NATO is a “protection racket”

At a No-to-NATO protest outside the United States consulate in Toronto on July 9, 2023, Dimitri Lascaris argued that NATO is a “protection racket” that exists to enrich and empower the U.S. military industrial complex, and that NATO constitutes an existential threat to humanity.

The insanity of this should be a wake up call for everyone. The use of cluster bombs is a war crime.

Biden said he decided to send Ukraine controversial cluster bombs because Kyiv is ‘running out of ammunition’

https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-sending-ukraine-cluster-bombs-running-out-ammo-2023-7?op=1

Ukraine on Fire By Oliver Stone banned on youtube already

A little history.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/xUA8AoMGXx9T/

Did this up quite a while back

Biological Weapons Expert Exposes Labs In Ukraine And China Run By U.S. Government

One must remember the US interfered with Ukraine about 10 years ago.

Ukraine: Truth and Fiction

Crimeans in referendum voted to join Russia

Do Ukrainians Want War? NO!

Ukraine Crisis

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says he is preparing for “full-scale war” against Russia

Somewhere along the line this clown was elected/installed as Ukraine’s leader.

Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy at his finest hour. This is the man who has called off all elections in the Ukraine as well.

Recent

Sweden’s U-Turn on Trans Kids: The Trans Train

No Vaccines equals healthier children

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says he is preparing for “full-scale war” against Russia

This is just appalling.

The people, who took the time to hammer out a Peace Plan, were wasting their time.

It is obvious that the Ukraine Government, cannot be trusted.

No sooner are the Peace talks over, then they say, they want more war.

This is absolute criminal, insanity.

 

Vadym Prystaiko Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister and the former ambassador to Canada, says Russian President Vladimir Putin must be stopped, for the sake not just of Ukraine but also Europe and Russia as well. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

Ukraine preparing for ‘full-scale war,’ says former envoy to Canada

Vadym Prystaiko, now deputy foreign minister, calls on the West to ‘stiffen up in the spine’

CBC News  Feb 21, 2015

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says he is preparing for “full-scale war” against Russia and wants Canada to help by supplying lethal weapons and the training to use them.

Vadym Prystaiko, who until last fall was Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, says the world must not be afraid of joining Ukraine in the fight against a nuclear power.

In an interview with CBC Radio’s The House airing Saturday, Prystaiko says the ceasefire brokered by Germany and France was not holding.

“The biggest hub we ever had in the railroad is completely destroyed and devastated,” he told host Evan Solomon about Debaltseve, captured by Russian-backed rebels after the terms were to have taken effect earlier this week.

‘What we expect from the world is that the world will stiffen up in the spine a little’— Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister

“We see that they are not stopping,” he says, suggesting the fight was now heading south to the port of Mariupol.

“It doesn’t take a genius to see what they are trying to do.… They are taking more and more strategic points.”

The former ambassador was in the room during the attempts to broker a political solution with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Minsk.

“Personally I don’t trust him,” he says. “You look at him and you think, ‘Are you serious?'”

“Nobody knows what is going on in his head. I believe he is becoming very emotional [over the two countries’ historic ties],” he suggests, calling Putin’s intentions “difficult to predict.”

Prystaiko echoes the view German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to have expressed to U.S. President Barack Obama privately a year ago: “He is rational in his own way. He is in some parallel universe … and he sees differently than everyone else.”

‘We have to do something’

“The stakes are really high,” Prystaiko says, pointing out that Ukraine has now closed its border crossing with Russia. “We don’t want to scare everybody, but we are preparing for full-scale war.”

What to do in the face of such a threat? For starters, get over your fears, he says.

“What we expect from the world is that the world will stiffen up in the spine a little,” he says. “Everybody is afraid of fighting with a nuclear state. We are not anymore, in Ukraine — we’ve lost so many people of ours, we’ve lost so much of our territory.

“However dangerous it sounds, we have to stop [Putin] somehow. For the sake of the Russian nation as well, not just for the Ukrainians and Europe.”

Prystaiko says Ukrainians are blunt when it comes to what they need.

“We would like Canada to send lethal weapons to Ukraine,” he said. “Weapons to allow us to defend ourselves.”

Canada has been helping to train Ukrainian soldiers for the last decade, but it isn’t enough, he says.

“It wasn’t on the level that would help our army [against an] invasion.”

Ukraine wants weapons, and training to use them, he said.

His country has received all the non-lethal assistance Canada pledged, with the exception of new radar technology which is “in the final stages,” he says.

Defence Minister Jason Kenney emphasized at a defence conference Thursday in Ottawa that the radar capabilities would not be used for targeting potential strikes against rebel forces.

He also said last weekend on The House that Canada doesn’t have large stockpiles of weapons to give, although it could acquire some from other vendors and then supply Ukraine.

‘It’s painful’

Beyond weapons, Prystaiko emphasized the importance of financial assistance, including a package on its way from Canada and Japan.

“Don’t forget that the infrastructure in Donetsk is already devastated. We’ve lost at least 20 per cent of the industrial [output] of Ukraine. We’ve had to close the market with Russia, which is a third of our exports and imports.

“It’s painful.”

He says Canada has been helpful by taking “probably the most staunch position” and talking to its allies.

“It’s a big change for Europe,” he says, where neighbouring countries feel scared.

But he doesn’t hold back from calling on Ukraine’s Western allies to step up, echoing the frustration he expressed last November over Canada’s willingness to intervene in Iraq but not send troops to help Ukraine.

“I was quite blunt … and probably it was premature at that point but now I have to ask again: If we see the same sort of rebels coming towards central Ukraine, towards other cities, how much is different from what we see in Iraq and the international help which was coming?”

“Unfortunately, we will probably pose a very serious question for the rest of the world: How can we react to this new challenge? We haven’t had it for 50 years in Europe. Now it’s back again.” Source

Canadians are not very impressed by this. Go to the Source and check out some of the comments.

 

Minsk Agreement On Ukraine Crisis: Text In Full

February 12, 2015 “ICH” – Translation of the full text agreed upon by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, and signed by pro-Russian separatists, on Thursday

Immediate and full ceasefire in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine and its strict fulfilment as of 00.00 midnight (Kiev time) on Feb. 15, 2015.

• Pull-out of all heavy weapons by both sides to equal distance with the aim of creation of a security zone on minimum 50 kilometres apart for artillery of 100mm calibre or more, and a security zone of 70km for MLRS and 140 kilometres for MLRS Tornado-S, Uragan, Smerch and tactical missile systems Tochka U.

– for Ukrainian troops, from actual line of contact;

– for armed formations of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine, from the contact line in accordance with the Minsk memorandum as of Sept. 19, 2014

• The pullout of the above mentioned heavy weapons has to start no later than the second day after the ceasefire and finish within 14 days.

This process will be assisted by OSCE with the support of the Trilateral Contact Group.

• Effective monitoring and verification of ceasefire regime and pullout of heavy weapons by OSCE will be provided from the first day of pullout, using all necessary technical means such as satellites, drones, radio-location systems etc.
• On the first day after the pullout a dialogue is to start on modalities of conducting local elections in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation and the Law of Ukraine “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts,” and also about the future of these districts based on the above mentioned law.
• Without delays, but no later than 30 days from the date of signing of this document, a resolution has to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, indicating the territory which falls under the special regime in accordance with the law “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts,” based in the line set up by the Minsk Memorandum as of Sept. 19, 2014.
• Provide pardon and amnesty by way of enacting a law that forbids persecution and punishment of persons in relation to events that took place in particular departments of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine.
• Provide release and exchange of all hostages and illegally held persons, based on the principle of “all for all”. This process has to end – at the latest – on the fifth day after the pullout (of weapons).
• Provide safe access, delivery, storage and distribution of humanitarian aid to the needy, based on an international mechanism.
• Define the modalities of a full restoration of social and economic connections, including social transfers, such as payments of pensions and other payments (income and revenue, timely payment of communal bills, restoration of tax payments within the framework of Ukrainian legal field)
• With this aim, Ukraine will restore management over the segment of its banking system in the districts affected by the conflict, and possibly, an international mechanism will be established to ease such transactions.
• Restore full control over the state border by Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone, which has to start on the first day after the local election and end after the full political regulation (local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts based on the law of Ukraine and Constitutional reform) by the end of 2015, on the condition of fulfilment of Point 11 – in consultations and in agreement with representatives of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts within the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group.
• Pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision. Disarmament of all illegal groups.
• Constitutional reform in Ukraine, with the new Constitution to come into effect by the end of 2015, the key element of which is decentralisation (taking into account peculiarities of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, agreed with representatives of these districts), and also approval of permanent legislation on special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in accordance with the measures spelt out in the footnotes, by the end of 2015. Source

 

Nuland: F**k the EU

State Dept spokesperson grilled over “F**k the EU tape”

Dr. Michael Roesch MSF Surgeon
“I’m a surgeon, but I have never in my life seen so many amputated people—people go shopping and one hour later they are without their legs. The surgeons here—who have never had to deal with war-wounded before—are having to carry out at least one or two amputations every day.”

February 13, 2015

The industrial city of Gorlovka in eastern Ukraine is under constant shelling, its hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded, and medical supplies have run out, leaving many doctors no choice but to stitch up patients with fishing line. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgeon Dr. Michael Roesch is supporting the Ukrainian surgical team in Hospital #2. Here, he describes his experience:

I arrived in Gorlovka six days ago and went straight to the hospital. The main operating theaters up on the sixth floor are no longer functioning because they’re just too dangerous with all the shelling. There’s one working operating theater on the ground floor. Every day they receive between five and twenty victims of shelling.

Last week, 60 injured people were brought in on one day. But for three days there was no running water in the hospital, and so they had to cancel all but the most urgent operations. Without water, you can’t sterilize anything.

The city isn’t in ruins, as the shells and rockets don’t destroy buildings completely, though smaller houses in the suburbs can collapse. But all the buildings have shattered windows—an issue when the temperature goes down to 10 below zero at night. Yesterday we passed a children’s playground with scorch marks on the ground from where a shell had exploded. And there are bomb craters everywhere, including one right in front of the children’s hospital.

But you hardly see any children. Most of the families with small children have left. It feels like a ghost town. Most of the shops are closed, there are no cafes or restaurants. If people have to go out, they walk very swiftly. No one stands around unless they’re waiting for a bus.

Random Shelling

MSF first came to Gorlovka in September [2014] and since then, my colleagues have been regularly providing this hospital with much needed medical supplies and drugs. When the conflict escalated in January, we decided to have a team based here so we could directly support the local doctors to provide emergency surgical care to influxes of wounded.

Every hour or two, a shell or rocket hits somewhere in the city, completely randomly. Most victims are hit in the open air, when they’re walking down the street or waiting for the bus. Inside houses, you’re mostly safe as long as you stay away from the windows.

Two days ago, a house 200 meters from where we are living was hit. We were woken at 5 a.m. by a sudden blast. The windows were shaking, and we knew it had to be a bomb. I jumped up, gathered some essentials together—my computer, reading glasses, penknife, and warm clothes—and ran down to the basement for shelter. I’d already stashed an emergency medical kit downstairs. At times like that you’re just waiting for the next blast to happen.

“At Times You’re Just Waiting for the Next Blast to Happen”

The hospitals are running out of basic medical supplies. Doctors in other hospitals have told us they have no surgical sutures left, so the surgeons are stitching people up with fishing line.

As the water supply worsens due to the shelling, diarrhea amongst infants is increasing, but the children’s hospital has run out of the infusions they need to prevent dehydration. Supplies of all sorts of drugs have run out—we’ve been asked for insulin, antibiotics, disinfectants for wounds—we’ve already received a huge list of things they urgently need beyond what we’ve already brought in.

But getting supplies into the city is not easy. Gorlovka is basically surrounded by the frontline, and can only be reached on one narrow entry road. The area gets shelled often, so it’s dangerous to pass through it, and frequently it is closed.

I’ve visited three hospitals in the city [that] are still functioning, but many health centers and clinics are closed, partly due to the shelling, but also because around half of the medical staff have left the city. Those who remain haven’t been paid for seven months.

Abandoned by the Outside World

The past six days have been really overwhelming for me. I’m a surgeon, but I have never in my life seen so many amputated people—people go shopping and one hour later they are without their legs. The surgeons here—who have never had to deal with war-wounded before—are having to carry out at least one or two amputations every day.

It’s difficult for the hospital staff, but they are coping remarkably well. Like the rest of the people here, they have a very stoic attitude. They are very brave, very calm and contained; they are doing their best to cope.

But you can sense that underneath they are very close to desperation. They feel abandoned by the outside world. Apart from MSF, there are no other international organizations here. People are desperately waiting for a sign from the rest of the world that they haven’t been forgotten.  Source

Washington Was Behind Ukraine Coup: Obama admits that US “Brokered a Deal” in Support of “Regime Change”.
Washington Was Behind Ukraine Coup: Obama admits that US “Brokered a Deal” in Support of “Regime Change”
US Sticks to Tried and True Policy of Supporting Coups
By Sputnik
Global Research, February 03, 2015
US President Barack Obama’s recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakiria reveals the United States’ involvement in the Ukrainian crisis from its outset and that the country worked directly with Ukrainian right-wing fascist groups, experts told Sputnik.
On Sunday, in his interview with CNN, Obama admitted that the United States “had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine.”
“Obama’s statement is reiterating something that the world public opinion already knew — the US was involved in the coup of [ex-Ukrainian President] Viktor Yanukovych from the start. History shows us that the US has overthrown numerous governments in Latin America, Asia and Africa and replaced them with leaders that ruled with a fascist ideology that proved useful for Washington’s geopolitical interests,” independent researcher and writer Timothy Alexander Guzman told Sputnik.
Yanukovych’s decision to not sign an association agreement with the European Union in late 2013 triggered a mass wave of protests across Ukraine, culminating in the February 2014 coup. Following the transition of power, Kiev forces launched military operation against those who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government.
Guzman claimed that during the Ukrainian conflict, Washington and its NATO allies worked directly with right-wing Ukrainian Fascist groups, including the neo-Nazi inspired Right Sector militia.International law professor at the University of Illinois College of Law Francis Boyle shares a similar opinion, also arguing also that Obama’s approach to Ukraine is no different to the neoconservative approach of former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, or political scientist Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” philosophy.
“I think he [Obama] has made it very clear that he is going to continue to take a Brzezinski hard-lined approach toward Ukraine and Russia and that there are not going to be any compromises at all, and effectively he expects President Putin to throw in a towel, capitulate, whatever, it does not appear to me there is any ground for negotiations in light of what President Obama at least said publicly,” he said in an email to Sputnik.
Boyle also stated that the United States may already be sending covert offensive military equipment to Ukraine, despite Washington’s claims that it provides Kiev only with non-lethal aid.The expert also claimed that Obama’s ignorance of the Minsk agreements and of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposals to negotiate the conflict peacefully, indicates that Washington is going to continue with its aggressive policy in Ukraine.
“How can Russia tolerate this gang of Nazis in Kyiv [Kiev] setting up shop right there on the borders of Russia, and being armed, equipped and supplied by NATO? Of course, Russia cannot tolerate that,” Boyle concluded, adding that the Unites States itself would not tolerate such threats close to its borders.
Obama & Merkel to Discuss Arming Ukraine in Washington Next Week
“The very fact that Obama feels he needs to comment on [the] US direct role in the regime change [in Ukraine] and on Putin’s response over Crimea in this manner, rather than calling Putin a Hitler with well thought out expansionist designs, as has become the norm in the US, speaks for itself: perhaps, the White House is finally coming to the view that it needs to come to its senses and negotiate with Moscow,” Vlad Sobell, a professor at New York University’s Prague campus stated.
On Sunday, US President Barack Obama, in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakiria, explained that the United States “brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine.” The US President said that Russian President Vladimir Putin made his decision to legally annex Crimea “not because of some grand strategy, but essentially because he was caught off-balance by the protests in the Maidan.”
In late 2013 a decision by Ukraine then-President Viktor Yanukovych to avoid signing an association agreement with the European Union triggered mass protests across Ukraine, dubbed Maidan, culminating in the February coup. Following the coup and a rise in aggressive nationalism in the country, Crimea seceded by referendum from Ukraine and rejoined Russia in March 2014.
Former US Officials Urge Washington to Send Lethal Military Aid to Ukraine
Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for Asia Times, Hong Kong, who has closely followed developments in Ukraine, told Sputnik of his belief that every independent observer, including himself, “had known from the beginning those $5 billion, [US Assistant Secretary of State] Victoria Nuland’s number, over the years unleashed to boost ‘freedom’ in Ukraine one day would come to fruition.””And Putin was not ‘caught off-balance’,” Escobar added. “Russian intelligence knew in a few hours that Maidan would be replicated in Crimea, so the Kremlin acted swiftly,” he stated.
Professor Sobell claims that “Mr President [Obama] should be aware that Yanukovych fled [Ukraine] because he had solid reasons to fear for his life. The hallowed Maidan was not a peaceful democratic regime change, as it was presented in Western media, but a violent putch complete with murderous acts by hired assassins.”
Sobell states that unnamed EU officials affirm that on February 20 snipers shot both demonstrators and police dead, in order to provoke chaos. These crimes, he continued, are not being investigated by Kiev’s “democratic — Western values” regime or its Western sponsors, as “today it is ok to install a Nazi-driven regime by these means and then demand that Western tax- payers support it.”
According to Escobar, the way the Ukrainian coup will be perceived “all across the Global South is another US regime change operation, using local patsies.”
Commenting on the recent increase in hostilities between Kiev and independence supporters in the southeast of Ukraine, Sobell said the situation has changed in favor of the Donbas militia.
“Washington knows it and knows that they must either compromise, start genuine negotiations with Moscow and separatists, or escalate support for the Nazi regime by supplying it with arms. This would lead to major escalation of the conflict – at this point we cannot rule out that Obama will opt of this,” Sobell insisted.
Russia’s relations with the West deteriorated sharply in 2014, following Crimea’s reunification with Russia and the start of the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine. The United States and its allies accused Moscow of interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs and imposed several rounds of economic sanctions, targeting Russia’s energy, banking and military sectors, as well as several high-ranking individuals. Source

Ukrainians Rage Against Military Draft: “We’re Sick Of This War”

By Tyler Durden

Feb 10, 2015
When Ukrainian army officers came to the Ukrainian village of Velikaya Znamenka to tell the men to prepare to be drafted, they weren’t prepared for what happened next. As the commanding officer was speaking, a woman seized the microphone and proceeded to tell him off: “We’re sick of this war! Our husbands and sons aren’t going anywhere!” She then launched into a passionate speech, denouncing the war, and the coup leaders in Kiev, to the cheers of the crowd.

What she did is now a crime in Ukraine: the only reason she wasn’t arrested on the spot is that the villagers wouldn’t have permitted it. But in Ukrainian Transcarpathia, well-known journalist for Ukrainian Channel 112 Ruslan Kotsaba has been arrested and charged with “treason” and “espionage” for making a video in which he declared: “I would rather sit in jail for three to five years than go to the east to kill my Ukrainian brothers. This fear-mongering must be stopped.” Kotsaba may sit in jail for twenty-three years, the prescribed term for the charges filed against him.

Kotsaba’s arrest is part of a desperate effort by the Ukrainian government to intimidate the growing antiwar and anti-draft movement, which threatens to upend Kiev’s dreams of conquering the rebellious eastern provinces. Kotsaba’s particular crime, according to prosecutors, was in describing the conflict as a civil war rather than a Russian “invasion.” This is a point the authorities cannot tolerate: the same meme being relentlessly broadcast by the Western media – that an indigenous rebellion with substantial support is really a Russian plot to “subvert” Ukraine and reestablish the Warsaw Pact – now has the force of law in Ukraine. Anyone who contradicts it is subject to arrest.

Also subject to arrest, and worse: the thousands who are fleeing the country in order to avoid being conscripted into the military. In a Facebook post that was quickly deleted, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak wrote: “According to unofficial sources, hostels and motels in border regions of neighboring Romania are completely filled with draft dodgers.” President Petro Poroshenko, the Chocolate Oligarch, is readying a decree imposing possible restrictions on foreign travel for those of draft age – which means anyone from age 25 to 60. Ukrainians may soon be prisoners in their own country – but they aren’t taking it lying down.

Draft resistance is at an all-time high: a mere 6 percent of those called up have reported voluntarily. This has forced the Kiev authorities to go knocking on doors – where they are met either with a mass of angry villagers, who refuse to let them take anyone, or else ghost towns where virtually everyone has fled. In the Transcarpathia region of western Ukraine, entire villages have been emptied, the inhabitants fleeing to Russia to wait out the war – or the fall of the Kiev regime, whichever comes first. “It may seem a paradox,” says Transcarpathia’s chief recruitment officer, “but from the western Ukrainian region of Ternopyl people have fled to Russia in order to escape army conscription.” The frantic Ukrainian regime is now contemplating conscripting women over 20.

Poroshenko’s military mobilization is due not only to numerous setbacks in the east – Ukrainian troops are being pushed back on all fronts by highly motivated rebels defending their own towns and villages – but also because thousands are deserting, throwing down their arms and fleeing to Russia. In response, the Ukrainian parliament has passed a law authorizing local commanders to shoot deserters on the spot.

With Poroshenko’s war looking like a major disaster, one that could easily topple his EU/US-installed regime, the War Party in the US is turning up the heat, demanding that Washington provide Kiev with arms. Sen. John McCain is – naturally – leading the charge, but prominent liberals are also in the front ranks, with leading scholars of the Brookings Institution recently calling for heavy weapons to be sent. That provoked a response from a dissident within Brookings, former State Department official Jeremy Shapiro, who argues that the Ukrainian conflict is a civil war that cannot have a military solution, and is more than likely to provoke a dangerous military confrontation with Russia.

The Obama administration is under considerable pressure from within the President’s own party to start arming the Ukrainian army, but America’s European allies are reluctant to let this war go on much longer, especially now that their sock puppet Poroshenko is increasingly unpopular. With protests erupting all over western Ukraine, Germany’s Angela Merkel is openly opposing escalation of the war. She made that clear at a recent conference in Munich, where Merkel spoke after returning from talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, McCain was telling reporters: “If we had provided Ukraine with weapons they wouldn’t have had to use cluster bombs.”

They don’t call him “Mad John” for nothing.

The United States is providing the Kiev regime with military training, and we already have American boots on the ground there, ostensibly to “strengthen the rule of law.” What that means in practice is that we are bolstering a government that has declared war on its own people, and is rapidly closing off all legal means of dissent – charging political opponents with “treason,” banning political parties, and unleashing ultra-nationalist mobs on anyone who dares dissent. While the US State Department regularly canoodles with Russian “dissidents” who defile Orthodox churches and bare their breasts for the Western cameras, you won’t hear Marie Harf so much as mention Ruslan Kotsaba’s name. As far as I know, the Global Post is the only Western media outlet that has noted his existence – and I’ve not seen a single mention in English about his arrest.

Ukraine is a tripwire that could easily set off World War III – and US provocations are edging closer to that by the day. The crisis was initiated by Washington’s regime-change campaign which succeeded in violently overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose electoral victory was made possible by the criminal incompetence and outright thievery of his predecessor, US-supported Viktor Yushchenko. The so-called “Orange Revolution” led to economic chaos, rampant corruption, and the unleashing of a virulent nationalist current that has culminated in the rise of open neo-Nazis taking seats in the Ukrainian parliament. We are seeing its openly fascistic culmination in the current gang lording over Kiev.

All this was done in the name of sticking a finger in Vladimir Putin’s eye, whose great sin has been kicking out thieving oligarchs and opposing US pretensions to global hegemony. Washington’s ultimate goal is regime-change in the Kremlin, and the reinstallation of a Yeltsin-like sock puppet who, when Washington says “Jump!”, will answer: “How high?”

That they’re willing to risk World War III in order to achieve their goal underscores the sheer craziness of US foreign policy. The latest official US “National Security Strategy” puts the new cold war at the center of Washington’s military-diplomatic vision – an emphasis so monstrously misplaced that it’s hard to believe they’re serious. Yet you had better believe it: this is what we can expect from a future Democratic administration, if one should come to pass, with Hillary Clinton taking her husband’s Slavophobia – remember the Kosovo war? – to new heights of unreason.

The US has no business interfering in Ukraine’s civil war, and no legitimate security interest in the question of who gets to administer Crimea – which has been Russian since the days of Catherine the Great. The idea that we are going to confront Russia over this issue is dangerous nonsense – and, unfortunately, it is just the sort of nonsense politicians of both parties find hard to resist.

There are even some ostensible “libertarians” who can’t resist the temptation to refight the cold war, notably the voluble and well-placed NATO-tarian faction of “Students for Liberty” (SFL), who denounced Ron Paul for his supposedly “pro-Putin” (i.e. anti-interventionist) statements on Ukraine. Ron is appearing at their upcoming “International Conference,” with several of the loudest NATO-tarians in attendance: one hopes he’ll give them a good talking to, although perhaps a spanking is more appropriate for these noisy brats. These juvenile blatherskites claim “Compelling arguments can be made for both advocates of globalist and noninterventionist foreign policy positions,” but aver that “Ron Paul has crossed the line.” It is they who have crossed the line: no libertarian is or can be an advocate of a “globalist” foreign policy – because conquering the globe is, you know, a statist thing.

Of course now that Ukraine – where SFL held a conference – is jailing draft-resisters and clamping down on all dissent, we don’t hear a peep from these adolescent cold warriors. They talk a lot about “liberty,” but not in places where it can get them into trouble.

The main danger to liberty and peace in the world isn’t in the Kremlin, or Peking, or North Korea – it’s right here in these United States of America, in the global epicenter of evil otherwise known as Washington, D.C. This, our “libertarian internationalists” claim, is vulgar “anti-Americanism,” but these foreigners have little conception of what true Americanism is all about. The Founding Fathers of this country are rolling in their graves as the usurpers in Washington sully the good name of America with the blood of innocents worldwide and defile the Constitution in the process. True Americanism means opposing these monsters as they rampage over the earth and destroy our civil liberties at home – not dutifully echoing their rationalizations for endless wars of aggression. Source

No one wants war. Those in the East of Ukraine never wanted war and

now those in the West are also saying no to war.

There have been many in the Western Ukraine who

have been doing the same thing, the woman in the video has done.

She is not alone.

Ukrainians are burning their military drafts

Published on Jul 27, 2014

Ukrainians are burning their military writs, refusing to leave their sons to Ministry of Defense

What part of NO does the Ukrainian Government not get?

The people from Western Ukraine are refusing, to kill  men, women and children

from their own country.

They are all Ukrainians.

None of them want war.

The only ones that want war, are their Leaders and of course the US.

Why does the US want wars?

Check the below link to find out

Who profits from wars?

 Recent

Canada: Government failure on research of Bitumen spill effects

Henry Kissinger or CODEPINK: Who’s the “Low Life Scum”?

//

Do Ukrainians Want War? NO!

The numbers the media give. I would say this a minimum estimate however.

“The current number of killed is 2,593 – close to 3,000 if we include the 298 victims of the MH17 (Malaysian airliner) plane crash,”

Then there are those who have been injured and those who have lost their home. Thousands have been injured. Every day people are being harmed or killed.

Then of course there are thousands who have fled their homes to seek safety. Way over 100,000 have fled their homes. At this point in time probably that number is hitting close to 200,000 or more.

The numbers after all is said and done are massive.

Do Ukrainians Want War? Deputy Dnipropetrovsk city council Victoria Shilova says – NO! – ENG SUBS

From Jul 27, 2014

Antiwar and Anti-Conscription Protests. have continued.

You will never see that on the main stream media however.

 

A must see Documentary

Ukraine Crisis

NATO was not to expand into the Russian area.

They have however.

Israel wants Assad taken out.

They want Iran taken out and gee guess who stands in the way Russia.

Now it seems they want to force Russia into war as well.

This is not rocket science this is what is happening.

Israel was also a big part of the Georgia problem a few years back.

This is the same type of interference.

Russia did not start this it was caused by outside forces.

Namely the US/Israel.

The EU is just as much to blame unfortunate.

They have been for the most part going along with the sanction garbage.

If a full scale war does happen the EU will be devastated. The war will spread onto their territory.

They too will have many deaths and massive amounts of destruction to homes, infrastructure etc.

Like Iraq, all based on  lies and propaganda.

I looked at those so called pics of the Russian army invading the Ukraine. They are bogus. Just like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Don’t be fooled by the lies.

Now think with Russia out of the way how far could Israel get with it’s expansion agenda. The rest of us will pay for the war with the lives of our children and our tax dollars.

War through Deception is the Israeli motto.

They get others to fight their wars for them.

They have turned the US and other countries into their own personal war machine.

And when your out wandering around to news sites they have a lot of paid posters who are all for a war with Russia.

What a shame all news site do not check out IP address to see who the posters of such hate come from.

Like this fellow at Common Dreams.

The Double Identity of an “Anti-Semitic” Commenter

http://www.commondreams.org/hambaconeggs

He says he was not paid.

Well I do not beleive that for one second.

Israel has been paying people to do this sort of thing for years.

Would they want war with Russia. Yes they would benefit the most if Russia was taken out.

Just like

Who Benefited the most by J.F. Kennedy’s Death?

Israel did.

They want to expand into Syria.

This video is one we all can appreciate.

How Israeli Leaders think and have for many years among other things.

This fellow has it pegged..He did his home work.

 

Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper have breached the Geneva Convention with the willful planning, preparing and initiating of a war of aggression against Libya. Guess who was right there with them? Or as they say standing behind them.

Guess who hated _Muammar_Gaddafi with a passion?

Plus he didn’t want to use the US dollar for oil trade.

Saddam also did not want to use the US dollar for oil trade.

Russia again does not want to use the US dollar for oil trade.

It is getting to a point it is all to clear, that anyone who does not want to use the US petro dollar for trade is condemned.

The become the evil Satan.

In the US AIPAC is the main offender, when it comes to forming US policies.

So when it comes to foreign policy guess who tells congress what to do?

They have many of the same type of organization in other countries as well.

All of them should be shut down, never to see the light of day again.

All of their so called Charities in other countries should also be eliminated as well.

The money usually never goes to where they say it goes anyway.

All aid to Israel should be stopped.

It is time they stood on their own two feet.

They was a great deal of that aid on weapons instead of taking care of their people.

Even much of the money that was earmarked for survivors of the Holocaust, never got to the people who should have received it.

Israel and the US have waged wars in many other countries and supported some horrific dictators as well.

Hunt long and hard enough, all that information can be found.

Much of it is in my archives.

If the US is waging war, you can be certain Israel is right there with them.

So for all of those in the EU get educated and do not fall for all the lies.

All of your people will suffer tremendously.

They are already suffering from Austerity and fall out due to Sanctions.

So take a long hard look and find the truth before it is too late.

It is up to you to force your leaders to Stop following the US/Israeli agenda.

Anyone who promotes war based on lies and propaganda is the bad guy.

 

Happy hunting.

 

 A bit of History to ponder.

The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili
August 21, 2008

By F. William Engdahl
The controversy over the Georgian surprise military attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia on 8.8.08 makes a closer look at the controversial Georgian President and his puppet masters important. An examination shows 41 year old Mikhail Saakashvili to be a ruthless and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. The famous ‘Rose Revolution of November 2003 that forced the ageing Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then 36 year old US university graduate into power was run and financed by the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to the Pentagon and US intelligence community.

Mihkail Saakashvili was deliberately placed in power in one of the most sophisticated US regime change operations, using ostensibly private NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) to create an atmosphere of popular protest against the existing regime of former Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Shevardnadze, who was no longer useful to Washington when he began to make a deal with Moscow over energy pipelines and privatizations.

Saakashvili was brought to power in a US-engineered coup run on the ground by US-funded NGO’s, in an application of a new method of US destabilization of regimes it considered hostile to its foreign policy agenda. The November 24 2003 Wall Street Journal explicitly credited the toppling of Shevardnadze’s regime to the operations of “a raft of non-governmental organizations . . . supported by American and other Western foundations.” These NGOs, said the Journal, had “spawned a class of young, English-speaking intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms” who were instrumental laying the groundwork for a bloodless coup.

Coup by NGO

But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the Saakashvili coup.

It involved US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation. It involved the Washington-based Freedom House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey. It involved generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s to “do privately what the CIA used to do,” namely coups against regimes the US Government finds unfriendly.

George Soros’ foundations have been forced to leave numerous eastern European countries including Russia as well as China after the 1989 student Tiananmen Square uprising. Soros is also the financier together with the US State Department of the Human Rights Watch, a US-based and run propaganda arm of the entire NGO apparatus of regime coups such as Georgia and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Some analysts believe Soros is a high-level operative of the US State Department or intelligence services using his private foundations as cover.

The US State Department funded the Georgia Liberty Institute headed by Saakashvili, US approved candidate to succeed the no-longer cooperative Shevardnadze. The Liberty Institute in turn created “Kmara!” which translates “Enough!” According to a BBC report at the time, Kmara! Was organized in spring of 2003 when Saakashvili along with hand-picked Georgia student activists were paid by the Soros Foundation to go to Belgrade to learn from the US-financed Otpor activists that toppled Milosevic. They were trained in Gene Sharp’s “non-violence as a method of warfare” by the Belgrade Center for Nonviolent Resistance.

Saakashvili as mafioso President

Once he was in place in January 2004 as Georgia’s new President, Saakashvili proceeded to pack the regime with his cronies and kinsmen. The death of Zurab Zhvania, his prime minister in February, 2005, remains a mystery. The official version—poisoning by faulty gas heater—was adopted by American FBI investigators within two weeks of the killing. That has never seemed credible to those familiar with Georgia’s gangland slayings, crime, and other manifestations of social decay. Zhvania’s death was followed closely by a functionary of the Premier’s apparat, Georgi Khelashvili, who allegedly shot himself the day after his chief’s demise. The head of Zhvania’s research staff was later found dead as well.

Figures allied with Saakashvili reportedly had a hand in the premier’s death. Russian journalist Marina Perevozkina quoted Gia Khurashvili, a Georgian economist. Prior to the fatal incident, Mr. Khurashvili had published an article in Resonans newspaper opposing the privatization and sale of Georgia’s main gas pipeline. Ten days before the prime minister’s body was found, Khurashvili was attacked and his editor-in-chief—citing pressure from ‘security service’ figures he refused to name—issued him a warning.

The late premier’s position on the pipeline issue was believed the direct reason for the murder of Zhvania. Zhvania’s brother, Georgi, also told Perevozkina that not long before Zhvania’s death he received a warning that someone was preparing to kill his brother. Saakashvili was reportedly livid when the US State Department invited Zhvania to Washington to win a Freedom Medal from the US Government’s National Democratic Institute. Saakashvili tolerates no rivals for power it seems.

Saakashvili, who cleverly marketed himself as “anti-corruption,” appointed several of his family members to lucrative posts in government, giving one of his brothers a position as chief adviser on domestic issues to the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline project, backed by British Petroleum and other oil multinationals.

Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid, Saakashvili has led a policy of mass-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar. 22, 2004) until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based currency speculator Soros—along with the United Nations Development Program.

Israel US military train Georgian military

The current military assault on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in violation of Saakashvili’s pledge to seek a diplomatic not military solution to the territorial disputes, is backed by US and Israeli military “advisers.” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that on August 10, Georgian Minister of Reintegration, Temur Yakobshvili, “praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an interview with Army Radio. ‘Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers,’ Yakobashvili told Army Radio in Hebrew, referring to a private Israeli group Georgia had hired.”

One of the targets of Russian bombs near Tbilisi was, according to IsraelNN.com, “a Georgian military plant in which Israeli experts are upgrading jet fighters for the Georgian military… Russian fighter jets bombed runways inside the plant, located near Tbilisi, where Israeli security firm Elbit is in charge of upgrading Georgian SU-25 jets.”

Israeli Foreign Minister and candidate to succeed ousted Israeli Prime Minister, Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, proclaimed on August 10 that “Israel recognizes Georgia’s territorial integrity,” code for saying it backs Georgia’s attempt to take South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The reported 1,000 Israeli military advisers in Georgia were not alone. On July 15, the Reuters news wire carried the following report: “VAZIANI, Georgia – One thousand U.S. troops began a military training exercise called “Immediate Response 2008,” in Georgia on Tuesday against a backdrop of growing friction between Georgia and neighboring Russia. The two-week exercise was taking place at the Vaziani military base near the capital Tbilisi, which was a Russian air force base until Russian forces withdrew at the start of this decade under a European arms reduction agreement… Georgia has a 2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military. The United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by backing Tbilisi’s bid to join the NATO military alliance… “The main purpose of these exercises is to increase the cooperation and partnership between U.S. and Georgian forces,” Brig. Gen. William B. Garrett, commander of the U.S. military’s Southern European Task Force, told reporters.”

With Russia openly backing and training the indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939 where the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second World War.

In a curious footnote to the actual launch of military fighting on the opening day of the Olympics when Putin, George W. Bush and many world leaders were in Beijing far away, is a report in IsraelNN.com by Gl Ronen, stating that “The Georgian move against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back its support for Georgia’s military.”

Ronen added, “Russian and Georgian media reported several days ago that Israel decided to stop its support for Georgia after Moscow made it clear to Jerusalem and Washington that Russia would respond to continued aid for Georgia by selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria and Iran.” Israel plans to get oil and gas from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian.

Although as of this writing Russian President Medvedev has announced Russia is halting its military response against Georgian targets, the situation is anything but stable. The insistence of Washington in bringing Georgia into its geopolitical sphere and backing an unstable regime around Mikhail Saakashvili may well have been the straw which broke the Russian camel’s patience if not his back.

Whether oil pipeline disputes or Russian challenges to Israel are the proximate trigger for Saakashvili’s dangerous game, it is clear that the volatile Georgian and his puppet masters may have entered a game where no one will be able to control the outcome. Source

Now guess what???????

 NATO wants more money for more wars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

//

//

Ukraine Crisis

Poroshenko Dissolves Ukraine Parliament
Vote Set for Oct. 26

As the southeast of Ukraine is struggling to survive humanitarian catastrophe, the number of civilian casualties in the conflict zone, according to UN figures, has already exceeded 2000. Could that be enough to make the West realize that they are supporting – war criminals.

Ukraine Crisis: Donbass. Chronicle of Genocide. Banned on TV / Донбасс. Хроника геноцида. [ENG SUB]
Aug 18, 2014
Extensive war crimes in Donbass committed by Poroshenko and his army of murderers from July 27 to August 14, 2014. Kiev’s warmongers/Zionists continue genocide of civilian population of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Most of the footage and interviews you will see in this documentary film have never been shown on mainstream media of any country including Russia and Ukraine.
Everyone should watch this documentary. You will see the people the Government of Kiev are killing. This is the side of the war, you will never see on the mainstream media. This is only a small part, of what has been happening, in the South Eastern part of the Ukraine.
These are war crimes.

 

Fake Donetsk Letter Demands That Jews Register in Eastern Ukraine: “Everything’s Photoshopped”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fake-donetsk-letter-demands-that-jews-register-in-eastern-ukraine-everythings-photoshopped/5378408
ADL responsible  for fake Jews Register letters, in Eastern Ukraine: I bet AD and other Jeish organization donation probably went up , well at least until they were caught. Nothing like spreading fake hate, to make money.

http://www.sott.net/article/277737-Ukraine-Jew-registration-hoax-traced-to-ADL 

Or

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/19/359181/ukraine-jew-registration-hoax-traced/

Kiev’s imposition of a “third” wave of military mobilisation has reportedly led to anti-conscription protests in several towns and cities in Ukraine

http://www.globalresearch.ca/anti-conscription-protests-grow-in-ukraine/5394740

and

http://www.globalresearch.ca/antiwar-and-anti-conscription-protest-across-ukraine-kiev-regime-wages-all-out-war-in-east-ukraine-nato-threatens-russia/5394449

Since the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Kyiv has embarked on a frenzied military push into southeast Ukraine to try and defeat a pro-autonomy rebellion there. It is blocking access by investigators to the MH17 crash site and the forward line of its military push consists of intense and random bombardments of towns and cities amounting to war crimes on a massive scale.

Ukraine Atrocities: The Illegal Use of White Phosphorous Fire Bombs Against Donetsk Civilians
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-atrocities-the-illegal-use-of-white-phosphorous-fire-bombs-against-the-donetsk-civilians/5396497
Ukraine: This Time, West Sides With Nazis

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-this-time-west-sides-with-nazis/5395916
Kiev’s Dirty War
August 21st, 2014
by Stephen Lendman
Rogue terror states wage wars the same way. America does it. So does Israel.
Kiev’s illegitimate fascist government operates extrajudicially. Rule of law principles don’t apply.
Dirty war is waged on its own non-combatant men, women and children. Residential neighborhoods are bombed and shelled.
Banned chemical and other terror weapons are used. Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) member of parliament Miroslav Rudenko said:
“According to our soldiers’ information, the Ukrainian forces are using chemical ammunition on DPR territory.”
“Once a shell bursts, a gas affecting sense organs is emitted. We have this information.”
In early June, Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters said Kiev forces attacked Semyonovka near Slaviansk with an unknown chemical weapon.
On August 6, freedom fighters claimed “irrefutable evidence” of a weapon used similar to white phosphorous.
It burns flesh to the bone. It keeps burning until entirely consumed or deprived of oxygen.
The Hague and Geneva Conventions categorically prohibit use of these type weapons. It doesn’t matter.
Kiev uses them against civilians. So does Israel. America uses banned chemical, biological and radiological weapons in all its wars.
These countries kill and destroy indiscriminately. They commit daily crimes of war and against humanity.
US special forces are trained killers. They’re actively involved in training and aiding Kiev’s military.
So is L-3 Communications. It’s a private military contractor. According to Rossiya Segodnia’s Center for International Journalism and Research’s Daniel Zubov:
“L-3 is packed with former high-ranking US military generals and other officers, including several L-3 board members.”
They include former Joint Chiefs chairman Henry Hugh Shelton and former Army vice Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody.
Kiev forces deliberately and maliciously inflict prohibited collective punishment on hundreds of thousands of Southeastern Ukrainians. It does so with full support from and complicity with Washington.
Two rogue terror states partner in crimes of war and against humanity.. They continue daily unaccountably.
Media scoundrels ignore the worst of what demands headlines. They point fingers the wrong way.
They call lawless Kiev forces liberating ones. Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighting democrats are called terrorists.
Daily managed news misinformation substitutes for truth and full disclosure. On Monday, a convoy carrying refugees was attacked.
Each side accused the other. Most likely, Kiev forces were responsible.
What possible motive would Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters have to attack defenseless civilians from their own areas fleeing for safety?
Kiev forces benefit by blaming self-defense democrats for their crimes. Not according to The New York Times.
On August 18, it headlined “Rebels Killed Dozens in Attack on Refugees, Ukraine says.” What about what freedom fighters say? What about what most likely did or did not happen?
Citing Ukraine’s military, The Times said “(s)eparatist rebels on Monday attacked a caravan of cars carrying refugees trying to flee war-ravaged eastern Ukraine, killing ‘dozens’ of people in a devastating barrage of artillery fire…”
The Times quoted Ukraine military spokesman Col. Adriy Lysenko saying “terrorists had perpetrated a bloody crime.”
“Many people died, including women and children.” No specific numbers were given. Reuters reported “dozens.”
The attack occurred on a main highway near Lugansk. “A powerful artillery strike…was so strong that people were burned alive in (their) vehicles…”
Freedom fighters denied involvement. They questioned whether any attack occurred.
At the same time, DPR Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin said Kiev forces “have bombed the road constantly with airplanes and Grads.”
“It seems they’ve now killed more civilians like they’ve been doing for months now. We don’t have the ability to send Grads into that territory.”
Donetsk self-defense leader Alexander Zakharchenko added:
“As far as I understand, there was no column of refugees in Lugansk region that fell under fire.”
“We…did not shoot any convoys (of refugees) with Grads and moreover we did not shoot with any Grads from Russia.”
The State Department was quick to condemn the attack that may not have occurred if area self-defense leaders are right.
At the same time, deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf stopped short of laying blame.
“We strongly condemn the shelling and rocketing of a convoy that was bearing internally displaced persons in Lugansk,” she said.
Throughout Israel’s Operation Protective Edge on Gaza, Harf and State Department’s Jen Psaki outrageously called Israel’s premeditated genocidal war self-defense.
Over 80% of casualties were civilians. Over 500 children were killed. Israel’s war without mercy continues. How many more Palestinians will die remains to be seen.
Kiev forces began attacking Southeast Ukrainian freedom fighters and civilians in early April. Conflict remains ongoing.
Dozens are killed or wounded daily. Well over 2,100 have died. Over 5,000 have been wounded.
UN spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly calls these “very conservative estimates.”
Itar Tass said around 34 people were killed and 29 others wounded in the city of Donetsk in the last 24 hours alone.
Two districts were heavily shelled. A coal mine was struck. Attack drones struck targets.
On Wednesday morning, strong blasts occurred in central Donetsk. Gunfire set a warehouse with car tires ablaze.
Street-to-street fighting in Lugansk continues. Russian, German, French and Ukrainian foreign minister talks in Berlin Sunday included pledges to keep working for conflict resolution.
On August 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed Moscow’s humanitarian aid initiative, border control and efforts to achieve a durable ceasefire.
“People are dying every day,” he said. “Civilian infrastructure is being destroyed every day as well.” He stressed Russia’s position. Ceasefire “must be unconditional.”
“Unfortunately, our Ukrainian colleagues continue to put forward a variety of rather vague terms and conditions, including, as they put it, ensuring the ‘tightness’ of the borders.”
“(W)e have nothing against border control being maximally effective, and we are doing our best to achieve this goal.”
“A ceasefire is a two-way street. Our colleagues from Kiev are complaining that the self-defence fighters are not communicating with them.”
“It’s difficult to be in contact when you’re being bombed relentlessly, as is the case in Lugansk.”
“Our Western colleagues who have direct influence on Kiev have work to do in this department.”
“Unfortunately, the United States was not represented at the meeting in Berlin.”
Washington spurns diplomacy. It wants Kiev’s dirty war continued.
It wants freedom fighting democrats crushed. It wants fascist putschists firmly in control nationwide.
Lavrov’s meeting with his German, French and Ukrainian counterparts achieved no results. Nor will follow-up discussions.
At the same time, Lavrov continues going all-out for peaceful conflict resolution. He refuses to accept anything less.
He’s a world class diplomat. He shames his US and EU counterparts.
He deplores US-led adventurism. He pursues peace. He does so tirelessly.
He deserves Nobel Peace Prize recognition. War criminals usually get it. Obama is Exhibit A.
He bears full responsibility for Ukrainian crisis conditions. For deposing a democratically elected government. For installing a putschist neo-Nazi-infested fascist one.
For partnering in Kiev’s dirty war against its own citizens. For adding another genocidal crime to his rap sheet.
For risking the unthinkable – direct confrontation with Russia. For potentially transforming a new Cold War into a hot one.
Madness defines his agenda. Peace is a non-starter. Multiple direct and proxy wars continue. Humanity remains hugely at risk.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/08/21/kievs-dirty-war/

Military Budget
Ukraine’s parliament agreed to mobilize military and National Guard units and approved emergency funding on 17 March 2014 of Hr 6.7 billion (more than $600 million) for military spending — a significant amount in a defense budget that doesn’t exceed $2 billion a year. The law on partial mobilization of the military was approved with 275 out of 450 votes. The law amending the current budget was approved with the support of 243 out of 450 lawmakers. Andriy Parubiy, Batkivshchyna party member and head of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, blamed overthrown President Viktor Yanukovych for doing “everything to destroy the Ukrainian army. We need to put all operating units on alert.” Minister of Finance Oleksandr Shlapak said that “we have a very complicated economic situation in Ukraine” and will need to spend Hr 6.7 billion in the next three months to buy weapons, repair military equipment and conduct training camps. Currently, Shlapak said that there were no reserve funds available, forcing parliament to immediately reallocate part of the approved 2014 budget.
Ukraine’s president announced plans to boost his country’s defense spending by an estimated 50 percent, pledging to spend an extra 40 billion hryvnia ($3 billion) by 2017. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed to increase military spending by $3 billion over the next few years because of the ongoing pro-Russian separatist threat in the east of Ukraine. Poroshenko made the comment Sunday in Kyiv during a speech 24 August 2014, marking Independence Day, 23 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
After independence, the kind of serious reorganization and downsizing of the Ukrainian military necessary to rationalize the forces was not accomplished, leaving a force larger than the country could afford. Every Ukrainian government since independence has budgeted less than was necessary to adequately fund the existing military – and then provided actual funding even less than the paltry amount budgeted.
This led to a military without enough money to adequately train its conscript troops There was neither enough money to properly maintain the navy’s ships, except for a couple of show pieces, nor money for those ships able to put to sea for sufficient time to adequately train crews. However, one of the most damaging deficits was in the air force, for which there was neither sufficient money to properly maintain aging Soviet-era aircraft nor enough money for the air force’s pilots to have more than a very small number of the flying hours necessary to maintain top efficiency.
In recent years the Ukrainian parliament has funded the military at 10 percent of what it needs to modernize. The Ukrainian military has said it needed 131 billion hryvnyas ($11.3 billion) to replace old weapons and machinery. But in 2013 the parliament allocated just 15.6 billion hryvnyas ($1.3 billion) for defense. By contrast, Poland’s defense budget is about $10 billion, Russia’s is some $70 billion, and the United States’ is around $640 billion.
Ukraine’s 2012 military spending increased by around 30 percent, to about $2 billion or 1.1 percent of GDP, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s financial department said on 25 January 2012. Funding for the Defense Ministry in 2012 will be 17 bln UAH ($2.13 bln): 15 bln UAH ($1.9 bln) from the general budget fund 2 bln UAH ($250 mln) from the special fund which must be self-funded through MoD business activities. About 5 bln UAH ($625 mln) will be allocated for development and purchase of new and upgraded weapons.
For comparison, the 2011 defense budget is 13.6 bln UAH ($1.7 bln) of which 11.4 bln UAH ($1.43 bln) comes from general fund and 2.2 bln UAH ($275 mln) from the special fund. The 2012 draft budget thus represented a 31% increase in the general fund and a 25% increase in the overall defense budget. Growth in spending on procurement and modernization has increased at an even greater rate . This follows a 20% increase in 2011 over 2010, underlining the government’s commitment to increasing defense budgets and modernization.
The ministry expected to spend about $120 million of the 2012 budget for purchases and modernization of military equipment, as well as scientific and military design projects, including the production of L-39 Albatros jet trainers and MiG-29 fighter jets. Ukraine’s existing fleet of MiG-29, L-39 and Su-25 close air support aircrafts will also be modernized.
The Defense Ministry announced that it would spend 2.39 bln UAH ($299 mln) on equipment for the Armed Forces by the end of 2012. Of this, 666.8 mln UAH ($83.35 mln) will be allocated for procurement of new military equipment. Items going into service by the end of 2012 (for delivery in 2013) include modernized Su-27 fighter aircrafts, modernized Mi-24 attack helicopters, BTR-4E APCs, the “Malachite” radar station, a 152-millimeter precise guided projectile, and 30-millimeter ZTM-1 automatic canons (which are scheduled for installations on combat modules manufactured in Ukraine). By the end of 2012, the State will allocate an additional 800 mln UAH ($100 mln) for national programs to develop an An-70 transport aircrafts, the corvette-class frigate, the Sapsan multi-functional missile complex, and Armed Forces’ command and control system. In addition, 900 mln UAH ($112.5 mln) will be allocated for equipment repairs.
Head of Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Financial Department Lt. Gen. Yvan Marko said 21 jets, five helicopters and 612 vehicles will be repaired and modernized in 2012. Ukraine’s 2012 state defense order would stand at $184 million, four times more than last year, including $54 million to build a corvette-class ship and $13 million for the construction of the Sapsan multifunctional missile system. Ukraine’s military budget amounted to 0.8 percent of GDP on average over the past few years, substantially less than the average 1.3 percent of other Eastern European states.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are to be downsized almost 50 percent by 2017, General Staff chief Igor Nikolaenko said on 07 September 2012. Military personnel will be reduced from the current 193,000 to 100,000, Ukrainskiye Novosti news agency quoted him as saying. There will be no more personnel cuts after 2017. The country also plans to completely phase out the draft by that time.
Ukraine’s total defense spending during 2001 was Hr 2.7 billion ($550 million), while the actual needs of the country’s army are estimated at “at least” Hr 10 billion ($2 billion). Insufficient funding of defense needs requires finding extra sources of funding. It can be solved by economic activities within the Armed Forces. The State leadership considers it a temporary, but necessary activity for the Armed Forces under current conditions. As the result of this activity in 2000 it was planned to gain more than 900 million Hrn for defense needs.
The main goal of economic activity is to enhance funding support of forces and ensure social protection of military personnel and their families.The State Program defines its main near-term priorities as the following:
•
• Looking for additional sources of defense funding.
• Improving the current economic status of MOD enterprises and enhancing their production outputs.
• Improving the procedures of selling excess Armed Forces equipment, increasing the cash flow from leasing equipment, facilities and providing services.
The main challenge in implementing the State Programme of Development of the Armed Forces is resource limitations: imbalances in the amount of funding, stipulated in the Programme itself, according to the indices approved by the laws on the State Budget, to that actually received. Thus, the approval, by the Law of Ukraine, of expenditure for 2007 of UAH 9.13 billion rather than UAH 10.3 billion stipulated by the State Programme made it impossible to fully implement measures determined in the Programme. Total amount of funding that had not been allocated to the State Programme of Development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2006-2007 is more than UAH 4 billion. If such a trend continues, the Armed Forces may fail to receive nearly UAH 10.5 billion or 14.2% of the UAH 73.4 billion stipulated by the Programme.
Being financially restrained MOD and GS focused their main efforts to maintaining the combat readiness of available weapons and equipment through their modernization and prolongation of service life. An organization and technology basis was created to modernize and prolong the service life of aircraft: An-24, An-26, An-30, MiG-29, Su-24, Su-25, Su-27, L-39, S-300; Buck M1 anti-aircraft missile systems; and, tanks and light armoured vehicles. The newly introduced system of state procurement through a Single Tender Committee prevents the spread of finances, provides for raising the level of transparency and control over the procurement process, while increasing the efficiency of budget spending.
The State Programme of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Development for 2006-2011 (The State Programme) was accomplished in 2011. The Armed Forces’ development in the framework of the State Programme was financed by the amount of UAH 55.5 billion (75.6% of the planned budget), that enabled its implementation in full.
The State Budget of Ukraine for 2011 assigned UAH 13,804.4 million for the Ministry of Defence, which accounted for 1.07% of GDP. The General Fund amounted to UAH 11,594.8 million (84% of the budget) while the Special Fund accounted for UAH 2,209.6 million (16% of the budget). Only UAH 12,709.1 million (0.98% of GDP) was actually allocated which accounted for 92% of the annual budget. The General Fund allocation totalled UAH 11,594.8 million (100% of budget) and the Special Fund UAH 1,114.3 million (50.4% of budget).
The average annual percentage of financing the needs of the defence sector during the period 2006-2011 was 1.0% of GDP; the majority of the funds (about 80%) were used for the maintenance of troops (forces). Under these circumstances the budget of the Ministry of Defence was “the eating away budget” since it had no resources available for the combat readiness renewal or the development of the Armed Forces.
However, the experience of the defence policy implementation gained during the period 2006-2011 was taken into account whilst developing the State Comprehensive Programme of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reform and development for 2012-2017. The programme envisages the implementation of decisive and fundamental reforms that will be supported by the actual resources provision and this will lead to creation of a qualitatively new Armed Forces.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/budget.htm

Considering the Referendum in South Eastern Ukraine and the fact that Ukraine has billion in

Debts to pay, they chose to buy weapons to kill innocent people with.

So a few weapons manufactures made money.

So who profits from all the deaths?

Oligarchs in the Ukraine perhaps.

 

Victoria Nuland, passing out her cookies and $5 billion US dollars started this.

Snipers killing innocent people in the beginning. Yes it was the Nazi group doing that, not the government that was ousted

or police who did that one. We must remember all the details of this per-planned, orchestrated mess.

The US decided, who would be in charge of it all. Lest we forget that phone call. F@$# the EU by Victoria Nuland.

Yes we all remember that. Yes.

The EU?NATO countries supported the coup and the ongoing slaughter of innocent people.

Then of course their was the Passenger plane, sent into the war zone on purpose, just so it could be blown out of the sky.

Of course Kiev was not willing to let investigators finish their investigation into the downed plane.

Then again they didn’t want to investigate the snipers who killed people either.

 

If anyone has anything to add, do leave a comment with links included.

All input is appreciated especially, when it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

 

Be sure to share.

 

Related

Ukraine: Truth and Fiction

Recent

There is a petitions and a lot of other information at the link below

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, calls for a global boycott of Israel

Guy Parent finds badly wounded soldiers not getting disability cheques

Acknowledge the Gaza Genocide

Man from Newfoundland wants Prime Minister Charged for Advocating Genocide against The Palestinians!

 

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, calls for a global boycott of Israel

 

My plea to the people of Israel: Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.
By Desmond Tutu
Published 21:56 14.08.14
The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine.
If you add together all the people who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine – in Cape Town, Washington, D.C., New York, New Delhi, London, Dublin and Sydney, and all the other cities – this was arguably the largest active outcry by citizens around a single cause ever in the history of the world.
A quarter of a century ago, I participated in some well-attended demonstrations against apartheid. I never imagined we’d see demonstrations of that size again, but last Saturday’s turnout in Cape Town was as big if not bigger. Participants included young and old, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, blacks, whites, reds and greens … as one would expect from a vibrant, tolerant, multicultural nation.
I asked the crowd to chant with me: “We are opposed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.”
Earlier in the week, I called for the suspension of Israel from the International Union of Architects, which was meeting in South Africa.
I appealed to Israeli sisters and brothers present at the conference to actively disassociate themselves and their profession from the design and construction of infrastructure related to perpetuating injustice, including the separation barrier, the security terminals and checkpoints, and the settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.
“I implore you to take this message home: Please turn the tide against violence and hatred by joining the nonviolent movement for justice for all people of the region,” I said.
Over the past few weeks, more than 1.6 million people across the world have signed onto this movement by joining an Avaaz campaign calling on corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation and/or implicated in the abuse and repression of Palestinians to pull out. The campaign specifically targets Dutch pension fund ABP; Barclays Bank; security systems supplier G4S; French transport company Veolia; computer company Hewlett-Packard; and bulldozer supplier Caterpillar.
Last month, 17 EU governments urged their citizens to avoid doing business in or investing in illegal Israeli settlements.
We have also recently witnessed the withdrawal by Dutch pension fund PGGM of tens of millions of euros from Israeli banks; the divestment from G4S by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and the U.S. Presbyterian Church divested an estimated $21 million from HP, Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar.
It is a movement that is gathering pace.
Violence begets violence and hatred, that only begets more violence and hatred.
We South Africans know about violence and hatred. We understand the pain of being the polecat of the world; when it seems nobody understands or is even willing to listen to our perspective. It is where we come from.
We also know the benefits that dialogue between our leaders eventually brought us; when organizations labeled “terrorist” were unbanned and their leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were released from imprisonment, banishment and exile.
We know that when our leaders began to speak to each other, the rationale for the violence that had wracked our society dissipated and disappeared. Acts of terrorism perpetrated after the talks began – such as attacks on a church and a pub – were almost universally condemned, and the party held responsible snubbed at the ballot box.
The exhilaration that followed our voting together for the first time was not the preserve of black South Africans alone. The real triumph of our peaceful settlement was that all felt included. And later, when we unveiled a constitution so tolerant, compassionate and inclusive that it would make God proud, we all felt liberated.
Of course, it helped that we had a cadre of extraordinary leaders.
But what ultimately forced these leaders together around the negotiating table was the cocktail of persuasive, nonviolent tools that had been developed to isolate South Africa, economically, academically, culturally and psychologically.
At a certain point – the tipping point – the then-government realized that the cost of attempting to preserve apartheid outweighed the benefits.
The withdrawal of trade with South Africa by multinational corporations with a conscience in the 1980s was ultimately one of the key levers that brought the apartheid state – bloodlessly – to its knees. Those corporations understood that by contributing to South Africa’s economy, they were contributing to the retention of an unjust status quo.
Those who continue to do business with Israel, who contribute to a sense of “normalcy” in Israeli society, are doing the people of Israel and Palestine a disservice. They are contributing to the perpetuation of a profoundly unjust status quo.
Those who contribute to Israel’s temporary isolation are saying that Israelis and Palestinians are equally entitled to dignity and peace.
Ultimately, events in Gaza over the past month or so are going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
It is becoming more and more clear that politicians and diplomats are failing to come up with answers, and that responsibility for brokering a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land rests with civil society and the people of Israel and Palestine themselves.
Besides the recent devastation of Gaza, decent human beings everywhere – including many in Israel – are profoundly disturbed by the daily violations of human dignity and freedom of movement Palestinians are subjected to at checkpoints and roadblocks. And Israel’s policies of illegal occupation and the construction of buffer-zone settlements on occupied land compound the difficulty of achieving an agreementsettlement in the future that is acceptable for all.
The State of Israel is behaving as if there is no tomorrow. Its people will not live the peaceful and secure lives they crave – and are entitled to – as long as their leaders perpetuate conditions that sustain the conflict.
I have condemned those in Palestine responsible for firing missiles and rockets at Israel. They are fanning the flames of hatred. I am opposed to all manifestations of violence.
But we must be very clear that the people of Palestine have every right to struggle for their dignity and freedom. It is a struggle that has the support of many around the world.
No human-made problems are intractable when humans put their heads together with the earnest desire to overcome them. No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it.
Peace requires the people of Israel and Palestine to recognize the human being in themselves and each other; to understand their interdependence.
Missiles, bombs and crude invective are not part of the solution. There is no military solution.
The solution is more likely to come from that nonviolent toolbox we developed in South Africa in the 1980s, to persuade the government of the necessity of altering its policies.
The reason these tools – boycott, sanctions and divestment – ultimately proved effective was because they had a critical mass of support, both inside and outside the country. The kind of support we have witnessed across the world in recent weeks, in respect of Palestine.
My plea to the people of Israel is to see beyond the moment, to see beyond the anger at feeling perpetually under siege, to see a world in which Israel and Palestine can coexist – a world in which mutual dignity and respect reign.
It requires a mind-set shift. A mind-set shift that recognizes that attempting to perpetuate the current status quo is to damn future generations to violence and insecurity. A mind-set shift that stops regarding legitimate criticism of a state’s policies as an attack on Judaism. A mind-set shift that begins at home and ripples out across communities and nations and regions – to the Diaspora scattered across the world we share. The only world we share.
People united in pursuit of a righteous cause are unstoppable. God does not interfere in the affairs of people, hoping we will grow and learn through resolving our difficulties and differences ourselves. But God is not asleep. The Jewish scriptures tell us that God is biased on the side of the weak, the dispossessed, the widow, the orphan, the alien who set slaves free on an exodus to a Promised Land. It was the prophet Amos who said we should let righteousness flow like a river.
Goodness prevails in the end. The pursuit of freedom for the people of Palestine from humiliation and persecution by the policies of Israel is a righteous cause. It is a cause that the people of Israel should support.
Nelson Mandela famously said that South Africans would not feel free until Palestinians were free.
He might have added that the liberation of Palestine will liberate Israel, too.Source

Now before you decide, what you would like to do,

read and listen to all of the following information, then go from there.

Take the time to get educated just a bit more.

They say a Picture is worth a Thousand words

Well here are some pictures of the Horrors of the War on Gaza

The Historical Perspective of the 2014 Gaza Massacre

By Ilan Pappé

August 23, 2014

People in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine feel disappointed at the lack of any significant international reaction to the carnage and destruction the Israeli assault has so far left behind it in the Strip. The inability, or unwillingness, to act seems to be first and foremost an acceptance of the Israeli narrative and argumentation for the crisis in Gaza. Israel has developed a very clear narrative about the present carnage in Gaza.

It is a tragedy caused by an unprovoked Hamas missile attack on the Jewish State, to which Israel had to react in self-defence. While mainstream western media, academia and politicians may have reservations about the proportionality of the force used by Israel, they accept the gist of this argument. This Israeli narrative is totally rejected in the world of cyber activism and alternative media. There it seems the condemnation of the Israeli action as a war crime is widespread and consensual.

The main difference between the two analyses from above and from below is the willingness of activists to study deeper and in a more profound way the ideological and historical context of the present Israeli action in Gaza. This tendency should be enhanced even further and this piece is just a modest attempt to contribute towards this direction.

Ad Hoc Slaughter?

An historical evaluation and contextualization of the present Israeli assault on Gaza and that of the previous three ones since 2006 expose clearly the Israeli genocidal policy there. An incremental policy of massive killing that is less a product of a callous intention as it is the inevitable outcome of Israel’s overall strategy towards Palestine in general and the areas it occupied in 1967, in particular.

This context should be insisted upon, since the Israeli propaganda machine attempts again and again to narrate its policies as out of context and turns the pretext it found for every new wave of destruction into the main justification for another spree of indiscriminate slaughter in the killing fields of Palestine.

The Israeli strategy of branding its brutal policies as an ad hoc response to this or that Palestinian action is as old as the Zionist presence in Palestine itself. It was used repeatedly as a justification for implementing the Zionist vision of a future Palestine that has in it very few, if any, native Palestinians. The means for achieving this goal changed with the years, but the formula has remained the same: whatever the Zionist vision of a Jewish State might be, it can only materialize without any significant number of Palestinians in it. And nowadays the vision is of an Israel stretching over almost the whole of historic Palestine where millions of Palestinians still live.

This vision ran into trouble once territorial greed led Israel to try and keep the West Bank and the Gaza Strip within its rule and control ever since June 1967. Israel searched for a way to keep the territories it occupied that year without incorporating their population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All the while it participated in a ‘peace process’ charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral colonization policies on the ground.

With the decades, Israel differentiated between areas it wished to control directly and those it would manage indirectly, with the aim in the long run of downsizing the Palestinian population to a minimum with, among other means, ethnic cleansing and economic and geographic strangulation. Thus the West Bank was in effect divided into a ‘Jewish’ and a ‘Palestinian’ zones – a reality most Israelis can live with provided the Palestinian Bantustans are content with their incarceration within these mega prisons. The geopolitical location of the West Bank creates the impression in Israel, at least, that it is possible to achieve this without anticipating a third uprising or too much international condemnation.

The Gaza Strip, due to its unique geopolitical location, did not lend itself that easily to such a strategy. Ever since 1994, and even more so when Ariel Sharon came to power as prime minister in the early 2000s, the strategy there was to ghettoize Gaza and somehow hope that the people there — 1.8 million as of today — would be dropped into eternal oblivion.

But the Ghetto proved to be rebellious and unwilling to live under conditions of strangulation, isolation, starvation and economic collapse. There was no way it would be annexed to Egypt, neither in 1948 nor in 2014. In 1948, Israel pushed into the Gaza area (before it became a strip) hundreds of thousands of refugees it expelled from the northern Naqab and southern coast who, so they hoped, would move even farther away from Palestine.

For a while after 1967, it wanted to keep as a township which provided unskilled labour but without any human and civil rights. When the occupied people resisted the continued oppression in two intifadas, the West Bank was bisected into small Bantustans encircled by Jewish colonies, but it did not work in the too small and too dense Gaza Strip. The Israelis were unable to ‘West Bank’ the Strip, so to speak. So they cordoned it as a Ghetto and when it resisted the army was allowed to use its most formidable and lethal weapons to crash it. The inevitable result of an accumulative reaction of this kind was genocidal.

Incremental Genocide 

The killing of three Israeli teenagers, two of them minors, abducted in the occupied West Bank in June, which was mainly a reprisal for killings of Palestinian children in May, provided the pretext first and foremost for destroying the delicate unity Hamas and Fatah have formed in that month. A unity that followed a decision by the Palestinian Authority to forsake the ‘peace process’ and appeal to international organizations to judge Israel according to a human and civil rights’ yardstick. Both developments were viewed as alarming in Israel.

The pretext determined the timing – but the viciousness of the assault was the outcome of Israel’s inability to formulate a clear policy towards the Strip it created in 1948. The only clear feature of that policy is the deep conviction that wiping out the Hamas from the Gaza Strip would domicile the Ghetto there.

Since 1994, even before the rise of Hamas to power in the Gaza Strip, the very particular geopolitical location of the Strip made it clear that any collective punitive action, such as the one inflicted now, could only be an operation of massive killings and destruction. In other words: an incremental genocide.

This recognition never inhibited the generals who give the orders to bomb the people from the air, the sea and the ground. Downsizing the number of Palestinians all over historic Palestine is still the Zionist vision; an ideal that requires the dehumanisation of the Palestinians. In Gaza, this attitude and vision takes its most inhuman form.

The particular timing of this wave is determined, as in the past, by additional considerations. The domestic social unrest of 2011 is still simmering and for a while there was a public demand to cut military expenditures and move money from the inflated ‘defence’ budget to social services. The army branded this possibility as suicidal. There is nothing like a military operation to stifle any voices calling on the government to cut its military expenses.

Typical hallmarks of the previous stages in this incremental genocide reappear in this wave as well. As in the first operation against Gaza, ‘First Rains’ in 2006, and those which followed in 2009, ‘Cast Lead’, and 2012, ‘Pillar of Smoke’, one can witness again consensual Israeli Jewish support for the massacre of civilians in the Gaza Strip, without one significant voice of dissent. The Academia, as always, becomes part of the machinery. Various universities offered the state its student bodies to help and battle for the Israeli narrative in the cyberspace and alternative media.

The Israeli media, as well, toed loyally the government’s line, showing no pictures of the human catastrophe Israel has wreaked and informing its public that this time, ‘the world understands us and is behind us’. That statement is valid to a point as the political elites in the West continue to provide the old immunity to the Jewish state. The recent appeal by Western governments to the prosecutor in the international court of Justice in The Hague not to look into Israel’s crimes in Gaza is a case in point. Wide sections of the Western media followed suit and justified by and large Israel’s actions.

This distorted coverage is also fed by a sense among Western journalist that what happens in Gaza pales in comparison to the atrocities in Iraq and Syria. Comparisons like this are usually provided without a wider historical perspective. A longer view on the history of the Palestinians would be a much more appropriate way to evaluate their suffering vis-à-vis the carnage elsewhere.

Conclusion: Confronting Double-Standards

But not only historical view is needed for a better understanding of the massacre in Gaza. A dialectical approach that identifies the connection between Israel’s immunity and the horrific developments elsewhere is required as well. The dehumanization in Iraq and Syria is widespread and terrifying, as it is in Gaza. But there is one crucial difference between these cases and the Israeli brutality: the former are condemned as barbarous and inhuman worldwide, while those committed by Israel are still publicly licensed and approved by the president of the United States, the leaders of the EU and Israel’s other friends in the world.

The only chance for a successful struggle against Zionism in Palestine is the one based on a human and civil rights agenda that does not differentiate between one violation and the other and yet identifies clearly the victim and the victimizers. Those who commit atrocities in the Arab world against oppressed minorities and helpless communities, as well as the Israelis who commit these crimes against the Palestinian people, should all be judged by the same moral and ethical standards. They are all war criminals, though in the case of Palestine they have been at work longer than anyone else. It does not really matter what the religious identity is of the people who commit the atrocities or in the name of which religion they purport to speak. Whether they call themselves jihadists, Judaists or Zionists, they should be treated in the same way.

A world that would stop employing double standards in its dealings with Israel is a world that could be far more effective in its response to war crimes elsewhere in the world. Cessation of the incremental genocide in Gaza and the restitution of the basic human and civil rights of Palestinians wherever they are, including the right of return, is the only way to open a new vista for a productive international intervention in the Middle East as a whole.

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian at the University of Exeter, UK. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2007) and The Idea of Israel (2014). Source

Let us not forget that no main stream media would touch this story.

This is from 2010

US/Israeli Charity uses little Palestinian Childs photo to raise money for Israel’s Hungry

Dec 16, 2013
Abby Martin speaks with Phyllis Bennis with the Institute for Policy Studies, about the flooding of Gaza, and the effects of the ongoing blockade that has come to characterize the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Dec 2, 2012
Miko Peled was born in Jersusalem into a famous and influential Israeli Zionist family. His father was a famous General in the Israeli Army, of which Miko also served his time. When Miko’s niece was killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, you may have expected the family to put Palestinians at fault, but surprisingly they blamed the state of Israel, and their violent torturing and persecution for driving people to such sadness that they would take their own lives.

Through his father’s deep knowledge of the Israeli war of terror, together with his own research, Miko Peled ruins the myths surrounding the Israel and Palestine situation, and delivers a truth so damning that many Jews and Israel supporters will not be able to bear it. He reveals facts such as the original expelled Jews are not the ones returning, and they are not their descendants either, covers the double standards regarding the right of return, which doesn’t apply to Palestinians, and dispels the myth that there has been a conflict for ages by producing proof that it was peaceful up until 1947 when Israel launched their illegal attacks.

Miko is just one of the many modern day Jews against Zionism and the state of Israel, and with the information he delivers in this astounding talk, it is not difficult to see why more and more Jews are rejecting Zionism and calling for the dismantling of Israel. It is a true eye-opener for anyone who has for too long been blinded by the fake misinformation given by the mainstream media, and the truths come straight from the heartland where he has spent many years documenting the real story.

The Truth about Gaza 2014

Nothing has changed for the Palestinians. life just gets worse for them.

Each day is a more horrific, then the day before.

 

This is what Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is talking about.

This campaign is gathering real pace. Russell Brand has recorded this video backing our campaign, and the companies we’re targeting are starting to reach out to the Avaaz team and ask for meetings. Avaazers in the UK are campaigning to end arms sales to Israel as the government there initiates a review. And shockingly, even the US government cancelled a shipment of hellfire missiles to Israel!

The pressure is working – so let’s keep it up! If you haven’t yet, sign the petition here. Or click here to keep sending messages to our target companies. Let’s make sure they don’t think they can ride this out. And if you have a local campaign you could start to ensure that your town, or university, or community divests from the repression of Palestinians, start your own campaign here.

There are also other things you can do or petitions you can sign

Acknowledge the Gaza Genocide

Together we can make a difference.

You can also send letters or e-mails to your own governments.

All people can do this.

You can also send letters or e-mails to the UN.

We must as a planet of billions of people, put a stop to the atrocities, inflicted on Palestinians.

We must be their voice.

We as a whole can work together, to stop this horror.

The same thing is being done to those who live in Eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine: Truth and Fiction

All the power hungry, warmongering must stop.

So if you are writing to either the UN or your own government you will also want to talk about the Deaths of those in Eastern Ukraine. The new Gaza, is what I call it.

Killing people into submission, is the most extreme war crime, any of us could ever imagine.

Don’t just sit there and read. Do something about it.

Let your voice be heard.

The two worst offenders on earth, are The US and Israel.

There is also more information at the link below.

Guy Parent finds badly wounded soldiers not getting disability cheques

To remain silent, is to condone mass murder.

To remain silent makes one as guilty, as those perpetrators, who kill, or support the killing of innocent people.

Understanding Ukraine in 15 Minutes

By Mike Whitney

1.  Structural Changes in the Global Economy are often preceded by Great Crises and War

August 23, 2014  The world today is going through an overlap of a whole series of cyclical crises. The most serious of them is a technological crisis which is associated with changes in the wavelengths of economic development. We’re living in a period when the economy is changing its structure. The economic structure that has been driving economic growth for the last 30 years has exhausted itself. We need to make a transition to a new system of technologies. This kind of transition, unfortunately, has always come about through war. That’s how it was in the ’30s when the Great Depression gave way to an arms race and then the Second War World War. That’s how it was during the Cold War when an arms race in space gave rise to complex information and communication technologies which became the basis of a technological structure that has been driving the world’s economy for the last 30 years. Today we are faced with a similar crisis. The world is shifting to a new technological system.

2.  Putin pushes Free Trade Zone to ease transition to New Global Economy

The new system is humanitarian  in nature and thus could avoid a war because the main carriers of growth on this wavelength are humanitarian technologies. These include health care and pharmaceutical industries which are based in biotechnology. They also include communication technologies based on nanotechnology which is making a breakthrough today. And they involve cognitive technologies that define a new sum of human knowledge. If, as President Putin has been consistently putting forward, we were able to agree to a mutual program for development, a general development zone with a preferential trade regime from Lisbon to Vladivostok, if we were to agree with Brussels to create a common economic space, a common area of development, we could find a sufficient number of breakthrough projects, from health to repelling space threats, to fulfill our scientific and technical potential and creating a steady demand from the state. which would give a boost to the new technological system.

3  Washington sees War in Europe as best way to Preserve its Hegemony

However, America has taken its usual path.  To maintain their world dominance they are provoking another war in Europe. A war is always good for America. They even call the Second World War which killed 50 million people in Europe and Russia, a good war. It was good for America because the US emerged from this war as the world’s leading power. The Cold War which ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union was also good for them. Now the US again wants to maintain its leadership at the expense of Europe. US leadership is being threatened by a rapidly rising China. The world today is shifting to yet another cycle, this time political. This cycle lasts centuries and is associated with the global institutions of regulatory economics

We are now moving from the American cycle of capital accumulation to an Asian cycle. This is another crisis that is challenging US hegemony. To maintain their leading position in the face of competition with a rising China and other Asian countries Americans are starting  a war in Europe. They want to weaken Europe, break up Russia, and subjugate the entire Eurasian  continent. That is, instead of a development zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which is proposed by President Putin, the US wants to start a chaotic war on this territory, embroil all Europe in a war, devalue to European capital, write off its public debt, under the  burden of which the US is already falling apart, write off what they owe to Europe and Russia, subjugate our economic space and establish control over resources of the giant Eurasian continent. They believe that this is the only way they can maintain their hegemony and beat China.

Unfortunately the American geopolitics that we see playing out is exactly like the 19th century. They think in terms of the geopolitical struggles of the British Empire: divide and conquer. Pit nations against others, embroil them in conflict, and start a world war.  Americans, unfortunately, continue this old British policy to solve their problems. Russia has been chosen as a victim of this policy while the Ukrainian people are the weapon of choice, and cannon fodder in a new world war.

First the Americans decided to target Ukraine to separate it from Russia. This tactic came from Bismarck. This anti-Russian tradition aimed to embroil Russia in conflict in order to take over the whole Eurasian space. The strategy was first put forth by Bismark, then picked up by the British,, and then finally by the leading american political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said on many occasions that Russia cannot be a superpower without Ukraine and that embroiling Russia with Ukraine will benefit America and the West.

For the past 20 years Americans have been grooming Ukraine Nazism aimed at Russia. As you know they hosted remnants of Bandera the Second World War. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian Nazis were brought to America and have been carefully cultivated and nurtured during the whole post war period. This wave of immigrants descended on Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea of an eastern partnership was used as bait. It was first expressed by the Poles, and then picked up by the Americans. The essence of the eastern partnership, of which Georgia became the first victim. Now Ukraine has become one and soon Moldova will be one, to sever ties with Russia. As you know we are building the Customs Union, and a common economic space with Belarus and Kazakhstan which will soon be joined by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Ukraine has been our long term partner. Ukraine is still in the ratification stage of the agreement with Russia which no one in Ukraine has cancelled yet. Ukraine is important to us as part of our economic space and for our centuries long ties and cooperation. Our scientific and industrial complex was created as a whole, therefore, Ukraine’s participation in European integration is quite natural and vital. The eastern partnership was created to prevent Ukraine’s participation in the Eurasian integration project. The meaning of the eastern partnership is to create an association with the European union. What is the association that was signed by Poroshenko with the European leaders? It is the transformation of Ukraine into a colony. By signing the agreement with the association, Ukraine loses its sovereignty. It transfers control of its trade, customs, technical and financial regulation, and public procurement to Brussels.

4  The Ukrainian Nazi junta is an instrument of U.S. policy

Ukraine ceases to be a sovereign state in its economy and politics. It is clearly stated in the agreement that Ukraine is a junior partner in the European union. Ukraine must follow a common defense and foreign policy of the EU. Ukraine is obliged to participate in the resolution of regional conflicts under the leadership of the EU. Thus Poroshenko is making Ukraine a colony of the EU and pulling Ukraine into war with Russia as cannon fodder with the intention of igniting a war in Europe. The purpose of the association agreement is to allow the European countries to govern Ukraine in the settlement of regional conflicts.  What is happening in Donbass is a regional armed conflict. The goal of American politics is to create as many victims as possible. The Ukrainian Nazi junta is an instrument of this policy. They are carrying out mindless atrocities and crimes bombing cities killing civilians,  women and children, and forcing them to leave their homes, only to provoke Russia and then draw the whole of Europe into a war.  This is Poroshenk’s mission. This is why Poroshenko is rejecting any peace negotiations and blocking all peace treaties. He interprets any statement by Washington about de-escalation of the conflict as an order to escalate it. All peace talks which have taken place on the international level have brought a new round of violence.

We must understand that we are dealing with a Nazi state which is dead set on a war with Russia and has declared general conscription. The entire male population between 18 and 55 has been put under arms. Those who refuse will get 15 years in jail. This Nazi criminal power makes criminals of the entire Ukrainian population.

5  Washington is plunging Europe into War for its own Interests

We have calculated the the European economy will lose about 1 trillion Euros for sanctions which are imposed on them by the Americans.  This is a huge sum. The Europeans are already bearing the losses. There’s already a drop in sales to Russia. Germany is losing about 200 billion euros. Our most rabid friends from the Baltic states will suffer the worst losses. The loss to Estonia will be more than its GDP. The loss to Latvia will be about half its GDP. But that isn’t stopping them. European politicians are going along with the Americans without questioning what they are doing. They are harming themselves by provoking Nazism and war. I have already said that Russia and Ukraine are the victims of this war which is being fomented by the Americans. But Europe is also a victim because the war aims to target European welfare and to destabilize Europe. Americans expect the European capital and brain drain to America will continue. That’s why they are setting all of Europe on fire. It’s very strange that European leaders are going along with them.

6  Germany is still Occupied Territory

We should not just hope that European leaders (will develop an independent policy) we must work with European leaders from a new generation who are free from the American diktat. The fact that anti Soviet political elite had been formed during the post Cold War years in Europe. Then they very quickly became anti Russian. Despite the dramatically expanded economic ties and huge mutual economic interests between Europe and Russia, the Russophobia is based on anti Sovietism and still remains in the minds of many European politicians. It will take a new generation of pragmatic European politicians to understand their own national interests. What we see today is politicians who are acting against their national interests. This is largely due to the fact that Germany, which is the engine of European growth, is still an occupied country. American troops are still in Germany, and every German chancellor still gives an oath of allegiance to the Americans to follow in the footsteps of their policy. This generation of European politicians has failed to throw off  the yoke of American occupation.

7  Nazism is on the Rise

Although the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, they maniacally continue to follow Washington, in NATO expansion and capture new territories under their control. Despite the fact that they are already “allergic” to the new eastern European members of the EU. The European Union is already bursting at the seams, but this does not stop them from continuing their aggressive expansion into post Soviet territory.  The new generation, I hope, will be more pragmatic. The last elections in the European parliament show that not everyone is fooled by this pro American anti Russia propaganda and by the constant stream of lies that are coming down on the European people. Traditional European parties lost in recent elections in the euro parliament. The more we speak the truth, the greater the reaction will be, because what’s happening in Ukraine is the revival of Nazism. Europe remembers the signs of the revival of fascism from the lessons of the Second World War. We need to awaken this historical memory so that they see in the Ukrainian Nazis, who are now in power in Kiev, the followers of Bandera, Shukhevych, and other Nazi collaborators. The ideology of the current Ukrainian authorities, has its roots in the ideology of Hitlers accomplices who shot Jews at Babi Yar, burned Ukrainians and Belarusians and annihilated everyone without ethnic distinction. This Nazism is rising today. Europeans must recognize their own death in this terrible confrontation.

I hope if we continue to spread the truth, we will be able to save Europe from the threat of war. Source

Aug 21, 2014

Sea of Palestinian Flags at the Brooklyn Bridge

 

More on the above story HERE

 

 

 

 

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Ukraine: Truth and Fiction

What are we suppose to believe?

Who is behind all the violence and the coup?

Where did some of the protesters come from?

When did this plan begin?

Why would anyone want to create a mess in the Ukraine?

Those are just a few of the questions, we need answers to.

For some of those answers I myself only have to look at the events now and those that lead up to the events in:

Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Etc Etc

The same people are behind the Protesters in Venezuela as well. Yet another country that “guess who hates”?

Fake protesters are not, a new thing.

Lies, are not a new thing.

The countries who do not want to be be apart of the Guess who’s agenda are always the targets of, guess who’s lies and propaganda?

They are always demonized etc etc etc.

That is the oldest ploy on the planet. Anyone with a single brain cell would figure it out in a heart beat.

The Ukraine crisis through the whimsy of international law

Money and hard power count, and that’s that

By Neil Macdonald, CBC News

Mar 05, 2014 5:00 AM ET  Updated: Mar 06, 2014 2:44 PM ET

 

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with reporters on the possibility of U.S. sanctions against Russia for intervening in Ukraine before meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office on Monday. (Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)

Listening to U.S. President Barack Obama bang on this week about the importance of world opinion and obeying international law and respecting sovereignty and being on the right side of history, you had to wonder whether he didn’t have a little voice in his head whispering: “Really? Seriously? I’m actually saying this stuff?”

This is the commander-in-chief of a military that operates a prison camp on Cuban soil, against the explicit wishes of the Cuban government, and which regularly fires drone missiles into other countries, often killing innocent bystanders.

He is a president who ordered that CIA torturers would go unprosecuted, and leads a nation that has invaded other countries whenever it wished, regardless of what the rest of the world might think.

Disclaimer here: Vladimir Putin’s proclaimed justification for invading Ukraine — protecting Russian-speaking “compatriots” in that country from some imagined violence — stinks of tribalism.

His rationale is essentially ethnic nationalism, something responsible for so much of the evil done throughout human history.

Stated motivation aside, though, what Putin is doing is really no different from what other world powers do: protecting what they regard as national self-interest.

And so far, he’s done it without bloodletting.

Imagine, for a moment, what Washington would do if, say, Bahrain’s Shia population, covertly supported by Tehran, staged a successful uprising and began to push itself into Iran’s orbit.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain, just as Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is parked at its huge naval bases in the Crimea.

To pose the scenario is to answer the question of how America would react.

The same goes for all the other countries in America’s political realm. The Philippines, South Korea, certain Persian Gulf nations. Imagine if Russia’s military tried to return to Cuba.

The order of things

There is an order of things; it is disturbed at the world’s peril.

And Ukraine, for better or worse — decidedly worse, those in the western portion of the country will tell you — has for centuries been in Russia’s sphere.

Crimea, the region of Ukraine now occupied by Russia, was part of the Soviet Union and was deeded to Ukraine in 1954 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of a treaty that bonded much of Ukraine to Tsarist Russia.

To suggest, as European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso did this week, that Ukrainians “have shown that they belong culturally, emotionally but also politically to Europe,” is just wishful thinking, even if some Ukrainians wish it were true.

Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was right when he pointed out that many of the countries denouncing Putin’s intervention were actively involved in encouraging anti-Russia Ukrainians to overthrow an elected, if distasteful, president and government.

Victoria Nuland, a senior American diplomat, was caught in flagrante delicto a few weeks back, chatting with another American official about which Ukrainian opposition figures should and shouldn’t be installed.

Washington’s reply: It was unconscionable of Russia to intercept and leak that discussion.

More angry flailings

Incidentally, some of the Ukrainian opposition groups that have now ended up in power are thuggish, anti-Semitic, anti-Russian, extreme right-wingers.

Putin’s description of them — ultranationalists — was mild. You just wouldn’t know it listening to Western politicians.

In Obama’s case, sitting beside him on Monday as he gave his lecture on international law from the Oval Office was close ally Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli prime minister, having just engaged in a protracted, robust handshake for the cameras, presides over a country that operates a military occupation in the West Bank, an occupation that includes Israeli settlements, which violate the international law Obama was demanding Putin obey.

The U.S. insists that Israel’s occupation can only be solved by respectful negotiation between the parties themselves, and it vehemently opposes punishing Israel with the sort of moves currently being contemplated against Russia.

It’s easy to go on and on in this vein — Britain’s prime minister, who leads a nation that helped invade Iraq on a false pretext, denouncing Putin’s pretext for going into Crimea. The NATO powers that helped bring about the independence of Albanian Kosovars complaining about the separatist aspirations of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, etc.

But that’s diplomacy. Hypocritical declarations and acts are woven into its essence.

What’s remarkable is the unspoken pact among the Western news media to report it all so uncritically.

When Obama spoke, the gaggle of reporters in attendance rushed to report his statements, mostly at face value.

Likewise, Western news reports seriously reported Russia’s ridiculous threat to end the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as though Russia’s creditors will begin to accept rubles at whatever exchange rate Putin decrees.

On TV and in print, we hear serious talk about the possibility of economic sanctions against Russia — which would only trigger a devastating trade back-blast against European economies.

Other media analysts agree with the angry flailings of U.S. foreign policy hawks, who seem to think Obama should be much more aggressive with Putin, although they have few concrete suggestions. (A frustrated Senator John McCain demanded that rich Russians be barred from Las Vegas.)

The unspoken media-government arrangement is understandable, I suppose.

We must at least pretend there’s international law and fairness and basic rules, because it reassures us that we live in a world where raw power doesn’t ultimately rule.

But it’s all just gibberish; through the looking glass. We might as well be reporting that slithy toves gyre and gimble in the wabe.

Money and hard power count, and that’s that. The big players have it, and the smaller players play along. If we need the anaesthetic liquor of self-delusion to deal with it, well, drink up.

Clarifications An earlier version of this article did not specify that it is the Israeli settlements in the West Bank that are considered a violation of international law. Mar 06, 2014 2:43 PM ET   Source

Mercenaries took part in Maidan violence – Ex-Ukraine security chief

March 13 2014

There is no doubt there were mercenaries at Maidan, the former head of Ukraine’s security service, Aleksandr Yakimenko, says.

The violence on Maidan which caused almost 100 deaths was organized by some opposition leaders who poured Western money and resources into the coup, Yakimenko told the Russia-1 TV channel. Now Major General Alexander Yakimenko is in the top five of Maidan’s hit list. He made it to that list while he was still in his office in Kiev.

Q: How did you manage to escape?

Aleksandr Yakimenko: I am a Security Service officer.

Q: Where did those snipers come from?

AY: First shots were fired from the Philharmonic building. Maidan Commandant Parubiy was in charge of the building. On February 20, this building was used as a base by the snipers and people with automatic weapons. They basically covered those who were attacking the demoralized policemen running in panic, hunted down like animals. They were followed by armed people with different kinds of weapons. At that point, somebody opened fire at those who attacked the police, and some of them were killed. All this fire was coming from the Philharmonic building. After this first round of fire, about 20 people came out of this building – this was witnessed by many. These people wore special combat clothes and carried sniper rifle cases, as well as AKMs with scopes. There were witnesses, and not just our operatives, but also Maidan activists from Svoboda, Right Sector, Batkivshchyna, and UDAR.

The snipers split into two groups – 10 men each. The Security Service lost track of one of the groups. The other group took a position at the Ukraine hotel. Killings continued. In the beginning, when the shots were scattered, I was asked by Right Sector and Svoboda to mobilize a Special Forces unit and remove the snipers from the buildings.

Q: They asked you?

AY: Yes, Right Sector and Svoboda. I was ready to do that, but I needed Parubiy’s [he is now now the Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine in the Turchinov-Yatsenyuk government] permission to enter Maidan. Otherwise our officers would’ve been attacked by the self-defense forces in the back. Parubiy didn’t give such permission. No weapons could be brought to Maidan without Parubiy’s permission. Hand guns, rifles, scopes – he had to agree to all of that. We had some intel about discharged Ukrainian army special forces participating in those activities. Some reports claimed that these were fighters from former Yugoslavia, as well as mercenaries from other countries.

Q: So you think they were mercenaries?

AY: No doubt. Parubiy removed himself from the picture. This affected the events of the last week. He joined Poroshenko. Gvozd, Malamuzh, and Gritsenko. These forces did what they were told by their bosses – the US. They basically lived in the embassy. They were there every day.

Q: Is it true that Nalivaichenko allowed the CIA agents to work in the Security Service building?

AY: Yes, that’s true. He also handed personal files of his own employees over to the CIA agents to study. But their mission was interrupted by an armed coup. The Maidan do not appoint these people; rather, it’s the US that does it. It’s enough to look at the newly appointed officials: Parubiy, Gvozd, Nalyvaichenko are all people who followed somebody else’s orders, the orders of the US, not even Europe. They are directly linked to the American intelligence. They sought to delay the negotiations and prevent the incumbent president from striking a deal with Russia and Russia from helping to prop up the social and economic order in Ukraine. After that they were planning to depose the president and integrate Ukraine into Europe, using Russian money. Who was troubled by the victory of the EU and the pro-integration forces? Only the US. It was the only country concerned over a possible alliance of Europe, Russia and Ukraine. The Customs Union and the connection between Russia and Ukraine did not sit well with their plans, either.

They’d been doing it ever since Yushchenko was president, and we couldn’t get rid of them. Once we started to put pressure, they relocated to Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The most interesting part is that many regional governments spent budget money to pay for the so-called vyshkoli, i.e. training camps for militants to fight with various types of weapons.

All the orders were given either by the US embassy or by Jan Tombinski, a Polish representative who worked in the EU mission in Kiev. Poland played an invaluable role in the coup. It has always dreamt of restoring its former power and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Ever since the Maidan kicked off, our security service registered a dramatic increase in diplomatic correspondence coming in to various Western embassies in Kiev. There is one more mystery. Straight after this influx of correspondence we saw some foreign money at the Maidan and in Kiev exchange bureaus: the new, re-designed US dollar bank notes.

Q: So they were bringing in cash?

AY: Yes. Poroshenko, Firtash, Pinchuk – they all poured money into the Maidan. With all their assets in foreign banks, they found themselves trapped. So they had to follow orders from the West. All they were supposed to do was back the Maidan; otherwise they would have lost all their assets. They were thinking about their money rather than their own country. Unfortunately we couldn’t prevent the casualties, the people, mainly those who had come from the Western regions, were sent into the line of fire. The Maidan militants had left the barricades after the sniper fire started. But time will set the record straight.

The whole story has affected the Berkut guys, the Internal Troops, the Security Service, too. But ordinary Ukrainians have suffered as well. And I don’t think they should have sacrificed their lives for Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, Poroshenko and others to take their posts. Ukrainians have lots of patience. But one day they will run out of it and remove them from power. I hope that happens soon enough. Source

There were  Ex-IDF Soldiers from Israel, helping the protesters along their merry way.

Ukraine: Israeli Special Forces Unit under Neo-Nazi Command Involved in Maidan Riots

Under the title “In Kiev, an Israeli army vet led a street-fighting unit”, the Jewish News Agency JTA confirms that soldiers from the IDF were involved in the EuroMaidan protest movement under the direct command of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party.  The Svoboda Party follows in the footsteps of World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

The leader of the “Blue Helmets of Maidan” is Delta “the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution”. Delta is a Veteran of the notorious Givati infantry brigade, which was involved in numerous operations directed against Gaza including Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009.

The Givati brigade was responsible for the massacres in the Tel el-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza. Delta, the leader of the EuroMaidan IDF unit acknowledges that he acquired his urban combat skills in the Shu’alei Shimshon reconnaissance battalion of the Givati brigade.

According to the JTA report, Delta was in command of a force of 40 men and women including several former IDF veterans. In the EuroMaidan, Delta was routinely applying his skills of urban warfare which he had used against the Palestinians in Gaza.

The Maidan “Street fighting unit” under Delta’s command was involved in confronting government forces. It is unclear from the reports whether the EuroMaidan combat unit was in liaison with IDF command headquarters in Israel:

The Blue Helmets comprise 35 men and women who are not Jewish, and who are led by five ex-IDF soldiers, says Delta, an Orthodox Jew in his late 30s

Delta, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s, moved back to Ukraine several years ago … He says he joined the protest movement as a volunteer on Nov. 30, after witnessing violence by government forces against student protesters.

“I saw unarmed civilians with no military background being ground by a well-oiled military machine, and it made my blood boil,” Delta told JTA in Hebrew laced with military jargon. “I joined them then and there, and I started fighting back the way I learned how, through urban warfare maneuvers. People followed, and I found myself heading a platoon of young men. Kids, really.”

The other ex-IDF infantrymen joined the Blue Helmets later after hearing it was led by a fellow vet, Delta said.

In a bitter irony, Delta, the commander of the IDF militia unit was taking his orders directly from the Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda:

As platoon leader, Delta says he takes orders from activists connected to Svoboda, an ultra-nationalist [Neo-Nazi] party that has been frequently accused of anti-Semitism and whose members have been said to have had key positions in organizing the opposition protests.

“I don’t belong [to Svoboda], but I take orders from their team. They know I’m Israeli, Jewish and an ex-IDF soldier. They call me ‘brother,’” he said. “What they’re saying about Svoboda is exaggerated, I know this for a fact. I don’t like them because they’re inconsistent, not because of [any] anti-Semitism issue.”

Neither the Tel Aviv government nor the Israeli media have expressed concern regarding the fact that the EuroMaidan protests were led by Neo-Nazis.

With the formation of a new government composed of NeoNazis,  the Jewish community in Kiev is threatened.  This community is described as “one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, with dozens of active Jewish organizations and institutions”. A significant part of this community is made up of family members of holocaust survivors. “Three million Ukrainians were murdered by the Nazis during their occupation of Ukraine, including 900,000 Jews.” (indybay.org, January 29, 2014).

“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests”

In a bitter twist, the Blue Helmet IDF unit in the EuroMaidan has been the object of praise by the Israeli media. According to Ariel Cohen of the Washington based Heritage Foundation: “The commanding position of Svoboda in the revolution is no secret”. The participation of Israeli soldiers under Neo-Nazi Svoboda command does not seem to be an object of concern:

On Wednesday, Russian State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin said Moscow was concerned about anti-Semitic declarations by radical groups in Ukraine.But Delta says the Kremlin is using the anti-Semitism card falsely to delegitimize the Ukrainian revolution, which is distancing Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence.

“It’s bullshit. I never saw any expression of anti-Semitism during the protests, and the claims to the contrary were part of the reason I joined the movement. We’re trying to show that Jews care,” he said.

See Svoboda and Right Sector militants honoring Stepan Bandera(image below)

Bandera was a Nazi collaborator involved in the Third Reich’s Einsatzgruppen (Task Groups or Deployment Groups) . These “task forces” were paramilitary death squads deployed throughout the Ukraine.

The JTA article can be consulted at www.jta.org/2014/02/28/news-opinion/world/in-kiev-an-israeli-militia-commander-fights-in-the-streets-and-saves-lives#ixzz2uvYcMBEl

For Photo’s go to the Source

This was also reported by Haaretz  If google it.

The ex-Israeli soldier who led a Kiev fighting unit – World Israel …

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.577114‎

Feb 28, 2014 – Delta, a Ukraine-born formerCrimea soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, spoke to JTA Thursday on condition of anonymity.

Now lets get back to the Russia side of the story.

They did not invade anyone.

The have a military base and have every right to be in Crimea.

They have an agreement with the Ukraine Government to have the base there and have for a long time.

Saying the Russian invaded Crimea is the most foolish thing, anyone could ever say. They have every right to be there.

Unlike the US who has massive amounts of Military bases all over the world. Russia did not invade the Ukraine to get one.

If you look back over history odds are the US invades a country like Afghanistan and leaves behind Military bases.

The one in Japan is still there as a classic example.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

More than 1000 US Bases and/or Military Installations around the world.

The main sources of information on these military installations (e.g. C. Johnson, the NATO Watch Committee, the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases) reveal that the US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide.

In this regard, Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002  Map 1 entitled “U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, confirms the presence of US military personnel in 156 countries.

The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries.

In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.

These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

Go to the Source for the rest of the story. Source

____________________________________________________________________________

The US Has Invaded 70 Nations Since 1776

Go to Source for where and when.

Source

So if you take the time to compare invasions to Military Bases, Naval Bases, etc, you will be rather well educated. You will discover many were left after the countries were invaded one way or the other.

Now back to Russia.

They did not invade to get their Military base in the Ukraine.

They can have up to 26,000 troops, at said Military Base, as per the agreement  with the Ukraine.

Country	Type of presence	Troop strength
Abkhazia	Base on the site of the former Bombora airfield, near Gudauta (7th Military Base)[2]	up to 3,500[2]
Armenia	Air base in Yerevan, military base in Gyumri (102nd Military Base)[3]	3,214[3] or 5,000 according to another source.[4]
Azerbaijan	Daryal radar station in Qabala.[3] Operational from 1985 to 2013 and part of Russia’s early warning system. Russia paid an annual rent of $7 million to Azerbaijan.[1][5] In 2013, the station was closed and Russia no longer rents it from Azerbaijan.[6]	900
Belarus	Volga-type radar station near Hantsavichy and Baranovichi (operational since 2002).[1][5]Naval communication center near Vileyka.[3]	850
Kazakhstan	Dnepr radar station in at Balkhash-9 near Lake Balkash.[1][3][7] Sary Shagan testing grounds.[8][9] Baikonur Cosmodrome.[10][11]	Unknown
Kyrgyzstan	Air base in Kant,[3] naval testing station at Lake Issyk Kul[12]	ca 700
South Ossetia	The Russian 4th Military Base has 2 main compounds in South Ossetia: one on the northwestern outskirts of Tskhinvali and another in Java. There is also a large number of troops stationed in the Leningor District.[2]	up to 3,500[2]
Syria	Logistical facilities of the navy in Tartus[3]	150[3]
Tajikistan	Military bases in Dushanbe, Qurghonteppa and Kulab. Joint use of the Ayni Air Base.[3] Okno space facility near Nurak.[13]	5,500[3]
Transnistria	Peacekeeping force and forces for protection of ammunition depots[3]	1,500[3]
Ukraine	Base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol[3]	26,000[3]
Vietnam	Logistics base in the port of Cam Ranh Bay [14]. Although military presence had been diminishing for several years, in 2013 Russia and Vietnam signed a new military cooperation agreement [15].	unknown

//

 Source

Most of those Bases are because of the former USSR and after the break up of it, remain with Russia, as it stands today.

The list above may or may not be complete or totally accurate but when compared to the US ones it seems Russia it not trotting about the planet, invading and leaving Military bases behind in their wake like the US does.

If you take further notes it seems the US/Israel also tend to create problems in countries that Russia has military bases in as well.

A bit of History will tell you that. Syria and the Ukraine being the latest,

This is not rocket science or anything.

This is pure logic.

The media frenzy to attack Russia is typical of all US, creations of demonetization. Of course they are not telling the truth. They never do.

Like the “Weapons of Mass Destruction Iraq never had” lest you forget.

Libya well that was so fabricated one would have to be completely brain dead not to see what was going on.

In both the above cases for example neither wanted to use the US dollar to get paid for oil they sold. One wanted Gold and the other wanted to use the Euro.

Both killing offenses as far as the US is concerned how dare anyone, not use the US dollar. Threaten that the US will make certain you die and they of course did. Now that is what a real dictator does.

The real dictator around the world is who exactly. Who dictates to every country what they can or cannot do. Who wants to sanction everyone if they do not obey the mighty US.

So before you are coned into yet another needless war I suggest everyone get extremely well educated.

You are of course going to have to hunt long and hard to fine the truth amongst the garbage spewed by the main stream media. Of course they are spewing all the same stuff they do about every country they want to demonize so it is not all that difficult to see the similarities and send it ti the trash bin. Where of course all junk mail belongs.

There are some out there who are telling the truth of what is really happening.

Happy hunting.

Oh and watch out for the usual paid trolls who love to hate Russia, Iran etc.

They are out in droves these days spewing their typical lies as well.

Their job is to spread misinformation. I have seen them all over the place dropping their propaganda.

The IMF wants to help Ukraine.

Sure they do so everything can be privatized, by corporations and steal every penny, they can squeeze out the people.

That is what the IMF does.

They never help anyone. If you believe they do, then you need a better education. Their history says it all.

The rich get richer and the poor, get extremely poor. Many die and many committed suicide, due to the horrors imposed on them by the IMF. If you loose your health care due to the IMF even more die.

Look at Greece as one example. Look at the hunger, the homelessness, the unemployed, the malaria, etc etc. You don’t have to look to hard to see what Austerity means. Much of the EU suffers from Austerity.

Austerity = Death and Poverty.

If the IMF wants to help your country run as fast as you can for cover.

They will see to it you are starved and desperate for a very long time.

They will help Corporations, steal everything from you.

If the Ukraine thinks it has poverty problems now, the IMF will make it much worse.  They can kiss, what little they have goodbye.

Let a Corporation like Monsanto into your country and you can end up will thousands committing suicide, like the cotton farmers in India.

That is but one American Corporation. Imagine having a lot of them, taking over things, in your country.

In South America in one country, cancer has skyrocketed, due to Round Up use on Soya fields.

But I know nothing. So don’t listen to me, go find out for yourself.

It’s all out there for the world to see and find.

If I can find it all, you can too.

Don’t however get sucked into another needless war.

Don’t let your children fight for the American agenda.

Say no to more war. Tell the warmongers and those who profit from war, to take a long hike, off a short peer. If you want to kill something, kill the war machine.

Don’t let your governments who ever they may be, lead you into another war, where your children die for all the wrong reasons.

Lets never let another Iraq happen.

Don’t believe the lies.

A war with Russia will become another world war.

Millions, if not billions will die. You or your children, could be the ones who die.

Related

The World Bank and IMF in Africa

Crimea vs. Quebec: The Legal Right to a Referendum on Self-Determination
By Professor John Ryan
March 12, 2014

There has been a great hue and cry by the USA, Ukraine and other countries about the supposed illegality of the proposed referendum by Crimea on its future political status. They indignantly proclaim that this is a violation of international law.

Amazingly, have Obama and the leaders of these other countries never heard of the situation in Canada with regard to Quebec? Quebec, as a province of Canada, has held two referenda (1980 and 1995) on the matter of independence from Canada . . . and a third referendum may be in the works in the near future.

Quebec never had to get permission from Canada’s federal government to hold a referendum, and no one ever questioned the legality of Quebec’s referendum.

Crimea is an autonomous region within Ukraine and seems to have the same rights as a Canadian province. So if it is perfectly legal for a province such as Quebec to hold a referendum on independence, why would it not be legal for Crimea to do the same? At no time did the USA object to Quebec holding a referendum on independence, so why the big brouhaha over Crimea? Moreover, what business would it be for the USA to have such objections – for Quebec or Crimea?

The UN charter gives people the right to self-determination and by virtue of that right they are free to determine their political status. Quebec in Canada has exercised that right, and there should be no reason why Crimea could not do the same.

John Ryan,  Ph.D., Retired Professor of Geography and Senior Scholar, University of Winnipeg, Canada. Source

Let the People of  Crimea decide their own fate.

Added March 15, 2014

Criminal Regime In Washington

By Paul Craig Roberts

March 14, 2014

The Washington orchestrated coup in Ukraine has kept Venezuela out of the headlines.

A confrontation with nuclear armed Russia is more dangerous than with Venezuela. But the violence that Washington has unleashed on Venezuela almost simultaneously with Ukraine is testimony to Washington’s stark criminality.

South America has always consisted of a tiny Spanish elite with all the money and power ruling over large majority populations of indigenous peoples who have not had political representation. In Venezuela, Chavez broke this pattern. An indigenous president was elected who represented the people and worked in their behalf instead of looting the country. Chavez became a role model, and indigenous presidents were elected in Ecuador and Bolivia.

Chavez was hated by Washington and demonized by American presstitutes. When Chavez died of cancer, Washington celebrated.

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, was inclined in favor of granting asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Consequently, Washington ordered its European puppet states to deny overflight permission to President Morales’ airplane on its return to Bolivia from Russia. Morales’ airplane, in violation of every diplomatic protocol, was forced down and searched. Morales has since suffered other indignities at the hands of the Washington criminals.

Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, made himself a target of Washington by granting political asylum to Julian Assange. On Washington’s orders, Washington’s British puppet state has refused to grant free passage to Assange, and Assange is spending his life in the London Embassy of Ecuador, just as Cardinal Mindszenty spent his life in the US Embassy in Communist Hungary.

With Chavez’s death, indigenous Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro became president. Maduro does not have Chavez’s charisma, which makes him an easier target for the tiny Spanish elite that owns the media.

Washington began the attack on Maduro by attacking the Venezuelan currency and driving down its value in currency markets. Then university students, many of whom are the children of the rich Spanish elites, were sent out to protest. The falling Venezuelan currency raised prices and spread dissatisfaction among Maduro’s poor indigenous base. To put down the rioting, property damage, and unrest that Washington is using to launch a coup, Maduro had to turn to the police. Secretary of State John Kerry has labeled the government’s effort to reestablish public order and forestall a coup a “terror campaign against its own citizens.”

Having orchestrated the protests and plotted a coup, Kerry blamed Maduro for the violence that Kerry unleashed and called on Maduro “to respect human rights.”

For Washington, it is always the same script. Commit a crime and blame the victim.

If Washington can overthrow Maduro, the next target will be Correa. If Washington can get rid of Correa and re-empower a puppet government of rich Spanish elites, Washington can have the Ecuadoran government revoke the political asylum that Correa granted to Julian Assange. The Ecuadoran Embassy in London will be ordered to kick Assange out into the waiting arms of the British police who will send him to Sweden who will send him to Washington to be tortured until he confesses to whatever Washington demands.

The poor gullible dupes demonstrating in Venezuelan streets have no more idea of the damage they are doing to themselves and others than their counterparts in Ukraine had. Venezuelans have already forgot what life for them was like under the rule of the Spanish elites. It appears that Venezuelans are determined to help Washington to return them to their servitude.

If Washington reconquers Venezuela and Ecuador, Bolivia will be next. Then Brazil. Washington has its sights on Brazil, because the country is a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and Washington intends to destroy this organization before the countries can establish a trading bloc that does not use the US
dollar.

Not long ago a US official said that as soon as we (Washington) get Russia in a bind, we will deal with the upstarts in South America.

The program is on schedule.

See also – Venezuela’s foreign minister calls Kerry ‘murderer’: Venezuela’s foreign minister lambasted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday as a “murderer” fomenting unrest that has killed 28 people in the South American OPEC member nation. Source

NATO bombings: Aftermath takes toll on Serbia, now left with DU Poisoning

Ukrainian Government in Action: Egg Throwing? Smoke Bombs? Wrestling?

Ukrainian opposition lobs eggs, smoke bombs in Parliament

Controversial deal to extend Russian lease at heart of controversy

April 27, 2010

The speaker in Ukraine’s parliament had to take cover behind an umbrella while opposition politicians pelted him with eggs and lobbed smoke bombs inside the chamber during a debate over the extension of a lease for a Russian naval base on Ukrainian soil. The government in Kiev eventually ratified the 25-year extension in order to secure discounts on supplies of Russian gas. However, as the brawling in the legislative chamber showed, the deal is meeting fierce opposition from pro-Western politicians in Ukraine. The pro-Russian government says the agreement will help Ukraine secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund, but former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said the day would instead “go down as a black page in the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian parliament.” Source

This is the new way of running Government.  Somehow this is wrong  on every level, but  one has to smile at the oddness of it all.

Seems the opposition got into a bit of a tussle. My  how interesting it all is.  This beats a filibusters  in the US for sure. They were having so much more fun.  Americans could learn from this.

This fellow is Rising to the occasion. Seems the others are not to concerned about him. Boys will be boys.

The smoking section. Working on a large project. Well at least one of them is working.

I am pretty sure they took up wrestling. Well they might be just hugging.

There are 24 “priceless” photos in all. Check HERE for the rest of them.

Somehow the photos are better then the videos. They say so much more for some odd reason.

Video of smoke bomb egg fight in Ukraine parliament

They were even considerate enough to cover much of the furniture in an a attempt to keep it safe. How sweet.

Something a bit more serious.

Nice to see how civilized the Pro Westerners are?

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141 states support Depleted Uranium Ban

Campaign Against Depleted Uranium

Sign Petition to Ban DU

What is DU?

• Depleted Uranium is a waste product of the nuclear enrichment process.
• After natural uranium has been ‘enriched’ to concentrate the isotope U235 for use in nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons, what remains is DU.
• The process produces about 7 times more DU than enriched uranium.

Despite claims that DU is much less radioactive than natural uranium, it actually emits about 75% as much radioactivity. It is very dense and when it strikes armour it burns (it is ‘pyrophoric’). As a waste product, it is stockpiled by nuclear states, which then have an interest in finding uses for it.

DU is used as the ‘penetrator’ – a long dart at the core of the weapon – in armour piercing tank rounds and bullets. It is usually alloyed with another metal. When DU munitions strike a hard target the penetrator sheds around 20% of its mass, creating a fine dust of DU, burning at extremely high temperatures.

This dust can spread 400 metres from the site immediately after an impact. It can be resuspended by human activity, or by the wind, and has been reported to have travelled twenty-five miles on air currents. The heat of the DU impact and secondary fires means that much of the dust produced is ceramic, and can remain in the lungs for years if inhaled.

Who uses it?
At least 18 countries are known to have DU in their arsenals:

• UK
• US
• France
• Russia
• China
• Greece
• Turkey
• Thailand
• Taiwan
• Israel
• Bahrain
• Egypt
• Kuwait
• Saudi Arabia
• India
• Belarus
• Pakistan
• Oman

Most of these countries were sold DU by the US, although the UK, France and Pakistan developed it independently.

Only the US and the UK are known to have fired it in warfare. It was used in the 1991 Gulf War, in the 2003 Iraq War, and also in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s and during the NATO war with Serbia in 1999. While its use has been claimed in a number of other conflicts, this has not been confirmed.

Health Problems

• DU is both chemically toxic and radioactive. In laboratory tests it damages human cells, causing DNA mutations and other carcinogenic effects.
• Reports of increased rates of cancer and birth defects have consistently followed DU usage.
• Representatives from both the Serbian and Iraqi governments have linked its use with health problems amongst civilians.
• Many veterans remain convinced DU is responsible for health problems they have experienced since combat

Information from animal studies suggests DU may cause several different kinds of cancer. In rats, DU in the blood-stream builds up in the kidneys, bone, muscles, liver, spleen, and brain. In other studies it has been shown to cross both the blood-brain barrier and the placenta, with obvious implications for the health of the foetus. In general, the effects of DU will be more severe for women and children than for healthy men.

In 2008 a study by the Institute of Medicine in the US listed medical conditions that were a high priority to study for possible links with DU exposure: cancers of the lung, testes and kidney; lung disease; nervous system disorders; and reproductive and developmental problems.

Epidemiology
What is missing from the picture is large-scale epidemiological studies on the effects of DU – where negative health effects match individuals with exposure to DU. None of the studies done on the effects on soldiers have been large enough to make meaningful conclusions. No large scale studies have been done on civilian populations.

In the case of Iraq, where the largest volume of DU has been fired, the UK and US governments are largely responsible for the conditions which have made studies of the type required impossible. Despite this, these same governments use the scientific uncertainties to maintain that it is safe, and that concerns about it are misplaced.

However, in cases where human health is in jeopardy, a precautionary approach should prevail. Scientific scepticism should prevent a hazardous course of action from being taken until safety is assured. To allow it to continue until the danger has been proved beyond dispute is an abuse of the principle of scientific caution.

Environmental Impacts
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has studied some of the sites contaminated by DU in the Balkans, but it has only been able to produce a desk study on Iraq. Bullets and penetrators made of DU that do not hit armour become embedded in the ground and corrode away, releasing material into the environment.

It is not known what will happen to DU in the long term in such circumstances. The UNEP mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina found DU in drinking water, and could still detect it in the air after seven years – the longest period of time a study has been done after the end of a conflict.

Uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years, so DU released into the environment will be a hazard for unimaginable timescales.

Decontaminating sites where DU has been used requires detailed scrutiny and monitoring, followed by the removal and reburial of large amounts of soil and other materials. Monitoring of groundwater for contamination is also advised by UNEP. CADU calls for the cost of cleaning up and decontaminating DU affected sites to be met by the countries responsible for the contamination.

The Campaign
CADU is a founder member of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) – now comprising over 102 member organisations in 27 countries.

CADU and ICBUW campaign for a precautionary approach: there is significant evidence that DU is dangerous, and faced with scientific uncertainty the responsible course of action is for it not to be used. To this end CADU and ICBUW are working towards an international treaty that bans the use of uranium in weapons akin to those banning cluster bombs and landmines.

Through the efforts of campaigners worldwide the use of DU has been condemned by four resolutions in the European Parliament, been the subject of an outright ban in Belgium, and brought onto the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly.

Source

Sign Petition to Ban DU

International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons

141 states support second uranium weapons resolution in UN General Assembly vote

The United Nations General Assembly has passed, by a huge majority, a resolution requesting its agencies to update their positions on the health and environmental effects of uranium weapons.

December 2 2008

The resolution, which had passed the First Committee stage on October 31st by 127 states to four, calls on three UN agencies – the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to update their positions on uranium weapons. The overwhelming support for the text reflects increasing international concern over the long-term impact of uranium contamination in post-conflict environments and military ranges.

In the 17 years since uranium weapons were first used on a large scale in the 1991 Gulf War, a huge volume of peer-reviewed research has highlighted previously unknown pathways through which exposure to uranium’s heavy metal toxicity and radioactivity may damage human health.
Throughout the world, parliamentarians have responded by supporting calls for a moratorium and ban, urging governments and the military to take a precautionary approach. However the WHO and IAEA have been slow to react to this wealth of new evidence and it is hoped that this resolution will go some way to resolving this situation.

In a welcome move, the text requests that all three agencies work closely with countries affected by the use of uranium weapons in compiling their research. Until now, most research by UN member states has focused on exposure in veterans and not on the civilian populations living in contaminated areas. Furthermore, recent investigations into US veteran studies have found them to be wholly incapable of producing useful data.

The text also repeats the request for states to submit reports and opinions on uranium weapons to the UN Secretary General in the process that was started by last year’s resolution. Thus far, 19 states have submitted reports to the Secretary General; many of them call for action on uranium weapons and back a precautionary approach. It also places the issue on the agenda of the General Assembly’s 65th Session; this will begin in September 2010.

The First Committee vote saw significant voting changes in comparison to the previous year’s resolution, with key EU and NATO members such as the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Iceland changing position to support calls for further action on the issue. These changes were echoed at the General Assembly vote. Once again Japan, which has been under considerable pressure from campaigners, supported the resolution.

Of the permanent five Security Council members, the US, UK and France voted against. They were joined by Israel. Russia abstained and China refused to vote.

The list of states abstaining from the vote, while shorter than in 2007, still contains Belgium, the only state to have implemented a domestic ban on uranium weapons, a fact that continues to anger Belgian campaigners. It is suspected that the Belgian government is wary of becoming isolated on the issue internationally. Two Nordic states, Denmark and Sweden continue to blow cold, elsewhere in Europe Poland, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Spain are also dragging their feet, in spite of a call for a moratorium and ban by 94% of MEPs earlier this year. Many of the abstainers are recent EU/NATO accession states or ex-Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan.

Australia and Canada, both of whom have extensive uranium mining interests and close ties to US foreign policy also abstained.

The resolution was submitted by Cuba and Indonesia on behalf of the League of Non-Aligned States.

Voting results in full

In favour:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against:

France, Israel, United Kingdom, United States.

Abstain:

Albania, Andorra, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Micronesia (Federated States of), Palau, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine.

Absent: Central African Republic, Chad, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Kiribati, Monaco, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia.

Source

Honor Vets by Learning About Depleted Uranium

November 11, 2008

by Barbara Bellows

As Europe mourns in Verdun today for those lost in “The War to End All Wars”, World War I, we could look to another moment in European history to shed light on the most aggressively silenced story of the Bush administration.

In late 2000 and January 2001, reports were exploding across Europe about the rise in cancer amongst NATO soldiers who had served in the “peacekeeping missions” in Bosnia and Kosovo. The effects of the depleted uranium in the U.S. and U.K. weapons could not be ignored.

But history shows that the United Nations and the World Health Organization could be intimidated. The report from the WHO – that detailed how the DU vaporized upon impact into tiny particles that were breathed in, or consumed through the mouth or entered through open wounds, where the irradiating bits attacked cells all the way through the body, causing mutations along the way – was shelved under pressure from the U.S.

Even now, the major U.S. news organizations do not touch the subject, though the international press cannot ignore it. Even last month, a Middle Eastern Reuters reporter discussed the health damages because of the contaminated environment with Iraqi En Iraqi Environment Minister Nermeen Othman,

“When we talk about it, people may think we are overreacting. But in fact the environmental catastrophe that we inherited in Iraq is even worse than it sounds.”

And The Tehran Times further endangers their country by continuing to report on the problem, calling it a war crime.

And across the internet, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Roger Helbig seeks to intimidate anyone who dares to bring up the subject.

But we evolve, and the United Nations First Committee has overwhelmingly passed a resolution, on October 31st, calling for “relevant UN agencies, in this case the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to update and complete their research into the possible health and environmental impact of the use of uranium weapons by 2010.” The only countries that voted against it were the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and France.

Meanwhile, to help the reader get to the point, I’ve put together the following.  Although the facts, for the most part, do not contain links, there is a list of the references at the end.

Ten Essential Facts:

1. Depleted uranium, the nuclear waste of uranium enrichment, is not actually “depleted” of radiation; 99.3% of it is Uranium238, which still emits radioactive alpha particles at the rate 12,400/second, with an estimated half life of 4.5 billion years.

2. Depleted uranium is plentiful – there are 7 pounds remaining for every pound of enriched uranium – and requires expensive and often politically-contentious hazardous waste storage.

3. Depleted uranium is less of a problem for the nuclear industry when it is cheaply passed on to U.S. weapons manufacturers for warheads, penetrators, bunker-busters, missiles, armor and other ammunition used by the U.S. military in the Middle East and elsewhere, and sold to other countries and political factions.

4. Depleted uranium is “pyrophoric”, which makes it uniquely effective at piercing hard targets, because upon impact, it immediately burns, vaporizing the majority of its bulk and leaving a hard, thin, sharpened tip – and large amounts of radioactive particles suspended in the atmosphere.

5. Depleted uranium weaponry was first used in the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, under President George H. W. Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

6. Depleted uranium weaponry was later used by President Bill Clinton in the NATO “peace-keeping” bombing missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. By January 2001, as the 2nd President Bush and Dick Cheney were moving in to the White House, there was a furor in Europe over the news of an alarming increase in leukemia and other cancers amongst the NATO troops who’d served in the Balkans.

7. The World Health Organization suppressed a November 2001 report on the health hazards of depleted uranium by Dr. Keith Baverstock, Head of the WHO’s Radiation Protection Division and his team, commissioned by the United Nations. Baverstock’s report, “Radiological Toxicity of Depleted Uranium”, detailed the significant danger of airborne vaporized depleted uranium particles, already considerably more prevalent in Iraq than the Balkans due to the difference in military tactics, because they are taken into the body by inhaling and ingesting, and then their size and solubility determines how quickly they move through the respiratory, circulatory and gastrointestinal systems, attacking and poisoning from within as they travel, and where the damages occur. In addition, the report warns that the particles tend to settle in the soft tissue of the testes, and may cause mutations in sperm. In 2004 Dr. Baverstock, no longer at the WHO, released the report through Rob Edwards at Scotland’s Sunday Herald.

8. The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration twisted the meaning of the failure of the World Health Organization to produce evidence of depleted uranium’s health hazards, turning it into evidence that there was no link between exposure to depleted uranium and the increases in cancer in Europe and Iraq; instead, as presented in the January 20, 2003 report by the new Office of Global Communications, ironically titled Apparatus of Lies: Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda 1990 – 2003, the depleted uranium uproar was only an exploitation of fear and suffering. Two months later, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Rice began to “Shock and Awe” Baghdad by again dropping tons of depleted uranium bombs on densely populated areas.

9. On March 27, 2003, significant increases in depleted uranium particles in the atmosphere were detected by the air sampler filter systems of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at 8 different sites near Aldermaston Berkshire, Great Britain, and continued at 4-5 times the previous norm until the end of April 2003, after the Coalition forces declared the war over. This information only came to light in a report on January 6, 2006 by Dr. Chris Busby, due to his diligent fight for access to the data through Britain’s Freedom of Information law.

10. We have a new, intelligent President, who is willing to listen.  It is up to us to bring this to his attention.  THIS IS HOW WE CAN HONOR VETERANS.

VALUABLE REFERENCES:

Department of Defense description of self-sharpening depleted uranium: click here

Dr. Keith Baverstock’s November 2001 report, suppressed by the World Health Organization:
Rob Edwards article on Baverstock:

Karen Parker, a Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Lawyer:  Scroll down on the page and you’ll find her documents on DU.

January 2003 White House Report – Apparatus of Lies:

January 2006 Chris Busby report: click here

Source

Depleated Uranium Information

Or Google it there is tons of information out there.

Be sure to encourage those who are still not supporting the ban,  that it  is something that needs to be banned.

This is an extremely dangerous form of Pollution.

We, the people, need to let governments and the United Nations know that these weapons can have no part in a humane and caring world. Every signature counts!

1. An immediate end to the use of uranium weapons.
2. Disclosure of all locations where uranium weapons have been used and immediate removal of the remnants and contaminated materials from the sites under strict control.
3. Health surveys of the ‘depleted’ uranium victims and environmental investigations at the affected sites.
4. Medical treatment and compensation for the ‘depleted’ uranium victims.
5. An end to the development, production, stockpiling, testing, trade of uranium weapons.
6. A Convention for a Total Ban on Uranium Weapons.

The life you save may be your own.

Sign Petition to Ban DU

A Few of the World’s most polluted places

Untreated sewage and mercury-contaminated sludge flow into a water system at Sumgayit, See a map of Azerbaijan.)

A major industrial center of the former Soviet Union and erstwhile home to more than 40 chemical factories, Sumagayit was recently named one of the ten most polluted cities in the world by the nonprofit Blacksmith Institute.

At their peak of production, the town’s factories released as much as 120,000 tons of harmful emissions annually, exposing workers and residents to high levels of contaminants, the institute said.

A study conducted by the Azerbaijani government and the UN revealed that cancer rates in Sumgayit are 22 to 51 percent higher than in rest of the country.

Workers dump waste at Vapi, a town in western India that marks the southern end of the country’s “Golden Corridor”a 400-kilometer (245-mile) stretch of industrial sites that manufacture petrochemicals, pesticides, dyes, paints, and fertilizers. (See a map of India.)

A survey by the Indian government revealed that the sites lack a proper system for disposing of industrial waste, which often contains high levels of heavy metals and cyanide, among other contaminants.

A new list issued by the nonprofit Blacksmith Institute places Vapi in the top ten of the most polluted regions in the world.

Vapi’s distance from sources of clean water has forced residents to consume the town’s contaminated water, the institute said.

As a result, incidences of respiratory diseases, carcinoma, skin and throat cancers, birth defects, and infertility are high in Vapi, the nonprofit added.

A doctor holds a newborn in Dzerzhinsk, Russia, in 1997. (See a map of Russia.)

The city, once the country’s Cold War headquarters for producing chemical weapons, was recently added to the Blacksmith Institute’s list of the world’s ten most polluted places.

Dzerzhinsk remains an important hub of chemical manufacturing.

Babies born here have birth defects at three times the national rate, the institute said on its Web site. A quarter of these babies will likely grow up and work in factories that still spew toxic chemicals, it added.

Dzerzhinsk’s average life expectancy is 42 years for men, well below the national average of about 58.

No major initiative to combat the pollution and health problems is underway, according to the New York-based institute.

Men search for metal at an abandoned lead mine in Kabwe, Zambia, the country’s second largest city, in this undated photo. (See a map of Zambia.)

Decades of unregulated lead mining have led to widespread poisoning in residents exposed to soil and water.

The New York-based Blacksmith Institute added the city to its list of the ten most polluted places for 2007.

Blood lead levels in children, who often bathe in contaminated water and play in the soil, are high enough to be potentially fatal, the institute reported on its Web site.

Although a local nonprofit educates families about avoiding lead exposure, entire communities may have to relocate, the institute said.

A cemetery of radioactive vehicles is seen near Ukraine‘s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in this November 10, 2000 photo. (See a map of Ukraine.)

More than 1,300 Soviet military helicopters, buses, bulldozers, and other equipment were used and contaminated while responding to the April 26, 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl.

The disaster’s residual effects and its potential for future environmental and health damage has landed Chernobyl on the New York-based Blacksmith Institute’s 2007 list of the ten most polluted sites.

A hundred times more radiation was released during the meltdown of Chernobyl’s reactor than was contained in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The event created a spike in thyroid cancers among children and led to innumerable respiratory ailments, infertility cases, and birth defects in local residents.

Today a 19-mile (31-kilometer) exclusion zone around the reactor remains largely deserted.

Women work at an open chromite mine at Sukinda, in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, in this undated photo. (See a map of India.)

The Sukinda valley contains 97 percent of the country’s deposits of chromite a source of chromium and is the site of one of the largest open-cast chromite ore mines in the world.

A list issued by the nonprofit Blacksmith Institute cites the region as one of the most polluted in the world.

Twelve mines operate in Sukinda, generating about 30 million tons of waste rock and contaminating more than 60 percent of the water resources with hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen, the institute said on its Web site.

A state government study has also indicated that 85 percent of the deaths in the mining areas and nearby villages are due to chromite-mine related diseases.

The government reportedly stated that the situation in Sukinda “is unique, it is gigantic, and it is beyond the means and purview of the [Orissa Pollution Control] Board to solve the problem.”

Cars inch through the smog-filled city center of Linfen, China, on July 7, 2007. (See a map of China.)

The city is listed among the world’s ten most polluted places of 2007, according to the New York-based nonprofit Blacksmith Institute.

Linfen sits at the center of China’s prodigious coal industry, which is largely unregulated by the government. Residents describe choking on coal dust, and local health clinics have reported an upsurge in bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer, according to the institute.

“The one thing that blew me away was in Linfen, three million people are affected by air pollution,” said William Suk, acting deputy director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“People assume a lot of these sites are in the middle of nowhere, but they’re not.”

By the end of 2007, Linfen plans to shut down 57 of its 153 coal-producing plants, to be replaced with cleaner, regulated facilities, the institute’s Web site reported.

Russia‘s northernmost major city, Noril’sk pumps out more than two million tons of pollutants a year making it one of the ten most polluted spots in the world, according to the New York-based nonprofit Blacksmith Institute. (See a map of Russia.)

Mining and smelting began in Noril’sk in the 1930s, and the city now houses the world’s largest smelting complex for heavy metals.

Snow is often blackened with pollution, the air tastes of sulfur, and the life expectancy is up to ten years lower than the Russian average, the institute reported.

Noril’sk Nickel, the major firm operating in the town, says it has invested millions in its dust and gas recovery and removal systems, according to the institute.

September 18, 2007Two girls walk to school amid smoky skies in La Oroya, Peru, in this September 2003 photo. (See a map of Peru.)

The congested mining town of 35,000 nestled high in the Andes was recently added to the Blacksmith Institute’s list of the ten most polluted places in the world.

A metal smelter run by the Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation has operated in the remote settlement since 1922.

Exposure to the smelter’s pollution has led to dangerously high blood lead levels in nearly all of La Oroya’s children, according to the New York-based institute.

Lung ailments are widespread, and high numbers of premature death have been linked to the smelter’s emissions, the nonprofit reports on its Web site.

Likewise, acid rain from sulfur dioxide pollution has destroyed much of the vegetation in the area.

Doe Run says it has invested approximately 1 million U.S. dollars a year in a joint program with the Peruvian Ministry of Health to lower blood lead levels in the region.

The Blacksmith Institute, which collaborates with local agencies to fight pollution worldwide, compiled its annual list of the most polluted places through a nomination process.

The entries were then reviewed by a technical advisory board of medical and environmental experts.

William Suk, acting deputy director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, was not involved in the report.

“What the [Blacksmith Institute] has done is a good thing,” Suk told National Geographic News.

“They are trying to bring to the attention of the world that these sites exist.”

Source

U.N. report warns toxic brown haze has devastating effect

By ANDREW JACOBS

November 14 2008

BEIJING

A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations.

The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, cooking on dung or wood fires, and coal-fired power plants, these plumes rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America.

But they are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, say a team of more than a dozen scientists who have been studying the problem since 2002.

“The imperative to act has never been clearer,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, in Beijing, identified as one of the world’s most polluted cities and where the report was released.

The brownish haze, sometimes in a layer more than a mile thick and visible from airplanes, stretches from the Arabian peninsula to the Yellow Sea. During the spring, it sweeps past North and South Korea and Japan. Sometimes the cloud drifts as far east as California. The report identified 13 cities as brown-cloud hot spots, among them Bangkok, Thailand; Cairo, Egypt; New Delhi; Seoul, South Korea; and Tehran, Iran.

It was issued on a day when Beijing’s own famously polluted skies were unusually clear. On Wednesday, by contrast, the capital was shrouded in a thick, throat-stinging haze that is the byproduct of heavy industry, coal-burning home heaters and the 3.5 million cars that clog the city’s roads.

Last month, the government reintroduced some of the traffic restrictions that were imposed on Beijing during the Olympics; the rules forced private cars to stay off the road one day a week and sidelined 30 percent of government vehicles on any given day. Overall, officials say the new measures have removed 800,000 cars from the roads.

According to the U.N. report, smog blocks from 10 percent to 25 percent of the sunlight that should be reaching the city’s streets. The report also singled out the southern city of Guangzhou, where soot and dust have dimmed natural light by 20 percent since the 1970s.

In fact, the scientists who worked on the report said the blanket of haze might be temporarily offsetting some warming from the simultaneous buildup of greenhouse gases by reflecting solar energy away from the earth. Greenhouse gases, by contrast, tend to trap the warmth of the sun and lead to a rise in ocean temperatures.

“All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to take on emissions across the planet,” Steiner said.

Climate scientists say similar plumes from industrialization of wealthy countries after World War II probably blunted global warming through the 1970s. Pollution laws removed that pall.

Rain can cleanse the skies, but some of the black grime that falls to earth ends up on the surface of the Himalayan glaciers that are the source of water for billions of people in China, India and Pakistan. As a result, the glaciers that feed into the Yangtze, Ganges, Indus and Yellow rivers are absorbing more sunlight and melting more rapidly, researchers say.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these glaciers have shrunk by 5 percent since the 1950s and, at the current rate of retreat, could shrink by 75 percent by 2050.

“We used to think of this brown cloud as a regional problem, but now we realize its impact is much greater,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who led the U.N. scientific panel. “When we see the smog one day and not the next, it just means it’s blown somewhere else.”

Although the clouds’ overall impact is not entirely understood, Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California, San Diego, said they might be affecting precipitation in parts of India and Southeast Asia, where monsoon rainfall has been decreasing in recent decades, and central China, where devastating floods have become more frequent.

He said some studies suggested the plumes of soot that blot out the sun have led to a 5 percent decline in the growth rate of rice harvests across Asia since the 1960s.

For those who breathe the toxic mix, the impact can be deadly. Henning Rodhe, a professor of chemical meteorology at Stockholm University, estimates 340,000 people in China and India die each year from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that can be traced to the emissions from coal-burning factories, diesel trucks and kitchen stoves fueled by firewood.

Source

CO2

By Paul Eccleston
November 14  2007

Australians are the world’s worst polluters, according to a new ‘name and shame’ league table based on power station emissions.

Each Australian produces 11 tonnes of CO2 power sector emissions each year on a per capita basis. The United States comes second in the table on nine tonnes per person Britain is ranked 9th at 3.5 tonnes per person.

The findings are revealed in a huge survey of the CO2 emissions from 50,000 power plants worldwide by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) an independent think-tanked based in the US.

The on-line Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) database shows where the worst power station culprits are, who owns them and how much of the greenhouse gas they are pumping into the atmosphere.

It includes 4,000 power companies, and nearly 200,000 geographic regions in every country on earth. Visitors to the site can view carbon emissions data for the year 2000, the present, and future plans.

Power stations are the planet’s most concentrated source of greenhouse gases – one of the main factors in global arming – producing nearly 10 billion tons of CO 2 per year. The US, with over 8,000 power plants, accounts for about 25 per cent of the total or 2.8 billion tons.

Although the developing nations are among the worst offenders they have a far lower per capita rate. The average Chinese citizen produces two tonnes of CO2 from power generation annually while Indians only about half of one tonne per person.

Although no single country comes close to the 2.8 billion tons of CO 2 produced annually by the US power sector, other countries collectively account for three-quarters of all the power-related CO2 emissions.

China comes second with 2.7 billion tonnes, followed by Russia with 661m tonnes; India 583m tonnes; Japan 400m tonnes, Germany 356m tonnes, Australia 226m tonnes, South Africa 222m tonnes, the UK 212m tonnes and South Korea 185m tonnes.

Power generation accounts for about one-quarter of total emissions of CO2. Through the website people concerned about climate change can check on the emissions of their local power station.

CARMA was set up to help the drive towards less carbon-intensive power generation and reducing global warming which will hit poor people in developing countries the hardest.

The man who led the research, David Wheeler, a senior fellow at CGD, said: “CARMA makes information about power-related CO2 emissions transparent to people throughout the world. Information leads to action. We know that this works for other forms of pollution and we believe it can work for greenhouse gas emissions, too.

“We expect that institutional and private investors, insurers, lenders, environmental and consumer groups and individual activists will use the CARMA data to encourage power companies to burn less coal and oil and to shift to renewable power sources, such as wind and solar.”

Statistics for the UK show it has the 9th highest CO2-emitting power sector at 212,000,000 tonnes of CO2.

The Drax power station in Selby, Yorkshire is named as the biggest UK polluter producing 23,700,000 tonnes of CO2 annually making it the 23rd most polluting power station in the world.

It is followed in the UK by Longannet in Alloa, Scotland at 15,700,000 tonnes; Ratcliffe in the East Midlands at 12,800,000 tonnes; Fiddlers Ferry in the North West at 12,300,000 tonnes; and Cottam in the East Midlands at 12,300,000 tonnes.

The world’s worst pollution power plant is Taichung in the city of Lung-Ching in Taiwan which pumps out 41.3m tonnes of CO2 per year.

Taiwan and China have four of the top six worst polluting power plants

Source

100 dirtiest power stations in the UK
25 dirtiest power stations in the world

World’s 10 Worst Pollution Spots

NEW YORK, New York, October 18, 2006 (ENS)
The world’s 10 most polluted places threaten the health of more than 10 million people in eight countries, according to a report released today by a U.S. environmental action group. Three of the most polluted sites are in Russia, the report said, with the remaining seven located in China, Dominican Republic, India, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Ukraine and Zambia.

The report was released by the Blacksmith Institute and compiled by a team of international environment and health experts, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Mt. Sinai Medical Center and City University of New York.

“A key criterion in the selection process was the nature of the pollutant,” said Richard Fuller, director of Blacksmith Institute. “The biggest culprits are heavy metals – such as lead, chromium and mercury – and long-lasting chemicals – such as the `persistent organic pollutants.’ That’s because a particular concern of all these cases is the accumulating and long lasting burden building up in the environment and in the bodies of the people most directly affected.”

Children scavenging a mine in Kabwe, Zambia, one of the sites on the list. (Photo courtesy Blacksmith Institute)
With the exception of Chernobyl, the Ukranian site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, most of the locations on the list are little-known – even in their own countries.

The most-polluted sites primarily affect communities deep in poverty, the report said, but there are potential remedies.

“Problems like this have been solved over the years in the developed world, and we have the capacity and the technology to spread our experience to our afflicted neighbors,” the report said.

The list includes:

• the Chinese city of Linfen, located in the heat of the country’s coal region and chosen as an example of the severe pollution faced by many Chinese cities;
• Haina, Dominican Republic, the site of a former automobile battery recycling smelter where residents suffer from widespread lead poisoning;
• the Indian city of Ranipet, where some 3.5 million people are affected by tannery waste, which contains hexavalent chromium and azodyes.
• Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan, home to a former Soviet uranium plant and severely contaminated with radioactive uranium mine wastes;
• the Peruvian mining town of La Oroya, where residents have been exposed to toxic emissions from a poly-metallic smelter;
• Dzerzinsk, Russia, the site of a Cold War-era chemical weapons facility;
  

  A child stands on a battery casing in the Dominican Republic. The world’s most polluted sites all impact very poor communities. (Photo courtesy Blacksmith Institute)

• the Russian industrial city of Norilsk, which houses the world’s largest heavy metals smelting complex and where more than 4 million tons of cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, arsenic, selenium and zinc emissions are released annually;
• the Russian Far East towns of Dalnegorsk and Rudnaya Pristan, whose residents suffer from serious lead poisoning from an old smelter and the unsafe transport of lead concentrate from the local lead mining site;
• and the city of Kabwe, Zambia, where mining and smelting operations have led to widespread lead and cadmium contamination.

“Living in a town with serious pollution is like living under a death sentence,” the report said. “If the damage does not come from immediate poisoning, then cancers, lung infections, mental retardation, are likely outcomes.”

The report warns that there are some towns where life expectancy approaches medieval rates, where birth defects are the norm not the exception.”

“In other places children’s asthma rates are measured above 90 percent, or mental retardation is endemic,” it said. “In these places, life expectancy may be half that of the richest nations. The great suffering of these communities compounds the tragedy of so few years on earth.”

Blacksmith said it plans to circulate the report extensively to development agencies and local governments, working to place clean-up on the policy agenda in their respective countries and to initiate fundraising to help these regions.

Tannery runoff in India is polluting the water supply of some 3.5 million people. (Photo courtesy Blacksmith Institute)

“The most important thing is to achieve some practical progress in dealing with these polluted places,” says Dave Hanrahan, Blacksmith Institute’s chief of global operations. “There is a lot of good work being done in understanding the problems and in identifying possible approaches. Our goal is to instill a sense of urgency about tackling these priority sites.”

“This initial Worst-Polluted Places list is a starting point,” Hanrahan added. “We are looking to the international community and local specialists for feedback on the selection process and on our list. We want to make sure that the key dangerously polluted sites get the needed attention and support from the international community in order to remediate them.”

Source

Pollution Reports including Top 100 Corporate Air Polluters 2007 in US

Alberta Oil Sands a Pollution Nightmare

Ukraine may borrow $2 bln from World Bank

KIEV
November 6 2008

Ukraine could receive a $2 billion loan from the World Bank, the speaker of the country’s parliament said on Thursday.

The International Monetary Fund earlier agreed to lend Ukraine $16.5 billion.

“The ball is in Ukraine’s court now. It is up to us to decide what amount of money we should receive,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk said following meetings in Washington with the heads of both organizations.

The speaker said the funds would be used to reform Ukraine’s financial and banking sectors.

The financial crisis has seen Ukrainians rush to withdraw their savings, fearing banking collapses. More than $3 billion were pulled out of banks in October.

Ukraine’s economy has been hard hit by the global credit crunch, along with the falling price of steel, a key national export.

Last Friday, Ukraine’s parliament approved a set of measures needed to receive the IMF loan. President Viktor Yushchenko signed the bills into law on Monday.

Source

Foreign currency loan crux for fomer communist bloc

November 5 2008

Eastern European markets are feeling the pinch as investors pull money out of the region and local currencies plunge. Plunging domestic currencies mean higher monthly payments for businesses and households repaying foreign-denominated loans, forcing them to scale back spending.

In Budapest, project manager Imre Apostagi says the hospital upgrade he’s overseeing has stalled because his employer can’t get a foreign-currency loan.

The company borrows in foreign currencies to avoid domestic interest rates as much as double those linked to dollars, the euro and Swiss francs. Now banks are curtailing the loans as investors pull money out of eastern Europe‘s developing markets and local currencies plunge.

“There’s no money out there,” said Mr Apostagi, a project manager who asked that the medical-equipment seller he works for not be identified to avoid alarming international backers.

“We won’t collapse, but everything’s slowing to a crawl. The whole world is scared and everyone’s going a bit mad.”

Loans

Foreign-denominated loans helped fuel eastern European economies including Poland, Romania and Ukraine, funding home purchases and entrepreneurship after the region emerged from communism.

The elimination of such lending is magnifying the global credit crunch and threatening to stall the expansion of some of Europe’s fastest-growing economies.

“What has been a factor of strength in recent years has now become a social weakness,” said Tom Fallon, head of emerging markets in Paris at La Francaise des Placements, which manages $11bn.

Since the end of August, the Hungarian forint has fallen 16pc against the Swiss franc, the currency of choice for Hungarian homebuyers, and more than 8pc against the euro.

Foreign currency loans make up 62pc of all household debt in the country, up from 33pc three years ago.

Romania’s leu dropped more than 14pc against the dollar and 3.2pc against the euro.

Poland’s zloty declined more than 17pc against the dollar and 6.8pc against the euro, and Ukraine’s hryvnia plunged 22pc to the dollar and 11.5pc to the euro.

That’s even after a boost this week from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) emergency loan programme for emerging markets and the US Federal Reserve‘s decision to pump as much as $120bn into other developing countries.

The Fed said yesterday that it aims to “mitigate the spread of difficulties in obtaining US dollar funding”.

In Kiev, Ukraine, Yuriy Voloshyn, who works at a real-estate company, says he’s decided to abandon plans to buy a new television because of his dollar-based mortgage. His monthly payments have risen by 18pc, or 1,000 hryvnias (€130), since he took out the loan seven months ago.

“I only have money to pay for food and my monthly fee to the bank,” Mr Voloshyn(25) said. “I can’t even dream about anything else.”

Rafal Mrowka, a driver from Ostrow Wielkopolski in western Poland, says he became addicted to checking foreign currency rates as monthly installments on his Swiss-franc mortgage jumped 25pc.

Nervous

“I’ve even stopped getting nervous, now I can only laugh,” the 32-year-old, first-time property owner said.

The bulk of eastern Europe’s credit boom was denominated in foreign currencies because they provided for cheaper financing. For example, Hungarian consumers borrowed five times as much in foreign currencies as in forint in the three months to June.

Now banks including Munich-based Bayerische Landesbank and Austria‘s Raiffeisen International Bank Holding AG are curbing foreign-currency loans in Hungary.

In Poland, where 80pc of mortgages are denominated in Swiss francs, Bank Millennium SA, Getin Bank SA and PKO Bank Polski SA have either boosted fees or stopped lending in the currency.

The extra burden on borrowers is making a bad economic outlook worse, said Matthias Siller, who focuses on emerging markets at Baring Asset Management in London, where he manages about $4bn.

If borrowers believe local interest rates are prohibitive and foreign currency lending dries up, it means “a sharp deceleration in consumer spending,” Mr Siller said. “That will bring serious problems for the economy.”

The east has been the fastest-growing part of Europe, with Romania’s economy expanding 9.3pc in the year through June, Ukraine 6.5pc and Poland 5.8pc. The combined economy of the countries sharing the euro grew 1.4pc in the period.

Ukraine, facing financial meltdown as the hryvnia drops and prices for exports such as steel tumble, has agreed to a $16.5bn loan from the IMF while Hungary secured $26bn in loans from the IMF, the EU and the World Bank. The government forecast a 1pc economic contraction next year, the first since 1993.

The Hungarian central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by three percentage points to 11.5pc last month to defend the forint.

“Panicked customers are calling to say they’re afraid the interest on their mortgages will go up or that they won’t be able to secure mortgages,” said Nikolett Gurubi, director of lending at Otthon Centrum Belvaros, the downtown Budapest branch of a real estate agency.

“We’ve been observing a return to a good old banking rule, to lend in a currency in which people earn,” said Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, chief executive officer of Poland’s biggest lender, Bank Pekao SA.

It stopped non-zloty lending in 2003.

“Earlier, banks competed on the Swiss franc market watching only sales levels and not looking at keeping an acceptable risk level.”

The problem is a “good lesson to all of us”, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said last month at a press conference in Warsaw, where he urged Poles to stick to zloty lending.

Source

IMF approves $16.5 billion Ukraine loan

By Lesley Wroughton and Sabina Zawadzki

November 6 2008

The International Monetary Fund approved a $16.5 billion (10.4 billion pound) loan program for Ukraine that includes monetary and exchange rate policy shifts to ease strains from the global financial crisis.

The IMF, in a statement issued late Wednesday, said it would immediately disburse $4.5 billion to the government under the two-year loan agreement.

“The authorities’ program is designed to help stabilise the domestic financial system against a backdrop of global deleveraging and a domestic crisis of confidence, and to facilitate adjustment of the economy to a large terms-of-trade shock,” the Fund said.

“The authorities’ plan incorporates monetary and exchange rate policy shifts, banking recapitalization, and fiscal and incomes policy adjustments.”

In Kiev, President Viktor Yushchenko welcomed the decision, taken after Ukraine’s fractious parliament approved enabling legislation. He said it provided a “signal to the international community to boost the rating of trust in our country.”

“The economy is getting a powerful resource to develop priority sectors and guarantee the liquidity of the banking system,” he said in a statement on the presidential Web site.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the president’s former ally turned rival, described the loan as a “great victory” and said it would “allow us to stabilise completely the financial situation in Ukraine.”

The IMF decision was issued along with forecast indicators predicting that Ukraine would sink into recession next year, with a 3 percent fall against 6 percent growth this year.

In a statement, Murilo Portugal, IMF deputy managing director, said Ukraine’s economy, especially its banking system, was under severe stress, caused by a drop in global steel prices, the country’s main export, and global financial turmoil.

INTERVENTION, RECAPITALISATION

He said Ukraine’s program would seek to restore financial and economic stability through a more flexible exchange rate regime with targeted interventions, so-called ‘pre-emptive’ recapitalisation of banks, and tighter monetary policy.

“The flexible exchange rate regime, backed by an appropriate monetary policy and foreign exchange intervention, will help absorb external shocks and avoid disorderly exchange market developments,” Portugal said.

“The recent unification of official and market exchange rates should increase clarity about the regime.”

Exchange controls recently imposed, he said, would be phased out as confidence returns to the economy.

Ukraine’s central bank has been intervening since early October to lift the hryvnia currency from record lows last week. It began offering buy-sell rates for currencies this week after previously only selling or buying a currency.

Portugal said as credit pressures abate, tighter monetary policy will be needed to guard against inflation.

He said the government’s target of a balanced 2009 budget would be reviewed, although it could be achieved through expenditure restraint and a phased increase in energy tariffs.

Portugal said recapitalisation efforts for banks would ease liquidity pressures that could prolong an economic downturn.

“Decisive measures that have been taken to allocate public funds to recapitalise banks and to facilitate bank resolution processes will ensure that problems can be dealt with promptly,” he said.

“A proactive strategy to resolve corporate and household debt problems will also be essential to reduce banking sector vulnerabilities.”

(Editing by Andy Bruce)

Source
Key facts on Ukraine’s finances and politics
The International Monetary Fund approved a $16.5 billion (10.5 billion pound) loan programme for Ukraine late on Wednesday that includes monetary and exchange rate policy shifts to ease strains from the global financial crisis.

Following are key facts about why Ukraine is vulnerable to heightened risk aversion among international investors.

POLITICS

* Ukraine has been plagued by political turbulence since “Orange Revolution” protests in 2004 brought to power President Viktor Yushchenko and a team committed to moving closer to the West and joining NATO and the European Union.

Rows pitting Yushchenko against his former ally Yulia Tymoshenko, who twice served as his prime minister, undermined the “orange” camp and brought down governments.

Although the president dissolved parliament last month and called a December parliamentary election, he has since suspended that decree and a vote this year now seems unlikely.

* Upheaval — and trouble forming a stable ruling coalition — reflect Ukraine’s longstanding division into the nationalist west and centre, which looks to the EU and United States, and the Russian-speaking east and south, friendlier towards Moscow.

* Relations with Russia, bumpy throughout the post-Soviet period, have sunk to unprecedented lows over Yushchenko’s denunciation of Moscow’s military intervention in Georgia. Ukraine depends heavily on Moscow for energy supplies.

* The hryvnia currency hit an all-time low of 7.2 to the dollar on October 29, weakened by growing global risk aversion and regional tensions after Russia’s conflict with Georgia.

* Authorities have said they will formulate a new mechanism which would unify the market, cash and official rates.

* In mid-2008, the hryvnia had strengthened as far as 4.5/$, after the central bank abandoned a policy of keeping it in a corridor of 5.00-5.06 per dollar within a 4.95-5.25 band.

FINANCES

* Foreign exchange reserves fell to $33 billion at the end of October from $37.5 billion end-September, when they covered 3.7 months of imports.

* The current account deficit more than quadrupled in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year to $8.4 billion, or 5.8 percent of GDP.

* Analysts based outside Ukraine forecast its current account deficit at $21-25 billion, or 10-12 percent of gross domestic product, by year-end; Ukraine-based analysts give lower forecasts of about 6 percent of GDP.

* Prices for Ukraine’s steel exports are dropping, while Russia’s Gazprom has suggested next year’s price for gas imports could soar to $400 per 1,000 cubic metres from $179.50 now.

* The central bank risks encouraging imports and further widening the trade gap if it supports the hryvnia. However, letting it float would remove an important anchor for domestic and foreign businesses in Ukraine’s export-driven economy.

* Many people hold debt in foreign currency and would have to pay more to service it if the hryvnia weakened.

* Consumers are extremely sensitive to currency movements — they lost savings when the Soviet Union collapsed and again through hyper inflation and a currency crisis in the 1990s that more than halved the hryvnia’s value to about 4/$ and beyond.

* Ukraine was forced to restructure its debts in 2000 and made the final payments on that restructuring just last year.

FOREIGN DEBT

Ukraine’s foreign debt totalled just over $100 billion as of July 1, of which about $15 billion was government debt.

* Analysts estimate Ukraine’s 2009 external financing requirement to be $55-66 billion, of which $32-40 billion is in the private sector. Foreign banks own 40-42 percent of total banking assets and 25 percent of short-term banking debt is owed to parent banks.

(Compiled by Sabina Zawadzki)

Source

Big deficits may force Turkey towards IMF

By Selcuk Gokoluk

ANKARA

Turkey will face a balance of
payments problem next year that could snuff out growth if the
government does not overcome its reticence to join the queue of
emerging countries seeking International Monetary Fund help.

Politicians are loath to ask for IMF help before municipal
elections next year given the public backlash against the six
years of fiscal austerity demanded by the IMF in return for
helping Turkey through a financial and economic crisis in 2001.

However, economists say its $70 billion foreign exchange
reserve is not a large enough buffer given the current account
deficit is seen rising to $50.4 billion in 2009 and the funding
need of the private sector is estimated at around $90 billion.

Turkey’s business community has therefore been calling for
an IMF loan deal to limit the fallout from a global financial
crisis which has already forced Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland and Serbia to seek IMF help.

Such aid comes with strings attached and while the
government is reluctant to accept big spending curbs and other
painful steps that might exacerbate the economic slowdown,
economists say IMF credit may be the only source of credit if
Turkey finds itself in a balance of payments difficulties.

“Turkey is not an EU member with access to the European
Central Bank credit lines that have been made available, nor
does it have a swap line with the (United States’) Fed as do a
few other emerging markets now to boost dollar liquidity,”
Kristin Lindow, Moody’s Investors lead sovereign analyst for
Turkey, told Reuters.

Turkey is carrying out accession negotiations with the
European Union, but is not expected to join the 27-members bloc
for several years at the earliest.

FINANCING NEEDS
Turkey’ economy is in much better shape than it was in 2001,
when it had a severe crisis and signed one of the biggest ever
IMF bailouts but some economists say the Treasury may not be
able to maintain its current cash holding.

Government spending is expected to pick up in coming months
and appetite for Turkish bonds has faded as investors favour
safe-heaven U.S. dollar assets.

Analysts say Ankara needs $15-$20 billion IMF credit to meet
its short-term financing needs, even if such help is made
contingent on measures such as cutting spending, raising taxes,
accelerating privatisation, and increasing interest rates to
correct fiscal and external imbalances and control inflation.

“For the first time in a couple of years, the balance of
payment will be a binding concern for Turkey in the sense that
Turkish corporates might have to cut back their borrowing from
international markets,” said Reinhard Cluse, economist at UBS.

It is estimated the non-bank corporate sector will roll over
roughly $20 billion in debt in the coming months.

Curbs on firms’ ability to borrow will dampen economic
activity, which has already weakened.

The economy expanded by 1.9 percent in the second quarter, a
a sharp slowdown from 6.7 percent in the first quarter, and some
economists expect it will grow by only 2-3 percent next year.

Turkish banks have strong loan/deposit and capital adequacy
ratios compared with their western peers and are tightly
regulated, but this is not the case for manufacturing firms.

“I don’t think banks will have a problem rolling over their
debt. The unknown factors are more in the non-financial sectors.
The non-financial sector firms borrowed $18 billion in the first
eight months. This is a very high figure,” said JP Morgan Chase
senior economist Yarkin Cebeci said.

“An IMF deal will cut the size of the shock waves even if it
can’t stop the financial volatility. More importantly is that an
IMF deal will comfort both the financial and non-bank corporate
sectors,” Cebeci added.

An IMF deal would also help shore up financial market
sentiment, economists said. Global financial turmoil has hit
Turkish markets in the last two months, with the lira losing one
third of its value and stocks halving in value.

“An IMF deal will ensure a gradual and softer fall. If the
market attempts to make a correction on their own, the fall will
be sharper and faster…I mean further slowdown of growth and
more lira weakening,” Merrill Lynch EMEA economist Turker
Hamzaoglu said.

(Editing by Swaha Pattanaik)

Source

Iceland had to raise their interest rates up to 18 per cent to get their loan from the
IMF