Tuesday 30 June 2015

The European Union Times

German family kicked out of House to Accommodate Refugees

Posted: 29 Jun 2015 02:18 AM PDT

The Hejhal family is in shock. After Pentecost they received the notice of termination of renting contract of their apartment. So called refugees will move into the family’s former home.
Now, the family of eight has no choice but to quickly find a new home, as they unexpectedly and without sufficient time to react, received a termination notice.
The city Niederkassel, as landlord of the family’s house, announced that this step was necessary due to “own consumption”. 25 refugees are to be accommodated in the house.
Jörg Hejhal, the father, is in despair: “We live here now for years here, have everything renovated and always keep everything in order.”
Ironically, the city Niederkassel itself had helped the family to find exactly this house as a suitable place to live.
Familyfather Hejhal (who is professional truck driver for a living) can not understand that the city now wants to throw them out. “The house is perfect for us”, he says sadly. “130 square meter, it measures, has indeed many slopes, but at least six bedrooms. Two of the children aged between four and 23 years to share a room, everyone else has their own.
City says: Leave the city, if you’ve got problems with that
“It is almost impossible to find a similar house”, said the father. He adds:
“We of course have asked asked the city, how to get a new home.”
But the city’s answer was short: The family should consider leaving the city.
“But we always live in Niederkassel, we are rooted here. School, clubs, friends: We does not want the children to be torn from their current environment.
Besides all of these issues, I do not even know where I should get a security deposit from for a new house.”
Apathy and indifference among the city representants
First Councillor of the City Niederkassel, Helmut Esch, demonstrated indifference. “We regret the situation, but unfortunately there is no other way”, Esch says.
The House of Hejhals, as well as the neighbouring buildings, was built 15 years ago as a temporary home for refugees and was approved for it.
As in the past the number of asylum seekers again delined, the houses were rented to private individuals. But the municipality is now in need: “We need it for refugees”, explains Esch.
According to Esch, the city is now allegedly talking with the Hejhals and try to find a solution.
Mirco Theiner, from the tenant protection association of Bonn / Rhein-Sieg explained, that the dismissal unfortunately was unobjectionable froma legal perspective. He continues: “In my opinion, after all, the Hejhals may still not be terminated because this would mean a special hardship for the extended family.”
Jörg Hejhal now consulted a lawyer and wants to fight back legally. He says:
“Of course, refugees have to have a home. But it can’t be that the city says there is no other way than taking our home.”
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NASA Wants to Nuke Asteroids That Threaten to Destroy Earth

Posted: 29 Jun 2015 02:10 AM PDT

NASA has joined forces with a nuclear arms agency to learn more about how to deflect, or possibly destroy with nuclear power, asteroids or comets that may collide with Earth and obliterate the planet.
Comets and asteroids are the cosmic rubble left over from the birth of the solar system. Composed primarily of dirty ice, comets are often knocked loose from their home orbits beyond Pluto bringing them closer to Earth and making them unpredictable visitors in our planet’s neighborhood. Asteroids, on the other hand, can easily be detected by astronomers once they are spotted, and mostly travel between Mars and Jupiter.
While small rocky debris routinely rains down on Earth, giant cosmic pieces like the one presumed to have wiped out the dinosaurs often zoom past the planet, posing what many view as a serious extraterrestrial threat.
NASA and the Nuclear Security Administration have separately studied such a potential threat, one that may obliterate entire cities or even the planet as a whole. For years, the two agencies examined cosmic fragments, designed rocket interceptors, and conducted simulated tests to see how asteroids can be veered off their path to Earth.
Last week, the two agencies sealed an agreement to start working together in safeguarding the planet’s survival in the event of an incoming cosmic giant. The goal of their collaboration will be to develop a plan that involves using nuclear weapons to intercept asteroids.
“It’s a big step forward,” said Kevin Greenaugh, a senior official at the nuclear security agency. “Whenever you have multiple agencies coming together for the common defense, that’s news.”
This isn’t the first time nuclear explosives have been considered as a possible means to deflect incoming asteroids. In 2013, astrophysicist Robert Weaver of the Los Alamos weapons lab in New Mexico, the birthplace of the nuclear bomb, ran simulations on demolishing asteroids with nuclear power. In 2007, NASA scientists detailed plans for an interceptor rocket with a warhead 75 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
“Often, these agencies focus on their own pieces of the puzzle,” said Bruce Betts, director of the nonprofit Planetary Society, “so anything that brings them together is a good thing.”
However, many experts believe that nuclear power may not be the most successful method to intercept the cosmic intruders. They believe that nuclear weapons can only be suitable for asteroids or comets that are 164-492 feet in size. Some also suspect that the debris that would result from a nuclear attack would worsen the situation.
“I’d like to see it as a last-ditch option,” said H. Jay Melosh, a geophysicist at Purdue University who served on a national panel evaluating extraterrestrial threats in 2010.
The interagency collaboration comes amid rising public and private interest in extraterrestrial threats, and in the cosmic giants floating around in Earth’s neighborhood. The threat of a potential asteroid or comet collision has much more leverage since a 60 foot wide meteoroid – a cosmic rock smaller than an asteroid – exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, injuring 1,500 people.
Scientists say that a disastrous collision would occur from an asteroid or comet with a diameter of at least three fifth of a mile. About 1,000 of these objects have been spotted in Earth’s neighborhood, though none pose a collision threat in the near future. However, scientists warn that many of the million rocks that veer past Earth are untracked, and warrant closer scrutiny.
“The likelihood of something hitting us in the near future is pretty guaranteed,” said NASA scientists Jason Kessler, “although we’re not freaking out that there is an imminent threat.”
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Greek PM announces closure of banks and stock market

Posted: 29 Jun 2015 01:58 AM PDT

Greece has announced the temporary closure of banks and stock market as leaders of the US and Germany weigh in on the country’s debt crisis.
The Bank of Greece has recommended a “bank holiday and restriction of bank withdrawals” on Monday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced in a statement on Sunday.
Athens stock market would also stay closed and capital controls are to be imposed, Tsipras said, adding that Greece had again asked for a “prolongation of the (bailout) program.”
The statement was released after international creditor’s refusal to extend the country’s bailout past its June 30 expiry date.
Earlier in the day, the European Central Bank stated that it would not increase financial support to Greek banks.
Amid growing concerns that the country was headed for financial collapse, Greek citizens have started to empty ATM machines.
Since Friday, panicking citizens have withdrawn 1.3 billion euros ($1.45 billion) from the Greek Banks, according to the head of the Greek bank workers’ union, Stavros Koukos.
Tsipras urged the nation to stay calm adding that their money was “totally safe”.
“Any difficulties that may arise must be dealt with with calmness. The more calm we are, the sooner we will get over this situation,” he added.
Obama, Merkel step in
US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, agreed in a phone conversation that Greece should stay in the eurozone by resuming reforms.
According to a White House statement, Obama and Merkel “agreed that it was critically important to make every effort to return to a path that will allow Greece to resume reforms and growth within the eurozone.”
The statement added that both leaders said Greece’s rapidly changing economic situation was being monitored by teams of economic advisors.
On Saturday, months-long bailout talks between Greece and its international creditors collapsed over demands that Athens should implement economic reforms in exchange of further financial support.
The Greek parliament also passed a bill approving a motion called by Tsipras to hold a referendum on July 5 on whether their government should agree to the lenders’ demands in return for bailout funds to the debt-ridden country.
Over the past few years, Greece has been struggling to borrow on international markets, but the list of reforms it has presented to creditors in order to restart bailout loan payments, has been described insufficient by the international lenders.
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Majority of 38 victims of Tunisian beach massacre were White

Posted: 29 Jun 2015 01:46 AM PDT

Most of the 38 victims of a terror attack on a beach resort in Tunisia were white Europeans, most from Britain, the country’s Prime Minister Habib Essid has told a news conference.
Mr Essid said victims of the shooting rampage at a resort in Sousse were also from Germany, Belgium and other countries. The British Prime Minister David Cameron warned that the public needs to be prepared for the fact that “many of those killed” in the “savage” racist Tunisian shooting were white people, most of whom Britons, as reports suggested the number of British deaths had risen to eight.
The anti-white Muslim racist gunman, who was cornered and shot dead by police, has been identified as Seifeddine Rezgui, a young student who was not previously known to Tunisia’s security services.
The SITE Intel Group, which monitors the activities of jihadists, said Isis took responsibility for the attack on social media and named the attacker as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani.
Thomson has scheduled 10 flights to return 2,500 holidaymakers to the UK via Manchester, Gatwick, East Midlands and Doncaster airports this morning. The first wave of flights have already begun to arrive at Gatwick airport.
The travel operator said a special assistance team is heading to Tunisia to assist its customers. Thomas Cook has also arranged for an additional flight to transport tourists out of the country.
The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed the deaths of five Britons and warned that number would likely rise. Mr Hammond said yesterday: “We have to assume that a high proportion of those killed and injured will have been British”.
The attacker was wearing a t-shirt and shorts when he began shooting at tourists on a beach. He then entered a swimming pool area with an AK-47 concealed behind a parasol and opened fire on holidaymakers.
British tourist Ellie Makin, from Ripon, North Yorkshire, who was on holiday with her friend, was sitting next to the gunman on a sunbed.
She told ITV News: “He was to the right of me because we were on the last sunbed on the beach. All of a sudden I got up anyway and just happened to look right and all I saw was a gun and an umbrella being dropped.
“Then he started firing to the right hand side of us. If he had fired to the left I don’t know what would have happened, but we were very lucky.”
One hotel worker in Tunisia who was approached by the gunman told The Independent the man had said he was avoiding Tunisian citizens and only targeting tourists. Another witness corroborated this account, saying the killer smiled and told him: “I don’t want to kill you, I want to hit tourists.”
In another deadly attack on Friday, the decapitated head of a man was found at the site of gas factory near Lyon following an assault by a single man reportedly waving an Islamist flag.
The attacks, which are not thought to be linked, come after Isis called on its supporters to make Ramadan “a month of calamities for the nonbelievers”.
Mr Cameron will chair a second emergency Cobra meeting today to determine how the UK should respond to the massacre. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the Government was ready to help the victims and their families “in any way that we can”.
“The murders in Tunisia and the events in France and Kuwait are a very stark reminder that we can never take our security for granted,” he told BBC Breakfast.
All of this was brought to you courtesy of “The Religion Of Peace”.
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