Solidarity growing among Turkish protesters

Deutsche Welle, 30 June 2013

The protests in Turkey have lasted four weeks now. More and more Kurds are joining in, and sectarian differences are being deemphasized.

"Lice is everywhere, resistance is everywhere!" rang out the slogan from the thousands who had taken to the streets of Istanbul on Friday night (28.06.2013). Some hours earlier, there had been violent clashes in the predominantly Kurdish town of Lice, in the Diyarbakir province of eastern Turkey. The protests were aimed at the construction of a new outpost of the Gendarmerie, a branch of the Turkish armed forces. One person was killed while several more were injured.

More protests followed in Istanbul on Saturday at midday. Organized by the workers' union KESK and the Kurdish BDP party, they chanted slogans including: "We don't want a police station. We want freedom!"

An 18-year-old man was killed
in Diyarbakir clashes

The demonstrators then organized themselves once again - via Twitter and Facebook - on Saturday evening. Before then, thousands of police officers had taken up positions on the city's Taksim Square, which has been the center of the protests until now.

This time the police surrounded the entire square, barring protesters from entering, and keeping their batons, shields, water cannon, and tear gas at the ready. But the clashes were limited - according to the Turkish paper Radikal, some protesters were arrested, and only a small amount of tear gas was used.

'We're all brothers'

Most of the demonstrators, equipped with gasmasks, were holding Turkish flags - but there were also flags of the Turkish province of Diyarbakir, as well as some representing the Kurdish BDP party. The Kurds were marching together with the other demonstrators toward Taksim Square.

"The people are all protesting together," 22-year-old demonstrator Yanki Özdogan told DW. From now on, he added, everything would be different. "When I talk to people I notice that their awareness and their empathy for other people has risen. People have gotten closer."

Protests against the Erdogan government
continued over the weekend

Turks, Kurds, Alawis, Sunnis - old sectarian distinctions are apparently being ignored. "That was never anyone's intention," one Kurdish demonstrator said. "All that happened in the past were provocations. It didn't matter how many divisive statements the politicians made. The people won't lose their solidarity, and that's the important thing."

"We're all brothers," another Kurd added. "We're all equal and free, and want to live equal and free in this country."

Lice - the Kurdish Gezi Park

But Hüseyin Celik, spokesman for Turkey's governing AKP party, tweeted that the clashes in Lice were designed to disrupt the ongoing Kurdish peace process. "Those planning a big conspiracy are trying to create a Kurdish version of Gezi Park. Please be careful, my Kurdish brothers," he said in another tweet. "Big conspiracy" was the same phrase that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan consistently used in speeches to explain the nationwide protests against his regime.

As part of the peace process, meant to end the 30-year conflict between the Turkish government and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), some PKK fighters withdrew from Turkey at the beginning of May into the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The Kurdish BDP party criticized the progress of the peace process on Friday, and called for an extension of the rights of the Kurds, who make up 20 percent of the Turkish population.

'We are deeply ashamed'

There have also been shows of
solidarity in Germany

"For all these years, we've been deaf to the things happening in eastern Turkey, and we always blamed [the Kurds]," one protesting student told DW. "But the latest events have shown us that the situation wasn't how it was presented to us." The media had been lying to them, another demonstrator agreed. "We are deeply ashamed, and we hope that we can all live together in peace."

Hundreds of intellectuals also showed their solidarity on the weekend. Under the motto "We are concerned!" they took out an ad in a newspaper on Saturday regarding polarization in society. Artists like Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and pianist Fazil Say endorsed the ad, which said: "We sign the call to end the hate speeches and stop the use of artists as targets." The general oppression has to end, they assert.

Related Articles:

The Internet  - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End ofHistory")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20,2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. …”

Pope's 'gay lobby' remarks stir up new storm of Vatican gossip

Pontiff's comments spark flurry of speculation about alleged 'bunga bunga' scene in the Holy See

The Guardian, Tom Kington in Rome, The Observer, Sunday 30 June 2013

Pope Francis's private comments to a group of visiting South American
 churchmen caused a sensation when they appeared on a religious
website. Photograph: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

A tide of lurid speculation, questionable accusations and possible blackmail attempts is buffeting the Vatican following Pope Francis's claim that he is preparing to tackle a gay lobby secretly at work behind the Holy See's walls.

The new pope's private comments to a group of visiting South American churchmen, which caused a sensation when they appeared on a religious website last week, prompted blushes in the Vatican and unleashed feverish gossip in Rome regarding the contents of a report on Vatican infighting prepared last year for Francis's predecessor, Joseph Ratzinger.

On his retirement in February, Ratzinger handed his Argentine successor the dossier, which reportedly describes a lobby of gay, senior churchmen inside the Vatican, running a network of patronage while fighting off blackmailers.

The pope's unguarded remarks, which appeared to confirm the speculation, have fuelled a new round of accusations, beginning with a convicted paedophile priest, Father Patrizio Poggi, who last week named nine fellow prelates in Rome as part of a secret band who used a police officer to supply them with eastern European rent boys.

By Friday Poggi was under arrest, accused of defamation, as investigators claimed he had invented the whole story to take revenge on fellow priests who stood by when he was found guilty of abusing children.

On Thursday the anti-paedophile campaigner Francesco Zanardi posted a taped conversation on his website in which an informant told him about alleged secret sex parties inside the Vatican involving 14-year-old male prostitutes and cardinals, as well as rented apartments in Rome where prelates kept a supply of young men.

The man, who claimed to be involved in organising the parties, said he wanted to expose the Holy See's own "bunga bunga" scene, offering to supply photos and videos taken by the prostitutes and telling Zanardi:: "I can give you a hand."

"He named two cardinals  … and the details he supplied stood up," Zanardi said. He bleeped out the names on the online recording, but has supplied all details to prosecutors, who have opened an investigation.

"In another call, the man put me in touch with one of the boys, who had just turned 18 … I talked to him and believed his story. He was known as 'the blond' and was one cardinal's favourite, but when I urged him to go to the police, he just said: 'It's my living.'"

Zanardi, 43, is on a mission to expose abuse and hypocrisy in the church after he was sexually abused in Liguria between the ages of 11 and 16 by a priest, Nello Giraudo, who had already been moved from one parish because of abuse allegations. The priest was later given an 18-month jail sentence.

An Italian journalist, Carmelo Abbate, who was also contacted by the anonymous informant, said he had yet to be convinced his stories stood up.

"He seemed like a man who wanted to take revenge … but he didn't come up with the proof," said Abbate, whose 2011 book Sex and the Vatican lifted the lid on the gay clubs and saunas frequented by Rome-based priests, including one who has held mass inside the Vatican.

Abbate has since published an exposé of priestly paedophilia in Italy. "During my research into abuse I came across many blackmailers, and decided they were almost as bad as the abusers, since they are trying to make money out of victims," he said.

Related Articles:

Pope Francis 'confirms Vatican gay lobby and corruption'

"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator,Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience? 

Anglo tapes: Ex CEO David Drumm apologises

BBC News, 30 June 2013

Related Stories

• Anglo bank tapes 'contemptible'
• 'We need the moolah' said Anglo boss
• Anglo CEO 'joked over bank losses'\

Executives at Anglo Irish Bank were
recorded laughing and swearing as
their bank faced collapse

The former boss of Anglo Irish Bank has apologised for the "inappropriate" language he used in recorded phone calls during the bank's 2008 collapse.

The recordings were leaked to the Irish Independent newspaper and last week it published a series of articles giving details of the bankers' conversations.

Senior Anglo executives were heard joking over the bank's massive losses.

In an Irish Central interview, Mr Drumm said he was "shocked and embarrassed" by the content of the tapes.

He said there was "no excuse for the terrible language or the frivolous tone and I sincerely regret the offence it has caused".

"I cannot change this now but I can apologise to those who had to listen to it and who were understandably so offended by it."

The phone conversations have caused widespread anger among taxpayers and government ministers in the Irish Republic.

They were taped in September 2008, as the Irish government was in negotiations to bail out a number of banks, amid an unprecedented financial crisis.

Laughing

The government issued a blanket guarantee for deposits in Irish banks, effectively making taxpayers liable for the debts run up by the institutions.

In the recordings, Mr Drumm can be heard laughing as one Anglo executive sings the German national anthem, as deposits flowed in from Germany as a result of the government guarantee.

The former CEO was also recorded setting out Anglo strategy in trying to persuade the Irish Central Bank to give financial support to their failing institution.

He told his executives to go the the central bank with their "arms swinging" and demand more money saying: 'We need the moolah, you have it, so you're going to give it to us and when would that be?'

In more colourful language, another Anglo executive, John Bowe, is heard saying that he plucked a figure of 7bn euros out of thin air, when the authorities asked how much money would be needed to rescue the bank.

Mr Drumm, who ran Anglo between 2005 and 2008, later moved to the United States, where he filed for bankruptcy.

'Highly stressful'

In an interview for the American website Irish Central, the former bank boss said the first he heard of the Anglo tapes was when he logged on to the Irish Independent last Monday in New York.

"I knew they were bad, bad, bad," Mr Drumm said.

He was asked by US-based journalist Niall O'Dowd if he regretted the language he had used in the calls.

The former banker said: "I accept that the tone and language used in the tapes is inappropriate and I fully understand why the excerpts published have offended many people.

"Listening to a recording made almost five years ago at a highly stressful and volatile uncertain time is both embarrassing and a shocking reminder of how much pressure my colleagues and I were under at that time."

Inquiry

Mr Drumm has denied claims that Anglo executives misled both the government and banking regulators over the true scale of the bank's losses.

The government rescue package for Anglo eventually cost Irish taxpayers around 30bn euros, which the Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said was the "single biggest financial transaction ever made in history of our state".

The failed bank was nationalised in 2009 and the following year, the Irish government needed a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Mr Kenny has said the Anglo tapes have damaged the Republic's reputation and he wants to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the collapse of the bank.

Related Articles:

Inside Anglo: the secret recordings

Irish PM promises probe against bankers who duped government with figures 'picked from their arse'

Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations

Reports in Der Spiegel that US agencies bugged European council building 'reminiscent of cold war', says German minister

guardian.co.uk, Ian Traynor in Brussels, Louise Osborne in Berlin and Jamie Doward, Sunday 30 June 2013

The Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home of the EU council – and subject
 to a US survellance programme, according to documents seen by Der Spiegel.
Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian

The prospects for a new trade pact between the US and the European Union worth hundreds of billions have suffered a severe setback following allegations that Washington bugged key EU offices and intercepted phonecalls and emails from top officials.

The latest reports of NSA snooping on Europe – and on Germany in particular – went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and organised criminals.

The German publication Der Spiegel reported that it had seen documents and slides from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden indicating that US agencies bugged the offices of the EU in Washington and at the United Nations in New York. They are also accused of directing an operation from Nato headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email networks at the EU's Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, the venue for EU summits and home of the European council.

Without citing sources, the magazine reported that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls apparently targeting the remote maintenance system in the building that were traced to NSA offices within the Nato compound in Brussels.

The impact of the Der Spiegel allegations may be felt more keenly in Germany than in Brussels. The magazine said Germany was the foremost target for the US surveillance programmes, categorising Washington's key European ally alongside China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia in the intensity of the electronic snooping.

Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, called for an explanation from the US authorities. "If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war," she was quoted as saying in the German newspaper Bild. "It is beyond imagination that our friends in the US view Europeans as the enemy."

France later also asked the US authorities for an explanation. France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said: "These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable.

"We expect the American authorities to answer the legitimate concerns raised by these press revelations as quickly as possible.".

Washington and Brussels are scheduled to open ambitious free trade talks next week following years of arduous preparation. Senior officials in Brussels are worried that the talks would be overshadowed by the latest disclosures of US spying on its closest allies.

"Obviously we will need to see what is the impact on the trade talks," said a senior official in Brussels. A second senior official said the allegations would cause a furore in the European parliament and could then hamper relations with the US.

Robert Madelin, one of Britain's most senior officials in the European commission, tweeted that EU trade negotiators always operated on the assumption that their communications were listened to.

A spokesman for the European commission said: "We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports. They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."

There were calls from MEPs for Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council – who has his office in the building allegedly targeted by the US – and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, to urgently appear before the chamber to explain what steps they were taking in response to the growing body of evidence of US and British electronic surveillance of Europe through the Prism and Tempora operations.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and leader of the liberals in the European parliament, said: "This is absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped immediately. The American data collection mania has achieved another quality by spying on EU officials and their meetings. Our trust is at stake."

Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, told Der Spiegel: "If these reports are true, it's disgusting." Asselborn called for guarantees from the very highest level of the US government that the snooping and spying is immediately halted.

Martin Schulz, the head of the European parliament, said: "I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.

"On behalf of the European parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations."

There were also calls for John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to make a detour to Brussels on his way from his current trip to the Middle East, to explain US activities.

"We need to get clarifications and transparency at the highest level," said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP. "Kerry should come to Brussels on his way back from the Middle East. This is essential for the transatlantic alliance. The US can only lead by example, and should uphold the freedoms it claims to protect against attacks from the outside. Instead we see erosion of freedoms, checks and balances, from within."

Within senior circles in Brussels, however, it has long been assumed that the Americans were listening to or seeking to monitor EU electronic traffic.

"There's a certain schadenfreude here that we're important enough to be spied on," said one of the officials. "This was bound to come out one day. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of our member states were not doing the same to the Americans."

The documents suggesting the clandestine bugging operations were from September 2010, Der Spiegel said.

A former senior official in Brussels maintained that EU phone and computer systems were almost totally secure but that no system could be immune to persistent high-quality penetration operations.

"I have always assumed that anyone with a decent agency was listening, hacking if they could be bothered," he said. "It doesn't bother me much. Sometimes it's a form of communication."

Der Spiegel quoted the Snowden documents as revealing that the US taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany a month. "We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we do it too," Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.

On an average day, the NSA monitored about 20m German phone connections and 10m internet datasets, rising to 60m phone connections on busy days, the report said.

Officials in Brussels said this reflected Germany's weight in the EU and probably also entailed elements of industrial and trade espionage. "The Americans are more interested in what governments think than the European commission. And they make take the view that Germany determines European policy," said one of the senior officials.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green party MEP and a specialist in data protection, told the Guardian the revelations were outrageous. "It's not about political answers now, but rule of law, fundamental constitutional principles and rights of European citizens," he said.

"We now need a debate on surveillance measures as a whole looking at underlying technical agreements. I think what we can do as European politicians now is to protect the rights of citizens and their rights to control their own personal data."

Talking about the NSA's classification of Germany as a "third-class" partner, Albrecht said it was not helping to build the trust of Germans or other Europeans. "It is destroying trust and to rebuild that, [the US] will need to take real action on legislation," he said.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that at least six European member states have shared personal communications data with the NSA, according to declassified US intelligence reports and EU parliamentary documents.

The documents, seen by the Observer, show that – in addition to the UK – Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy have all had formal agreements to provide communications data to the US. They state that the EU countries have had "second and third party status" under decades-old signal intelligence (Sigint) agreements that compel them to hand over data which, in later years, experts believe, has come to include mobile phone and internet data.

Under the international intelligence agreements, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is defined as 'first party' while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy 'second party' trusted relationships. Countries such as Germany and France have 'third party', or less trusted, relationships.

The data-sharing was set out under a 1955 UK-USA agreement that provided a legal framework for intelligence-sharing that has continued.

It stipulates: "In accordance with these arrangements, each party will continue to make available to the other, continuously, and without request, all raw traffic, COMINT (communications intelligence) end-product and technical material acquired or produced, and all pertinent information concerning its activities, priorities and facilities."

The agreement goes on to explain how it can be extended to incorporate similar agreements with third party countries, providing both the UK and the US agree.

Under the third party data-sharing agreements each country was given a codename. Denmark was known as Dynamo while Germany was referred to as Richter. The agreements were of strategic importance to the NSA during the cold war.

However, Simon Davies, an intelligence expert and project director at the London School of Economics who writes the Privacy Surgeon blog, suggested the NSA's role had been given a sharper focus following amendments to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).

In an interview published in full last night on Davies' blog, former NSA director General Michael Hayden said: "The changes made to Fisa in 2008 were far more dramatic – far more far-reaching than anything President Bush authorised me to do."

Davies told the Observer that confirmation of the secret agreements showed there was a need for the EU to investigate.

"It's clear that the European parliament must intervene at this point through a public inquiry," Davies said. "MEPs should put the interests of their citizens above party politics and create meaningful reforms."

The covert data-sharing relationship between leading European countries and the US was first outlined in a 2001 report by the European parliament.

The report stated: "Germany and the United Kingdom are called upon to make the authorisation of further communications interception operations by US intelligence services on their territory conditional on their compliance with the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights)."

One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire,

which according to a 2007 document is 'implanted on the Cryptofax

at the EU embassy, DC'. Photograph: Guardian

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EU demands clarification over US spying claims

EU concern over Der Spiegel claim of US spying

Snowden elusive, Germany queries Britain's Tempora tapping program

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NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data, secret files reveal

Matthew’s Message - June 11, 2013 - (Matthew channelled by Suzanne Ward)

“.. This is an appropriate place to address questions that many readers have asked: How can US President Obama defend the National Security Agency’s collection of data from citizens’ private telephone conversations and Internet records? Why did he sign the Monsanto Protection Act? Congressional actions are public knowledge, but what goes on behind closed doors is not known, and we shall tell you what is relevant to these two situations.

President Obama defended NSA’s data gathering, which was authorized in the Patriot Act passed during George W. Bush’s administration, on the authentic basis that it has led to discovering and thwarting numerous terrorist plans. What the president cannot say—and Bush never would—is that the most extensive terrorist acts that met failure and most of the lesser plots that also got shot down were those devised by the CIA faction under Illuminati control.

Neither can Obama disclose that ETs are working in the NSA and other agencies in that country and in several others. They are collecting and analyzing information on all Illuminati activities around the globe and using it to weaken their operations and obtain evidence for prosecution. When this has served its purpose—bringing to its final moment the Illuminati reign—the Patriot Act and also Homeland Security will come to an end.

As for the Monsanto Protection Act, Illuminati spokespersons told the president that if he vetoed it, Congress would override it. Furthermore, they would intensify their efforts to overturn the Affordable Healthcare Act, block legislation that could relieve some immigration issues, and doom attempts to resolve international conflicts by rational discussions instead of belligerent confrontation.

That is the “down-to-Earth” reason, you could say, that Obama signed the bill, but there is another facet of this that the Illuminati bloc doesn’t know. Despite their threats, the president was not going to sign the Act—he did so because ETs close to him advised it. Their higher perspective was that citizens’ outrage at this insidious bill needs to motivate them to force its nullification. The people must exercise their right and responsibility to demand that their elected officials end stubborn partisanship, stop letting lobbyists’ money dictate their votes on legislation, and start serving the best interests of the country.

By no means does this apply only to the United States! Governments in every country must start serving the needs of their people because this goes to the very heart of Earth’s Golden Age and soul evolvement! ..”

Serbia on deck for EU entry talks as Croatia gears up for membership

Deutsche Welle, 29 June 2013

The former Yugoslav republic of Serbia will begin negotiating its potential entry into the European Union following a decision during a two-day EU summit. Leaders said talks would start in January 2014 "at the latest."

Serbia has come a long way since the civil Yugoslav strife and wars of the 1990s, having been earmarked for negotiations to join the European Union at this week's EU summit. The two-day conference ended on Friday, with Serb leaders getting the green light for EU entry talks.

"We are at a historic moment for the Balkans and for Europe as a whole," European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said on Friday, noting that the decision came just days before Croatia is set to join the European Union on Monday.

The summit leaders agreed talks with Serbia would start in January 2014 "at the very latest." This week's decision reflects a change in how Serbia is viewed, no longer considered a pariah over its role in the wars that plagued the Balkans in the 1990s.

Improved relations

The EU summit decision applauds Belgrade's move to improve relations with its former province of Kosovo, which seceded in 2008. The two nations had suffered strained relations since the secession, but EU-brokered talks brought the two sides together in April, resulting in an agreement to normalize relations.

In giving Serbia a potential nod toward membership, the EU summit leaders also agreed that Brussels should hold talks with Kosovo over an association agreement covering trade, economic and political relations as a first step on the path to EU membership down the road.

"These ... decisions are an immediate result of the courageous agreement Belgrade and Pristina reached last April," Van Rompuy said.

Celebrations and opponents

Serbian leaders were quick to respond positively to the news of pending EU accession talks.

Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, leader of the co-ruling Socialists and ex-spokesman for late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, said his government had worked hard for the EU bid.

"The date for [EU] accession talks is the first step of this great journey we are about to undertake," Dacic said in a live broadcast of a cabinet session.

In Belgrade, meanwhile, nationalists opposed to EU accession rallied peacefully against the decision.

Dacic said he hoped the membership talks could be finished within four or five years, but many believe Brussels will put off Serbian admittance until at least 2020.

Croatia, set to join the EU on Monday, for example, endured 10 years of tough membership negotiations.

tm/ccp (AP, AFP, Reuters)

Vatican bank cleric arrested in €20m corruption inquiry

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, accused of trying to help friends bring millions of euros into Italy from Switzerland by plane

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Rome, Friday 28 June 2013

Link to video: Vatican cleric arrested in bank corruption investigation

A senior Vatican cleric suspected of trying to help rich friends bring millions of euros into Italy illegally has been arrested as part of an investigation into the Vatican bank.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, who worked as a senior accountant in the Vatican's financial administration, is involved in another investigation by magistrates in southern Italy. He was arrested in a parish in the outskirts of Rome and taken to the city's Queen of Heaven jail, his lawyer, Silverio Sica, said. Also arrested in the investigation were a member of Italy's secret services and a financial broker.

Sica said Scarano was accused of being involved in an attempt to help friends bring €20m (£17m) into Italy from Switzerland by plane, in league with the secret service agent and a financial intermediary.

The lawyer, who had access to the charge sheet, said the money never left Switzerland. Detectives identified the secret service agent as Giovanni Zitto and the broker as Giovanni Carenzio. It was not clear what role the bank had, if any, in the latest developments.

A Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said Vatican authorities were willing to co-operate with the investigation, but had so far received no official request. He said the AIF, the Vatican's financial authority, was monitoring the case and would take action if necessary.\

The Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican's bank. Photograph: AFP/Getty

The arrests came two days after the Vatican announced Pope Francis had set up a commission of inquiry into the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, which has been hit by a numerous scandals over the years.

Scarano worked for years as a senior accountant for a Vatican department known as the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. He was suspended from his duties several weeks ago when he was placed under investigation by magistrates in the southern city of Salerno, his home town.

In that inquiry, Sica said wealthy friends had donated money to Scarano to help him build a home for the terminally ill. According to the lawyer, his client wanted to use that money to pay off his mortgage so he could sell a property in Salerno and use the proceeds to construct the facility.

In an apparent attempt to cover his tracks, Scarano has been accused of taking €560,000 in cash out of his account in the Vatican bank a little at a time, usually €10,000 and giving it to friends who then gave him cheques. He deposited the cheques into a separate bank account to pay off the mortgage.

Related Article:

Vatican bank faces review by Pope Francis commission

Russian meteor shockwave circled globe twice

BBC News, Simon Redfern, 28 June 2013

More than 1,000 people were injured in February's event - most were
related to glass from shattered windows

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The shock wave from an asteroid that burned up over Russia in February was so powerful that it travelled twice around the globe, scientists say.

They used a system of sensors set up to detect evidence of nuclear tests and said it was the most powerful event ever recorded by the network.

More than 1,000 people were injured when a 17m, 10,000-tonne space rock burned up above Chelyabinsk.

The study appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The researchers studied data from the International Monitoring System (IMS) network operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO).

The detection stations look out for ultra-low frequency acoustic waves, known as infrasound, that could come from nuclear test explosions. But the system can also detect large blasts from other sources, such as the Chelyabinsk fireball.

Alexis Le Pichon, from the Atomic Energy Commission in France and colleagues report that the explosive energy of the impact was equivalent to 460 kilotonnes of TNT. This makes it the most energetic event reported since the 1908 Tunguska meteor in Siberia.

Irons in the fire

Meanwhile, another team of scientists has published a study focusing on the Tunguska event.

Fallen trees still litter the Taiga forest
near the site of the Tunguska airburst

The 1908 fireball, the biggest space impact of modern times, was probably caused by an iron-rich meteorite, a study in the journal Planetary and Space Science has confirmed.

The Tunguska air blast is estimated to have been equivalent to three to five megatonnes of TNT, hundreds of times more energetic than the Hiroshima explosion, and it flattened trees across 2,000 sq km of forest.

Victor Kvasnytsya, from Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences, and colleagues studied microscopic samples of mineral debris from the blast area that have been trapped in peat.

In their paper, they describe the mineralogy of samples recovered from the peat in the 1970s and 80s. High-resolution imaging and spectroscopy identified carbon minerals such as diamond, lonsdaleite and graphite.

Lonsdaleite in particular is found in carbon-rich material subjected to a shock wave, and is typically formed in meteorite impacts.

The lonsdaleite fragments contain smaller inclusions of iron sulphides and iron-nickel alloys, troilite and taenite, which are also characteristic meteorite minerals.

The iron to nickel ratio and the precise combinations of minerals assembled in these small fragments all point to a meteorite source, and are nearly identical to similar minerals found in the Canyon Diablo meteor that impacted Barringer Crater (Meteor Crater) in Arizona.

The findings would appear to rule out a theory that the Tunguska airburst was caused by a large fragment of Comet Encke. This comet is responsible for a meteor shower called the Beta Taurids, which cascade into Earth's atmosphere in late June and July - the time of the Tunguska event.

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German parliament approves tax equality for gay couples

Deutsche Welle, 28 June 2013

Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, has voted overwhelmingly in favor of tax equality for same-sex unions. A ruling by the country's top court in favor of gay couples had forced the parliamentary vote.

The legislation, proposed by the center-right coalition government, was able to pass only with the support of the opposition late on Thursday. At least 15 members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) voted against tax equality for gay couples.

"I wish that my colleagues would have voted in lock step for the draft legislation," Stefan Kaufmann, a homosexual member of the CDU, told the news agency AFP. Kaufmann said he was "irritated" by the votes of some of his party colleagues.

Both the center-left Social Democrats and Greens had presented their own draft proposals, which would have made homosexual partnerships fully equal with heterosexual marriages. But their initiatives ultimately did not find the requisite support in the Bundestag.

The leader of the Greens parliamentary group, Volker Beck, ridiculed the CDU and its Bavarian counterpart - the Christian Social Union (CSU) - for not supporting full equality for homosexual couples.

"We are in the 21st century, even if you have not noticed it," Beck said.

Retroactive law

The Bundestag vote allows Germany's 34,000 same-sex unions to have the same tax benefits as heterosexual marriages. The legislation is also retroactive, paying out tax relief to same-sex couples from August 1, 2001 until the present at an estimated cost of 150 million euros ($195 million).

Although the CDU has been traditionally opposed to granting gay and straight couples the same rights, a May 7 ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe forced the issue. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny tax equality for same-sex unions.

The legislation still has to pass Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat. Approval there is considered all but assured.

slk/ipj (AFP, dpa, KNA)

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