Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday 15 August 2015

The European Union Times


Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:50 PM PDT

Republican frontrunner promised to physically remove BLM protesters if they interrupted him.
Following Donald Trump’s promise that he would physically remove any Black Lives Matter activists who interrupted his campaign events, a leader of the protest group today guaranteed that such action is being planned.

Daunasia Yancey, founder and lead organizer of Black Lives Matter in Boston, told CNN’s Carol Costello that it was “terrible” that Trump had made “actual threats of violence against black people.”
“He’s actually one of the most powerful men in this country who’s vying for the most powerful position in this country. And so his public and proud threats and demeanor actually to me make him an unviable candidate for the presidency,” said Yancey.
When asked if Black Lives Matter would target Trump’s campaign events, Yancey responded, “I can guarantee there will be more call-outs across the country by folks in the network.”
“So we’ll see how strong Donald Trump really is in other words, right?” asked Costello, to which Yancey responded, “I guess so.”
During a press conference yesterday, Trump accused Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders of “weakness” for allowing Black Lives Matter activists to derail his campaign stop this past weekend, before asserting that he wouldn’t allow similar behavior at his own event.

“I would never give up my microphone. I thought that was disgusting. That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women. The microphone, they just took the whole place over,” said Trump. “And the audience, which liked him, I mean, they were him. They’re saying, ‘What’s going on? How can this happen?’ That will never happen with me. I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself, or if other people will, but that was a disgrace. The way they — I felt badly for him, but it showed that he’s weak. You know what? He’s getting the biggest crowds, and I’m getting the biggest crowds. We’re the two getting the crowds, but believe me, that’s not going to happen to Trump.”
While Black Lives Matter demonstrators have targeted Sanders more than once and are now vowing to target Trump, their behavior towards Hillary Clinton has been noticeably less hostile. Clinton met with BLM activists after they complied with an order not to crash her forum in New Hampshire yesterday.
Watch Black Lives Matter protesters crash Sanders’ event in the video below.

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Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:39 PM PDT

Officials at the US State Department said that Russia had tested a state-of-the-art cruise missile capable of posing a threat to Europe, Japan and the Republic of Korea. The tests were conducted in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), US officials added.
In December 2014, speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller negatively answered the question of whether Washington’s accusations were related to Iskander tactical missile complex or X-101 cruise missiles, Pravda.Ru reports with reference to TASS. The diplomat explained that the weapon in question was a ground-based cruise missile.
According to The National Interest, the missile in question is most likely the new intercontinental ballistic missile Yars (RS-26). Russia has repeatedly tested the missile at distances smaller than the upper limit of the INF Treaty (the treaty bans all US and Soviet/Russian missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km). The tests may cause concerns, but they do not come as a violation of the treaty.
On June 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian Army was going to receive more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles during the current year. Putin specified that the missiles would be capable of breaking through missile defense systems of any degree of complexity, Pravda.Ru reports.
Eleven days before that, Pentagon officials announced that the US had plans to deploy land-based missiles in Europe and Asia targeting Russia. Russia’s Defense Ministry conducted a detailed analysis of the US plans to find out whether the plans could meet the conditions of the INF Treaty.
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Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:30 PM PDT

Latvia may become the next European country to build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants.
Although, what might surprise you, is that this wall is planned to be put up on the Latvian-Russian border – and it’s to keep out illegal immigrants from Central and Far East Asia.
What might not surprise you though, is that Latvia is not the target destination of these illegal immigrants – they are using the country as a bridge to Scandinavia; just as they used Russia as a bridge to Europe.
Minister Rihards Kozlovskis told Latvian TV that the project would take “four years and 17 million euros in order to fence itself off from Russia via a wall.”
According to Radio Poland, 239 illegal immigrants have been apprehended by Latvian border patrol since January 2015, the majority of them came from Vietnam.
        
Posted: 14 Aug 2015 02:52 PM PDT

Eurozone finance ministers have finally approved Greece’s third debt bailout after Greek parliament endorsed the rescue package following a tough all-night debate.
“New loans of up to €86 billion will be made available over the next three years to Greece,” the European Commission said in a statement on Friday after six hours of talks in the Belgian capital Brussels to nail down the painful reforms the debt-stricken Greece must implement in return.
“The message of today’s Eurogroup is loud and clear: on this basis, Greece is and will irreversibly remain a member of the Euro area. And the European Commission will support Greece in developing a new and fair growth, jobs and investment perspective for its citizens,” the statement quoted European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as saying.
The past six months of negotiations with Athens had been difficult and testing, Juncker added.
According to officials, a total of some €13 billion would be disbursed for Greece by August 20.
Earlier on Friday, a majority of Greek lawmakers voted in favor of receiving the rescue package, which can help the country avoid defaulting on its debts and remain in the euro zone.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had earlier urged the legislature to approve the deal “to assure the country’s ability to survive and keep on fighting.”
Greece received two bailouts in 2010 and 2012 worth a total of €240 billion ($272 billion) from its troika of international lenders — the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — following the economic crisis in 2009.
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Posted: 14 Aug 2015 02:49 PM PDT

Desperate to preserve its water supply amid a four-year drought, Los Angeles is turning a reservoir into a ball pit. It may not seem like the most scientific approach, but officials say the “shade balls” will protect valuable H2O in the City of Angels.
Bringing new meaning to the term “throwing shade,” authorities claim the black, plastic balls will preserve the Van Normal reservoir’s water supply in several ways.
For starters, the shade provided by the balls is expected to prevent 300 million gallons of water from evaporating annually.
“By reducing evaporation, these shade balls will conserve 300 million gallons of water each year, instead of just evaporating into the sky. That’s 300 million gallons to fight this drought,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said, as quoted by KABC News.
That’s enough to provide drinking water for 8,100 people for a full year, Councilman Mitch Englander said, according to a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) press release.
The balls will also prevent a chemical reaction caused by the sun which is known to create a carcinogenic compound called bromate.
Lastly, the protective barrier formed across the surface of the water by the small spheres will help stave off contaminants from birds and other animals.
While these may seem like lofty claims for plastic balls that look like they belong in a preschool, the shade balls are at least slightly more advanced than they appear.
Unlike their colorful childhood counterparts, the balls contain water that weights them down and helps keep them in place.
But it takes a lot of balls to shield a 175-acre reservoir from the sun – about 20,000 had to be deployed to achieve effective coverage.
Although the city’s mayor took part in the balls’ release, it wasn’t exactly a spectacular event. In fact, it simply required dumping the spheres out of big sacks and letting them roll down a ramp into the water.
But the shade balls – which now total 96 million and cover three other reservoirs – have cost the city a spectacular amount of money, coming in at just under $35 million.
Los Angeles is the first city in the US to use shade balls, which city officials say should last about 10 years. After that date, they will be removed, recycled, and replaced, the LADWP said.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 08:39