Sunday 4/27/2014 - Tarpley Points Out Fake-OSCE Observers Are Actually N...

Tarpley Points Out Fake-OSCE Observers Are Actually NATO Military Officers


Alleged OSCE Observers Held in Slavyansk by Pro-Russian Forces Are
Active Duty NATO Military Officers Out of Uniform, Many from
Geilenkirchen Intelligence Base Where Awacs Are Flown; Visit Was
Sponsored by German Defense Ministry, Which Is Pressuring Osce To Keep
Up Attempted Camouflage of Possible Spy Mission-or Worse

Press TV: Now looking at the current events with OSCE observers, it goes to show the
level of mistrust people in eastern and southern Ukraine have with
regards to anything connected with Europe. How do you see the role they
are playing?

Tarpley: I would have to say first of all, we
should stop calling them OSCE observers because all indications are that
they are not. That is what the OSCE has been saying continuously since
the start of it and you can see it on their website. They basically are
two versions. The Western media say OSCE observers, but the mayor Mr.
[Vyacheslav] Ponomaryov, the pro-Russian mayor of Slavyansk, knows them
as spies. I'm afraid reality seems to be going in the direction of Mr.
Ponomareyov. These are active-duty NATO military officers. They are four
from Germany, one from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Poland.
All NATO or European Union (EU).

The German officers come from
a place called Geilenkirchen, which is a very important NATO base. This
is where the Awacs planes are flown from. It's one of the big NATO
reconnaissance centers and they particularly belong to a unit of the
German army, the bundeswehr, which is called the center for enforcement
or verification tasks. In other words, it's military intelligence. What
seems also to be the case, is that they were accompanied by five
active-duty Ukrainian officers of the pro-Kiev forces, the ones that are
controlled by the regime.

The complicating factor is they were
riding around in OSCE vehicles. They were in a bus that seems to have
been displaying OSCE markings. Now, when they were captured, there was
obviously tremendous pressure exercised by the German Defense Ministry
and the whole NATO apparatus on the OSCE to play along with this
charade, pretending that they were sent by the OSCE, but it hasn't
worked. On Friday evening in Vienna, on the first program of the
Austrian television, Claus Neukirch, a high-ranking official of the
OSCE, said this was not our group, not our visit, we were not the ones
who did it. This is also admitted on the Deutsche Welle. Deutsche Welle
is the international TV and radio of the German Foreign Ministry.


All of this exists really only in German, so today, the Ukrainian
foreign minister struggling to keep up this fakery to maintain the
camouflage, the Ukrainian foreign minister said, "oh, the Secretary
General of the OSCE will be arriving here in order to begin negotiations
or to take them over." Very wisely the secretary general of the OSCE,
an Italian diplomat named Lamberto Zannier, said "no, I'm not going." He
was very well advised not to go. Who knows what would happen to him if
he got there?

The fact is that for the first couple of days,
negotiations were conducted exclusively by the German Defense Ministry,
who were the people that made the deal with Kiev to send these people
in. This was embarrassing that the German Defense Ministry leaned on the
OSCE to say "why don't you go in and negotiate," which the OSCE I think
unwisely did.

I would say to Mr. Zannier, don't go to Ukraine,
rather you should denounce the abuse and perversion of an OSCE vehicle
in the name of the OSCE by what is in fact NATO military intelligence,
and if you're caught behind military lines with no uniform, that's
sometimes called espionage, whether that's the current situation or not,
it's not clear, but I would urge everyone to stop referring to them as
OSCE observers, they are NATO military officers.

Civil War Rages in Ukraine, with Russian Riposte Not Far Off; Standard and Poor’s Downgrades Russia’s Bonds to One Notch Above Junk as Wall Street Eyes Sector Sanctions That Will Doom Failed Post-1991 Unipolar Finance System Known as Globalization « TARPLEY.net

Civil War Rages in Ukraine, with Russian Riposte Not Far Off; Standard and Poor’s Downgrades Russia’s Bonds to One Notch Above Junk as Wall Street Eyes Sector Sanctions That Will Doom Failed Post-1991 Unipolar Finance System Known as Globalization « TARPLEY.net



Civil War Rages in Ukraine, with Russian Riposte Not Far Off; Standard and Poor’s Downgrades Russia’s Bonds to One Notch Above Junk as Wall Street Eyes Sector Sanctions That Will Doom Failed Post-1991 Unipolar Finance System Known as Globalization

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net – World Crisis Radio

The Muslim Brotherhood is coming to Your Town

The Muslim Brotherhood is coming to Your Town | Patriot Update http://patriotupdate.com/articles/muslim-brotherhood-coming-town/

The Muslim Brotherhood is coming to Your Town

Radical Muslims are dedicated to the destruction of America, and they are willing to die in large numbers to achieve that goal. What happened at the World Trade Center on 9-11 and then last year in Boston were just precursors to what is coming. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say “Wake up America—the Muslims are coming.” But the influx of Muslims to the United States is not limited to those so-called moderate Muslims who claim they seek only freedom and opportunity. In fact, I will not accept the concept of the moderate Muslim until those who claim this title stand up and join the fight against the atrocities committed by terrorists who share their religion.

One of the reasons Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. won the battle for civil rights was the willingness of white people who shared his convictions to join in the struggle. In fact, Dr. King was known to lament that it wasn’t the bigots in hoods and robes who worried him most. Rather it was white people who knew he was right but were unwilling to speak out on behalf of civil rights. Their silence was the same as assent. This same concept—the tacit assent of silence—applies to Muslims in America. Muslims can claim to be moderates, but if they sit back and quietly refuse to join in the battle to stop Islamist terrorists they aren’t moderates. They are silent supporters. Like Dr. King, I fear those who concur by their silence more than those who actually construct the bombs and fly airliners into buildings.

I have long believed that the long-term plan of Muslims is to take over America—not using bullets and bombs—but using the ballot box. According to godfatherpolitics.com, “With the huge influx of Muslims into the United States and their vow to take over the nation, it should be no surprise to learn that the Muslim Brotherhood here in the U.S. is forming its own political party. They plan to be an important factor in the 2016 elections.” The political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in America is called the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO). The USCMO is an umbrella organization that attempts to pull other Muslim organizations together to multiply their power and effectiveness. One of the Muslim organizations in the USCMO’s big tent is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization with ties to the terrorist group, Hamas. Yet another USCMO confederate group is the Muslim American Society, the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Colonel Allen West, who has sounded the alarm repeatedly about Muslim intentions in America, had this to say about the USCMO: “USCMO aims to elect Islamists in Washington, with the ultimate objective of ‘institutionalizing policies’ favorable to Islamists—that is Shariah Law. This development bears careful monitoring in light of the U.S. (Muslim) Brotherhood’s recently exposed goal to wage a ‘civilization jihad’ against America that explicitly calls for infiltrating the U.S. political system and ‘destroying (it) from within’—an expressed objective from the strategic memorandum.”

As you read this there are Muslims immigrating to the United States as part of a larger plan to subvert, undermine, and ultimately take over our country. Although the bombings and other terrorist acts are not likely to stop, the next phase in the plan is to place enough Muslims in American communities to win seats on school boards and city councils, in state legislatures, and ultimately in Congress and even the White House (they may have already achieved this latter goal). Readers who think I am exaggerating the threat might want to consider the background of our current president or, better yet, just look at what has happened to Detroit. The functional question then becomes, What are Americans willing to do to stop Muslims who hate everything we stand for and everything we love? Stopping the Muslim Brotherhood, the USCMO, and other anti-American Muslim organizations begins at the grassroots level. Do not sit back and impotently wait for Congress to come to your rescue. We have sitting members of Congress who would convert to Islam tomorrow if that’s what it took to retain their seats—meaning their power, status, perquisites, and money.

When Muslims like the man in Detroit who complained that he found an egg hunt insulting to his Muslim beliefs push local communities, locals should push back. Citizens in Detroit should have told this Muslim complainer that if he found American traditions and values insulting he should exercise his freedom to relocate to another country. If you want to stop Muslim extremists from taking over the United States, refuse to sit back and silently accept these types of outrages. The preservation of America’s way of life begins with you, not Congress. Do not allow multi-cultural cowards on school boards to cave in to Muslims who hate everything America stands for. Speak out on behalf of American values and your beliefs and traditons. If a Muslim citizen finds American traditions and values insulting, there are plenty of Muslim countries in the world who will welcome him with open arms and Shariah Law. It is one thing for Americans to afford Muslim citizens the freedom of religion set forth in our Constitution. It is quite another to acquiesce when they demand that we change our values and beliefs to accommodate theirs.

How Millennials are Beating the Odds to Find Love

The Science of Happily Ever After: How Millennials are Beating the Odds to Find Love | TIME.com http://time.com/72678/the-science-of-happily-ever-after-how-millennials-are-beating-the-odds-to-find-love/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29

The Science of Happily Ever After: How Millennials are Beating the Odds to Find Love

Ty Tashiro

Millennials know that living happily ever after is a long shot, but they're not giving up. Here are some of the strategies young people are using to find love.

Like generations before them, millennials were told bedtime stories that ended happily ever after, but they have grown up to find a new technology-driven dating scene that has lost the plot. I’ve spoken with many millennials while touring for my new book The Science of Happily Ever After,and the question I hear over and over is: “Does happily ever after even exist?”

It’s a fair question from a group of young people who watched almost 50% of their parents’ generation divorce, another 10% permanently separate, and another 7% remain in unhappy marriages. Maybe it’s because I’m from Gen X, but a one-in-three chance of finding enduring love sounds a little depressing to me. But millennials are an optimistic bunch, so they’re usually relieved to hear that enduring love exists, even if they know that the odds are not in their favor.

Although singles of all ages yearn to find enduring love, many are uncertain about how to navigate the thousands of dating partners that are now available through online dating sites and mobile apps. Technology has given singles far more choice than previous generations, which sounds good in theory, but people are finding that the sheer volume and speed produced by dating technologies quickly becomes overwhelming.

It’s what social psychologist Barry Schwartz calls the “tyranny of freedom”: a feeling of being overwhelmed, uncertain, and anxious when we are given too many choices and no updated framework for managing those choices. Singles of all ages feel dizzied from the carousel of Tinder photos, resigned to the hundreds of online dating messages sitting in their inboxes, and weary from serial hookups that eventually give one’s love life an unbearable lightness. Collectively, these changes can give single young people a feeling of derealization, far away from the days of getting to know the girls next door over a milkshake at the soda fountain.

However, millennials are accustomed to a postmodern world that does not always provide genuine experiences. They didn’t have to put worms on their fishing lines, but instead were fed genetically modified fish, raised in a fake stream on a fish farm, that was colored to look more fish-like. They watched the economy almost collapse after Wall Street sold loans of loans, packaged in algorithmically complex securities, which led everyone to forget what the loans were worth in the first place. Millennials watched what happens when life becomes representations of representations and they decided that this is no way to live.

Now they are finding that the convenience of Tinder geolocation or algorithmic online matches can insert a layer of artifice, which makes it harder to really get to know someone. Like other aspects of their lives, millennials want to find a process that is more organic, a method of dating that is more real. Maybe that’s why millennials seem less inclined than previous generations to fall in love with the idea of marriage and instead are determined to find the right person for marriage.

My decision to write The Science of Happily Ever After based on the premise that good relationships come from choosing good partners. I do not promise love in ten days or the one secret to finding your soulmate, but instead provide a framework and methods for assessing the traits that really matter while choosing a partner. As I have talked about the book with university students around the country, I have realized that millennials have certain tendencies that are already changing the way we date. Here are a few highlights:

Be Clear About Your Goal: It sounds obvious that singles need a goal, but previous generations often felt trapped by narrow societal views of marriage. Millennials are generally more open to diversity, which has broadened our views of what can be a happy marriage, including changes in beliefs about gender roles, support of gay marriage and more favorable attitudes about interracial marriage.
Be Smart: Millennials are generally optimistic, but they delight in smart, contrarian views of cultural standards. They eagerly latch onto research findings that demonstrate how holding onto fairy tale notions of the beautiful princess, powerful princes, and fate delivering a soulmate, actually make it less likely that one’s love story will end happily ever after.
Find Undervalued Traits: Millennials do not want fate to provide the answer, they want to find an answer through their resourcefulness. They love the Moneyball aspect of the book, the idea that just as there were undervalued traits in baseball players that were key to winning, there are also undervalued traits in romantic partners that are key to happy relationships.
Take Action: Although millennials deliberate before acting, they don’t ruminate, which makes them amenable to solution focused psychological approaches. They want to create dating habits that create creating congruence between what they know are the right decisions in relationships and how they actually act.
Keep The Faith: Millennials may be dissatisfied with modern dating, but they are not giving up. They know that who you choose as a marital partner is one of the most important decisions you make in your lifetime and they are powered by an optimism that they will find a better way to do it.

Ty Tashiro, Ph.D. is a relationship expert and author of The Science of Happily Ever After: What Really Matters in the Quest for Enduring Love.

Obama visits Philippines

Obama visits Philippines; U.S. announces defense pact

MANILA — The U.S. and the Philippines have agreed on a new 10-year defense pact that will allow increased presence of U.S. troops in the Philippines, White House officials said Sunday.

The deal came in advance of President Obama's arrival in the Philippine capital, Manila, on Monday, the last stop on his four-country Asian tour.

The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which has been under negotiation for eight months, is "the most significant defense agreement that we have concluded with the Philippines in decades," said Evan Medeiros, National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs.

The accord will give U.S. forces temporary access to select Philippine bases and allow them to position planes and ships there.

Details of the size, duration and location of the increased U.S. presence are yet to be worked out, but it is a significant step in the Obama administration's pivot toward Asia, a region with a rising power in China and a large number of volatile territorial disputes in the East and South China seas.

The Philippines has long been seeking additional support in its disputes with China over areas such as the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. For the U.S., the pact is an opportunity to reassert its presence in the region and monitor its interests, particularly freedom of navigation on the South China Sea.

Obama has been careful not to antagonize China on this Asia trip, which included visits to Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.

"We're not interested in containing China," he said in South Korea on Friday. "We're interested in China's peaceful rise and it being a responsible and powerful proponent of the rule of law and an international system."

Sheena Chestnut Greitens, a senior fellow with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the U.S. is likely to underplay the China-related aspects of the new defense agreement.

"My guess is that although a lot of attention will be on the Philippines' territorial dispute with China, an effort will be made to frame this security cooperation in terms of other interests also," she said. They include counterterrorism operations in the Philippines' restive South and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Rodger Baker, vice president for Asia-Pacific Analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm, said increased U.S. presence will initially increase friction with China but may ultimately create a balance of power that will act as a deterrent to conflict.

"The Chinese consider U.S. action encirclement and containment.," he said. "China may not want U.S. ships regularly patrolling the region, but the rules of engagement will be more readily understood between the two and potentially create a temporary maritime balance."

Thomas Maresca for USA TODAY

Manila resident Rommel Estrada supports increased U.S. troop presence in the Philippines.

Manila resident Rommel Estrada supports increased U.S. troop presence in the Philippines. less

Reaction in the Philippines to the new defense agreement is expected to be positive. Public sentiment in the country is broadly pro-U.S. A Pew Research poll found that 85% of Filipinos had a favorable view of the United States, the highest rate in the world.

The Philippines has a long-standing and deep connection with the U.S. It was an American colony from 1898 to 1946, and the countries' military defense treaty, signed in 1951, is the oldest U.S. treaty alliance in Asia. Throughout the Cold War, the United States maintained a large military presence in the Philippines at Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station.

On the day before Obama's arrival, people enjoying a leisurely Sunday at Manila's downtown Rizal Park offered support for an increased U.S. presence.

"It's a big help, of course," said Ace Torres, 34, a security supervisor for a private company in Manila. The U.S. forces "will help with our defense against China and other countries."

Rommel Estrada, 35, a clerk in the city government of Quezon, also supported the move. "In my opinion it's good for the security of the Philippines," he said. "I think the U.S. soldiers can help ours improve. And they will also help with terrorism."

Still, U.S. military presence in the Philippines has long been an emotionally charged topic, evoking issues of sovereignty and national pride. Intense debates in the Philippine Senate ultimately led to closing Subic Bay Naval Station, the last permanent U.S. base in the country, in 1992. A small but vocal protest group opposed to U.S. troops in the Philippines was active in the week leading up to the president's visit and clashed with police in front of the U.S. Embassy in Manila on Wednesday.

Harry Roque, a professor at the University of Philippines College of Law, said the U.S. has consistently refused to take sides on Philippine territorial claims and is unlikely to start a confrontation with China on the Philippines' behalf.

"Unlike in Japan, where the U.S. has been very explicit in saying they would protect Japan against China, they have not said anything close concerning the Philippines," he said. "We simply don't have the same strategic interest and economic interest that the U.S. has with China. And that's a reality."

Thomas Maresca for USA TODAY

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: We're Headed for Oligarchy

http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/nobel-prize-winning-economist-were-heading-for-oligarchy/361200/

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: We're Headed for Oligarchy

Rebecca J. Rosen

In a recent interview at the Economic Policy Institute, Nobel Prize-Winning economist and MIT professor Robert Solow riffed on the political effects of increasing inequality and concentration of wealth at the very top. "If that kind of concentration of wealth continues, then we get to be more and more an oligarchical country, a country that's run from the top," he said.

Solow's sentiments echo a point he made earlier this week in his review of Thomas Piketty's book in The New Republic. (Solow, it should be noted, is not the only Nobel Prize-winning economist to use the o-word in discussing Piketty's work.) Having examined and explained the trends Piketty identifies, Solow turns his attention to the possible measures that could be taken to ameliorate the inequality, and rejigger the system to favor merit over inheritance. Piketty, Solow says, favors an annual, global progressive tax on wealth, such that the benefits of a growing economy could be more widely felt.

This is a proposal that Solow cheers. But there is one problem:

    Piketty writes as if a tax on wealth might sometime soon have political viability in Europe, where there is already some experience with capital levies. I have no opinion about that. On this side of the Atlantic, there would seem to be no serious prospect of such an outcome. We are politically unable to preserve even an estate tax with real bite. If we could, that would be a reasonable place to start, not to mention a more steeply progressive income tax that did not favor income from capital as the current system does. But the built-in tendency for the top to outpace everyone else will not yield to minor patches.

And this is, perhaps, the most significant point. Piketty has identified the mechanism by which inequality accelerates over time (Solow calls it, simply, the “rich-get-richer dynamic"). But the consequences of that distribution are not merely economic but political: A concentration of wealth leads to a concentration of power, which in turn protects the concentration of power. That our political system is incapable of tempering Piketty's dynamic is not a bizarre coincidence but a direct result.

"Wouldn’t it be interesting," Solow asks in his TNR review, "if the United States were to become the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the last refuge of increasing inequality at the top (and perhaps also at the bottom)? Would that work for you?"

It's working for some people, anyway.

Friday, April 25, 2014: Tarpley Discusses US Sanctions Against Russia

Tarpley Discusses US Sanctions Against Russia

Press TV: The West keeps on threatening Russia with more sanctions. In the case of a serious sanctions war, who would have the upper hand from an economic perspective?

Tarpley: I think it would be a disaster all around but I think the question of sanctions has this potential. Today we have S&P's fund rating agency downgrade the Russian debt to one notch above junk. What this is doing is destroying or potentially destroying the entire apparatus we call globalization. Globalization is a nice way to describe the unipolar financial arrangements of the world which have prevailed since about 1991.

And really the only way this could be torn down which I think is the imperative interest of most of the people in the world would be to have a very large country such as Russia be forced out of it, perhaps responding with capital controls, exchange controls, nationalizing, confiscating foreign investments and things of this sort, the kinds of things that happen in a war or near war situation.

The people here in Washington don't quite grasp it. In Washington we have a kind of psychosis of Russophobia. We have a bullying class which is so obsessed with the idea of hegemony the unipolar world that they're blind to the fact that this not tenable in today's world. So, they are hysterically pushing ahead with these sanctions.

I don't think the sanctions will work and my estimate is a large military escalation cannot be more than seven to ten days away. The date that's circulating now is the second of May. And that would be a large Russian move. Not necessarily the classic cross-border invasion but something spectacular maybe the defection of several brigades of the Ukrainian forces or something along those lines.

But essentially we have a civil war; it was guided by the Brennan of CIA and Biden the Vice President. And Russian speakers are being killed and Russia has been issuing these stern warnings all week but the US and the British and the NATO command don't seem to get it. So, Ukraine so to speak is asking for it.


Press TV: Of course speaking of Ukraine, I mean, how much and why is Ukraine important for the West, that is, decided to pick a fight with the Russia, was it worth it?




Tarpley: Well, we have this apparatus of the colored revolutions. We have the United States AID, we have the national endowment for democracy and they've sunk five billion dollars into essentially fomenting fascism in Ukraine which is what Madam Nuland has told us. So, they've invested five billion dollars. They would like to loot the Black Earth Region of Ukraine, they would like to asset-strip the coal and steel potential we have at Kryvyi Rih, in Donetsk, and Donbas region in general. They'd also like they would have liked to eject Russia from the Black Sea. I think it's more likely when the smoke clears that the entire belt of the territory along the northern shore of the Black Sea from Russia all the way over to Transnistria in Romania all of that will be in the hands of Russia.

So, I think the main thing going now though is this hysteria; the idea of not wanting to tolerate a power that is strong enough to say no and has the cultural and historical capabilities to say no which Russia certainly does do.

Press TV: Of course we know that the European Union is highly dependent on Russian gas. How much do you think EU would suffer from this dispute?




Tarpley: I think it would be disastrous for two countries in particular: Germany and Italy and some other smaller countries would suffer. But these are the two that are most reliant on exporting to the Russian market and also the most reliant on the Russian gas. So for them it would be a disaster. There is a lot of bad faith going on.

The United States would like to con the European Union into going for these sanctions and then being hit by them. We have to remember that the campaign of London and Washington against the Euro against the European Union, this has not gone away this is being conducted.

And from the British point of view, of course, they want to see Germany and Italy sacrifice. So there's a lot of treachery going on within the Western camp but certainly if most of this overland gas would cut off, this would be very serious. And in particular Madam Merkel is playing with fire. She has got an industrial base for the CDU, the Christian Democratic Union, which is largely made of industrialist and people who are highly interested in East-West trade. And if she crosses them the Merkel era may end much sooner than we think.

About Us | Musica Russica

About Us | Musica Russica



MUSICA RUSSICA

Established in 1987, Musica Russica is the largest publisher of Russian choral music outside of Russia. Musica Russica's founder and president, Dr. Vladimir Morosan, is acknowledged internationally for his expertise in the history of Russian choral music and its performance. Definitive and authoritative editions are produced drawing from Musica Russica's extensive library of original sources, in consultation with scholars from around the world.

Obama fails to secure breakthrough in Japan trade talks - Apr. 24, 2014

Obama fails to secure breakthrough in Japan trade talks - Apr. 24, 2014



Another Failure for Obama Regime in Trade Talks in Japan

The Obama administration was seeking a breakthrough on trade talks during a trip to Japan.

Trade talks between the United States and Japan failed to produce a breakthrough Thursday, in yet another blow to the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement.

The unwieldy trade pact is a major priority for the Obama administration, but progress has stalled after 20 rounds of negotiations spread over a period of years have failed to produce a consensus.

The latest hang-ups are over Japan's efforts to protect agricultural products including beef, rice, sugar and pork. In the same vein, Washington is hoping to protect U.S. automakers from Japanese competitors.

Advisers from both countries had been engaged in negotiations in the lead up to President Obama's trip to Japan, and analysts suggested that if significant progress were made, details would be announced at Thursday's joint press conference.

Yet no breakthrough materialized, leaving both leaders to say only that the initiative remains a priority and talks will continue.

"We are closer to agreement on issues like automobiles and agriculture," Obama said. "Now is the time for bold steps that are needed to reach a comprehensive agreement, and I continue to believe we can get this done."

Twelve countries -- Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam -- are taking part in the TPP talks. Together they make up 40% of the global economy.

The agreement has the potential to knock down tariffs and import quotas, and open new Pacific markets to American companies. The U.S. and Japan -- the first and third largest economies in the world -- anchor the deal, which does not include China.

Related story: Russia looks to Asia for trade cushion

Yet the TPP remains highly controversial in many of the countries currently involved in negotiations.

Key members of the U.S. Congress say they are being kept in the dark about pact details, and some members of the president's own party have voiced concern over the treaty's impact on jobs.

Significant political opposition makes it unlikely that Obama will be able to push any agreement through Congress before the 2014 mid-term elections.

Analysts at the Eurasia Group said that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is well aware of this dynamic, making concessions unlikely in the near term.

" [Abe] thus has little incentive to respond to U.S. demands that Japan open its agriculture, services, and auto sectors before Obama can ensure speedy U.S. ratification," the analysts wrote in a recent report. To top of page 

Here's how the US could stumble into war in Ukraine | GlobalPost

Here's how the US could stumble into war in Ukraine | GlobalPost



Overload: How the US will stumble into war in Ukraine


Given Washington’s mishandling of the crisis so far, it is not out of the question.

The skeptics were right.

Just one week ago, as top diplomats in Geneva heralded an agreement on Ukraine that was supposed to defuse the crisis, many warned that tensions were too high to be easily resolved.

Now the situation has deteriorated even further, with clashes in eastern Ukraine that have left at least five people dead.

Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin mutter darkly, if vaguely, of “consequences” if their opponents do not back down, while Ukraine’s acting prime minister warns that Europe may be on the brink of World War III.

More from GlobalPost: Follow the Ukraine crisis live blog for updates

A worldwide conflagration is still not very likely, the experts say, but as the war of words deepens there is increased danger that Washington and its allies could stumble into a situation that no one intended.

“I don’t want to make too much of the centennial of World War I,” said Thomas Graham, a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University, and a managing director at Kissinger Associates. “But, just as in 1914, the parties could be trapped by politics and rhetoric, and by their misreading of the other side. It is not highly likely, but I don’t rule it out.”

Graham, who served as President George W. Bush’s special assistant and National Security Council’s senior director for Russia from 2004 to 2007, is concerned by what he sees as the US failure to get Russia right.

“It is our problem as a policymaking establishment that we cannot understand how the other side looks at the world,” Graham said. “We think, ‘how can Russia be opposed to prosperous, democratic societies on its borders?’ We do not understand why they consider such moves to be against them.”

The US miscalculated the degree of extreme anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine’s Maidan demonstrations, Graham says, and therefore did not understand or prepare for the Russian response. But Moscow’s anger at Ukraine’s rapprochement with the West was less about expansionism and more about security.

“Putin does not want responsibility for the socio-economic development [of Ukraine],” Graham said. “He just wants some assurances that it will not become part of an organization that is overtly hostile to Russia.”

Guaranteeing that Ukraine will not be absorbed into NATO should be a no-brainer, according to Anatol Lieven, a war studies professor at King's College London and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

“Such a promise is politically difficult for the West, but in moral and practical terms should be extremely welcome,” he wrote last month in an essay that circulated among Russia specialists. “The USA and its allies have now demonstrated … that there are no circumstances in which they will go to war in the lands of the former Soviet Union. To offer NATO membership to Ukraine is therefore the worst kind of strategic and moral irresponsibility.”

But mistrust of Russia runs deep in the foreign policy establishment, where many of the players grew up during the Cold War. This has led to missteps and lost opportunities.

After 9/11, Putin was one of the first world leaders to call the White House and offer assistance. When the war in Afghanistan began, Russia made supply routes available to NATO through its territory, and was prepared to go even farther. According to Graham, they proposed strategic airlift services to transport wounded soldiers out of the country.

“The US said no, because it would have meant having some Russian military personnel on Bagram [the US base in Kabul],” he said. “Time and again, Russia came to us with reasonable proposals that we rejected out of hand. If our goal was to build a more positive relationship, we could have done that.”

But instead, the US and its allies forged ahead with NATO expansion, which destroyed Russia’s faith in a less antagonistic future with its former foes.

“They do not think we respect them,” Graham said.

Jack Matlock, a former US ambassador to Moscow, agrees. Matlock was in Russia during the chaotic period when the Soviet Union was dissolving. Like Bush’s former special assistant, Matlock thinks the US could have done a better job at creating a connection with Moscow.

The expansion of NATO under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were the equivalent of “a swift kick to the groin” for Russia, he wrote in The Washington Post last month.

“The sad fact is that the cycle of dismissive actions by the United States met by overreactions by Russia has so poisoned the relationship that the sort of quiet diplomacy used to end the Cold War was impossible when the crisis in Ukraine burst upon the world’s consciousness,” Matlock wrote.

This is what is making the present situation so dangerous, Graham says.

“How do you de-escalate at this point?” he asked. “We do not have the necessary channels of communication.”

This was painfully obvious last week in Geneva, when all sides signed on to a compromise that none was really prepared to back.

The agreement called for “all illegal armed groups” to lay down their weapons. Almost immediately disputes arose over who was illegal, who was to go first, and who was responsible for ensuring compliance.

“All the parties were convinced that the other side was controlling the situation,” Graham said.

The US State Department is endorsing photographs it says prove that Russian forces are instigating a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. Russia, for its part, points to visits to Kyiv from the head of the CIA and the US vice president as evidence that Washington is “running the show” in Ukraine.

Tensions are so high at this point that anything could happen.

“We do not know how this is going to play out,” Graham said. “No one really controls the forces. If there is widespread violence in eastern Ukraine, Putin can’t not send forces in. But if troops move across the border, what will the West’s response be? Sanctions aren’t going to do it.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry is conferring with European allies about imposing stiffer penalties on sectors of the Russian economy.

This might have some effect. Standard & Poor’s ratings agency has already downgraded Russia's credit to just a step above junk.

But neither Washington nor Europe is prepared to sacrifice its own interests to penalize Russia.

“Right now they are desperately looking for sanctions that make them appear to be doing something but don’t really cost them anything,” Graham said.

If armed conflict breaks out between Russia and Ukraine, however, the stakes would rise in a hurry.

“We may have to provide lethal aid to Ukrainian troops,” Graham said. “It is not difficult to spin out a scenario where things could get really nasty.”

Washington has not really developed a suitable response to Russia in the Ukrainian crisis, he insists.

“We don’t know what to do,” he said. “Russia has outplayed us. We have been caught flat-footed, without a serious policy.”

This will take a long time to play out, he maintains.

“It is definitely a different period in US-Russia relations,” he said. “No one talks about a ‘reset’ any more.”

Back in 2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Russian counterpart staged a ceremony where they pressed a red button labeled “peregruzka,” which the US thought meant “reset.”

In fact, it means “overload,” a mistake that amused Moscow and embarrassed Washington. But maybe overload is exactly right.

“Clinton should say that it wasn’t really a mistake,” Graham laughed. “It was a prediction.”

Facebook founder may fund election of Ukraine's Radical Party leader - source - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video

Facebook founder may fund election of Ukraine's Radical Party leader - source - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video



CIA-controlled Facebook is about to Sponsor Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev in Defiance of Geneva Agreement?


The Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may fund the presidential election campaign of Ukraine's Radical Party leader Oleg Lyashko, a source in Lyashko's inner circle said on Saturday.

Lyashko is by far more popular with Ukraine's nationalist users of the Internet than Oleg Tyagnibok or Dmitry Yarosh, the source said, adding that the issue is negotiated with the chief of Facebook monitoring service.

According to the source, the US businessman hopes he may thus eventually carry out his projects in Ukraine.

The snap presidential election in Ukraine has been set for May 25th, with 23 candidates running for the post.

Lyashko, a non-affiliated Supreme Rada deputy, said he would run for president in late February. He was the author of a draft law to release "political prisoners" (23 names on the list, including some who were found guilty for killing a judge in spring 2011).

The Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, as well as the head of the 'Right Sector' Ukrainian Alliance of radical nationalist organizations, Dmitry Yarosh, also run for president.

In January and February, the movement militants captured administrative buildings, seized arms from the Interior Ministry arsenals and clashed with police. They are currently involved in crushing the protests of those in the east of Ukraine who support the idea of making Ukraine a federation.

I could build Instagram in a week

http://qz.com/202373/the-technology-behind-tech-startups-is-now-their-least-essential-part/

I could build Instagram in a week.
How many times have you heard someone say “I could build [insert hot startup name here] in a week”? I hear it all the time. But, I have yet to see one of these delusional wizards actually do it. They are obviously too busy inventing the next big thing. They fail to realize that building a successful consumer web or mobile product takes more than great technology. A lot more.
Success looks easy from a distance. Technology seems simple if the design is great. Attracting great founders and early employees just means rounding up some of your friends. Raising money is always easy, right? Getting great press stories just takes a few emails. Attracting influential users just sort of happens. Viral growth is a simple formula. Solving a problem that millions of people care about is just luck. Going public or getting acquired is automatic. There are hundreds of critical decisions along the way. None of them are easy.
From a technical point of view there isn’t much difference between Instagram, Path, Oink, Hipster, or a bunch of other companies that all do essentially the same things. Mobile, social, photo apps that include comments and some type of friend/follow model. Why is one worth $1 billion and another shut down with no value? It isn’t about the technology or how long it took to build.
First Mover Advantage is real. The first product on the market has a big advantage…if the product actually works. People get used to the product, get to like the user experience, and develop a user community culture. Users invite their friends and the viral growth cycle starts.
Network effects are the value in social products. Once the user community starts viral growth they are not likely to switch to another product…even if it is better. A competing product with a few new features, or something that is faster or cheaper, isn’t likely to steal away many users.
Design and user experience matters, especially with consumer products. Timing and luck play a big part in success. Technology can be replicated, timing and luck can’t.
Facebook definitely has the engineering talents to build a mobile product with features similar to Instagram. But it wouldn’t be Instagram. It would be an obscure feature buried somewhere inside the Facebook app that would only work within Facebook. Instagram is magical because it does one thing really well. It stands alone, and is quick and easy to use. It isn’t bogged down with the overhead of a much larger app or service. Instagram photos can be shared across lots of different social services. If Facebook engineers designed a mobile photo sharing app would it work like this? No.
Mobile is the future, and photos are core to Facebook. Instagram does both better than Facebook. Being the leader in two growing trends is critical to Facebook. That is why Instagram is worth more than $1 billion to Facebook.
Google Video is another example. Google already had a video hosting and sharing service called Google Video…but it wasn’t YouTube. Even though the features were similar, the user experience, and more importantly, the user community, were very different. The technical features could be replicated, the brand and user community could not.
Web video, and search for that video, is a huge trend. YouTube was the clear leader. Whoever owned YouTube would instantly become the leader. That was worth $1.6 billion to Google…even though they already had comparable features in Google Video.
Next time some wizard tells you they could build XYZ hot startup in a week, just smile and say “You probably could build the features…but you couldn’t build the user community or the company. That is where the value is.”
I wrote this several years ago when Facebook acquired Instagram for about $1 billion. That seemed like an outrageous amount at the time. Since then SnapChat and WhatsApp valuations make Instagram look like a screaming buy.
Remember that the value of an acquisition depends on what the acquiring company can do with it. And that value can be radically different for one acquirer versus another

Babylon Gardens

Searching for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon | Ancient Origins http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/has-location-hanging-gardens-babylon-finally-been-found-001060

The Myth of Babylon Hanging Gardens Debunked

Searching for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The real location of the elusive Hanging Gardens of Babylon has eluded researchers for centuries.  It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World whose location is still unknown, yet despite a plethora of studies claiming to know the answer, there is still no consensus among historians and experts as to where this ancient wonder once stood.  However, research conducted in November, 2013 by an Oxford University academic claimed to finally hold the answer.
The most commonly held belief in scientific circles is that the ancient city and hanging gardens was constructed by the Babylonians under the leadership of king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife Amytis of Media, who longed for the plants of her homeland. 
However, Dr Stephanie Dalley, from Oxford University’s Oriental Institute, has spent the last two decades piecing together clues from ancient texts and decoding cuneiform text, and now believes she has come up with the true location of the Hanging Gardens. According to Dalley, the gardens were not built by the Babylonians at all, but by their neighbours and archenemies, the Assyrians, under their monarch Sennacherib.
Dalley is one of only a handful of people in the world who can read cuneiform text and one of the clues that led her to her theory was a prism at the British Museum with cuneiform text describing the life of Sennacherib, who ruled over an empire stretching from southern Turkey to modern day Israel.  The text describes a palace and garden that he built that was a “wonder for all people”.
Further support for the theory comes from a bas-relief, removed from Nineveh in northern Iraq and brought to the British Museum, showing Sennacherib’s palace complex and a garden featuring trees hanging in the air on terraces and plants suspended on arches.
Dalley believes that the famous hanging gardens were located near the city of Ninevah and were built in a series of terraces, built up like an amphitheatre with a lake at the bottom.  Because Ninevah is so far from Babylon, evidence pointing to this region as the real location of the gardens has previously been overlooked. However, Dr Dalley found that when the Assyrians conquered Babylon, their capital became known as “New Babylon”, possibly accounting for the confusion over the names.
Unfortunately, the high level of religious and ethnic violence currently plaguing that region around Nineveh means that Dalley has not been able to go there to find the proof she needs to confirm her theory. However, she directed a local film crew to go there and survey a specific area on her behalf. Their footage shows a huge mound of dirt and rubble, which slopes down to an area of greenery.  Dalley is desperately trying to find a way to excavate the site but she believes that the violence in the region may make it impossible.
“More research is required at the site, but sadly I don’t think that will be possible in my lifetime,” said Dalley. However, she added that her conviction that the gardens were in Ninevah “remains unshaken".

US-AU

US alliance overcharges and under-delivers, says ANU's Mike McKinley | canberratimes.com.au http://m.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/us-alliance-overcharges-and-underdelivers-says-anus-mike-mckinley-20140422-372m7.html 【from Next Browser】

The Hidden Agenda Behind the Trans-Pacific Partnership

On the hidden agenda behind the article "U.S. and Japan must seal the deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership" from The Washington Post - 2014/04/21

http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-and-japan-must-seal-the-deal-on-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2014/04/21/c8c8f6a2-c98a-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html

Misstated economic benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partership are usually brought up to conceal strategic geopolitical objectives of Washington's agenda in the Pacific region.

Trumped-up and baseless, purely propagandistic claims that China and Russia - including in light of CIA-backed recent fascisist coup in Kiev that led to secession of Crimea, following the public referendum on the peninsula - pose geopolitical risks have been cited as a lame excuse to expand the NATO alliance's capacity into the Asia-Pacific Region by bringing together 11 so-called would-be members of the TPP.

According to the Washington Post, the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been described as the centerpiece of President Obama’s attempt to “pivot” U.S. foreign policy toward Asia. But for some reason, the geopolitical imperialist encroachment of some of the US long-standing corporations, seeking to strengthen their fascist-like dictatorial monopoly in the region by the use of expanded NATO alliance's military power there, is presented in economic terms.

The bastion of neocon media has stated that TPP is a proposed trade liberalization agreement among 12 nations, proudly adding that the TPP would, in binding the United States more closely with a portion of the world, collectively account for 40 percent of global output. It said, "At the same time, it would ensure that this huge area, including giants such as Japan, Canada, Mexico and Australia, conducts business according to U.S.-style rules on tariffs, regulation and intellectual property. China would be left on the sidelines, along with its mercantilist model of international commerce — unless and until it modifies that approach. The net effect would be a better balance of power, money and ideas between the United States and its allies on the one hand and China on the other".

We will touch on what "US-style rules" really mean in a US-globalized unipolar world, later on.

"To reap these strategic benefits", the article continues, "of course, the United States and the other 11 would-be members of the TPP must first cut a deal. As a practical matter, that means everyone is waiting for a “yes” between Washington and Tokyo, the two biggest economies in the group, and the two with the most divergent approaches, historically, to trade. When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed last year to pursue a TPP deal, he seemed to be making an historic decision to open his country’s long-closed domestic markets — not only to satisfy long-standing U.S. complaints about Japanese protectionism but also to subject Japan’s stagnant economy to the bracing effects of competition. Lately, however, talks have stalled over age-old issues such as Japan’s high tariffs on U.S. meat and its non-tariff barriers (regulations and such) against U.S. autos."

The pesky economic details of a planned giant  military block of 11 nations that are supposed to project NATO power across the Pacific with China as their primary geopolitical foe in the region sound very pathetic indeed.Ironically enough, lamentations about Congress refusing to give fascist-minded neocons a "carte blanche" in pursuing their geopolitical adventurism games in the economically viable Pacific region, as well as mentioning of geopolitical risks, allegedly posed by war-mongering Russia and China, as an excuse for outdated Cold War mentality toward NATO and military alliance with Japan, give away the true motives of the frantic proponents of the TPP.

"Now, as President Obama embarks on an Asian trip, the highlight of which will be a state visit to Japan, pessimism about the two countries’ ability to reach a TPP deal is growing. Japan alone is not to blame: Congress has failed to grant Mr. Obama “fast-track” authority to speed lawmakers’ approval of a deal once it’s negotiated. That ostensible sign of flagging U.S. interest weakened the U.S. negotiating team’s position and reinforced deep-seated resistance to trade liberalization among Japan’s political interest groups."

What was initially proposed as an economic partneship, notwithstanding the vagueness of pure economic benefits of such a union to other parties involved, finally has taken shape of expanded military block with overlapping responsibilities of its would-be members in the area that has so far been not sufficently aligned geopolitically against China.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a military step that amounts to an act of war in contemporary world politics. Disguised as an economic alliance, a TPP deal would mean a geopolitical shift in the Pacific region with unpredictable economic consequences for much of the global economy. That is why all the other business-minded parties are not rushing to strike a deal which spells war on Russia and China.

Increasingly disoriented Mr. Obama and chauvinistic Mr. Abe are said to be bent to use the above mentioned state visit "to shore up U.S.-Japan relations and to refocus their respective publics on what’s really at stake." In other words, they are supposed to make use of all of their public relations resources to sell the TPP to the American and the Japanese people.

If pure  economic arguments in favor of this blatant de facto NATO expansion into the Pacific are not enough - because they are nonexistent from other parties' point if view - the scarecrow of neocon-fomented global threat from China and Russia will be raised in a futile attempt to scare the gullible publics.

That is all there is left to the Cold War minded fascist clique of neocon politicians and those of their corporate patrons, who are trying to establish their truly global monopoly with absolute neglect of the interest of the majority of the American people or anybody anywhere else.

They will repeat the old stories of Russian and Chinese threats in the hope that people are just as stupid and uninforned as they used to be. They will use the media to propagate lies and justify their monopolistic policies pursued through fascist dictatorship by means of morally obsolete and unjustifiably expensive geopolitical tools such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization, commonly known as NATO, that had been designed as a means to be used against existential threats to separate nations.

The world has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War but certain corporate entities that have bought their way into the US government have continued using NATO to build their monopolistic empires effectively turning the US democracy into a quasi-fascist dictatorship, relying on their media for respective propaganda and disinformation and on their tax-payer-funded Armed Forces, suplemented by corporate-owned private military organizations, for punishing those who oppose their dictatorial encroachments at home and quasi-imperialist policies abroad.

Ironically enough, their utterly discredited media outlets have continued to insist that the world "remains fraught with geopolitical risks". "China’s rise is not the only danger — as Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s seizure of Crimea has shown. Among the best safeguards against these risks are the United States’ traditional alliances such as NATO and the 50-year-old mutual-defense pact that has bound the United States and Japan. The Trans-Pacific Partnership would augment and update that long-standing partnership", said the Washington Post.

Bent to globalize their monopoly both economically and militarily, those fascist-minded neocons in Washington speak of nonexistent "geopolitical risks" where the only true geopolitical threat emanates from the global cartels they represent that use political power to their own narrow interests and desperately cling to such morally and economically obsolete military machines like NATO. Such corporate owners need to be stopped from continuing to use such massive geopolitical instruments for their personal gains.

Because corporate monopolization, fostered through political as well as military means, inevitably leads to propper fascist dictatorship, the eventual loss from such rampant adventurism will be incurred by everybody involved

Born in Jerusalem...

US to review Jerusalem birthplace law - US News | Latest US News Headlines | The Irish Times - Tue, Apr 22, 2014 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/us-to-review-jerusalem-birthplace-law-1.1769251

Born in Jerusalem...

The US Supreme Court yesterday agreed to weigh the constitutionality of a law that was designed to allow American citizens born in Jerusalem – the historic holy city claimed by Israelis and Palestinians – to have Israel listed as their birthplace on passports.
The case concerns a long-standing US foreign policy that the president – and not Congress – has sole authority to state who controls Jerusalem.
Seeking to remain neutral on the hotly contested issue, the US State Department allows passports to name Jerusalem as a place of birth, but no country name is included.

US constitution
The department, which issues passports and reports to the president, has declined to enforce the law passed by Congress in 2002, saying it violated the separation of executive and legislative powers laid out in the US constitution.
In court papers, President Barack Obama’s administration said taking sides on the issue could “critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to further the peace process”.
The government has noted that US citizens born in other places in the region where sovereignty has not been established, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, are similarly prevented from stating a country of birth on their passports.
In 2003, Ari and Naomi Zivotofsky, the parents of US citizen Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem in 2002, filed a lawsuit seeking to enforce the law.
They would like their son’s passport to say that he was born in Israel.
Since the founding of Israel in 1948, US presidents have declined to state a position on the status of Jerusalem, leaving it as one of the thorniest issues to be resolved in possible future Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
When Republican President George W Bush signed the 2002 law as part of a broader foreign affairs Bill, he said that if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, it would “impermissibly interfere” with the president’s authority to speak for the country on international affairs.
An estimated 50,000 American citizens were born in Jerusalem and could, if they requested it, list Israel as their birthplace if the law was enforced

Militarization of Africa

The Militarization of the African Continent: AFRICOM Expands Operations in Cooperation With Europe | Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-militarization-of-the-african-continent-africom-expands-operations-in-cooperation-with-europe/5378627

Militarization of the African Continent: AFRICOM Expands Operations in Cooperation With Europe

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Global Research

April 22, 2014

AFRICOM
Reports indicate that the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) is expanding its operations on the continent. A series of naval maneuvers and exercises are currently taking place in West Africa.

AFRICOM was formed in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration and has been expanded and enhanced under Barack Obama. A series of navy operations known as Obangame Express is now in its fourth year with additional European, African and at least one South American state, Brazil, involved.

The Pentagon’s Obangame Express 2014 brings in more navies while military build-up continues.

These operations are allegedly designed to strengthen the security capacity of Africa states in West Africa. Over the last several years there have been numerous reports of “piracy” off the coast of West Africa where greater oil exports into the U.S. are endangered.

The official German news agency reported that

“More than 30 warships from 20 countries are engaged in major maneuvers along the West African cost. In addition to 11 West African nations, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands as well as Denmark, Turkey, Brazil and the United States have dispatched ships, making the training maneuver one of Africa’s largest.” (DW, April 18)

This same article continued noting that

“Of the non-African participants, Germany has dispatched the most vessels: one frigate, one corvette and two supply vessels with more than 400 military personnel. The ships and their crews are located outside the Nigerian port of Lagos where they are waiting for the sea phase of the military maneuver to begin on Saturday.” (DW, April 18)

Nigeria is the largest exporter of oil in Africa to the U.S. Intelligence and military ties between Washington and Abuja are growing while France and other European states work in partnership with the Pentagon.

Nigerian Oil and Internal Security

The government of Nigeria is currently battling an underground military and religious group known as Boko Haram which has carried out a series of brutal attacks in the north of the country, Africa’s most populous. Over the last five years since the military and police assault on Boko Haram which killed its then leader, the group has claimed responsibility and been blamed for the kidnapping of civilians, the bombing of government buildings and churches.

During the week of April 14, two high-profile attacks were carried out. A bus stop in the political capital of Abuju was bombed resulted in the deaths of over 70 people. Later in the week, 129 school girls were kidnapped from a boarding school near the Sambisa forest in the north.

Although some of the girls have reportedly escaped from their abductors, many remain unaccounted for at the time of this writing. The parents of the children along with opposition politicians are blaming the government for not developing an adequate security apparatus to protect Nigerians from such attacks.

Immediately the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan blamed the Boko Haram group for the bomb attack and kidnappings. The U.S. has pledged to Nigeria to assist the country in its counter-insurgency operations against Boko Haram.

Even the German news agency reports that

“It’s also no coincidence that the Gulf of Guinea is the site of the exercise and that Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest oil exporters, is heavily involved. The country, which is hosting this year’s maneuver, is providing many military facilities and warships.” (DW, April 18)

Ground Troops Build-up in Horn of Africa

In Djibouti, which houses the only known permanent base of AFRICOM on the continent, is undergoing a $750 million upgrade. There are currently thousands of Pentagon troops stationed at Camp Lemonnier in the Horn of Africa nation.

In neighboring Somalia, and off its coast, U.S. imperialism supported by the EU is maintaining a 22,000 African Union Mission (AMISOM) inland. Offshore both U.S. and EU Naval Forces (EUFOR) have flotillas of warships in the Gulf of Aden under the guise of fighting “piracy” like in the Gulf of Guinea on the other side of the continent.

On the ground in Somalia, the Al-Shabaab Islamic resistance movement has been battling the U.S. and EU-backed forces of AMISOM for five years. Despite claims that the group has been forced out of the capital of Mogadishu, it is still capable of carrying out large-scale operations in the city where on April 21 a cabinet official was assassinated in a bomb attack.

According to Army Times,

“Those threats in the region have helped transform the U.S. military’s Camp Lemonnier along the East African coast of Djibouti from a ramshackle outpost of a few hundred troops a decade ago into a hub of operations for AFRICOM and home to several thousand U.S. troops. And beyond the gates of Lemonnier, ‘throughout the rest of the area, there are small pockets of temporarily placed organizations and people,’ says AFRICOM Commander Army General David Rodriguez said.” (April 16)

The presence of these Pentagon troops along with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives, are also utilized to pressurize other states in the region even those who are considered allies of Washington. In South Sudan, which has undergone internal conflict within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) party since Dec. 15, the White House has attempted to dictate the terms of the negotiations aimed at reaching a lasting peace accord.

Uganda, another close ally of Washington, has several thousand troops deployed in South Sudan assisting the Juba government in repressing and eradicating the oppositional threat from the followers of the ousted Vice President Reik Machar. President Salva Kiir has criticized both the U.S. and the United Nations mission in South Sudan for what he describes as the unwarranted interference in the country’s internal affairs.

It was successive U.S. administrations which supported and encouraged the partitioning of the Republic of Sudan, formerly Africa’s largest geographic nation-state. Nonetheless, the current fighting has brought the world’s newest nation to the brink of collapse.

If South Sudan completely implodes politically, it will constitute a monumental failure in U.S. foreign policy towards Africa. Consequently, the Obama administration is quite concerned about developments inside the country.

South Sudan is also major producer of oil and U.S. petroleum interests want to further exploit the natural resources of the country.

With these interests involved from the Gulf of Guinea to the Gulf of Aden there will of course be additional deployments and aggressive military operations conducted on the continent.

Opposing the Shifting Focus of Washington’s Militarist Policies in Africa

There are no consistent efforts on the part of the anti-war and anti-imperialist movements based in the West in regard to the Pentagon and CIA build-up in Africa. Although AFRICOM is running rampant throughout the region in the aftermath of the support for surrogate forces in the Horn of Africa and the destabilization, blanket bombing and overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011, most people are not aware of the long term dangers posed by the imperialist military forces.

This presence in Africa has not brought about stability but only more internal strife and economic exploitation. In Mali, where the U.S. had extensive influence in the military apparatus of the state, those same elements which were trained by the Pentagon staged a coup against the government in March 2012, resulting in the worsening of a northern insurgency and the intervention of French troops that remain in the country.

The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) has issued statements in opposition to the war against Libya and the French intervention in Mali. At the Left Forum held at Pace University in June 2013, UNAC hosted a panel on “The War Against Africa” which enjoyed a standing-room-only audience.

Again this year at the Left Forum being held at John Jay University, UNAC will host another panel on the U.S. war drive looking at various geo-political regions including Ukraine as well as Africa. These efforts must be multiplied throughout the U.S. in order to provide the necessary political education needed to mount a struggle against imperialism in Africa and throughout the world.

The Sources of US-China Strategic Mistrust

The Sources of US-China Strategic Mistrust | The Diplomat http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/the-sources-of-us-china-strategic-mistrust/

The Sources of US-China Strategic Mistrust

The historical use of ambiguity has been at the foundation of postwar U.S.-China ties.

By J.M. Norton
April 21, 2014

The recent visits of U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to China and the Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy to Taiwan and the Chinese leadership’s responses to these visits indicate that U.S.-China relations continue to suffer from what many experts tend to label as “strategic mistrust.” Today the long-standing strategic mistrust issue exacerbates tensions between the U.S. and China as they have increased interactions involving vital national interests and legitimate national security concerns in the areas of the Taiwan and Malacca Straits. The increasing frequency of interactions intensify the possibilities of miscommunication, misperception and miscalculation between two powers that possess the capability to exact disastrous damage on each other. These observations lead to some salient questions: What are the sources of U.S.-China strategic mistrust? What factors exacerbate the mistrust? And what formal steps should be taken to address this long-standing problem?

Why U.S.-China Joint Communiqués Are Sources of Mistrust

The 1972, 1979 and 1982 joint communiqués serve as the cornerstone of U.S.-China relations and at the same time paradoxically undermine bilateral ties in two vital areas: Taiwan and Japan.

The importance of the Taiwan question in U.S.-China relations is obvious because it stands at the center of the three communiqués. Yet each communiqué contains language building ambiguity directly into the foundation of U.S.-China ties. The language reveals each side has different interpretations of and conflicting views about the political future of “One China.” The Communist Party of China (CPC) sees itself as the legitimate ruler of “One China” and asserted the position to compel the U.S. leadership to accept its legitimacy and to return Taiwan to China. The U.S. position recognizes the CPC but maintains an ambiguous stance, only “acknowledging one legitimate government” of “One China” without indicating which government.

Washington’s ambiguous position turns less ambiguous when several variables involving U.S.-Taiwan ties are factored into the equation. Take U.S. congressional acts as one example. These acts represent strong cultural, defense, economic and political support for the Taiwan leadership and its people, and occur in a context shaped by powerful antecedents. Historically, the U.S. side supported its World War 2 ally Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese civil war. At the conclusion of the war, the U.S. along with other powers in the Cairo, Potsdam and Yalta agreements returned Taiwan to China. At the time the KMT was the ruling party of “One China.” In the ensuing decades the U.S. side continued to support the KMT and at the same time fought indirect wars with the CPC and took 30 years to recognize the CPC as the legitimate ruling party of mainland China. This context of U.S.-KMT relations adds a distinctive contour to Washington’s ambiguous position.

In the 1982 joint communiqué the American leadership made assurances that it would reduce and terminate arms sales to Taiwan while the Chinese leadership committed to the peaceful solution of the Taiwan question. As for the U.S., for more than 30 years it has sold weapons to the Taiwanese leadership. The Chinese leadership has been and continues to be confused by some sales and discussions of proposed sales of weapons with offensive capabilities, which reach as far back as 1992 when the U.S. sold F-16 A/B fighters to Taiwan. Further, the Chinese side views the discussions about possible arms sales taking place between high-level American and Taiwanese officials as equivalent to formal political and military support for and recognition of Taiwan. As for China, the leadership is committed to peaceful reunification. But the leadership retains the right to use force against Taiwan, and in 1995 it identified the three conditions that would drive it to resort to the use of force. From the U.S. viewpoint, one principal problem is that the Chinese military maintains more than 1,100 short- and medium-range missiles deployed in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces. This formidable missile posture not only threatens Taiwan and Japan, both of which the U.S. is required to defend, but also U.S. military assets located in Japan.

The second source of strategic mistrust is Japan. Despite the significant impact of U.S.-Japan ties on U.S.-China relations, only the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué mentions Japan. The Chinese side states that, “it firmly opposes the revival and outward expansion of Japanese militarism and firmly supports the Japanese people’s desire to build an independent, democratic, peaceful and neutral Japan.” The U.S. side declares it “places the highest value on its friendly relations with Japan; it will continue to develop the existing close bonds.” The other two joint communiqués make no mention of Japan.

In the Chinese perception, Washington is the principal driver of Japan’s transformation. Over time it has helped transform Japan’s self defense force into a national military. And it has assisted the Japanese side in acquiring and manufacturing through joint cooperation technologically advanced weapon systems, some of which have offensive capabilities. Right now the Chinese leadership sees the U.S. as the main driver of Japan’s resurgence and as lacking the political will to restrain an increasingly assertive Japan. Further, the current Japanese leadership’s growing assertiveness takes place in the context of growing nationalism with an imperial twist (for instance, the “731” incident). In short, from the Chinese viewpoint, U.S. leaderships have spurred the “revival and outward expansion of Japanese militarism,” which represents a violation of Chinese concerns articulated in the 1972 communiqué.

Both the American and Chinese sides in the 1972 and 1978 communiqués agree that neither side should pursue hegemony and spheres of influence. Both communiqués state that, “neither should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country of group of countries to establish such hegemony.” The 1972 communiqué also states that, “both sides are of the view that it would be against the interests of the peoples of the world for many major country to collude with another against other countries, or for major countries to divide up the world into spheres of interest.” Although both sides agree to avoid hegemony and spheres of influence, each side perceives the other side might violate the 1972 and 1978 joint communiqués.

As for China, the U.S.-Japan security agreements and the military dimension of the U.S. pivot suggest not only is the U.S. leadership pursuing a regional hegemonic position but also is colluding with Japan (and with the Philippines) to carve out a regional sphere of interest. The potentially new regional structure has the American and Japanese leaderships as the center of gravity. And the sphere of interest consists of the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Straits area, and the areas up to the Malacca Straits. Basically the Chinese leadership believes the American leadership has ambitious regional designs that include a major role for Japan. And for obvious reasons this undercuts commitments made in the 1972 and 1978 communiqués.

Conversely, the U.S. side might perceive the Chinese leadership as aiming to displace the U.S. and establish a regional architecture with China at the center. The Chinese leadership for instance has pursued advanced weaponry capabilities including anti-ship missiles and hypersonic vehicles with little to no transparency and no institutional dialogue. From the U.S. side the growing capabilities occurring behind “the great wall of opacity” suggest the Chinese leadership might be an emerging threat. In response the U.S. leadership now tends to play the “Japan Card,” the “Philippine Card,” and to a lesser extent, the “Korea Card” to create power centers to confront and balance the rise of China. In the past this approach has led to world wars. But for now in large part it has encouraged the Chinese leadership to engage in more and more proactive defensive and offensive measures.

The Clash of Intent and Capabilities

Both the American and Chinese sides assert specific intentions in the three joint communiqués but at the same time pursue other intentions and capabilities contradicting their initial positions. The principal problem emerging out of this conundrum relates to intention and capabilities and how these two variables influence threat perceptions and conflict scenarios. According to Dr. Monte Bullard, a retired U.S. army colonel, the Chinese side constructs “threat perceptions on intent more than on capabilities. However, the American side constructs threat perceptions more on capabilities than on intent. The different perceptions result in different conflict scenarios in the Taiwan Straits.” Though Bullard applies his observation to interactions between the U.S. and China in the Taiwan Straits, his conclusion also pertains to the areas up to the Malacca Straits. In this context this means as both sides have more and more interactions involving national interests and security concerns, the risk calculation increases because both sides work from different starting positions.

Is It Time for a Fourth Communiqué?

Because the three joint communiqués are principal sources of strategic mistrust in the two vital areas of the Taiwan question and the role of Japan, the American and Chinese leaderships might consider pursuing a series of military and diplomatic initiatives aiming to build the foundation for a fourth communiqué. A fourth communiqué might better reflect the nature and scope of post-Cold War ties and the emerging bilateral relationship. It also might help to reduce misperception, miscommunication and miscalculation. By taking this approach it could facilitate a better understanding of and respect for the other side’s long-standing and emerging legitimate national interests and security concerns. This in turn might help defuse tensions and moderate what appears to be an emerging regional structural crisis.

Dr. J.M. Norton teaches international relations and US foreign policy at China’s Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) in Beijing, China. The views presented here are the author’s own and are not associated with the views of CFAU

Fascist Regime in Kiev Disintegrates: TARPLEY.net

TARPLEY.net



Fascist Regime in Kiev Disintegrates: IMF Super-Austerity Shock Turning Ukrainians Against Kiev Fascist Clique; Kerry and Rice Discredited by Fake Leaflet Hoax; Syrian Terrorist Rebels Driven Out of Homs; GOP Sabotage of Medicaid Expansion Causing 17,000 Needless US Deaths; World Peace and Charity Remain Essence of Easter

By Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net – World Crisis Radio
April 19, 2014

How did the government get into an armed standoff with a Nevada rancher? - Everything you need to know about the Nevada rancher controversy - Vox

How did the government get into an armed standoff with a Nevada rancher? - Everything you need to know about the Nevada rancher controversy - Vox

How did the government get into an armed standoff with a Nevada rancher?

For 20 years, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has defied the
federal government by letting his cattle graze on federal lands without
paying the proper fees. So last week, the government sent out armed
agents to confiscate the cattle. But hundreds of protesters — some of
whom were armed militia members — assembled in support of Bundy. The
situation threatened to get violent, and so the government backed down
for the time being, and returned the cattle to Bundy.

These countries have a tenth the world's people — and almost half its homicides - Vox

These countries have a tenth the world's people — and almost half its homicides - Vox





Think of it as a new kind of global inequality. The United Nations
warns there's a widening gap between countries with extremely high
homicide rates and countries with low ones.




According to a recent UN Office of Drugs and Crime
report, 25 countries have rates of at least 20 homicides per 100,000
people. That's way more violent than the United States — our homicide
rate is a mere 4.7 per 100,000 people. It's even more violent than some
combat zones. Iraq, for example, had a violent death rate of 18 per
100,000 people in 2012, including both homicides and civilian deaths in combat.


All in all, the most homicidal countries account for a tenth of the
world's population (11 percent) but nearly half — 46 percent — of its
homicides

Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper A Useful Idiot

Putin, Petrorubles and Our PM's Bad Posture - TheTyee.ca - Mobile http://m.thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/04/21/Putin-and-Harper/

On Ukraine, Harper as useful idiot -- but for whom?

By Murray Dobbin

[Prime Minister of Canada] Stephen Harper's embarrassing behaviour regarding the crisis in Ukraine -- demonizing Vladimir Putin and upping the rhetoric -- must be welcomed in the U.S. which created the crisis in the first place and apparently believes it still has something to gain by isolating Russia. But it is not clear that Harper even realizes -- or cares -- what the larger game is.

And that game may include a Russia-driven shift in global currency allegiance that could devastate the economies of the U.S. and Canada.

The generals surrounding Harper in the ridiculous war-room setting where he announced Canada was sending six fighter jets to bolster NATO's military buildup in eastern Europe looked very uncomfortable. Who likes being used as a prop for a faltering politician? The setting was a bad case of over-acting -- as if we were joining the Allies in another world war rather than engaging in what one expert called "incremental posturing."

Is Harper just a useful idiot to the U.S. -- ranting and raving about Russian expansionism and imperialism so that the U.S. position looks more reasonable by comparison? He declared:

"When a major power acts in a way that is so clearly aggressive, militaristic and imperialistic, this represents a significant threat to the peace and stability of the world, and it's time we all recognized the depth and the seriousness of that threat."

It is difficult to know what is going on in the fevered imagination of the prime minister, but this time one has to really wonder if he has become genuinely unhinged -- always a possibility with someone both paranoid and narcissistic. While it is clear that genuine foreign policy execution always plays a distant second role to micro-managing the electorate, it is still possible that Harper's domestic framing of foreign policy vis-a-vis Ukraine could inadvertently play a role that he didn't intend.

Why Putin doesn't want Ukraine

It is interesting that Harper virtually never talks about what is actually happening in Ukraine. The notion that Russia wants to occupy Ukraine or even invade it to protect ethnic Russians is far from the mark. The last thing Russia wants is responsibility for one of the worst basket cases in all of Europe. Ukraine is a nearly-failed state, all of its politicians are corrupt to a greater or lesser degree, it is bankrupt, has no effective police force and is held down by crumbling infrastructure, a decrepit industrial base, massive unemployment and a dysfunctional legal system. Putin is likely delighted to see the whole mess dumped into the lap of the U.S. and EU to try to sort out -- a process that will take a decade and tens of billions of dollars just to tread water.

In its current state Ukraine will never be invited to join the EU because then the EU would be directly responsible for bailing it out. And trying now to bring Ukraine into NATO would be seen everywhere as madness -- a provocation to which Russia would reply by cutting off gas to western Europe. So Putin will watch with the comfort of an oligarch as the IMF puts the fiscal boots to a country already on its knees. And, of course, he can play mischief with gas prices any time he wants. The IMF prescription of drastic cuts to government programs could well cause widespread social unrest -- and play into the hands of the fascist parties given new prominence by the U.S.-inspired coup. It could also turn many ethnic Ukrainians against the West, making its task of establishing stability that much more difficult.

It is extremely unlikely that Putin will intervene to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, either, unless there is virtual bloodbath. He will calculate that even a few hundred deaths of Russian separatists will simply reinforce his public relations victory over the West -- confirming his framing of the issue as the ineptness and brutality of an illegal Kyiv government that hates Russia and Russians. It makes far more sense for him to let the U.S. and EU deal with such a crisis and damage what's left of NATO's shaky credibility than it is to be the bad guy and intervene militarily.

In the meantime, the demonization of Putin and Russia is having a major influence on an issue that has barely been mentioned in the media: Putin's plan to create the petroruble and decouple Russia's energy exports from the dollar.

Restacking the BRICS

It is arguable that push for the petroruble is a global issue many times more important to the U.S. than anything that happens in the Ukraine, but American efforts to isolate Russia is actually accelerating the process. The desire is also driving Russia to look to the east instead of Europe for its future prosperity -- aligning with China as both a market for its gas and a partner in undermining the petrodollar. China is already headed there. Its yuan is the second most used currency, ahead of the euro, in international trade settlements. China recently "opened two centers to process yuan-denominated trade flows, one in London and one in Frankfurt."

The emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are grouped under the acronym BRICS. According to journalist Peter Koenig: "Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRICS-associates (BRICSA), may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the 'petrodollar' as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petrodollars per year." In which case, "leaving an important dent in the U.S. economy would be an understatement," says Koenig. "Along with the new BRICS(A) currency will come a new international payment settlement system, replacing the SWIFT and IBAN exchanges, thereby breaking the hegemony of... the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle."

The prospect of the U.S. dollar losing its status as the world's trading currency is far and away the greatest threat to U.S. hegemony in the world as it would turn the country's $17-trillion (not counting unfunded liabilities) virtual debt problem into a real one. Until now, the huge external demand for U.S. dollars has allowed it to accumulate enormous debts without defaulting. With Russia, China and the rest of the BRICS countries moving in this direction, the U.S is panic-stricken. It used to be said that the U.S. dollar was backed by the Pentagon. Indeed, plans to decouple from the dollar was a common feature of three countries that experienced the wrath of U.S. foreign policy and military intervention. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi was planning a gold-standard currency for all of Africa; Iraq was planning to quit using the dollar for its oil exports, as was Iran. Sanctions against the latter had as much to do with this plan as any other issue.

But Russia, China, Brazil and India are countries of a whole different order and out of reach of the Pentagon's threats. There is virtually nothing the U.S. can do to stop this movement, provoked in part by the massive printing of money in repeated "quantitative easings" and accelerated by NATO's adventurism.

Germany's 'giant magnet'

If that were not a big enough headache for the U.S., Russia is well placed to detach Germany from the EU and U.S. efforts to isolate Russia. While Russia will suffer economically in the short term from sanctions, the longer term looks brighter. At the same time that BRICSA is planning its new international payment system, China and Germany are negotiating another initiative that guarantees Russia a prominent role in one of the world's most ambitious economic development schemes: the New Silk Road linking China and Europe. This initiative is intended to provide enormous impetus for development of western China and everything from there to Germany.

Says Koenig: "Germany, the economic driver of Europe -- the world's fourth largest economy (US$ 3.6 trillion GDP) -- on the western end of the new trading axis, will be like a giant magnet, attracting other European trading partners of Germany's to the New Silk Road. What looks like a future gain for Russia and China, also bringing about security and stability, would be a lethal loss for Washington."

So the Russian president, at record highs in public approval and now fully justified in facing east after being provoked by the West, doesn't have to act. Everything is in motion for advantage Russia. And our war mongering prime minister will continue to aid Mr. Putin by demonizing him and justifying his eastern "pivot."

Disgrace to His Own Country: Evil Clown in Parliament

Russia: Politician’s extraordinary tirade at pregnant journalist | euronews, world news http://www.euronews.com/2014/04/19/russia-parliament-s-deputy-speaker-zhirinovsky-s-extraordinary-tirade-at-/

Disgrace to His Own Country: Evil Clown in Parliament

If there is a politician that gives Russia a bad name it is Vladimir Zhirinovsky! Scandal is his middle name. Famous for his psychotic tirades and flagrant behavior both at work and in public, Zhirinovsky has long gained a reputation of a clownish politician who can liven up your dreary TV viewing session by one of his ranting stunts or even a physical abuse of his bystanders.

A spoiled child of politics, Zhirinovsky has trodden a very risky line of behavior, bordering on insane. But this time he has gone too far, verbally and physically abusing a pregnant woman, a reporter. He tried to publically humiliate the female reporter by sending his two male aids to manhandle her in a mock Orthodox Christian salutation of Easter Holidays, after throwing abusive and sexist remarks at her in front of rolling cameras of state television channels.

Russia certainly deserves better than a world-reknown evil clown in its parliament!

The deputy speaker of Russia’s parliament, Vladimir Zhirinovsky has been urged to resign after verbally insulting a pregnant reporter at a press conference.

The leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic party lost control when the reporter asked him if Russia plans any reciprocal action against Ukraine.

He responded with an outburst of threats and at one point ordered his subordinate staff to rape the journalist.

One editor at Russia Today television says Zhirinovsky should face criminal charges for incitement.

“Many people have already become used to his extraordinary behaviour but when he allowed himself to openly call for violence within the walls of State Duma all journalists of our agency and colleagues from other media organisations were outraged,” said Dmitry Gornostayev.

Zhirinovsky’s widely known for his anti-Western rhetoric. The ethics committee of Russia’s parliament has indicated that it will press for his suspension

Politician's shocking rant at reporter

Politician's shocking rant at reporter | NZ Herald http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11241676

Remember this name Zhironovsky!

Politician's shocking rant at reporter

A pregnant journalist is recovering in hospital today after a pro-Kremlin political leader in Russia told two male aides to "violently rape" her at a press conference.

Nationalist Vladimir Zhironovsky launched his tirade after reporter Stella Dubovitskaya asked him an innocuous question about sanctions against Ukraine.

The founder of the far right Liberal Democratic Party began shouting wildly, before suddenly manhandling two young male aides towards the pregnant mother-of-one.

He then shouted to them: "When I say, you run to her and violently rape her."

The parliamentary reporter, who is six months pregnant, is now being treated in hospital for shock following the ordeal. Her employers, Russia Today, are also considering legal action against the man.

Zhirinovsky has now issued a rambling apology for his words - and also offered to help the journalist with her medical expenses.

Tensions in Ukraine continue to escalate - as today the country's police and intelligence service accused Russia of staging a fatal shooting incident which left three dead in the east of the country.

The shocking incident unfolded after the journalist asked Zhirinovsky a question about what sanctions Russia could impose against the pro-Western government of Ukraine.

Zhirinovsky compared the female journalists to Irina Faraon - a Ukrainian philologist and nationalist politician and a strong supporter of her country's language and culture.

"Look at this fool Irina Faraon," he declared, "She is bursting with hatred towards Russians, but do you think she hates Russians?

"She adores them. But its uterus frenzy - she's got no lover, no husband, she's got no-one.

"And you are just the same, asking me questions on sanctions. You have got to be kind, you've got to deal with it with tenderness."

A male journalist broke into his diatribe telling Zhirinovsky: "She is pregnant, why are you attacking her?"

Zhirinovsky then pushed two of his male aides towards the journalist, shouting: "Go and kiss her. Grab her."

One approached and touched her - much to the shock of the watching press pack. Several female reporters recoiled.

At this point, another female reporter - Yulia Chuchalova from news agency Interfax - spoke up, telling the 67-year-old: "This is derogatory, humiliating - what are you doing here?"

Zhirinovsky hit back: "What are you doing intervening here, you lesbian? Get out of here."

During his abusive onslaught, he shouted: "This is no place for you if you're pregnant."

He was quoted declaring: "There are pregnant women at the Maidan (Independence Square in Kiev, scene of the Ukrainian Revolution) and here as well, druggies and what have you.

"We need healthy people. Pregnant women should not show up at work. Sit at home and look after your child, got that?"

The exchange ended with the words: "Get out of here, you d***** lesbians."

At least two of the women journalists walked out of the press conference.

Zhirinovsky now faces legal action from Ms Dubovitskaya's employer - news agency Russia Today.

The agency's general director Margareta Simonyan said: "Due to the disgusting incident in the state duma, after which our correspondent was hospitalised because of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's discourtesy, we have decided to use all legal options to punish Mr Zhirinovsky as severely as possible under the law, including by suing him."

CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden's lawyer Anatoliy Kucherena is thought to be taking her case.

He said she was in the sixth month of her pregnancy and had been treated for shock in hospital as a result of the abuse.

The politician's conduct was immediately referred to the Russian parliament's ethics commission.

Parliament chairman Sergey Naryshkin apologised for Zhirinovsky's behaviour.

The incident "casts a shadow on parliament" and "lets the country down", added Communist MP Ivan Melnikov, first deputy chairman.

MP Oleg Nilov prescribed "silence and some calm as the best medicine for rabies" while his colleague Boris Reznik described the incident as "intolerable", accusing Zhirinovsky of being "drunk on his own impunity" and "a disgrace to the Russian parliament".

- Daily Mail