Underground Stories 03-22-14

 Beijing hotel workers already 'fed up' with Obama entourage in 3400-square-foot, $8,350-per-night suite inconveniencing 'pretty much everyone' – and the first lady's mother is 'barking at the staff'

• Michelle Obama, her daughters and her mother Marian Robinson are staying in a sumptuous presidential suite at a Beijing Westin hotel
• Mrs. Robinson has been 'barking at the staff since she arrived,' a hotel staffer said, adding that 'we can't wait for this to be over'
• Secret Service agents are monopolizing elevators and booting high-paying guests from their rooms to occupy a block of space near the first lady
• Both front and back doors of the hotel are blocked off, with Chinese and U.S. security agents screening everyone who enters
• Ordinary Chinese describe Mrs. Obama and her family as kind and gracious, but hotel staff are 'fed up'

Michelle Obama and three of her family members are staying in a $8,350-per-night Beijing presidential suite, but despite a 24-hour butler and other perks that come with the lodging, her entourage has inconvenienced 'pretty much everyone' and made the hotel staff 'fed up,' a well-placed hotel staffer has told MailOnline.

The sumptuous pad at the Westin Beijing Chaoyang hotel – its website calls the room 'an oasis of comfort – is a 3,400-square-foot masterpiece including a private steam room, 'corner sofas with silk pillows,' and in-room dining for six.

But the Obamas' stay has already affected staff and guests at the hotel, with the Westin front-desk veteran alleging that Mrs. Obama's mother Marian Robinson has been 'barking at the staff since she arrived.'

Government security forces from both China and the U.S. started Thursday to screen everyone who entered the building, including paying guests, setting up checkpoints that resemble those at airline concourse entrances.

The Secret Service's monopoly on the hotel's highest floors has meant the Westin had to boot guests with previous reservations out of their executive-level rooms.

Secret Service agents are also monopolizing hotel elevators long before the Obamas need them, added the staffer, who identified himself as a member of the concierge staff and spoke English during a phone call on Friday.

'Many of them are Asian, too, or Americans who are Asian, so you know our guests don't understand.'

Guess What Happens When You Mix Joe Biden And A Teleprompter? 

During a speech at the National Association of Community Health on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden tried his best to read from a teleprompter. Hilarity ensued. Maybe a little on-the-job training from the boss would help?

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BREAKING: Alabama Supreme Court Decides Obama Eligibility Case

Though he ended up in the minority, one prominent judge’s dissenting opinion in a recent case is sure to earn him some support among those who question the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that the state does not hold a legal obligation to vet a presidential candidate before including him or her on a ballot. Representing the majority in the 7 to 2 decision, Justice Mike Bolin responded to the plaintiff’s assertion that Alabama’s secretary of state should inherently have the authority to confirm a candidate’s legal standing to run.

He called the post “a non-judicial office without subpoena power or investigative authority or the personnel necessary to undertake a duty to investigate a non-resident candidate’s qualifications, even if such a duty could properly be implied.”
The high court’s chief justice, however, took a decidedly different position. Roy Moore, in his dissenting opinion, not only upheld the opinion that the secretary of state should vet presidential candidates; he also indicated that Obama’s background was worthy of such an investigation.
“The complaint alleged that the Secretary of State failed to perform a constitutional duty to verify the eligibility of all presidential candidates appearing on the ballot in the 2012 general election,” he wrote. Moore went on to conclude that, even though the election was held, the issue at hand was not rendered moot as the secretary argued.
The issues brought up prior to the recent election, after all, could easily be concerns in future races.
In a lengthy section of his opinion, titled “Challenges to the Qualifications of the President-Elect,” he concludes that Congress has the authority to determine a presidential candidate’s constitutional qualifications. Moore later writes, however, that a “state law that required birth certificates from presidential candidates as a precondition to placement on the ballot would likely pass muster under federal preemption law.”

Visa and MasterCard block Russian bank customers

Visa and MasterCard have blocked credit card services to some Russian bank customers as a result of US sanctions.

Four banks are so far affected, all of which have links to Russians blacklisted by the US.
Visa and MasterCard, both US-based companies, are forbidden from having any dealings with those targeted by the sanctions.
The banks, which said card services stopped without warning, have described the move as unlawful.
'Frozen out' One of the banks affected, Bank Rossiya, is described by the US as Russia's 15th largest, with assets of $12bn (£7.27bn).
The St Petersburg-based bank has been singled out by Washington as the personal bank for senior Russian officials. US officials said it would be "frozen out" from the dollar.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Bank Rossiya had nothing to do with events in Crimea and promised to transfer his wages there. 
"I personally don't have an account there, but I certainly will open one on Monday," he told a meeting of Russia's Security Council.
President Putin also instructed the Russian central bank to step in, if needed, but the latter said the sanctions on Bank Rossiya did "not have a serious bearing on the lender's financial stability".
'Illegitimate' Visa and Mastercard also confirmed they had stopped providing services to SMP Bank, which is controlled by US-blacklisted brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.

Russia to cancel price discount on gas supplies to Ukraine

Russia's state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom says it will cancel a price discount for natural gas supplies to Ukraine.

Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said Tuesday in televised remarks that Ukraine has accumulated a $1.5-billion debt for Russian gas supplies. He added at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that Gazprom will cancel a price rebate for Ukraine starting April 1.
Russia offered the discounted price and a $15-billion bailout to Ukraine in December following President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to ditch a pact with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia.

PetroChina vows more spending cuts as corruption probe widens

China’s largest oil and gas producer PetroChina Co Ltd said on Thursday it would cut capital spending for the second consecutive year in 2014 as it sought to boost shareholder returns in the midst of a massive corruption probe.
The state-run oil giant on Thursday forecast capital expenditure would fall 7 per cent year-on-year this year to 296.5 billion yuan ($47.85-billion), and said capex would remain at around the 300 billion yuan level for the next “several years”.
In 2013, capital spending fell 9.6 per cent to 318.7 billion yuan, the first such decline since the company’s 2000 debut on the Hong Kong and New York stock exchange.
“Last year marked a turning point for PetroChina,” Chairman Zhou Jiping told reporters after the company posted a 21 per cent rise in fourth quarter net profit, largely due to government hikes in natural gas prices and an improvement in its refining business.
“The company began to shift attention to quality and returns from speed and scale,” he told the earnings briefing.
PetroChina and its parent firm, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), are at the centre of one of the biggest corruption investigations into the Chinese state sector in years, launched by the government half a year ago.
The probe, part of a nationwide anti-corruption campaign led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is still expanding and there are no signs it will end soon.

Iranian opposition leader: Tehran regime is in ‘final stage’ of collapse

In a message, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance Mrs. Maryam Rajavi congratulated the Iranian people on the occasion of Nowruz and the beginning of the Persian New Year. She stressed that the Persian year of 1392 (ending on March 20, 2014) was a year of setbacks for the regime of Velayat-e faqih and a year of a galaxy of leaps and achievements for the Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance. She said the Persian year of 1393 will be a year of uprisings and a thousand Ashrafs. Last year, the mullahs wanted to destroy the Resistance of the Iranian people, but inevitably drank the chalice of poison of their demise . 

The President-elect of the Iranian Resistance emphasized that the regime of Velayat-e faqih left no stone unturned in testing as to how it can destroy the Resistance; and reciprocally there was no place or time where the Resistance, through its sacrifice and perseverance, had not heartened or lightened up the hopes of a nation yearning for freedom.

The regime failed in its nuclear program which was the largest and most expensive politico-strategic project of the system in the past 25 years and gave in to signing the Geneva accord.

The clerical regime failed in reigning in the situation in Iraq in favor of its puppet government and it now faces the uprising and resistance of the people of this country.
The clerical regime failed in overcoming the disintegration of country’s economy that has crushed the regime.The steadfastness of the Iranian people’s Resistance, the consecutive setbacks of the regime, and a society poised for radical change, is indicative of the final phase of the regime of Velayat-e faqih.

EU moves to reduce energy dependency on Russia

European leaders agreed to accelerate their quest for more secure energy supplies at talks today, saying Moscow’s annexation of Crimea made them determined to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas.

The EU has made progress in improving its energy security since gas crises in 2006 and 2009, when rows over unpaid bills between Kiev and Moscow led to the disruption of gas exports to western Europe.

However, it has not yet managed to reduce Russia’s share of European energy supplies. Russia provides around one third of the EU’s oil and gas and some 40 per cent of the gas is shipped through Ukraine.

“We are serious about reducing our energy dependency,” said European Council president Herman Van Rompuy.

“Around the table, there was a strong sense we need a new way to do energy business,” he told a news conference after two days of summit talks. “Leaders are ready to maximise their collective hand.”

Diplomats said this could mean pooling their purchasing power to negotiate contracts with Moscow instead of each country bargaining for itself and withholding information on pricing and conditions from European partners that has enabled Russia to play the European countries off against each other.

Ships to investigate after Chinese satellite spots possible missing jet debris

A Chinese satellite has spotted a large object along a broad stretch of ocean where officials hope to find a Malaysia Airlines plane that has been missing for more than two weeks, Malaysia's defense minister said Saturday.
Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters that he had been informed that a Chinese satellite had spotted an object 74 feet by 43 feet.
He said, "The news that I just received is that the Chinese ambassador received a satellite image of a floating object in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to verify."
He said he had no other information and that China would release further details. It was not immediately clear whether the object was seen near where another satellite found two objects earlier this week.
Meanwhile, NASA said Friday it is stepping up its support for a multinational search in the remote southern Indian Ocean for possible debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The agency joined the search last week, sending data to the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observations and Science Hazard Data Distribution System, which facilitates the sharing of information when the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is activated. 
The charter, which was activated by China on March 11, enlists space data from 15 member organizations to provide assistance in the case of a "natural or technological disaster," CNET.com reported.  
A NASA spokesman told Fox News that in light of the satellite sighting of two large objects in the area in the southern Indian Ocean earlier this week, "plans are underway to target NASA space-based assets at that area to acquire imagery within the next few days."

Federal troops called in to help battle gang violence in Rio de Janiero slums

Brazil will deploy federal troops to Rio de Janeiro to help quell a surge in violent crime following attacks by drug traffickers on police posts in three slums on the north side of the city, government officials said on Friday.
Less than three months before Rio welcomes tens of thousands of foreign soccer fans for the World Cup, the attacks cast new doubts on government efforts to expel gangs from slums using a strong police presence. The city will host the Olympics in 2016.
Rio de Janeiro state Governor Sérgio Cabral met president Dilma Rousseff on Friday morning and asked for federal troops to be deployed to help stop the attacks on police units overseeing slums across Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second largest city.
“They (gangs) want us to retreat, but with the help of the president and the federal government we will continue to advance,” Cabral said after meeting with Rousseff and securing the dispatch of troops to Rio.
On Thursday night, shooting broke out between drug traffickers and police in a slum near the Manguinhos complex of shantytowns. Three policemen were shot and wounded, including the Manguinhos police chief, local media reported. The attackers set fire to and destroyed the local police post housed in a converted cargo container.
The gangs, made up mainly of drug traffickers, knocked down power lines during the attack, leaving Manguinhos in the dark.

Seoul: North Korea launches 30 short-range rockets in apparent protest of US-SKorean drills

South Korea says rival North Korea has launched 30 short-range rockets into the sea off its east coast in the latest in a series of apparent protests against ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills.

Analysts say the impoverished North chafes against the annual drills because it has to spend precious resources responding with its own exercises. Pyongyang claims the allies' drills are invasion preparation.
Major Kim Nam-wook of the South Korean Defense Ministry says the rockets flew about 60 kilometers (37 miles) early Saturday morning.
North Korea last year responded to the drills with threats of nuclear war against the South and the United States.
It has toned down its rhetoric this year. Analysts say that's because it believes better ties with Seoul might win it much-needed aid and outside investment.
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