Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday 25 March 2015

The European Union Times



Posted: 24 Mar 2015 07:43 AM PDT


The US House has passed a resolution calling on President Barack Obama to send lethal weapons to Ukraine, despite the fragile truce in the eastern part of the country.
The non-binding resolution was approved by an overwhelming majority of 348-48.
Sending weapons to the Kiev government would not mean involvement in a new war for America, claimed US Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), a Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who sponsored the document. “The people of Ukraine are not looking for American troops,” Engel said. “They are just looking for the weapons.”
According to Engel, “this war poses the greatest threat to European security since World War II, and we shouldn’t take it lightly, and we shouldn’t be idle, and we shouldn’t sit back, and we shouldn’t let other countries tell us what to do.”
It comes as the White House is unwilling to make any radical moves on Ukraine, and follows German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s efforts to persuade Obama to commit to Ukraine’s truce plan during her February visit to the US.
Back in September, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko requested Congress to authorize a delivery of US military equipment to the Ukrainian government. So far, Obama has only signed off on non-lethal aid and sanctions against Russia, which Kiev and Washington claim is involved in the conflict, despite giving no evidence to support the notion.
The Ukrainian military launched an operation in the country’s southeast last April, after the Donetsk and Lugansk regions refused to recognized the new authorities in Kiev which were installed during the February 2014 coup.
The death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,800 people, many of them civilians, while another 14,000 have been injured, according to a February UN report.
The Donetsk airport has remained a battlefield in the conflict since May 2014. The international airport, which used to handle some five million passengers annually, now lies in ruins.
The Donetsk region witnessed daily shelling before the latest Minsk ceasefire agreement on February 12. Civilians were killed when shells hit residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and public transport. Pro- and anti-government forces also fought around Debaltsevo, a strategic railway hub connecting the breakaway regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on Germany and France to take action against Kiev’s non-compliance with the Minsk peace agreement. According to Lavrov, Kiev didn’t make an effort to start dialogue with the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk on the modalities of elections there.
Moreover, Lavrov said on Saturday that the EU would not comply with Kiev’s request to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine unless the rebels endorse such a mission. “I believe there are no madmen in the EU. [The EU previously deployed peacekeepers] only in situations in which, as in the Balkans, all sides of a conflict agreed to it,” Lavrov said in an interview to Rossiya 1 channel.
UK military personnel have arrived in Ukraine and are beginning their training mission there, Britain’s Ministry of Defence announced last week. US training will begin in April, as America has committed nearly 300 paratroopers to the mission.
Russia has supported the Minsk peace plan and has been vocal in its opposition to sending lethal aid to Ukraine.
Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with ammunition and weapons would “explode the whole situation” in eastern Ukraine and Russia would be forced to respond “appropriately,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the end of February.
“It would be a major blow to the Minsk agreements and would explode the whole situation,” TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2015 05:52 AM PDT


Don’t look now, but Washington just blinked. As we’ve documented exhaustively over the past week, pressure has been building steadily for the US to strike some manner of conciliatory tone towards China with regard to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a China-led institution aimed at rivaling the US/Japan-backed ADB. Britain’sdecision to join China in its new endeavor has prompted a number of Western nations to throw their support behind the bank ahead of the March 31 deadline for membership application. Because the AIIB effectively represents the beginning of the end for US hegemony, the White House has demeaned the effort from its inception questioning the ability of non-G-7 nations to create an institution that can be trusted to operation in accordance with the proper “standards.” Now, with 35 nations set to join as founders, it appears Washington may be set to concede defeat. Here’s more, via WSJ:
The Obama administration, facing defiance by allies that have signed up to support a new Chinese-led infrastructure fund, is proposing the bank work in a partnership with Washington-backed development institutions such as the World Bank.
The collaborative approach is designed to steer the new bank toward economic aims of the world’s leading economies and away from becoming an instrument of Beijing’s foreign policy. The bank’s potential to promote new alliances and sidestep existing institutions has been one of the Obama administration’s chief concerns as key allies including the U.K., Germany and France lined up in recent days to become founding members of the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The Obama administration wants to use existing development banks to co-finance projects with Beijing’s new organization. Indirect support would help the U.S. address another long-standing goal: ensuring the new institution’s standards are designed to prevent unhealthy debt buildups, human-rights abuses and environmental risks. U.S. support could also pave the way for American companies to bid on the new bank’s projects.
Don’t look now, but Washington just blinked. As we’ve documented exhaustively over the past week, pressure has been building steadily for the US to strike some manner of conciliatory tone towards China with regard to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a China-led institution aimed at rivaling the US/Japan-backed ADB. Britain’s decision to join China in its new endeavor has prompted a number of Western nations to throw their support behind the bank ahead of the March 31 deadline for membership application. Because the AIIB effectively represents the beginning of the end for US hegemony, the White House has demeaned the effort from its inception questioning the ability of non-G-7 nations to create an institution that can be trusted to operation in accordance with the proper “standards.” Now, with 35 nations set to join as founders, it appears Washington may be set to concede defeat. Here’s more, via WSJ:
The Obama administration, facing defiance by allies that have signed up to support a new Chinese-led infrastructure fund, is proposing the bank work in a partnership with Washington-backed development institutions such as the World Bank.
The collaborative approach is designed to steer the new bank toward economic aims of the world’s leading economies and away from becoming an instrument of Beijing’s foreign policy. The bank’s potential to promote new alliances and sidestep existing institutions has been one of the Obama administration’s chief concerns as key allies including the U.K., Germany and France lined up in recent days to become founding members of the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The Obama administration wants to use existing development banks to co-finance projects with Beijing’s new organization. Indirect support would help the U.S. address another long-standing goal: ensuring the new institution’s standards are designed to prevent unhealthy debt buildups, human-rights abuses and environmental risks. U.S. support could also pave the way for American companies to bid on the new bank’s projects.
But make no mistake, this is at best an example of Washington cutting its losses and at worst an outright surrender, as no one should pretend that the AIIB, which is starting with $50 billion in capital, will remain subservient to the ADB which, after five decades, has barely three times that amount:
Infrastructure needs around the world are enormous. Emerging countries need new ports, railways, bridges, airports and roads to support faster growth. Developed economies, meanwhile, must replace aging infrastructure. The Asian Development Bank estimates its region alone faces an annual financing shortfall of $800 billion a year. The consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimates global infrastructure-investment needs through 2030 total $57 trillion.
By comparison, the Asian Development Bank has just $160 billion in capital and the World Bank-which has co-financed with other regional institutions for years has around $500 billion. The China-led bank plans to have a $50 billion fund to start.
And with that, one more leap towards de-dollarization is now in the books.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2015 05:44 AM PDT


An Airbus A320 passenger aircraft has reportedly crashed in the southern French Alps with all 148 people on board feared dead.
According to official reports, the plane, with 142 passengers and six crew on board, was traveling between the Spanish coastal city of Barcelona and the German city of Dusseldorf when it came down between Barcelonnette and Digne in southern France on Tuesday.
Germanwings, an affiliate of German airline Lufthansa based in Cologne, owned the aircraft, the reports added.
Sources said the ill-fated aircraft had issued a distress call at 10:47 a.m. local time (0947 GMT).
The company said it has received the reports of the incident, but cannot yet confirm it.
“We have recently become aware of media reports speculating on an incident though we still do not have any own confirmed information. As soon as definite information is available, we shall inform the media immediately,” read the statement issued by Germanwings on its Facebook page.
Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande said there are likely no survivors in the Airbus crash.
His remarks were echoed by the French Minister of State for Transport Alain Vidalies, who said, “there are no survivors” from the Germanwings plane.
“A distress call was registered at 10:47. The distress signal showed the plane was at 5,000 feet in an abnormal situation,” the minister added.
According to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, the debris from the plane had already been found near a village.
Following the crash, Airbus’s stock lost 1.77 percent of its value and slumped to 58.94 euros at 1100 GMT.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2015 04:22 AM PDT


Scientists at Cern could prove the controversial theory of ‘rainbow gravity’ which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely, with no Big Bang.
The detection of miniature black holes by the Large Hadron Collider could prove the existence of parallel universes and show that the Big Bang did not happen, scientists believe.
The particle accelerator, which will be restarted this week, has already found the Higgs boson, the God Particle which is thought to give mass to other particles.
Now scientists at Cern in Switzerland believe they might find miniature black holes which would reveal the existence of a parallel universe.
And if the holes are found at a certain energy, it could prove the controversial theory of ‘rainbow gravity’ which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started, and no Big Bang.
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Posted: 24 Mar 2015 03:37 AM PDT



UK families are fleeing to Ireland as social workers continue to use false allegations and vague definitions of abuse to forcibly remove children from their parents and boost adoption statistics. RT’s documentary crew spoke to several of those families.
The UK is just one of two countries in Europe (the other is Croatia) where communist ideas such as adoption without the consent of a child’s biological parents, known as ‘forced adoption’, is practiced. The word “social worker” itself is a leftist, socialist, communist term. Since when do families need government “social workers” to nanny them? That’s exactly why strongly opposing any type of leftism and socialist ideology is the best thing to do in any country.
As it was to be expected, the UK government child theft started back in the Labour days when socialists were running wild. However fake Conservatives such as the current UK PM David Cameron, did nothing to change that. The only solution there is for UK…. Nigel Farage! The only man in Britain with a heart, soul and common sense.
Despite international law calling it an emergency measure, “there were over 2,000 children forcibly taken from one family to another” last year, MP John Hemming told RT’s documentary channel (RTD). Every year, some 11,000 children are taken into local authority care without the consent of their parents.
According to the MP, social workers are instructed by their managers to advise the court to get the child adopted, even if they’re been taken care of by a competent family.
With Britain’s children’s minister, Edward Timpson, proudly announcing a 63 percent rise in adoptions since 2011, children are being removed from their families “merely to satisfy government target,” Hemming said.
UK legislation provides several reasons for removing a child from their parents, with “risk of future emotional harm” being the most widely used and the most controversial.
“Now how do you quantify that? It’s almost impossible to quantify, but a lot of people lose their children because the social services and the courts say there’s a risk of future emotional harm,” human rights activist Yolande Lindbridge said.
It’s very difficult for parents to get their children back after a final hearing in court, because “the appeal system isn’t set up for people to win,” she stressed.
If the court rules that the forced adoption was a mistake, it often still decides to leave the child with their new family, so as “not to upset the child again,” said Bridget Robb, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers.
There are also cases when parents, especially those with complications in mental development, are told that their children will be removed even before they’ve given birth.
With limited tools to fight the system, many UK families are choosing to flee to neighboring Ireland or other foreign countries to keep their children.
Ireland is willing to provide support to those parents, unlike England, which “may identify that there may’ve been a problem, but is not willing to help you solve that problem,” according to John Paskell, a parent who fled the UK with his child.
The documentary ‘Forced Adoption: UK,’ premiering on RT and RTD on March 23, tells the story of several UK families who have experienced forced adoption and are now fighting to keep their children or have them returned.
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