Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

The European Union Times


Posted: 22 Dec 2015 02:40 PM PST


China intents to impose sanctions against the American weapons suppliers to Taiwan. The statement was made by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry has already voiced a vigorous protest to the agreement worth $1.83 billion and delivered a note to the US Chargé d’Affaires.
Mikhail Karpov, Associate Professor at the School of Asian Studies, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, Higher School of Economics:
‘I believe that these sanctions will have minor consequences. These sanctions against the US are not quite serious. I mean just technically, the content. In fact, the US works very carefully with Taiwan, it’s not going to make China rather angry. Thus, some deals are taking place, the Americans will not let Taiwan alone for sure. But it is difficult to say which will be the real volume of the American cooperation with Taiwan. There will be held elections in January and there are serious prerequisites for the Democratic Progressive Party coming into power. And there really occurs a situation of uncertainty. The China-Taiwan relations will start freezing for sure, and the question is which stance the US will take up. Obama is a good president. I’ve always said that concerning the foreign policies, Obama may be the second president after “Bush the Elder” who uses his noodle. But he will also leave. And a lot of things may be started at the end of 2016. I do not believe that the Americans will let Taiwan alone in any case.’
Source
        
Posted: 22 Dec 2015 02:25 PM PST

The downing of the Russian Su-24 bomber over Syria while carrying out anti-terrorist operations is a great loss to the international efforts in the fight against terrorism, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
“We have taken note that the downed Russian plane was fulfilling a mission… It was downed while destroying terrorist targets in Syrian territory,” Hong Lei said.
Late last month, China said the downing of the Russian jet-fighter by Turkey needed to be “further clarified.”
“China is deeply concerned about this issue,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told a press briefing when asked to comment, according to Xinhua.
Hong Lei said: “China supports all international efforts on anti-terrorism,” adding that Beijing wants more communication between those involved.
Last week, Moscow started analyzing the Su-24’s flight recorder. It was opened live in front of international experts and journalists during a press conference. The Russian military has invited experts from 14 nations to work on the black box, but only China and British experts have so far agreed to take part, Lieutenant General Sergey Dronov, deputy commander of the Russian Air and Space Forces, told the media on Friday.
On November 24, a Turkish F-16 downed a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M bomber, killing one pilot and seriously straining relations between Moscow and Ankara. Turkey refused to apologize, insisting the Russian warplane had violated its airspace and had been warned many times before the F-16 fired its air-to-air missile. The Russian military has repeatedly stated the aircraft was shot down over Syria and that the Turkish fighter jet attacked from behind.
In the wake of the incident, Moscow introduced multiple sanctions against Ankara, banning agricultural trade with Turkey, reintroducing a visa regime and suspending most bilateral economic projects.
Source
        
Posted: 22 Dec 2015 01:48 PM PST

Donald Trump, judging by polls as of December 21, 2015, is the most likely candidate to be the next president of the US.
Trump is popular not so much for his stance on issues as for the fact that he is not another Washington politican, and he is respected for not backing down and apologizing when he makes strong statements for which he is criticized. What people see in Trump is strength and leadership. This is what is unusual about a political candidate, and it is this strength to which voters are responding.
The corrupt American political establishment has issued a “get Trump” command to its corrupt media. Media whore George Stephanopoulos, a loyal follower of orders, went after Trump on national television. But Trump made mincemeat of the whore.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlRTCxMAqC4
Stephanopoulos tried to go after Trump because the world’s favorite leader, President Putin of Russia, said complimentary things about Trump, and Trump replied in kind.
According to Stephanopoulos, “Putin has murdered journalists,” and Trump should be ashamed of praising a murderer of journalists. Trump asked Stephanopoulos for evidence, and Stephanopoulos didn’t have any. In other words, Stephanopoulos confirmed Trump’s statement that American politicians just make things up and rely on the presstitutes to support invented “facts” as if they are true. Trump made reference to Washington’s many murders.
Stephanopoulos wanted to know what journalists Washington had murdered. Trump responded with Washington’s murders and dislocation of millions of peoples who are now overrunning Europe as refugees from Washington’s wars. But Trumps advisors were not sufficiently competent to have armed him with the story of Washington’s murder of Al Jazerra’s reporters.
Here is a report from Al Jazeera, a far more trustworthy news organization than the US print and TV media:
“On April 8, 2003, during the US-led invasion of Iraq, Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayoub was killed when a US warplane bombed Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Baghdad.
“The invasion and subsequent nine-year occupation of Iraq claimed the lives of a record number of journalists. It was undisputedly the deadliest war for journalists in recorded history.
“Disturbingly, more journalists were murdered in targeted killings in Iraq than died in combat-related circumstances, according to the group Committee to Protect Journalists.
“CPJ research shows that “at least 150 journalists and 54 media support workers were killed in Iraq from the US-led invasion in March 2003 to the declared end of the war in December 2011.”
“’The media were not welcome by the US military,’” Soazig Dollet, who runs the Middle East and North Africa desk of Reporters Without Borders told Al Jazeera. ‘That is really obvious.’”
http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/04/2013481202781452.html
A political candidate with a competent staff would have immediately fired back at Stephanopoulos with the facts of Washington’s murder of journalists and compared these facts with the purely propagandistic accusations against Putin which have no basis whatsoever in fact.
The problem with Trump is the issues on which the public is not carefully judging him. I don’t
blame the public. It is refreshing to have a billionaire who can’t be bought expose the insubstantialality of all the Democratic and Repulican candidates for president. A collection of total zeros.
Unlike Washington, Putin supports the sovereignty of countries. He does not believe that the US
or any country has the right to overthrow governments and install a puppet or vassal.
Recently Putin said: “I hope no person is insane enough on planet earth who would dare to use nuclear weapons.” http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
Unfortunately for Putin and for Trump, if news reports can be believed, Trump recently said that
he would use nuclear weapons against ISIS. This is a disqulifying statement. There is no reason to need nukes to defeat a force as small as ISIS. More importantly, as the US is the only country to use nuclear weapons against the population of another country, for the US to do so again would confirm for the Russian and Chinese governments that the US government is insane, untrustworthy, and in need of extermination before Russia and China are attacked. You cannot use nuclear weapons without consequence.
As I have said in a number of interviews, Trump’s problem is that he has no movement behind him, no advisors that he can trust, and he does not understand the issues. Trump has learned
that forceful statements are appreciated by voters. Therefore, he doesn’t differentiate intelligent forceful statements from insane statements. As long as his statements are forceful, Trump thinks that they work.
Recently I watched a video of a woman described as a “Trump advisor” who repeaded neocon nazi William Kristol’s statement: “What’s the use of nuclear weapons if you can’t use them?”
How did a William Kristol neocon nazi get on Trump’s staff? What more proof do we need that even if Trump is elected, the establishment will prevail despite Trump.
Trump cannot be a dissident politician without a dissident staff. He doesn’t know the people who would comprise a dissident staff. Trump knows how to make deals, and the Establishment will staff up a Trump presidency with deals. The minute Trump takes office, he would be already captured.
In France Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party could bring political change. In the UK Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party or Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party could bring political change. But in the US there is no prospect of change from elections. Change can only come from collapse or from bloody revolution. The American Establishment will not accept change.
And most likely, the American Establishment would assassinate Le Pen and Farage and Corbyn before accepting change in France and the UK.
These are the facts on the ground. How Russia and China deal with them remains to be seen.
Source
        
Posted: 22 Dec 2015 01:11 PM PST

US presidential candidate from the Republican Party Jeb Bush criticized his rival Donald Trump for his sympathy to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jeb Bush said that Russia was trying to challenge the United States in global scale.
“Putin is organized to challenge the United States across the world now. He views his success by pushing us back. We’re losing influence around the world and Putin is gaining influence,” Bush said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “He’s not an ally. He’s a dictator. He’s a bully,” Jeb Bush added.
Recently, American billionaire Donald Trump promised to improve relations between the US and Russia in case of his victory at the elections. Trump is the leader of all polls in the United States, whereas Bush’s rating does not even reach a double digit.
Putin stated at his recent Q&A session with journalists that Russia would be willing to cooperate with any American president.
Source
        
Posted: 22 Dec 2015 01:11 PM PST

Afghan opium is being processed into high-grade heroin in clandestine Turkish drug labs for distribution in Europe and Russia, Russia’s anti-drug chief has revealed. The trafficking route was exposed after a joint Russian-Afghan anti-drug operation.
“The cargo traveled through Badakhshan-Doshi-Bamiyan-Herat, then further through Iran and into Turkey, where the opium was processed in well-equipped laboratories… into high quality heroin, and then was to be sent to Europe and Russia,” Ivanov said during an anti-narcotics committee meeting.
The head of Russia’s federal anti-drug agency (FKSN) Viktor Ivanov reported that 600 kilograms of opium was seized in a joint operation carried out by Russian and Afghan special anti-drug units in the city of Doshi in Afghanistan’s Baglan Province.
The operation was conducted in mid-December by Afghanistan’s Kabul Gates anti-drug unit with intelligence support from the FKSN, Ivanov said. The drug shipment was found in an Afghani truck traveling to Turkey via Iran.
The FSKN head stressed that drug trafficking has enabled Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) to boost its numbers four-fold since 2014, Ivanov said.
“The spike in IS fighters corresponds with the annual increase of drug smuggling in the Middle East, which is confirmed by the growing number of heroin seizures in the region,” Ivanov said.
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) is “actively engaged with drug trafficking,” Ivanov said, adding that according to the FSKN estimates, the group’s income from illegal drug trade “makes up to $200-500 million annually.”
Source
        
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 09:51