Sunday, 14 June 2015

The European Union Times

Hillary Clinton no different than Obama, just ‘more militant’ – Chomsky

Posted: 13 Jun 2015 05:20 AM PDT

President Barack Obama is an “opportunist” with “awful” policies, one of the world’s top intellectuals, American linguist Noam Chomsky, has said. He was extremely critical of Obama’s use of drones in the Middle East and the secretive TPP trade deals.
“I’m not one of those who was disillusioned,” the 86-year old author and political activist said in an interview with the WND website. Chomsky said he wasn’t disappointed in President Barack Obama, as he simply “didn’t expect anything” of him.
“I wrote about him before the primaries in 2008, simply using his webpage – the way he was presenting himself – and he seemed to me like an opportunist,” Chomsky said, adding that “the policies he was proudest of I thought were awful.”
The intellectual didn’t express any optimism for the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency either. When asked whether he saw any difference to Obama, he described the 2016 presidential candidate as much the same, “maybe a little more militant.”
Chomsky also said he was disappointed in US elections in general, saying that the last vote in November 2014 showed an “abandonment of belief in any kind of a democratic system.”
“Voting participation was about at the level of the early 19th century when the franchise was limited to propertied white males,” the author of more than a hundred books said.
Having criticized the US health care system, Israel politics and reflecting on a number of 20th century historic events, including the Great Depression, WW2 and John F. Kennedy’s presidency during the Cold War crisis, the father of modern linguistics was extremely critical of Obama’s military policies in the Middle East.
Obama’s use of drones against jihadist leaders “has essentially rescinded the principle that was established in the Magna Carta 800 years ago.” Its principle element was the establishment of the presumption of innocence, Chomsky explained.
“With the drone assassination campaign, Obama has essentially rescinded this principle by officially designating a person as guilty if the White House decides that they might someday want to harm us,” he said.
“If any other country were doing this, like Iran, we would consider it justification for a nuclear war,” he added.
Speaking about the controversy behind the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreements, being negotiated behind closed doors by the Obama administration, Chomsky said the agreement is not what it’s publicly said to be.
“It’s called a free-trade agreement, but it’s not,” Chomsky told WND. Saying that although no details are publicly available “because it is essentially kept secret,” from all indications “it’s like all the other agreements that are not free-trade agreements. They are investor-rights agreements.”
“The idea is that the Obama administration wants to ram the deal through without public discussion,” Chomsky added.
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Greek Minister Claims Europe at War With Athens

Posted: 13 Jun 2015 05:14 AM PDT

European countries, international creditors and the Greek opposition have declared a war on Greece (resembling the one on Yugoslavia) but the government will stay true to its election promises, Labor Minister Panos Skourletis of Syriza said.
“The months following the elections were extremely hard. Never before has the government, which received a clear popular mandate, faced such a war waged against authorities from within and from abroad,” he told Athens residents, adding that it is an undeclared war.
The situation resembles the one with Yugoslavia prior to the beginning of the NATO bombing campaign, Skourletis pointed out. “They are waging the same war with lies and propaganda,” he said.
The aim of this campaign is straightforward, according to the official. These forces seek to “undermine public trust for the government forcing it to go back on its word and break election promises,” he explained.
The labor minister pointed out that the government is doing its best to tackle the humanitarian crisis. It introduced a law on income support and will not cut wages and pensions. Pension supplements amounting to some $180 will also stay.
“The government will deliver on its promise. Syriza is a hard nut to crack. We will not back down,” he said.
The Greek minister added that adversaries of the current authorities are trying to bring the government under control so that it would translate laws sent via email from English into Greek and put them to vote, like it had done before.
“The Greek people must unite [in the face of these developments],” he said.
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US food manufacturers to be allowed not to include GMO content in products

Posted: 13 Jun 2015 03:47 AM PDT

According to a new voluntary certification program of the US Department of Agriculture, food manufacturers will be allowed to add a label that does not mention GMOs in foods. This is evidenced by a leaked internal document that the Associated Press obtained, Pravda.Ru reports.
The move has been widely interpreted as an attempt to head off a growing movement for mandatory labeling of GMO ingredients.
The certification program is being created by the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service, which verifies agricultural claims on food packaging.
“Recently, a leading global company asked AMS to help verify that the corn and soybeans it uses in its products are not genetically engineered [GE] so that the company could label the products as such,” Vilsack wrote in the letter. “AMS worked with the company to develop testing and verification processes to verify the non-GE claim.”
Companies wishing to participate will pay the AMS to verify their non-GMO claims. The program “will be announced soon, and other companies are already lining up to take advantage of this service,” the letter says.
Following the letter being leaked, the USDA confirmed that the letter had been sent, but had no further comment on the program.
Yet, many consumer advocates are pushing for the United States to join the ranks of countries that require the labeling of GMOs on food ingredient labels. This would help consumers realize how prevalent GMOs are in the food they eat, they say. For example, nearly all corn and soybeans grown in the United States are GMO, and corn and soy derivatives are found in nearly all processed foods.
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NATO Finally Apologizes for Bombing Yugoslavia

Posted: 13 Jun 2015 03:11 AM PDT

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he deeply regretted the loss of all lives during NATO’s bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which he described as “a tragedy,” Serbian media reported on Thursday.
Speaking in Budva, Montenegro, after his meeting with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, Stoltenberg said that he was offering condolences to all families and all those who lost their loved ones, Serbian newspaper Blic reported.
NATO “made every effort” to prevent the loss of innocent lives, Stoltenberg said, and added:
“Unfortunately, in the concrete case we could not avoid the suffering of civilians. I sincerely regret that. The goal of the operation was certainly to establish peace.”
“The goal and purpose of NATO’s air operation was also to protect civilians — and we succeeded in that,” Jens Stoltenberg emphasized.
NATO’s air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up at the time of Serbia and Montenegro, lasted for 78 days and ended on June 10, 1999.
According to different estimates, between 1,200 and 2,500 were killed in the attacks. Almost 13,000 were injured. The material damage is estimated at between $30 billion and $100 billion.
The western leaders justified the airstrikes by the need to end ethnic cleansings allegedly being conducted by Serbian forces in Kosovo.
It was also the first time that NATO used military force without the approval of the UN Security Council and against a sovereign nation that did not pose any real threat to any member of the alliance.
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South Korea MERS outbreak kills 14th patient, more cases expected

Posted: 13 Jun 2015 02:52 AM PDT

As South Korea reported its 14th fatality from an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), in addition to the 12 new cases, the World Health Organization warned the “large and complex” outbreak will cost more lives.
“Because the outbreak has been large and is complex, more cases should be anticipated,” Keiji Fukuda, who is leading a WHO team, told a news conference in Sejong, South Korea.
At the same time, Fukuda noted South Korean efforts to contain the outbreak, as all of the country’s cases have been linked to health facilities.
“At present, the mission has found no evidence to indicate there is an ongoing transmission in the community,” Fukuda said.
His assessment was based on a review conducted by his team and South Korean officials into the country’s response to the outbreak, the largest outside Saudi Arabia, where the virus was first discovered in 2012.
Releasing a new statement, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the outbreak in South Korea is similar to MERS outbreaks in health care facilities in the Middle East, but the situation in South Korea is rapidly evolving.
Since it was first diagnosed on May 20, the virus has infected 138 people in South Korea, killing 14 of them.
The latest death was a 68-year-old woman who became sick at a hospital in Pyeongtaek City, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. The ministry added that all 14 fatal cases had pre-existing health conditions and were elderly, with many dying from hypertension and hypothyroidism.
The Health Ministry also announced 12 more people had contracted the virus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 138. Authorities traced the origin of infection of 133 people, 60 of whom contracted the disease at Samsung Medical Centre. Five others are still being investigated.
The new patients included an ambulance driver who fell ill after dealing with a 75-year-old infected woman who died three days later.
MERS comes from the same family of viruses as SARS. Although it is more deadly, it is not as contagious, but there is currently no cure or vaccine.
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