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Tuesday, 19 May 2015

US Taxpayer On The Hook As Ukraine Prepares Moratorium On Debt Repayments, Increases Military Spending

It appears, thanks to the generous backing of US taxpayers, Ukraine is about to get its cake and eat it too. On the same day as Ukraine's government unleashes a bill enabling a moratorium on foreign debt repayments - implicitly meaning default "in case of an attack from dishonest lenders" - the defense ministry unveils a plan to increase military spending by 17 billion hryvnia this year statuing that will “make efforts to find possibilities to finance needs” to secure country’s defense. Ukraine bonds are tumbling.

Military Spending is set to surge...

10 agencies, including Defense Ministry, that oversee defense and law enforcement asked Finance Ministry to increase defense spending by 17b hryvnia this yr, ministry in Kiev says on its website.

Finance Ministry will “make efforts to find possibilities to finance needs” to secure country’s defense.

Higher spending is needed because of increased army personnel.

But foreign debtors are set to lose... (as RT reports)

Ukraine’s government has submitted to parliament a bill that allows the introduction of a moratorium on foreign debt payments. The moratorium is to protect the assets of the state and the state sector in case of an “attack” from dishonest lenders.

"To protect the interests of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian government today has introduced to the Rada a bill that would give the government the right to suspend payment on Ukraine’s external debts and publicly guaranteed debts. In case of an attack from dishonest lenders on Ukraine this moratorium will protect the assets of the state and the state sector," a statement on the Cabinet website said Tuesday.

The moratorium "will not affect domestic payments and will not affect the stability of the banking system,” the UNIAN news agency said citing s source. In also said the moratorium does not include debt to the IMF, the EBRD and other institutional creditors.

The Cabinet said the moratorium will not affect the bilateral and multilateral obligations of Kiev.

And Ukraine bonds are tumbling...

Specifcally (as Bloomberg reports),

The eastern European nation is seeking permission to hold off on paying coupons, the first of which coming due is a May 21 payment of $33 million on a $1 billion note maturing in November 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Ukraine said cutting its debt burden is a question of justice, according to an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.

“This is a logical next step to show people they are serious,” Dray Simpson, the London-based managing director of emerging markets at Cantor Fitzgerald Europe, said by e-mail on Tuesday. “Up to now there has been a lot of talk and very little action and any confrontations have been won by creditors. If Ukraine are going to reverse that trend they need to be firm.”

Time is running out for the country and its bondholders to reach an agreement as a June 15 International Monetary Fund deadline for the restructuring approaches. Failure to strike a deal puts the next tranche of a $17.5 billion IMF loan at risk for Ukraine as it struggles to keep the economy afloat following a yearlong conflict with pro-Russian separatists in the nation’s east.

*  *  *

Thank you American taxpayer...

Landslide death toll rises to over 60 in Salgar, Columbia

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© Ministerio de Defensa Nacional de la República de Colombia
Salgar floods, Colombia, May 2015.

    
Colombia's emergency and disaster management services have been carrying out damage assessment and needs analysis after the massive floods and landslides that struck early on 18 May 2015 in the municipality of Salgar, in Antioquia.

In a statement from earlier today, 19 May 2015, Colombia's National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) said that 62 people have died and 40 have been injured, according to the latest official figures from the flood disaster.

According to local media, another body has since been recovered, bringing the death toll to 63. The bodies of the victims have been taken to the city of Medellin in order to expedite identification. It is thought that more people may still be missing, although it is still unknown exactly how many.

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Rescue and relief efforts have come from all levels of government, NGOs and the community. UNGRD say that Colombian Red Cross, the Colombian Civil Defense, Fire, Police, Air Force, Army, Ministry of Health, in coordination with the Departmental Council on Disaster Risk Management of Antioquia, DAPARD, as well as UNGRD, are all operating in the affected area.

Teams in the disaster zone are working on removal of flood and landslide debris. UNGRD say that disaster and relief workers are providing victims with health care and offering support for the bereaved. Food, temporary shelter and clean water is also being provided.

Britain is the "European capital of inequality," worse than the United States

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© Reuters / Toby Melville

    
Britain has been labeled the "European capital of inequality" after a report found it is the most unequal country in the EU, and worse than even the United States.

The Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) analyzed wages across the EU.

It found that the UK has the highest Gini coefficient of any EU member state, and eclipses that of the US. The coefficient is a widely used measure of income distribution within a nation, and is often used to calculate inequality.

According to analysts at Eurofound, Britain has a Gini coefficient of 0.404, while the US is at 0.4.

Portugal and Latvia followed the UK with Gini coefficients of 0.358 and 0.357, respectively. The average Gini index for the EU as a whole in 2011 was 0.346.

Eurofound's study, titled Recent Developments in the Distribution of Wages in Europe, looked at data from 2004 to 2011, the period before and after the onset of the Great Recession.

The report, which was published last week, says: "The evolution of inequality in the EU as a whole seems to have been significantly affected by the economic crisis of 2008 [onward]."

"Between 2004 and 2008, there was a clear reduction in EU wage inequality, reflected in a fall in the overall Gini index from 0.368 to 0.336 (a 10 percent decrease in four years). This fall came to a halt in 2008, and the trend started to slowly reverse, growing to 0.346," it said.

Economist Michael Burke said Eurofound's study proved that claims by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain's economy was recovering from the recession were false.

Speaking to RT on Tuesday, Burke said: "The Tory government is fond of making spurious claims about Britain being the strongest economy in Europe. But the reality is that Britain under the Tories is the European capital of inequality."

"All of the deterioration in the Gini coefficient in the EU is caused by the worsening of inequality," he added.

"The jobs machine that David Cameron [is referring to] is in reality low-paid jobs, many of them providing unproductive services to the ultra-rich."

In its conclusion, the report found inequality to be increasing across the EU.

"The Great Recession changed the trend of overall EU wage inequality.

"Between 2004 and 2008, EU wage inequality, decreased; after 2008, it increased," its authors said.

Globally, the authors said that inequality has been growing within developed nations since the late 1970s.

Beginning with Anglo-Saxon countries, the growth of inequality eventually reached "traditionally low inequality countries" such as the Nordic countries during the 2000s.

Following the financial crisis of 2007-08 the UK became an outlier in the EU, as income equality began growing "very rapidly."

The overall increase in EU inequality since 2008 was "to a large extent driven by developments in the UK," the report states. "Without which the overall EU within-country component of inequality remained more or less stable as a result of rather diverse developments at the country level."

A YouGov survey conducted this month and published Monday found that most UK voters believe the government should prioritize reducing the gap between rich and poor over faster economic growth.

Some 50 percent of residents polled said inequality was more important, while 43 percent favored rapid economic growth.

Conservative supporters cared least about income inequality, while the majority of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters said it should be prioritized by the government.

A decade of 'trumpets in the sky' and other eerie sounds

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This recording of the trumpet-like sound shot in Germany shows a child in the street frozen with terror

    
A mysterious noise from the sky is continuing to baffle people all over the world - as well as giving those who hear it sleepless nights.

Sounding like a trumpet or a collective from a brass section of an orchestra, a selection of videos shot from the Canada to Ukraine, via the U.S., Germany and Belarus show strange goings on above us.

And the eerie sounds have been continuously heard at all different times and locations for almost a decade.

The first video posted on YouTube recording the unusual, unearthly sounds, was in 2008 when a user recorded the strange sounds in the sky from Homel, in Belarus.

That same year another anonymous user shared the 'ear-deafening' sounds that they insisted 'were not a hoax,' from a quiet neighbourhood believed to be in the U.S.

Kimberly Wookey from Terrace, British Columbia in Canada first captured the alien sound in June 2013, and since then she has managed to capture several recordings of the noise with her most recent being on May 7 this year.

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Writing on YouTube, where she posted the videos, Ms Wookey writes: 'On the morning of August 29, 2013 at approximately 7:30am I was awoken by these sounds.

'I shot out of bed realizing it was the same sounds I had heard before and I ran looking for a camera to try to capture them with. I came out into the living room to find my seven-year-old son awake and scared wondering what was going on. He had said the noises woke him up as well and shook his window.

'I managed to record three clips showing almost five minutes of these strange sounds. After it was over and I sat down at the computer to upload the video. After checking my Facebook I noticed a lot of locals had heard the same sounds again but this time it was far more widespread.

'I have no idea what these sounds are but it is pretty strange and I am glad that I was able to catch them this time and share what I heard. The sounds were heard again on Sept 8th at 6:30am so far we have confirmed reports of it being heard from town to the lake, 25km away.'

So what does the mother of four think the noises are?

'I personally do not believe this has any religious connection, nor do I believe it is aliens, graders, trains, construction, etc,' she added.

'I do believe it could be a geophysical phenomenon.'

Kimberly was so spooked by the sound coming from the sky she contacted her local construction company to try and get an answer.

Her efforts hit a dead end when the company replied informing her that none of their machines could make such a noise.

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© Unknown
A quiet landscape in Kiev, Ukraine, was shattered when brass section-like sounds reverberated around

    
Another recording of the sound was captured in Kiev, Ukraine in August 2011. An eyewitness said: 'The sound was extremely loud, with some people 30-40km from the recording also hearing it in other cities

'It was in the news with the investigation with specialists and scientists, but there is still no exact explanation.'

Encounters with the noise has even caused some people to have vivid nightmares for days after the event.

Aaron Traylor captured a recording in Montana in the U.S. on February 18, 2012, and said: 'I've had vivid nightmares ever since I posted the very eerie strange sounds that has Missoula talking and looking towards the sky; awful, awful nightmares.

'My wife woke me from a dream last night where she says I was screaming like she's never heard me scream before.

'I was taking my daughter out for her daily exercise along with my dog. I started to hear the sounds early on in our little adventure and the first time it was heard my dog perked her ears up and my daughter stopped in her tracks.

'That sound was identical to the one I had taped later, and lasted just as long. Now since I've been following this worldwide strange sounds phenomenon for some time, the whole 'End of the world' thing popped instantly into my head.

'What if this was one of those sounds? I had my phone ready to capture the next one just in case. Sure enough, five minutes later the sound had returned.'

Aaron doesn't subscribe to the theory that the noise is made by trains or aeroplanes.

'The Missoula rail system is one very loud and unpredictable beast. Trains connecting their loads to another is a sound very familiar to locals. Loud bangs and screeches can be heard from nearly 10 miles away at any given point throughout the day,' he added.

'Still, that doesn't explain the fan-like whirring sound that can be heard at the start of the recording.'

'I've lived in this neighbourhood for nearly four years and have heard all kinds of planes coming and going overhead and on the runway. I've never heard a plane sound like this before.

'My neighbourhood is very quiet and we were about three blocks away from any busy intersection during the incident. Can't say I've ever heard an automobile of any kind with that kind of noise.'


A video from Germany taken from a window pans onto a street and shows a child frozen still as the chilling sounds echo over the landscape. And in Salzburgh in Austria the noise is magnified across the Eastern Alps.
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Visitors to Texas, the U.S stopped what they were doing to peer into the sky

    
In Allen, Texas, U.S. back in 2012, the mysterious noise had a group of people stop what they were doing in a car park and look towards the sky, with one exclaiming: 'It's weird, I've never heard anything like that.'

Geoscientist David Deming from the University of Oklahoma has previously written about a phenomenon called The Hum - 'a mysterious and untraceable sound that is heard in certain locations around the world by two to ten per cent of the population'.

Writing in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, he said that sources of The Hum could include telephone transmissions and 'aircraft operated by the U.S Navy for the purpose of submarine communications'.

According to Nasa, the Earth has 'natural radio emissions'.

The Agency said: 'If humans had radio antennas instead of ears, we would hear a remarkable symphony of strange noises coming from our own planet. Scientists call them "tweeks," "whistlers" and "sferics."

'They sound like background music from a flamboyant science fiction film, but this is not science fiction. Earth's natural radio emissions are real and, although we're mostly unaware of them, they are around us all the time.'

For instance lightning can produce eerie-sounding radio emissions, Nasa added.

Earthquakes can also produce sub-audible sounds, according to seismologist Brian W Stump from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Dead pgymy sperm whale found near Melbourne Beach, Florida

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© Tim Shortt/Florida Today
A pgymy sperm whale beached Monday morning at Spessard Holland Park.

    
Biologists suspect severe heart disease, coupled with 10 feet of rope and piece of a plastic bag in its stomach, caused a 10-foot pygmy sperm whale to beach itself Monday at Spessard Holland Park.

"It's really, really sick," Megan Stolen, a research scientist with the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, said shortly before the whale was euthanized. "It's very, very skinny."

The whale showed signs of severe heart disease, Stolen said.

But biologists plan to examine the whale's remains to test for the so-called morbillivirus. They'll test whether that measles-like virus, which killed more than 1,600 dolphins since July 2013, also contributed to the pygmy sperm whale's death.

The virus has been killing bottlenose dolphins along the Atlantic Coast for more than two years in the worst outbreak of the virus in almost three decades.

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The virus claimed 740 dolphins from New Jersey to Florida in 1987.

Monday's was one of three recent whale to beach themselves in the region in the past few weeks, but the deaths are not considered related.

On May 7, Hubbs researchers received a report from Canaveral National Seashore staff that the whale had stranded alive on the beach within the national park.

The whale washed out for a while but then washed back onto the beach at Kennedy Space Center.

Hubbs staff euthanized that whale, too. Whales rarely survive beaching. But NOAA Fisheries also mandates all whales and dolphins that beach during a morbillivirus outbreak must be euthanized to prevent spread of the virus.

The dolphins infected with the virus wash up with lesions on their skin, mouth, joints, or lungs.

Since July 2013, the virus has killed more than 1,660 bottlenose dolphins, from New Jersey to Brevard, more than 300 of them in the Florida, according to NOAA Fisheries.

Stolen said about 30 dead bottlenose dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon region have tested positive for the virus. But as many as 100 in the region may have died from the virus, the Hubbs researchers suspect.

If tests continue to show no morbillivirus infections, NOAA Fisheries may soon consider declaring a formal end to the unusual die-off, Hubbs officials said earlier this month. That would also end the mandatory euthanizing of the stranded dolphins and whales.

Tired of the lies: over half of US Citizens interested in ditching mainstream media for alternative news sources

© AFP 2015/ JEWEL SAMAD

    
People in the United States are fed up with mainstream media coverage of events in Iraq and Iran, CODEPINK activist organization national coordinator Alli McCracken, told Sputnik on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — McCracken's comments come following the release of an ICM Research poll conducted exclusively for Sputnik, revealing that a total of 60 percent of European and US citizens surveyed wanted to receive information on global events from alternative news sources.

"I think people are really fed up with mainstream media, especially after over a decade of being fed lies about Iraq, now more lies are being told about Iran."

Western mainstream media coverage of the developments in Iraq gave rise to doubt from the beginning of the US military invasion in 2003. High-profile television channels were faulted for copycat reproduction of primary government talking points, including allegations of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and the use of state-sponsored foreign agents for local information.

US news outlets have come under fire for their coverage of Iran. In 2013, experts at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland released a report suggesting that influential US and UK newspapers created inaccurate impressions of Iran's nuclear activity by using "very vague and inconsistent terminology" and avoiding reputable local information sources.

© Sputnik
How interested would you be in having access to an alternative point of view on international events?

    
Turning to the results of the poll published earlier in the day, McCracken expressed hope that the percentage of those in favor of access to alternative media would grow.

ICM Research surveyed over 5,000 people in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States and Greece between March 20 and April 9, 2015.

The poll revealed that more than half of US citizens responding to the questionnaire, 57 percent, are interested or very interested in accessing alternative news coverage on global events.

At least 5 dead, 42 wounded by huge explosion in Afghan capital

© Twitter/Masood Alam

    

A huge explosion has reportedly hit a diplomatic area of the Afghan capital.

A loud explosion, gunshots were heard in the diplomatic area of Kabul on Tuesday. The diplomatic area is located just beside of the presidential palace and the building of the Justice Ministry.


According to the reports on the ground, it was a suicide attack. Eyewitnesses saw an old man in a white Toyota Corolla on the scene.
According to the various reports, the explosion occurred in the parking garage near the Ministry of Justice. The blast was strong enough to rattle windows of the neighboring buildings.
Afghan Ministry of Public Health confirmed at least 42 wounded. Earlier, eyewitnesses claimed at least five were killed and 10 wounded.