Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday 12 July 2015

The European Union Times



Posted: 11 Jul 2015 03:58 PM PDT


Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on Saturday at the Italian consulate in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in which at least one person was killed.
“Through God’s blessing, Islamic State soldiers were able to detonate a parked car bomb carrying 450 kg of explosive material on the headquarters of the Italian consulate in central Cairo,” Islamic State said on its Twitter account.
The terrorist group said they “recommend that Muslims stay clear of these security dens because they are legitimate targets for the mujahedeen’s strikes.”
Earlier reports said two police officers and three passers-by were among those injured in the blast on Saturday morning.
The consulate was closed at the time of the explosion (06:30 local time, 04:30 GMT) and none of its staff were injured, an Italian embassy official told AP.
The explosion partially destroyed the facade of the consulate building, photos from the scene showed. It was caused by a car bomb, a security official told Reuters.
A bomb might have been placed under a car and remotely detonated, according to preliminary investigation results, cited by Egypt’s official MENA news agency.
The nearby Supreme Court was shaken by the blast, AFP reported.
Egypt has seen a number of bomb attacks over the past months.
The Egyptian military-imposed government is fighting against Islamist groups after a 2013 coup that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. The violence is mostly localized in the turbulent Sinai Peninsula, but bombings and attacks on security checkpoints occasionally happen in other parts of the country.
At least four journalists have been detained by Egyptian police at the scene of the explosion.
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Posted: 11 Jul 2015 03:51 PM PDT


After the same-sex marriages legalization in all the US states, the law is suggested to be extended.
A 77-year-old Lois Capps, member of the US House of Representatives from California, has applied to eliminate such terms as “wife” and “spouse” from the federal law, so that, gays and heterosexuals will have equal rights.
Instead, neutral “spouse”, or “married couple” may be used, not to discriminate the LGBT community.
California has already adopted the initiative.
Pravda.Ru has reported, that such terms as “mother” and “father” are illegal in the US since 2011. It was noticed by the State Department, that more and more same-sex couples raise children.
Capps said her bill would also have other benefits if it became law. In one example, she noted that U.S. law says it’s illegal to threaten the president’s wife, but says nothing about the president’s husband. “Capps’ bill would update the code to make it illegal to threaten the president’s spouse,” her office said.
In case of Clinton’s winning presidential elections in 2016, Bill Clinton may be called as the “first spouse”.
Similar measures have been introduced by the Royal Bank of Scotland, that decided to address the clients as Mx (Mixter), instead of gendered Mr, Mrs, Ms or Miss.
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Posted: 11 Jul 2015 03:39 PM PDT


Goldman Sachs, the Great Vampire Squid that helped oligarchs and corrupt politicians hide the debt central bankers say the Greek people owe, faces legal action over the role it played in the financial crisis.
The investment bank worked behind the scenes to ensure Greece followed strict Maastricht rules for eurozone membership, according to a former Goldman banker who advised indebted governments on recovering losses made from complex transactions with banks.
The swaps hid the true extent of the country’s outstanding debt and resulted in a hefty profit for Goldman Sachs — around $500 million — a figure disputed by the bank.
Jaber George Jabbour, a former Goldman employee who designed swaps told the Greek government in a formal letter that it could “right historical wrongs as part of (its) plan to reduce Greece’s debt,” according to a reported published today by The Independent.
Currency swaps are long-maturity, over-the-counter derivatives in which parties exchange long-term interest payments in different currencies. In the case of Greece, the Goldman devised swaps were used to disguise the actual scale of debt.
In March, 2012 Bloomberg reported:
The Goldman Sachs transaction swapped debt issued by Greece in dollars and yen for euros using an historical exchange rate, a mechanism that implied a reduction in debt… It also used an off-market interest-rate swap to repay the loan. Those swaps allow counterparties to exchange two forms of interest payment, such as fixed or floating rates, referenced to a notional amount of debt.
The trading costs on the swap rose because the deal had a notional value of more than 15 billion euros, more than the amount of the loan itself, said a former Greek official with knowledge of the transaction who asked not to be identified because the pricing was private. The size and complexity of the deal meant that Goldman Sachs charged proportionately higher trading fees than for deals of a more standard size and structure.
Instead of investigating and prosecuting Goldman, EU apparatchiks ignored the scandal.
“It’s hard to dispute that the Greek/Goldman deal should have come under the scrutiny of a financial authority or a prosecutor, but a judicial inquiry was never launched in the EU. There was mention of a Federal reserve investigation in February 2010, but it has gone silent. It’s not crazy to assume there was a cover up (willful, as opposed to gross, negligence), at a very high level,” Pater Tenebrarum wrote in January, 2012.
Goldman and Financial Predators Making Billions Crashing Economies
The high-octane vampire squid also profited handsomely on the subprime crisis in the United States.
In 2010 it stood accused of defrauding investors by hiding conflicts of interest in mortgage investments it sold as the housing market crumbled. It then bet against the toxic subprime mortgage securities sold to investors.
The economic environment that caused the financial crisis and allowed Goldman Sachs to loot and pillage was engineered by the Federal Reserve when it encouraged a massive housing bubble to form between 2002 to 2007.
“The blame is shared between a Wall Street Cabal and some government officials who unwittingly or knowingly executed the Cabal’s agenda and continue to empower them and protect them,” explains the Economic Predictions Research Project.
The Wall Street Cabal dominates the US government, treasury, congress, and federal reserve banks through their lobbying arm the Financial Services Roundtable (www.fsround.org) The cabal consist of the largest investment banks and financial conglomerates, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Citibank and JP Morgan. Securities insurance companies like AIG, MBIA, AMBAC and the top three credit rating agencies including Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.
Congress and presidents have made certain this massive and unprecedented swindle continues.
Their partners were prominent academics and ex-Wall Street executives who worked for the government and protected their agenda. These people were appointed by US Presidents including Reagan, Bush Senior, Clinton, Bush and Obama to top government positions, in part as a payback for campaign contribution by some of these Wall Street firms. Some of these government officials unwittingly empowered the cabal and some took deliberate actions to bailout Wall Street and later protected them from prosecution.
The omnipresent power of the financial cabal went on full display in Greece as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras submitted to European central banks and creditors despite the result of a snap poll by Bridging Europe that shows 79% of respondents stating they are against the an additional bailout proposal.
Minions of the financial elite were jubilant over the betrayal.
“The revolutionary moment has fizzled,” said Mark Medish, who served as a top official in the Treasury Department and the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. “In effect, the no vote would be turning into a yes.”
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Posted: 11 Jul 2015 03:21 PM PDT


World’s software giant, Microsoft, says it is planning to cut about 8,000 jobs while reorganizing its Windows Phone unit, which is facing fierce competition in global mobile market.
The move to cut 7,800 jobs, which was announced on Wednesday, represents the company’s second major round of layoffs in a year. Microsoft also slashed about 18,000 jobs a year ago in a bid to integrate the Nokia handset division, AFP reported.
Most of the layoffs will be in the phone division, and the company is also going to write down the value of the phone section it acquired from Nokia by some USD 7.6 billion.
Microsoft released a statement saying it will “restructure the company’s phone hardware business to better focus and align resources.”
Even after acquiring Nokia’s cellphone division, the company has not been able to get much traction for its Windows Phone platform. A recent survey by IDC indicated that Windows Phone was expected to capture only 3.2 percent of the global smartphone market this year.
“I am committed to our first-party devices including phones. However, we need to focus our phone efforts in the near term while driving reinvention,” chief executive, Satya Nadella, said in a memo to staff, adding, “We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family.”
At the end of March, Microsoft had about 118,000 employees worldwide, about half of whom were stationed in the United States.
Microsoft will release Windows 10 in late July, introducing a new operating system which can be used to power not only personal computers but a range of mobile devices.
While still a dominant force in personal computing market, Microsoft has struggled in mobile devices market, where most devices are powered by the Google Android system or Apple’s iOS.
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Posted: 11 Jul 2015 12:05 PM PDT


The Satanic Temple plans to unveil a large statue dedicated to the devil in the city of Detroit later this month, despite intensified protests by church leaders and residents that have caused the original venue to back out of the event.
Originally slated to be unveiled on July 25 at Bert’s Warehouse in Detroit before the venue canceled its involvement, the 9-foot bronze statue of Baphomet, a goatlike idol with a man’s body, horns and wings originally associated with the Knights Templar. The statue reportedly weighs one ton and is made of bronze.
On its website, the Satanic Temple said the state “is intended to complement and contrast the Ten Commandments monument that already resides on Oklahoma State Capitol grounds.”
“The statue will serve as a beacon calling for compassion and empathy among all living creatures. The statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation,” temple spokesman Lucien Greaves said in a statement earlier this year.


Although the statue was originally meant to stand alongside the 10 Commandments monument in Oklahoma, the state Supreme Court there recently ruled that the monument must be removed because government property cannot be used to show support for any religion. Now without a home for the statue, the Satanic Temple is considering applying for space near a 10 Commandments monument at the Arkansas State Capitol, according to Fox News.
“The message behind Baphomet is a reconciliation of the opposites, not this call to arms of one against one, but a merging of the two,” Director of the Detroit Satanic Temple chapter and national spokeswoman Jex Blackmore told Fox. “That’s part of the reason that it can only exist standing next to the Ten Commandments. That’s part of the message. We wouldn’t want to proselytize as a single voice in the public square.”
Until then, it’s planning a special unveiling in Detroit, home to the organization’s first chapter.
However, backlash from the community is making the event tougher to pull off than the group anticipated. Feeling the heat, Bert’s Warehouse pulled out of the event, leaving the Satanic Temple searching for another venue. The group told local WXYZ it was disappointed in the decision but that it still plans to continue with its unveiling on the same date at an unnamed location.

Local church leaders have banded together to oppose the statue and declared their intent to organize a protest on the same day the state is revealed.
“The last thing we need—in a city where we’re fighting against violence and fighting against economic problems and unemployment and the water crisis—is a statue dedicated to Satan right downtown,” Pastor David Bullock of the St. Matthew Baptist Church told Christian Today.
“They’re bringing a Baphomet statue to the city of Detroit valorising, elevating Satan. This is not even a real religion in my estimation,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Temple has marked the occasion as a special one, saying it will “serve as a call-to-arms” for the group to begin a fight “in the name of individual rights to free exercise against self-serving theocrats.”
A recent story by Vice News highlighted one aspect of this battle, describing the group’s effort to challenge laws restricting abortion on the grounds that such regulations actually violate a Temple member’s First Amendment right to freedom of religion. According to Vice, the Temple believes an individual’s body is “inviolable” and therefore only he or she can decide what to do with it. Because the group also believes a fetus is not a person, but rather “tissue that belongs to a woman,” it’s up to the woman and not the state to determine whether or not to keep it.
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