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Wednesday, 2 July 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 26 Jun 2014 03:30 PM PDT

Forget fat diets… and don’t leap into unhealthy shortcuts like bariatric surgery.
The new weight loss paradigm is based on making informed, daily choices about healthy eating. Using this simple system of avoiding liquid sugars and eating whole foods like quinoa and fresh vegetables, a Texas woman named Teena Henson achieved extraordinary results without dieting. Over two years, she accomplished a 160-pound drop in body weight and restored herself to a remarkable state of fitness and health, all without resorting to fat diets, weight loss pills or risky surgery.
How did she do it? Her success story baffles those steeped in the American culture of quick fixes and fashionable shortcuts. Henson simply did something that’s increasingly rare in modern society: she took responsibility for her own health and stopped blaming everyone else for her obesity. By understanding that she was responsible for her own health, not her doctor and not a drug company, Teena Henson was able to start making deliberate, daily choices that moved her in the direction of weight loss success.
Those choices included things like switching from fried foods to grilled foods, eating whole foods instead of processed foods, and giving up sugary sodas altogether. Those seemingly simple steps, combined with walking as a form of gentle exercise, delivered extraordinary results: they took Henson from 332 pounds down to 166, shedding literally half her body weight. The feature photo of this story shows Henson’s before and after photos. Yes, it’s the same woman in the two photos!
Simple solutions elude a shortcut culture
What’s so remarkable about this story is not merely the fact that Henson dropped half her body weight through simple changes in diet and exercise. What’s remarkable is that such a success story is so rare: in a culture of dietary shortcuts, a woman who decides to make healthier lifestyle choices stands out as truly extraordinary.
Most approaches to dieting, of course, rely on dubious diet drugs or diet supplement pills that accomplish nothing. Diet fads restrict people to extreme, single-food regimens like eating only grapefruit or cabbage — a sure way to develop nutritional deficiencies. And extreme dieting surgeries rely on the removal of significant portions of healthy organs as we see in bariatric surgery.
While pills, fad diets and surgeries are increasingly popular, they are rarely effective. Henson’s true achievement was in recognizing that up front. As reported by KDVR.com:
In the past, Henson would put herself on diets to make everyone happy, but they wouldn’t last long. There was an endless array of rules, from eating nothing but grapefruits to nothing but carbs, until she realized that “diets” just weren’t for her.
“For me, ‘diet’ is a four-letter word for failure,” she said.
What she was looking for was a lifestyle change. And not because her friends and family wanted it for her, but because she wanted it for herself.
“Diet” is temporary, but lifestyle changes are forever
The problem with all weight loss diets is that they prescribe temporary behavior, not lasting solutions. Any diet that says, “Here, eat in this radical way for a few weeks” is doomed to failure from the start.
Lasting lifestyle changes require abandoning processed foods and eating fresh, whole foods combined with regular exercise (like walking). This simple yet powerful principle, however, continues to elude desperate dieters who misunderstand the whole point: it’s not about extreme short-term solutions to your weight problem; it’s about consistent, long-term changes to your daily habits that produce long-term results.
This is why I’ve always had a problem with Weight Watchers, which licenses its name to a whole series of Weight Watchers processed foods such as chocolate cake or brownies. The very idea of a Weight Watchers chocolate cake is contradictory: if you’re hoping to eat in a healthy way, you shouldn’t be eating chocolate cake at all, regardless of how many calories are in a serving.
Although I’m sure there are exceptions to this observation, Weight Watchers looks more to me like a cover story for people who want to pretend they’re making healthier food choices. If Weight Watchers branding was really based on sound nutritional principles, the entire fresh produce section of any grocery store should be labeled “Weight Watchers,” and the name should never appear on processed, manufactured foods like chocolate cakes or brownies.
Also: just because something is named “diet” doesn’t mean you will lose weight by consuming it. Diet sodas, for example, have been proven over and over again to accomplish no lasting weight loss whatsoever.
The rare trait of personal fortitude
When I was growing up, I remember being awarded Presidential Physical Fitness awards in grade school for meeting basic performance standards in pull-ups, sit-ups and running. The awards referred to children being of “sound body and sound mind.”
Today, the medical establishment teaches us that children of sound mind are achieved through mind-altering psychiatric drugs like Ritalin or Adderall. A sound body, we are told by surgeons, is achieved through cosmetic surgery or partial stomach removal. This is true even in children, as bariatric surgery is now being performed on children as young as two. Somehow, the idea that we should control what our children eat is an alien idea across our culture, where children are taught victimization rather than personal fortitude.
The idea that a parent could raise an extremely obese child and have no idea why they are obese has always bewildered me. I’m pretty sure that children can’t go out and buy junk food on their credit cards. Virtually their entire diet is controlled by what their parents buy for them to eat. As such, an obese child is a clear sign of an ill-informed parent who somehow hasn’t come to grasp any connection between the food they buy and the body weight of their child. (Many parents have also forgotten how to say “No!” to their own children, failing to set healthy boundaries on food and soda consumption.)
What we need to be teaching our children is the simple but powerful idea that you are what you eat. If you eat junk, your body will express junk. If you eat healthful foods, your body will express good health. If you eat a cancer-causing diet, your body will express cancer, and if you eat an anti-cancer diet, your body will prevent cancer.
These ideas should not be revolutionary; they should be common sense. Yet in a modern society that has grown bizarrely detached from food and health, these concepts seem to be strangely rare.
Thank goodness there are still women like Teena Henson who haven’t forgotten the simple rules for weight loss success: Don’t fall for fad diets, skip the diet pills, avoid dangerous surgery and earn your weight loss through consistent behavioral changes designed to achieve your long-term goals.
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Posted: 26 Jun 2014 02:45 PM PDT
Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison
Australia says it is set to introduce tougher reforms in the case of the country’s asylum-seeker policy, placing more pressure on refugees to prove their claims.
According to Migration Amendment (Protection and Other Measures) Bill 2014, introduced by Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, visas may be denied to those who fail to present traveling documents.
“Australians need to be confident that those who are found to be refugees are in fact who they say they are,” Morrison said, adding, “… if asylum seekers do not cooperate with the government to establish their identity they should not be given the benefit of the doubt.”
The new changes to the policy will make it difficult for asylum seekers who are already in Australia to make visa applications.
The bill will also set limitations for those who may face harm if they are sent back home, unless they provide a “reasonable explanation” for not having identification.
Based on the bill, those asylum seekers who have arrived by boat will be refused visas, unless it is determined that “it is in the public interest to allow them to do so.”
Over the past few years, Australia has tightened its asylum-seeker policy, refusing residency to unauthorized boat arrivals.
These refugees are kept at detention camps on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Last week, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was “very satisfied” with the situation, as Australia marked six months since the last asylum-seeker boat arrival.
Earlier this year, thousands of people took to the streets in Australia in protest against Abbott’s harsh policies.
The United Nations human rights office has also called on Australia to review its asylum-seeker policy.
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Posted: 26 Jun 2014 02:43 PM PDT

The NATO administration warned Russia of new sanctions, should the Russian administration does not contribute to the cessation of the conflict in Ukraine. Foreign ministers of NATO countries gathered in Brussels to elaborate a joint approach to Russia. US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf stated that the USA had prepared additional sanctions against Russia. The sanctions can be introduced very quickly, Harf said. According to her, Washington positively estimated Moscow’s move not to use Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. However, the US would like to see more dynamic actions from Russia.
The USA and the EU introduced sanctions against several Russian politicians, businessmen and companies after Russia reunited with the Crimea in March, following the results of the referendum on the peninsula. Now the US threatens to expand sanctions by introducing restrictions on the export of technologies for the oil and gas industry to Russia.
Vice Rector of the Russian Economic University named after Plekhanov, member of the Public Chamber, Director of the Institute of Political Studies, political scientist Sergei Markov said in an interview with Pravda.Ru that Washington may decide to impose the third package of sanctions against Russia.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Moscow should stop the flow of weapons across the border. Kerry urged Putin to call on “separatists” to “lay down their arms.” Obama again called Merkel and Hollande and agreed to make the announcement about sanctions in the field of energy and “Moscow’s restrictions to world financial markets” at the EU summit on June 26-27.
“Putin stated in Vienna that peace talks do not imply the disarmament of the south-east of Ukraine, so it is unlikely that the wishes of the Americans will be fulfilled. Does it mean that the West will announce new sanctions against Russia?”
“I think that sanctions will be inevitably developing. The more steps Russia takes to retreat, the tougher the sanctions will be. There is a struggle of the party of peace and the party of war in Washington. The party of war claims that it can arrange a coup in Russia with the help of war to overthrow the leadership and bring a puppet government to power to put Russia down on its knees. They claim that the Russian government is afraid of sanctions, and, therefore, sanctions must be applied as the main tool of showing influence on Russia.
“Moreover, I think that sanctions will affect middle classes in the future as well, because the goal is to set the middle class against the leadership of the country and create problems for the middle class. So all this will continue to evolve.
“Washington has committed so many crimes in Ukraine, that it is obvious that there is a global goal hidden behind it. Obviously, the goal is a coup in Russia, like it was in Ukraine. Russia maneuvers and tries to get away from deploying the troops.
“There should be no peace and no equality of Russian and Ukrainian communities in Ukraine. Washington needs the de-Russification of Ukraine, to have extremist, terrorist forces in power that will conduct the violent de-Russification and become a tool of struggle against the Russian leadership.
“I believe that this plan includes the following. There will be strong anti-Russian propaganda conducted as it is now being done in most parts of Ukraine. They will make common Ukrainians hate Russia, Russians and everything related to Russia. They will use terror to suppress all forces that oppose this, as was done in Kharkov and Odessa.
“Afterwards, they will have the NATO army ready. In two years, the army of NATO will attack Russia to fight for the Crimea. Fighters from the “Right Sector” nationalist movement will be used as mass saboteurs, terrorists, who, in the fight for the Crimea, will conduct mass terrorist attacks in Russian cities.”
“U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers -Obama’s election sponsor – said that potential sanctions against Russian energy, defense and financial sectors may harm U.S. businesses and lead to job losses. Is this a serious argument?”
“Indeed, it will cause considerable damage, but no one will listen. Interests of particular businesses will be subordinated to common interests. There are many people, who want to avoid the Cold War between Russia and the West. This is an illusion. We are already in a condition that is much more serious than a Cold War. This is a hybrid war being waged by the war party in Washington. It is possible to remove the war party from power by only proving that going on the path of war is impossible. As long as the war party supervises the U.S. foreign policy, there will be no peace in Ukraine.”
“Who guides the U.S. president, even if American entrepreneurs are against these sanctions? Or are they unsuccessful actions of Obama as a politician?”
“The war party does. There are different businesses there. The military business is not against the war. Those companies that were promised to have Gazprom and Rosneft in their hands after Russia is kneeled – they do not mind.”
“Are they sanctions against Putin personally? Why does Obama dislike the Russian president?”
“It’s not that he dislikes him. Maybe he’s a little jealous. But this is not important. The bottom line is that Putin is seen as one of those who disagree with Washington’s omnipotence.”
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Posted: 26 Jun 2014 02:26 PM PDT

Thousands of people in the conflict-torn regions of Ukraine have fled the ongoing violence to neighboring Russia.
Several towns in eastern Ukraine have suffered daily shelling and violent clashes between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian forces in recent weeks.
Media reports say at least 5,000 people had fled the conflict zone by Thursday evening.
Footage from one border crossing in the eastern Lugansk region shows cars packed up with stuff, forming very long lines at the crossing. The border crossings between Russia and Ukraine are busy as a ceasefire in Ukraine’s east is drawing to an end.
The rush also comes as the weeklong truce, which has been in force since June 20, will expire on Friday.
On June 20, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko announced the ceasefire plan aimed at curbing the violence in the restive east.
Alexander Borodai, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, accepted the ceasefire, saying that it will be observed until June 27.
Meanwhile, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the worsening situation in eastern Ukraine.
Merkel called Putin on Thursday and the two leaders discussed the worsening humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine and emphasized the need for extending the weeklong ceasefire.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking parts in the east have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia activists and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in mid-April in a bid to crush the pro-Russia protests.
The violence intensified after the Donetsk and Lugansk regions held local referendums on May 11, in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine. The referendums echoed a March vote in Crimea that led to the reunification of the peninsula with the Russian Federation.
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Posted: 26 Jun 2014 07:55 AM PDT

The Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California, site of the largest solar telescope on the planet, has issued a mesmerizing video and photos in previously unseen detail of surprisingly active plasma in the sun’s fine structures.
BBSO’s New Solar Telescope (NST) possesses an unprecedented level of high resolution and enables the sharpest-ever photos of the visible corona of our star.
One of the sunspots captured by the NST is the size of the Earth, but such structures can be the size of Jupiter.
The temperature of the sun’s surface is about 6,000 Kelvins, whereas sunspots are approximately 1,500 Kelvins colder; therefore they look dark against the blazing turbulent plasma.

The sunspots are static-equilibrium structures, which maintain a balance between the magnetic force and gas pressure of the star. Learning more about the principles of these self-organized structures is of fundamental importance for physics and astrophysics.
The sunspots could have magnetic fields with opposite polarities, and quite often, when they happen to be close to each other their interactions produce ‘solar storms,’ sending powerful flares of plasma into space. The aftershock of such outbursts can cause a geomagnetic storm, which can reach Earth and damage communication equipment, power grids, navigation equipment and the like.
The video is a clip made of photos of the sun’s surface over a period of several hours obtained on September 29, 2013.
The data imaging was carried by the BBSO engineering team led by the observatory’s associate director, Wenda Cao, NJIT associate professor of physics.
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Posted: 25 Jun 2014 07:35 AM PDT

The US has vowed to extend data protection laws to EU citizens and give them more privacy rights. The EU has called the move “a step in the right direction” as the two sides are seeking to recover relations strained by Snowden’s NSA revelations.
“The Obama administration is committed to seeking legislation that would ensure that … EU citizens would have the same right to seek judicial redress for intentional or willful disclosures of protected information and for refusal to grant access or to rectify any errors in that information, as would a US citizen,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said as the EU and the US justice and home affair ministers met for discussions in Greece, which holds the rotating EU presidency.
The commitment, “which has long been sought by the EU,” shows the determination of the US “to move forward,” Holder stressed.
The planned legislation, once enacted by Congress, will extend the guarantees made under the US Privacy Act – which now protects only Americans – to EU citizens, allowing them in addition to see and correct records about themselves and challenge any misuse of information.
Giving EU citizens outside America the right to go to the US courts and sue over improper use of their private data has been one of the stumbling blocks to sealing the long discussed personal data protection agreement between the two sides.
Welcoming the announcement as “an important step in the right direction towards rebuilding trust” in EU-US “transatlantic relations,” the EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has called on the US to “swiftly” translate it into legislation “so that further steps can be taken in the negotiation.”
“Words only matter if put into law. We are waiting for the legislative step,” Reding said in a statement.
The legislation would “fill the gap between the rights US citizens enjoy in the EU today, and the rights EU citizens do not have in the US,” Reding stated.
This issue has caused friction in EU-US ties in recent years, but there are ongoing efforts to resolve the problems, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom said at a news conference in Athens.
“EU-US relations have been strained lately in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, but we have worked very hard to restore trust and there is strong commitment on both sides to work jointly and closely on our common challenges,” Malmstrom said.
The announcement by the US paves the way for a key data protection deal aimed at protecting personal information transferred for law enforcement purposes. European and American governments have been discussing the agreement since 2011 and the negotiations are at a “final stage,” Brussels said.
The EU and the US are also in talks to find ways to strengthen the so-called “Safe harbor” agreement that allows US companies to gather customers’ personal data in Europe and transfer it to America.
Relations between the EU and US have been tense after the NSA’s Edward Snowden leaked evidence that American spies were listening to the phone calls of top European citizens, and leaders such as Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Snowden also revealed that the US authorities monitored personal money transfer information and bank and credit card transactions from a Brussels-based system called SWIFT, a financial-record sharing program designed to track terrorist activity.
The Snowden leaks showed the NSA had gained a “back door” entrance into the SWIFT servers, which revealed the banking details of millions of European citizens, despite the fact that access to this financial data was limited by the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP).
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Posted: 25 Jun 2014 05:08 AM PDT

Have you noticed that prices are going up rapidly? If so, you are certainly not alone. But Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, the Obama administration and the mainstream media would have us believe that inflation is completely under control and exactly where it should be. Perhaps if the highly manipulated numbers that they quote us were real, everything would be fine. But of course the way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since the 1970s, and at this point it bears so little relation to reality that it is essentially meaningless. Anyone that has to regularly pay for food, water, gas, electricity or anything else knows that inflation is too high. In fact, if inflation was calculated the same way that it was back in 1980, the inflation rate would be close to 10 percent right now.
But you would never know that listening to Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen. In the video posted below, you can listen to her telling the media that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about…

And it is really hard to get too upset with Janet Yellen.
After all, she reminds many people of a sweet little grandmother.
But the reality of the matter is that she is simply not telling us the truth. Everywhere we look, prices are aggressively moving higher.
Just the other day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the price index for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs has just soared to a new all-time high.
This is something that I have repeatedly warned would happen. Just check out this article andthis article.
And it isn’t just meat prices that are going up. One of the largest coffee producers in the entire world just announced that it is going to be raising coffee prices by 9 percent…
It took the Fed long enough but finally even it succumbed to the reality of surging food prices when, as we reported previously, it hiked cafeteria prices at ground zero: the cafeteria of the Chicago Fed, stating that “prices continue to rise between 3% and 33%.” So with input costs rising across the board not just for the Fed, but certainly for food manufacturers everywhere, it was only a matter of time before the latter also threw in the towel and followed in the Fed’s footsteps. Which is what happened earlier today when J.M. Smucker Co. said it raised the prices on most of its coffee products by an average of 9% to reflect higher green-coffee costs.
Not that coffee isn’t expensive enough already. It absolutely stuns me that some people are willing to pay 3 dollars for a cup of coffee.
I still remember the days when you could get a cup of coffee for 25 cents.
Also, I can’t get over how expensive groceries are becoming these days. Earlier this month I took my wife over to the grocery store to do some shopping. We are really ramping up our food storage this summer, and so we grabbed as much stuff on sale as we could find. When we got our cart to the register, I was expecting the bill to be large, but I didn’t expect it to be over 300 dollars.
And remember, this was just for a single shopping cart and we had consciously tried to grab things that were significantly reduced from regular price.
I almost felt like asking the cashier which organ I should donate to pay the bill.
Sadly, this is just the beginning. Food prices are eventually going to go much, much higher than this.
Also, you should get ready to pay substantially more for water as well.
According to CNBC, one recent report warned that “your water bill will likely increase” in the coming months…
U.S. water utilities face a critical economic squeeze, according to a new report and that will likely mean higher prices at the water tap for consumers.
A survey by water-engineering firm Black & Veatch of 368 water utility companies across the country shows that 66 percent of them are not generating enough revenue to cover their costs.
To make up for the financial shortfall, prices for water are heading upward, said Michael Orth, one of the co-authors of the report and senior vice president at Black & Veatch.
“People will have to pay more for water to make up the falling revenues,” he said. “And that’s likely to be more than the rate of inflation.”
Of even greater concern is what is happening to gas prices.
According to Bloomberg, the price of gasoline hasn’t been this high at this time of the year for six years…
Gasoline in the U.S. climbed this week, boosted by a surge in oil, and is expected to reach the highest level for this time of year since 2008.
The pump price averaged $3.686 a gallon yesterday, up 1.2 cents from a week earlier, data posted on the Energy Information Administration’s website late yesterday show. Oil, which accounts for two-thirds of the retail price of gasoline, gained $2.49 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the same period and $4.88 in the month ended yesterday.
The jump in crude, driven by concern that the crisis in Iraq will disrupt supplies, may boost pump prices by 10 cents a gallon at a time when they normally drop, according to forecasts including one from the EIA.
And the conflicts in Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere could potentially send gas prices screaming far higher.
In fact, T. Boone Pickens recently told CNBC that if Baghdad falls to ISIS that the price of a barrel of oil could potentially hit $200.
Of course the big oil companies are not exactly complaining about this. This week energy stocks are hitting record highs, and further escalation of the conflict in Iraq will probably send them even higher.
Meanwhile, a “bipartisan Senate proposal” (that means both Democrats and Republicans) would raise the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon over the next two years.
Our politicians have such good timing, don’t they?
Ugh.
And our electricity rates are going up too. The electricity price index just set a brand new record high and there are no signs of relief on the horizon…
The electricity price index and the average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity both hit records for May, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The average price for a KWH hit 13.6 cents during the month, up about 3.8 percent from 13.1 cents in May 2013.
The seasonally adjusted electricity price index rose from 201.431 in May 2013 to 208.655 in May 2014—an increase of about 3.6 percent.
If our paychecks were increasing at the same rate as inflation, perhaps most families would be able to weather all of this.
Unfortunately, that is not the case at all.
As I wrote about recently, median household income in the U.S. is now about 7 percent lowerthan it was in the year 2000 after adjusting for inflation.
And if realistic inflation numbers were used instead of the government-manipulated ones, it would look a lot worse than that.
Inflation is a hidden tax that all of us pay, and it is systematically eviscerating the middle class.
So what are prices like in your neck of the woods?
Is your family feeling the pain of inflation?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
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Posted: 25 Jun 2014 04:51 AM PDT

Smoke of wood stoves rises over cities of Greece, Spain suffers from youth unemployment, Germany raises retirement age to 76 years, whereas in the heart of London, people gather to protest against austerity measures. Who benefits from multiplying the poor in Europe? Has the tale of good European life been destroyed?
“In winter you can heat your house with gasoline-powered radiators, – a real estate agent in Cyprus told Pravda.Ru. – But we, for example, have a big house, and gasoline is expensive. So we installed a wood-burning oven, a pot-belly stove.”
Back to pot-belly stoves. This is the price of life on the island of Cyprus, which is a part of the European Union. As acknowledged by the Cypriots themselves, living on the island has become very difficult during the recent years. There are empty shops, abandoned villas and hotels, many unfinished buildings – the picture can not be hidden from tourists. However, the Cypriots say that that the hardships began prior to the collapse of the bank system in the autumn of 2013, when the flow of tourists from the European Union dropped considerably. One can still hear English speech in Cyprus, but the number of tourists from Russia is a lot larger. Why did Europeans stop attending their favorite summer resort?
In fact, the small island republic in the Mediterranean Sea absorbed and reflected the decline of the standard of living in Europe. News reports of people protesting against austerity measures in European countries appear on a regular basis. The number of the poor in Europe grows. This is no longer the problem of such countries as Greece, Spain and Portugal. Even outwardly prosperous subjects of Queen Elizabeth II stand up against austerity measures. Last weekend, a demonstration was held in London under the slogan “No more austerity measures.” Everyone, who fears the spread of poverty in the kingdom, including representatives of various trade unions and even the clergy, came to take part in the march. As a matter of fact, everyone knows who dictates the policy of “belt-tightening.” The Britons consistently advocate for the country’s withdrawal from the European Union, along with the French and even the Germans.
Indeed, if we turn to Germany, the widely spread idea of perfect life in Germany appears to be quite distorted. For example, the Russians often notice that European pensioners and older people, particularly from Germany, are well-to-do individuals, who can travel around the world, whereas Russian pensioners are forced to scrape and save to buy bread. Of course, this is true. However, let us pay tribute to German older ladies and men, who also have hard times, because in Germany, the retirement age for men and women is 67 years. The German authorities have recently taken the decision and plan to raise the bar of retirement age up to 76 years, regardless of gender differences. This is the age that not all people have the luxury to celebrate, even if they can afford all medical services. Here is what one of our Germany-based readers wrote to us about the difficulties of surviving in Germany:
“When the Germans speak about unemployment, they take the data from Arbeitsamt (labor exchange), but do not take account of the data from Social, which today account for about six percent. In deed, and not in name, unemployment rate in Germany is about 10-12 percent. The fact that these are two different companies. If a person loses their job, they go to “labor exchange,” on which they are paid 60 percent of salary. German citizens receive monthly insurance in case of job loss – 1.5 percent – all the time. If, within two years, a person has not been able to find work, this person goes to social programs. This is where students or former students go, who did not find work, and all those who just do not want to work. Finding a job in Germany is very hard. If you are not a doctor or an IT specialist, this is almost impossible. Some organize their own business, but one needs big money to get started, as banks do not give loans to immigrants quickly, – Alexandra Busch wrote in her email to Pravda.Ru. – When we got married, if it wasn’t for my own money, we would have had very hard times. Professionals receive very decent salaries indeed, but they pay 25 percent of taxes from them. Plus, not all have the right to public medical insurance. A minimum private health insurance costs 460 euros per month. This is a basic one that is valid only for emergencies. Complete insurance costs 1,000 euros per month. If they do not have an insurance, then, for example, calling an ambulance will cost you 700 euros. Sky is the limit for prices on medical treatment. Cheapest braces for our ten-year-old child cost us 7,000 euros. Basic drugs, such as anti-allergy medications, can be bought only by prescription. The idea is to pay the doctor at first and then you can buy essential medicines.”
Speaking about the difficulties of living in Europe, one shall recall the sarcastic escape of French actor Gerard Depardieu to Russia. Specifically, he escaped from French taxes that strangle even most highly paid entertainers. Depardieu is a bird that flies too high for ordinary citizens, but here is a down-to-earth example of living in today’s France. French mothers can go on maternity leave for only three months. The writer of this article literally shocked a French-speaking guide by saying that Russian mothers go on three-year-long maternity leave, receiving maternity allowance.
What stands behind all these protests in Europe? What do Europeans want, if it appears that the living standard in Europe is high enough?
“I do not have statistics, but from my personal observations, as I travel to Europe regularly, life in Europe has not improved during the recent five years. There is no outright poverty, at least in central and northern Europe, or in the UK, but people started to count their money more carefully, even though they have always done that before. In southern Europe, unemployment is very high, there are a lot of young unemployed people in Spain, in Italy and Greece, the head of the Department of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Higher School of Economics, Maxim Bratersky told Pravda.Ru. – Before 2008, it was better there, I think.”
“The crisis affects each and every individual differently. Some earn well, some can do better than others, some others can not. The last thing that I’ve noticed is that unemployment started growing in Germany among low-skilled workers, roughly speaking, guest workers. They are not only the Turks, but also people from Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, who went there for work, but did not find anything good there,” says Bratersky.
In turn, chief researcher at the Institute for International Economic and Political Studies, Vyacheslav Dashichev, said that economic woes in Europe grow from the union, which means that it is only decentralization of EU economies that will be able to improve the situation.
“The EU needs to pay more attention to national policies of each country. This contradiction between the central authorities of the EU, which is very influenced by the United States, and national policies, the identity of each of the countries – is now the central issue. Many believe that standards of living in different countries of the EU largely depends entirely on the policy of the European Commission of the EU. Therefore, each country in southern Europe – Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal – demand more rights for national policies in order to develop economy and improve the living standards of the people in these countries, – says Vyacheslav Dashevich. – The U.S., however, wants to see the EU a highly centralized organization, so that the US could show as much influence on Europe as possible.”
The European Union, despite serious concerns from major economies, continues to grow and accept new members – presumably small countries with very, very shaky economies, that will become yet another burden for the European Union and its solvent taxpayers.
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Posted: 25 Jun 2014 04:47 AM PDT
A view of a ranch in the Mexican state of Veracruz on June 18, 2014, where the bodies of at least 28 people have been exhumed from a mass grave.
The bodies of at least 28 people have been found in a mass grave at a ranch in the Mexican state of Veracruz.
“So far, we’ve exhumed 28 bodies,” Deputy District Attorney Arturo Herrera said in a Wednesday statement.
Veracruz, a stronghold of the country’s notorious Zetas drug cartel, has suffered outbreaks of violence since former President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to tame the drug gangs soon after taking office at the end of 2006.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has pledged to get rid of gang violence that has claimed about 80,000 lives in Mexico since 2007. However, the steady stream of killings has continued unabated.
According to official data, since December 2012, an additional 1,000 people die every month in violence linked to drug cartels.
The Mexican army is still fighting drug gangs across large parts of the country.
The government said it had a database of 26,000 missing people in connection with drug-related violence.
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Posted: 25 Jun 2014 03:52 AM PDT

Hamas is promising to “open the gates of hell” if Netanyahu’s government expels its leaders from the West Bank to Gaza in connection with three missing Israeli teens. The rescue operation resulted in 280 arrests and a death of a Palestinian teen.
With Operation Brother’s Keeper unwinding in the West Bank, the Israeli government and army are set to find Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Frankel, who were allegedly kidnapped in the West Bank a week ago, at any cost.
The situation in the Palestinian territories is deteriorating, with the IDF conducting multiple arrests and Palestinian militants firing rockets toward Israeli settlements.
The Israeli leadership maintains the teens were abducted and views Hamas as the prime suspect.
The Israeli teens “were kidnapped by Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We had no doubt of that. It’s absolutely certain. Hamas repeatedly has called for the kidnap and murder of Israeli citizens.”
Netanyahu will regret his actions against the Palestinian people and Hamas, the organization’s spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhri, said at a press conference dedicated to Israel’s West Bank rescue operation, promising to repel the Israeli West Bank crackdown within days.
The latest information suggests that the IDF has already arrested 280 Palestinians in a massive crackdown operation in the West Bank. Among the arrested there are over 50 Palestinians from the 1,027 prisoners recently freed as part of the deal to secure the release of Sergeant Gilad Shalit.
During the search for three missing teenagers, Israeli soldiers killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Dudin, who was shot in the chest during a clash between Israeli soldiers conducting arrests and locals in the village of Dura, south of the West Bank city of Hebron.
The Netanyahu government has threatened to expel Hamas’s leaders from the West Bank to Gaza.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that if Israel realizes its threat of expelling Hamas leaders to Gaza, Israel would be “opening the gates of hell.’
“The Intifada is the greatest event in the history of the Palestinian people, and it renews itself every time there is an escalation in Israel’s aggression,” Abu Zuhri said. “Resistance through every channel is the legitimate right of the Palestinian people, to liberate the land, the holy places, and the prisoners.”
“We are capable of igniting a third Intifada which is an irrevocable right that will go off when more pressure is exerted on the Palestinian people,” Hamas official Salah Bardawil announced at a rally in support of the director of the al-Aqsa TV network detained by Israel on Wednesday. Hamas would not stay idle if Israel “continues with its crimes in the West Bank,” Bardawil added, as cited by Ma’an.
Netanyahu is pressing the Abbas administration to disassociate itself from Hamas.
“Abbas [must] dissolve the union with this murderous terrorist organization [Hamas]. I think that’s important for our common future,” Netanyahu said.
Palestinian news agency Ma’an cited a senior Hamas official on Thursday as saying that Hamas could start another Intifada, yet keep the Palestinian unity government in place.
President Abbas chimed in Wednesday, saying: “Those who carried out the kidnapping want to destroy us.”
“Israel is using the disappearance of the three boys as an excuse to launch an attack on the Palestinians,” Abbas said, stressing that a single act has put hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank under Israeli siege, which is seen as “collective punishment.”
“The policy of collective punishment imposed by the Israeli government is a violation of the international law,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.
The Israeli military has closed most of the Hebron region and sealed off crossings into Gaza as the search for the missing teens goes on. Also, they have banned West Bank men under 50 from traveling to Jordan through Allenby Bridge.
“These revenge tactics are tantamount to collective punishment under international law,” Fuad al-Khufash, the director of Ahrar, a Palestinian rights group, told Al-Jazeera. “They are unjustified and merely serve to alleviate the fears of the Israeli people,” he said, specifying that arrests took place in Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Tubas.
Palestinian radicals from Hamas lashed out at both the Israelis and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is assisting Tel Aviv in the rescue operation.
Abbas’s position does not reflect the mood of the Palestinian public, said Abu Zuhri.
Israel only understands language of kidnapping, Palestinian Liberation Organization’s official Jibril Rajoub said Thursday, stressing though that he personally does not favor abductions of both Palestinian and Israeli citizens.
President Abbas called the arrests of the people who already spent decades in prison “a blatant infringement on the release agreement.”
The methods of the rescue operation are only driving the violence further, as Palestinians in the Jenin area are throwing rocks and fire bombs at IDF forces.
Israeli territory has also been attacked with handmade rockets from the Gaza Strip. The Israel Air Force launched retaliation strikes in return, hitting five “terrorist sites” in in northern and central Gaza.
“The IDF will not tolerate attempts to harm our [Israeli] citizens and soldiers, and will operate against all elements that instigate terror against the State of Israel,” the military said following the strike.
Ma’an news agency cited a Gaza health official who said that six Palestinians were wounded in the strikes.
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