ECB Hands Italy An Ultimatum: ‘Obey EU Budget Rules Or We Won’t Save You’

 

With the Washington Post stepping up to put a floor under US stocks Thursday afternoon by reporting that President Trump would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at next month’s G-20 summit (while the headline soothed the market, it doesn’t change the fact that, as with everything involving the Trump administration, this too remains subject to change), investors have apparently overlooked the latest ominous headlines out of Italy. To wit, Reuters reported that the ECB won’t come to Italy’s rescue if its government or banks run out of cash unless the Italian government first secures a bailout from the European Union. Of course, this would almost certainly require that the populist coalition end its ongoing game of fiscal chicken with Brussels and abandon its  dreams of lowering the retirement age and extending a basic income to the Italian people – policies that would effectively secure a political future for M5S and the League. 

In effect, the ECB’s latest trial balloon is tantamount to blackmail: Either the Italians agree to fall back in line and obey European budgetary guidelines, or the central bank will sit back and watch as bond yields surge, providing the ratings agencies even more ammunition to cut Italian debt to junk – effectively guaranteeing a Greece-style banking crisis as the liquidity taps are turned off.

Insults fly after EU ultimatum to Poland

Kaczynski with Law and Justice prime minister Beata Szydlo in parliament (Photo: pis.org.pl)

 

The Polish government has accused the European Commission of “arrogance” and of “playing God” in a dispute on judicial reform.

Wednesday’s (26 July) barrage of reactions came after the Commission, earlier the same day, gave Poland one month to address concerns on political interference in the judiciary amid threats of an unprecedented EU voting penalty.

Brexit talks turn ugly over Gibraltar

As previously discussed a few times, bitter over Brexit, the EU will now find ways to punish Great Britain and gun for Gibraltar and even the Falkland Islands. In regards to Gibralter, it will go on the offensive and support a separation, whereas with the Falkland Islands it will turn a blind eye.

 

Royal Gibraltar Regiment on parade outside Buckingham Palace in London (Photo: Defence Images)

 

Britain has said Spain can have no new powers over Gibraltar, as Brexit prompts hard talk on sovereignty, security, and borders.

“We will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes”, the British prime minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday (2 April).

The British defence minister, foreign minister, and the chief minister of Gibraltar issued similar comments in a debate prompted by the start of Brexit talks last week.

Greece and Iran: The Dark Side of the Relationship

As you can glean from the article, there’s a lot more to the EU than business as usual. Some things will never see the light of day, but here we have a glimpse into the darker inner workings and depth of corruption within the Greek system. Greece is an extremely sick nation.

Greek problems aren’t limited to a constant economic and political hammering by Germany. The wounds are many, and bone deep.

It makes you wonder where you would even start to get your nation out of this mess if you were an honest Greek.

 

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meets with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, on February 8, 2016. (Image source: Office of the Supreme Leader)

 

• The Iranian government, with these two cases (Kabis and Noor 1), seems to hold in its hands a bomb that can blow up the Greek economic and political system. If Greek authorities seriously investigate these cases, they will trigger a domino-effect of disclosures that could well destabilize Greece’s government.
• Iran can blackmail and manipulate its political influence inside Greece, or Iran can use its ability to destabilize a member of NATO and Eurozone, Greece, to strengthen its international position.

As Sunnis and Shiites are fighting for regional hegemony in the Middle East — Syria, Yemen — Greece, as geographical gate for Europe and the Balkans, is a trophy country for the Iranian regime. In recent years, the Iranians have been exploiting the corrupt establishment’s thirst for money. Through drug dealing and oil smuggling, Iran seems to be trying to buy political influence and access to the Greek media. Well-informed diplomatic sources say that the Iranian Embassy in Athens is extremely active in Greece’s political and economic life behind the scenes.

Germany says EU ‘will not be blackmailed’ as Turkey threatens to ditch refugee deal over visa-free travel

President Erdogan says: ‘You cannot demand the refugee agreement without fulfilling obligations’

Europe “will not be blackmailed” into granting Turkey visa-free travel by the threat to back out of a deal on refugees, Germany’s Vice Chancellor has said.

Talks on the issue and Turkey’s possible accession to the EU have been strained amid a continuing crackdown following the failed attempt to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Obama’s amazing THREAT to Britain: UK would be at the ‘back of the queue’ after Brexit

BARACK Obama was last night condemned for trying to “blackmail” Britain into remaining in the EU.

The US President warned the UK would be “at the back of the queue” for a trade deal with America if it quit Brussels.

But his threat provoked outrage and scorn from pro-Brexit campaigners, who dismissed it as yet another scaremongering ploy from the pro-EU lobby.

Mr Obama, who will no longer be in office when decisions on a trade deal are made, delivered a lecture to the British people on why he thinks it is in the UK’s, America’s and the world’s best interests for Britain to vote to stay in the EU on June 23.

Turkey Has EU by the Throat: No Funding? Prepare to Accept ‘All Refugees’!

RIGA (Sputnik) — Turkey is blackmailing the European Union by asking for funding to address the refugee crisis, Member of the European Parliament Iveta Grigule said Wednesday.

Russia Flight Tests Anti-Satellite Missile

Moscow joins China in space warfare buildup

Russia carried out the first successful flight test of a new anti-satellite missile this month, marking a new phase in the global militarization of space.

The flight test of Russia’s direct ascent anti-satellite missile, known as Nudol, took place Nov. 18, according to defense officials familiar with reports of the test.

It was the first successful test in three attempts, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

CIA pulled officers from Beijing after massive cybertheft of US federal personnel records

The CIA pulled a number of officers from the US Embassy in Beijing as a precautionary measure following the massive online theft of personal data of federal employees, current and former US officials said.

The move is a concrete impact of the breach, one of two major hacks into Office of Personnel Management computers that were disclosed earlier this year. Officials have privately attributed the hacks to the Chinese government.

The theft of documents has been characterised by senior US officials as political espionage intended to identify spies and people who might be recruited as spies or blackmailed to provide useful information.

Because the OPM records contained the background checks of State Department employees, officials privately said the Chinese could have compared those records with the list of embassy personnel. Anybody not on that list could be a CIA officer.

China reportedly compiling ‘Facebook’ of U.S. government employees

According to CrowdStrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch, Chinese hackers are using information gained from the breaches of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as intrusions into the Anthem and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health insurance networks, to build a complete profile of federal employees in what the company calls a “Facebook of Everything.”

…

As Fox News has reported, the most sensitive information stolen in the OPM breach was lifted from what is known as the Standard Form 86, or SF-86. The 127-page security clearance application is essentially a road map to your life. It contains highly detailed information on everything from where an applicant lived and worked, to personal references, family members, friends and associates, as well as drug history and intimate health information.

Greek crisis: surrender fiscal sovereignty in return for bailout, Merkel tells Tsipras

Are you starting to see the bigger picture yet? Yesterday it was Cyprus, today it’s Greece. Tomorrow it could be France, Italy and Spain.

 

“You have not anchored Germany to Europe,… You have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.“

– Margaret Thatcher

The Fourth Reich has landed.

 

German and French leaders press Greek leader for guarantees over austerity measures in what an EU official describes as ‘extensive mental waterboarding’

European leaders have confronted the Greek government with a draconian package of austerity measures entailing a surrender of fiscal sovereignty as the price of avoiding financial collapse and being ejected from the single currency bloc.

A weekend of high tension that threatened to break Europe in two climaxed on Sunday night at a summit of eurozone leaders in Brussels where the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and President François Hollande of France presented Greece’s radical prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, with an ultimatum.

EU Openly Wants To Overthrow the Greek Government

The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has stated that holding new elections in Greece is now mandatory when the people vote for the reform program of the creditors. He insists that any relief for the Greeks, which is blackmail keeping their banks closed, will be bridged with a technical transitional government until elections are held that approve only their candidates, and that this will be a requirement of further negotiations.

Greece imposes capital controls, banks to remain shut

Greek banks will remain shut for an unspecified time and the country is imposing restrictions on bank withdrawals following a recommendation by the Bank of Greece, the country’s prime minister said Sunday.

Sunday’s move comes after two days of long lines forming at ATMs across the country, following Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ sudden decision to call a referendum on creditor proposals for Greek reforms in return for vital bailout funds.

The biggest heist of secret US personnel data in cyber history is still ongoing

As was mentioned just the other day, all U.S. intelligence agencies have been compromised in addition to all other government entities that were attacked.

 

The White House has admitted that systems containing deeply personal information, submitted by current, former and prospective federal government employees for security clearances, had been “exfiltrated.” If the breach of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was conducted by hackers linked to China, as suspected, access to the Standard Form 86 submitted by an estimated 41 million federal employees provided them with what may be the world’s largest stolen data base of US intelligence and military personnel.

This is a “gold mine” of unencrypted data that leave US intelligence officers, for example, open to blackmail or coerced recruitment.

While officials speak of two hacks, debkafile’s cyber security and intelligence experts report that it was a single breach and is still ongoing. Known to experts as an “Advanced Persistent Threat,” it amounts to slow, continuous penetration by a computer virus, planted in an individual computer of a network which duplicates itself gradually and insidiously.

US defends unruly Greece as Europe steps up ‘Grexit’ threats

Germany’s vice-chancellor said “zero chances” that his country will respond to Greek demand for Nazi war reparations

Europe’s creditor powers have reacted with fury as Greece presses ahead with plans to smash its EU-IMF Troika programme and demand war reparations for Nazi occupation, raising the risk of a traumatic rupture with Athens by the end of the month.

Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s finance minister, said there could be no bridging agreement for the radical Syriza government, insisting that it must stick rigidly to the terms of Greece’s €245bn bail-out package and secure a negotiated extension, or face the consequences. “If they want to deal with us, they need a programme,” he said.

He issued a clear warning to the new Greek premier Alexis Tsipras that his country will be left penniless in a hostile world. “I don’t know how financial markets will handle it, but maybe he knows better,” he said.