit to Cuba. The newspaper referred to numerous unnamed sources in its report, but shortly after it was circulated the Russian embassy in Cuba completely refuted it, claiming the report was an attempt to blacken the improving relations between the states.
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