Gilad Atzmon

Following the surge of right wing parties in Europe’s Parliamentary election, Forward, the once-progressive Jewish outlet asks, “Have the Jews Lost Europe?” The tone of this question implies that until just a few days ago, at least some Jews believed that Europe was, in part, a ‘Jewish property.’ Such views were not baseless; Jewish Lobbies have dominated British and French policies by means of aggressive lobbying (CFI, LFI, CRIF etc’).

Following the European poll, Dave Rich, deputy director of the ultra Right Wing Jewish para-military Community Security Trust, is concerned. He detects a growing resentment of Jewish politics in Europe. His article in the Forward’s openly examines whether Jews have lost their grip on the European continent.

Rich begins by quoting Israeli veteran concentration camp guard Jeffrey Goldberg. “At what point,” asks Goldberg, “do the Jews of America and the Jews of Israel tell the Jews of Europe that it might be time to get out?” Apparently, says Rich, “Goldberg is not the only one to have had this thought. In fact, according to a 2013 opinion poll …more than a quarter of Jews in the E.U. have considered emigrating at some point in the past five years, because in their own countries they do not feel safe as Jews.”

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Steven Starr

Author’s note: Paul Craig Roberts held top security clearances. He has repeatedly warned that a US-Russian nuclear war would wipe out the human race, along with all other complex forms of life. As a scientist with expert knowledge, I wish to echo and explain his warning. (Guest article on Paul Craig Roberts' Blog.)

Nuclear war has no winner. Beginning in 2006, several of the world’s leading climatologists (at Rutgers, UCLA, John Hopkins University, and the University of Colorado-Boulder) published a series of studies that evaluated the long-term environmental consequences of a nuclear war, including baseline scenarios fought with merely 1% of the explosive power in the US and/or Russian launch-ready nuclear arsenals. They concluded that the consequences of even a “small” nuclear war would include catastrophic disruptions of global climate[i] and massive destruction of Earth’s protective ozone layer[ii]. These and more recent studies predict that global agriculture would be so negatively affected by such a war, a global famine would result, which would cause up to 2 billion people to starve to death. [iii]

These peer-reviewed studies – which were analyzed by the best scientists in the world and found to be without error – also predict that a war fought with less than half of US or Russian strategic nuclear weapons would destroy the human race.[iv] In other words, a US-Russian nuclear war would create such extreme long-term damage to the global environment that it would leave the Earth uninhabitable for humans and most animal forms of life.

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Pepe Escobar

The unipolar model of the world order has failed.
~ Vladimir Putin, St Petersburg, May 22

In more ways than one, last week heralded the birth of a Eurasian century. Of course, the US$400 billion Russia-China gas deal was clinched only at the last minute in Shanghai, on Wednesday (a complement to the June 2013, 25-year, $270 billion oil deal between Rosneft and China's CNPC.)

Then, on Thursday, most of the main players were at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum - the Russian answer to Davos. And on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, fresh from his Shanghai triumph, addressed the participants and brought the house down.

It will take time to appraise last week's whirlwind in all its complex implications. Here are some of the St Petersburg highlights, in some detail. Were there fewer Western CEOs in town because the Obama administration pressured them - as part of the "isolate Russia" policy? Not many less; Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley may have snubbed it, but Europeans who matter came, saw, talked and pledged to keep doing business.

And most of all, Asians were ubiquitous. Consider this as yet another chapter of China's counterpunch to US President Barack Obama's Asian tour in April, which was widely described as the "China containment tour". [1]

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Finian Cunningham

The Western propaganda machine is trying to sell Ukraine's so-called Candy King as the democratically elected new president of that crisis-torn country.

The billionaire Petro Poroshenko is being presented as a self-made entrepreneur-turned-politician, who will bring to Ukraine "enlightened Western democracy and free markets".

As usual, this is typical Western propaganda inverting reality. The 48-year-old Poroshenko is certainly pro-Western, but not for benign reasons. He made his wealth, along with his father and several other oligarch figures, by operating ruthlessly as a vulture capitalist, seizing state assets belonging to the old Soviet Ukraine during the 1990s.

One of his businesses is the manufacture of chocolates, but Poroshenko has several other "interests" including ownership of news media that engages in gutter journalism to spread his belated "anti-Russian" politics and further his own selfish ambitions.

The Chocolate King has fingers sticking with corruption, with serious accusations against him over underworld dealings in drugs, prostitution and illegal arms trade. That such a sinister figure is now being presented by the US and European governments in such a positive light is like a dizzying sugar rush to the head.

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Thomas Gaist & Barry Grey

This week’s mass killings in Donetsk have further exploded efforts to portray February’s Western-orchestrated putsch in Ukraine as a “democratic revolution” and exposed the brutal and reactionary character of Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev.

They have provided a devastating demonstration of the reality of “human rights” imperialism and an indictment of all the political forces that have lined up behind it, first in the Balkans, then in Libya and Syria, and now in Ukraine.

The Obama administration in Washington and the Merkel government in Berlin both congratulated the newly elected president, billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko, even as he was overseeing the bloodbath in the east. Obama and Merkel signaled their support for the mass killing, portraying it as a means of stabilizing and unifying the country.

Within hours of Sunday’s fraudulent and undemocratic election, a devastating air assault was launched against targets in Donetsk. At least 50 militants were killed and another 31 injured as Kiev regime aircraft strafed separatist positions in and around the Donetsk airport. Speaking on behalf of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Leonid Baranov said the death toll will likely rise above 100.

As of Tuesday night, regime forces were preparing to follow the assault on Donetsk’s airport with an invasion of the city center. Civilians have reportedly been fleeing Donetsk en masse as gunfire and explosions continued to be heard from areas near the airport.

It is now clear that the election was organized to establish a political basis for the military onslaught in the east. The poll was carried out to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to a regime installed illegally by means of a coup led by neo-fascist forces in the Svoboda Party and Right Sector militia.

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Michael Hoffman

Psychologically, [the American people] have the status of defeated and demoralized prisoners of war. They have cut a deal with the System: they won't contradict the Cryptocracy's lies in return for the Cryptocracy allowing them to "get on with their lives," pursue a career, marry a trophy wife, raise and educate two children, root for the stadium sports team of their choice, acquire a boat, a recreational vehicle and a second home.

In the course of this quid pro quo, they pretend they are concerned about the state of the nation and their children's future, but their souls are rotting in the face of the lie they are living. Americans are being marched in the direction the Cryptocracy has been taking us since it immolated the King of Camelot near the 33rd degree line in 1963. The 9-11 attacks of 2001 represent the second stop on that alchemical jornada del muerto...

What does the Cryptocracy thinks of us? These elitists always regarded non-iniates in any era as being not truly human, little more than "ghostly homunculi," e.g. "goyim, gentiles, kelipot, cowans." The "Cambridge (University) Apostles, "who produced a slew of traitors who spied for and defected to the Soviet Union, styled themselves "realities," in contrast to the rest of us who they termed mere "phenomena."

Before the modern age, the Cryptocracy's low estimation of us was kept secret, for the reason that virile, perspicacious yeomen with a medieval mentality had a tendency to rise against wicked tyrants when they were identified as such and summarily pitchfork, club and hang them expeditiously. Even in the Victorian era, in the wake of the Trafalgar riots, British Masons perpetrated the "Jack the Ripper" butchery with the utmost secrecy.

Now they are so contemptuous of us, so extremely confident of their invulnerability and immunity, "so bold and arrogant" that on 9-11 "they mocked us to our faces by leaving clues in plain sight."

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Tom Mysiewicz

GMO Crops…Boon To Humanity Or Reckless Science?

Recently, an NGO (non-governmental organization) in Russia—the National Association for Genetic Safety–began working closely with the Russian Duma to enact a set of laws criminalizing the introduction of harmful genetically-modified crops (GM or GMO crops) as well as withholding information on harmful effects of such crops. Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated he will sign such legislation, saying Russia can grow enough food for itself without genetic engineering it.

“If Americans like to eat such foods, they can eat them,” Putin is reported to have said. But with GMO companies in the U.S. massively campaigning to hide GMO content—do Americans really know what they are eating?

I believe Russia and, increasingly, countries elsewhere, are on the right track in this regard. And I base this belief on my first-hand observations from the inception of GMO crops—and the original promises made and assurances given for this technology—to the much different reality I see today.

As founder and editor of the weekly biotechnology newsletter–BioEngineering News–I covered GMOs and ag-biotech from 1980 through 1993 and was the first journalist allowed (under a secrecy agreement) to cover a Gordon Research Conference. This groundbreaking conference, on Plant Genetic Engineering, was at U.C. Davis in the early 1980s. I have also had hands-on research experience, including lab courses on plant tissue culture in which I cloned a variety of plants from jojoba to redwood.

The original promise of genetic engineering was that crops could be grown without fertilizer or pesticides, in salt water if fresh water was scarce, and that the nutritional content could be altered at will by the addition of genes for amino acids (the building blocks of protein) such as L-lysine and genes coding for vitamins, such as vitamin A. In this “brave new world” hunger and malnutrition would be eliminated by massively higher crop yields. And there would be no down side: We were assured that there would be no actual or consequential harmful effects from such alterations.

Many Americans are not aware that the system of clinical trials and double-blind studies for new drugs means that it can cost $30- to $60-million to get a single new drug through FDA-mandated clinical trials. And, still, how many horror stories have we heard of dangerous drug side effects? Imagine if NO clinical trials were required for new drugs and only some rudimentary safety testing was necessary? Would you feel safe taking a new drug?

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Gilad Atzmon

The undeniable surge in the support for Euro Sceptics and right wing parties in yesterday’s European Parliament election, suggests that the European working class, isn’t as apathetic as the Zionised Left wants it to be.

The nationalist, patriotic and anti-immigration parties took the lead all over Europe last night. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front pushed the shameless Socialist Party into third place. In Britain the situation was similar. Nigel Farage’s UKIP has taken the lead and is now a major player in British politics.

While the British conservatives were quick to react, advocating that immigration policy be reviewed and amended, the Left and its crony media expressed shock at the rise of the “far Right” and “Nazis.” Once again it is painful, but not surprising to witness the Left’s detachment from the working class.

French PM Valls who recently used every available tool to harass hugely popular black comedian Dieudonné in order to appease the French Jewish Lobby (CRIF), announced last night that the election results represented “a political earthquake in France.’ But can a popular vote on such a vast scale be an earthquake, a surprise or a shock? Not really, a moment of truth or epiphany is a better description of the political shift. However, the Left’s evident surprise exposes the depth of its detachment from society and is tragically symptomatic of contemporary left thinking and politics.

This state of alienation is easily understood. Advocacy of liberal immigration policies in the West has been supported for the last few decades by both Left and Jewish progressive institutions. The reasons are clear. The progressive Jew tends to believe that a multi ethnic and fragmented society made up of multiple identities, is ‘good for the Jews.’ In such circumstances, Jews are merely one ethnicity among many. Open immigration also weakens the host nation. Jews, who have been subject to animosity and hostility throughout their history, understand that weakening the cohesive bond of their host nations is an effective strategy to protect Jews.

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Stephen Lendman

Torturer-in-Chief Barack Obama, right, is greeted by US
Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, center,
and Marine General Joseph Dunford, commander of the
US-led International Security Assistance Force, after
arriving at Bagram Air Field for an unannounced visit,
on Sunday, May 25, 2014, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.

He left Washington Saturday. He arrived in Afghanistan Sunday. It was his fourth visit. He stayed less than four hours. Earlier trips were in March 2010, December 2010 and May 2012. Obama addressed US troops. He did so at Bagram Air Base.

It houses one of America's notorious torture prisons. Dozens of others operate globally. Guantánamo is the tip of the iceberg. Bagram is called the Parwan Detention Facility (aka Bagram Theater Internment Facility). It's next to Bagram's air field. It was formerly called the Bagram Collection Point.

In mid-2011, it held 1,100 political prisoners. Maximum during Bush years was 600. None have POW status. All are political prisoners. They illegally held.

Abuse continues. It's notorious. It's not reported. It's out of sight and mind. Former detainees describe horrendous treatment. Not far from where Obama spoke. It includes:

● painful extended period shackling;
● exposure to extreme heat and cold;
● abusive treatment while naked, hooded or blindfolded;
● waterboarding numerous times;
● isolation in tiny cells;
● other times in overcrowded ones forcing detainees to sleep in shifts;
● hung from steel bars in cells or metal hooks in interrogation rooms for extended periods;

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Finian Cunningham

A Ukrainian helicopter Mi-24 gunship fires its cannons against rebels
at the main terminal building at the airport in Donetsk, May 26, 2014.

Moscow would be better to condemn this regime, as it did until recently, and the sham election that this imposter-junta is foisting on the Ukrainian people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the international business conference in St Petersburg that his government would recognize the results of the presidential election being held this weekend in Ukraine.

That seems to signal a significant concession by the Russian leader to placate the Western-backed regime in Kiev.

Only a few weeks ago, Moscow's position was that the Ukrainian presidential election was not legitimate. That was because, rightly, it is being organized by a regime that seized power illegally from the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych on 23 February. That coup came on the back of nearly three months of street violence in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, during which more than 100 civilians and state security personnel were gun downed by snipers. There is convincing evidence that many of these deaths were carried out with the complicity of Washington and its covert forces working in collusion with the coup plotters. On the face of it, that represents a huge criminal interference in Russia’s strategically important Western neighbour.

Putin told delegates this week at the conference in St Petersburg that he still views the Kiev coup to be unconstitutional, and he laid the blame squarely on Washington and its European allies for orchestrating the criminal overthrow of the elected Ukrainian authorities.

So, it seemed a strange logic from the Russian leader to now say that Moscow will “respect the will of the people”.

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Stephen Lendman

Presidential aspirants were all putschist-approved. They're fascists. Ballot choices excluded democrats. Several legitimate candidates dropped out. They were threatened. They feared for their lives.

Ukrainians chose a president, Kiev mayor, Kiev Council deputies and six regional center mayors - in Mykolaiv, Odessa, Sumy, Kherson, Cherkasy and Chernivtsi. If no presidential aspirant wins a majority, second round voting is scheduled for June 15. About 35 million Ukrainians were eligible to vote. So were diaspora ones. They number around 470,000. Scores of polling stations opened in 75 countries.

On election eve, coup-appointed prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk addressed Ukrainians. He pressured them to vote.

"Tomorrow we will prove to the whole world, and first of all to ourselves, that it is not possible to intimidate us, that we are going to decide ourselves how to rebuild our home and how to work in it," he said. "But we have fought for these elections. We are defending our land, restoring our military, rebuilding the destroyed industry, destroying the schemes that had been washing billions out of the country." "We are learning to control the power and laying the ground for further development…By our ballots we elect and thus win."

He addressed Donetsk and Lugansk freedom fighters, adding:

"I want to assure you. Not much time is left for the bandits, terrorizing your regions."

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John V. Walsh

The Bolsheviks took Russia and then the rest of
the USSR out of the Western orbit, out of the am-
bit of the Western colonial powers. Rothschild
now wants it back. - And he wants China too...

Does it not seem strange that, with the Cold War long over, the Paramount Enemies of the United States remain Russia and China? That is not a bad question to ponder with Vladimir Putin’s visit with Xi Jinping in Beijing.

And there is no doubt that Russia and China hold this pariah status in the eyes of the U.S. imperial elite. In the last months we have watched the US try to push Russia East and tear it apart. At the same time Obama traversed East Asia trying to stitch together an anti-China military and economic alliance in the Western Pacific with Japan as the linchpin.

In fact it is striking that the US has allied itself with neo-Nazism in Ukraine and Japanese militarism on the other side of Asia. This is happening despite the considerable changes that have taken place in both Russia and China, neither of which would any longer claim to be interested in an anti-capitalist crusade. The only country that comes close in the opprobrium heaped upon them by the West is Iran.

Why do these countries, especially Russia and China, remain the enemies of the West? With the struggle against Soviet-style Communism long over, the reason is certainly not ideological.

This riddle finds its answer in a suggestion by Jean Bricmont in his Humanitarian Imperialism. He observes that the main political development of the last 100 years was not the defeat of fascism nor the fall of Soviet style Communism, but the battle against Western colonialism.

And this battle is far from over, for most of the world is still subject to total or partial domination by the West, a condition that Sartre and Nkrumah dubbed neocolonialism. The colonized peoples of the world, the overwhelming majority of humanity, still live under the worst of material conditions.

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Finian Cunningham

When US President Barack Obama opened his tour of Europe [laast time] it had the unmistakable choreography of a scripted set piece: lights, camera, action etc. The storyline is a familiar trope. America, the shining beacon of democracy and human rights, comes to the rescue of European damsels in distress just before they are ravaged by bestial European recidivism for war.

European political figures of increasingly low caliber are indulging this American parody of reality by appearing to unite around Obama’s call for tougher sanctions against Russia. Britain’s David Cameron and his German and French counterparts, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, issued warnings of imposing economic penalties on Russian businesses and industries. Lots of bombast and melodrama were on cue, but there was a distinct lack of guts to follow.

For Obama’s European visit this week it seemed more than a coincidence that the president made his first public statement from an Amsterdam museum. The choice of such a rarefied venue to launch Obama’s shuttle diplomacy may at first seem odd.

As the Washington Post reported: «President Obama delved into a day of diplomacy Monday as he sought to rally the international community around efforts to isolate Russia following its incursion into Ukraine».

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Stephen Lendman

Injustice defines Western societies. Canada marches in lockstep with Washington. Rogue state ruthlessness defines both countries. Imperial priorities matter most. Inviolable laws don't matter. Nor judicial fairness.

Denis G. Rancourt reflects academia's best, most competent, most responsible and bravest. He has two blog sites. Visit them for updated information. Activist Teacher and U of O Watch provide updates. They explain what most people can't imagine. What happened to Rancourt can happen to anyone responsibly challenging what's too deplorable to accept.

Rancourt is a distinguished University of Ottawa professor. He's tenured. He's a recognized physics and environmental science expert. Students loved him. He's a "phenomenal teacher," they said. He didn't teach to the test like in America. He prioritized learning. He inspired academic achievement. He supports fundamental human and civil rights. Political activism caused his dismissal. University of Ottawa's campus isn't safe. President Allan Rock is a former Canadian politician. He runs University of Ottawa like his private fiefdom. Like a police state. He's unprincipledly hard right. He ignores fundamental Canadian law doing so. Academic freedom doesn't matter. Or free thought, opinion or expression. University of Ottawa is a hotbed of fascist extremism. It's inhospitable to learning.

University of Ottawa Law Professor Joanne St. Lewis colluded with Rock. She did so against Rancourt. She sued him unjustifiably. She wants $1 million. She irresponsibly charged racism. It related to his legitimate blog site comments. He called St. Lewis a "house negro." He cited Malcolm X. He first used the term.

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Stephen Lendman

Syria's June 3 presidential election approaches. It's historic. It's the Syrian Arab Republic's first ever free, fair, open presidential process. Twenty-four aspirants registered to compete. Parliamentarians Hassan al-Nouri and Maher Hajjar were approved.

So was Assad. He's overwhelmingly popular. He's expected to win easily. Syrians want no one else leading them. He's especially trusted now. He's defeating foreign invaders. He's doing it responsibly. He's fighting for Syrian freedom. For its independent sovereign rights. He's up to the challenge. He's winning. He's defeating Obama's dirty game. He deserves universal support.

Friends of Syria (London): The 11 countries include America, Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On May 15, they issued a joint statement. They irresponsibly denounced what deserves support. They shamelessly called Syria's upcoming democratic presidential election "illegitimate."

It'll be free, open and fair. International monitors will observe things. It'll shame what passes for sham London 11 country processes. It's representatives outrageously called what's upcoming "a parody of democracy." Under conflict conditions, turnout is expected to be impressive.

Not according to them. They ludicrously claimed it'll "be devoid of political participation of millions of Syrians." They "call(ed) on the entire international community to reject" what's planned. They "agreed unanimously to take further steps…" They called doing so "a coordinated strategy." They support death squad killers. They lied calling them "moderate opposition" forces. They blamed Assad for their crimes. They want him and Syrian officials prosecuted in the International Criminal Court. More on this below.

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Stephen Lendman

Every day is Kristallnacht in Palestine. Israeli security forces attack, brutalize, murder or injure nonviolent Palestinians with impunity. They're ruthless. They're lawless. It's standard practice. Crimes too grave to ignore occur multiple times daily. Soldiers, border guards and police harass, intimidate and terrorize Palestinians ruthlessly. They hold an entire population hostage.

Fear is constant. It's pervasive. Collective punishment is official Israeli policy. Peaceful public demonstrations are prohibited.

So are free expression and movement. Population centers are isolated. Borders are closed. Occupation harshness denies Palestinians control over their own land. Normal daily life is nonexistent. Economic strangulation is imposed. Institutionalized racism reflects official Israeli policy. Curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, separation walls, electric fences, and other barriers are standard practice.

Neighborhood incursions, land, sea and air attacks, bulldozed homes, land theft, ethnic cleansing, slow-motion genocide, targeted killings, political assassinations, mass arrests, torture, and gulag imprisonment reflect daily life. Fundamental human and civil rights are verboten. Crimes of war and against humanity repeat without redress. Wanting to live free in sovereign Palestine is called terrorism. So is legitimate self-defense.

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Bill Van Auken

Meet Svoboda, an up-and-coming party in Ukraine. It's nationalist,
pro-Nazi, and poised for the parliament. (Caption: Salo-Forum)

With just days before presidential and municipal elections are to be staged in Ukraine by the Western-backed, right-wing “interim government,” the regime’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that its so-called “antiterrorist operations” against dissident populations in the east and south of the country are proceeding at full strength.

“The active phase of the antiterrorist operations is currently continuing,” ministry spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said Wednesday. “Residents in the eastern regions of Ukraine can observe this. There is currently a planned rotation of troops and forces included in the antiterrorist operation.”

Washington and its Western European allies are promoting Sunday’s election as a means of legitimizing the Western-backed, neo-fascist-led coup which toppled Ukraine’s elected president and installed an illegal regime whose leaders were handpicked by US officials.

The idea that a legitimate election could be held, as the army employs tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships to suppress political opposition in large portions of the country, is ludicrous. This fraudulent exercise is being staged, with unconditional US support, just two weeks after the May 11 referenda on autonomy in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that the State Department denounced as illegitimate. The Ukraine crisis has provided a unique window into the cynicism and hypocrisy of American imperialist foreign policy.

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The Saker

I think that we can all agree that the situation in the Ukraine is one of total chaos.

● Renat Akhmetov, the local oligarch-mobster, had declared that his companies will go on a "warning strike" for 3 hours per day because Akhmetov was angered that the authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) had taken over the control of the railways which resulted in losses for his company.
● One of the officials of the DRP reacted to Akhmetov's threat by declaring that the DRP authorities have begun the process of nationalization of the companies located on the territory of the DRP, in other words, Akhmetov's holdings.
● The military forces of the neo-Nazi junta have begun shelling several cities in the eastern Ukraine destroying several buildings
● The military commander of the DRP forces, Igor Strelkov, has made a poignant and blunt appeal for a much bigger mobilization of men, especially officers, in the volunteer forces defending the DRP against the junta's military.
● Ukrainian death-squads have, yet again, kidnapped a team of Russian reporters, this time of the TV station LifeNews, accusing them of being the "information-component" of a terrorist movement.
● The Russian government has indicated that the military forces which had been on maneuvers had returned to their bases. NATO denied that.
● The Russian military has completed the building a network of pipelines which are now fully supplying Crimea with fresh water.
● The leader of the Ukie Nazis, Iarosh, has announced that if he is elected he would launched a guerrilla war in Crimea.

So what is really going on? I think that while it is premature to make grand conclusions and predictions, we can begin by agreeing on a number of basic facts.

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Israel Shamir

It is not much fun to be in Kiev these days. The revolutionary excitement is over, and hopes for new faces, the end of corruption and economic improvement have withered. The Maidan street revolt and the subsequent coup just reshuffled the same marked deck of cards, forever rotating in power.

The new acting President has been an acting prime minister, and a KGB (called “SBU” in Ukrainian) supremo. The new acting prime minister has been a foreign minister. The oligarch most likely to be “elected” President in a few days has been a foreign minister, the head of the state bank, and personal treasurer of two coups, in 2004 (installing Yushchenko) and in 2014 (installing himself). His main competitor, Mme Timoshenko, served as a prime minister for years, until electoral defeat in 2010.

These people had brought Ukraine to its present abject state. In 1991, the Ukraine was richer than Russia, today it is three times poorer because of these people’s mismanagement and theft. Now they plan an old trick: to take loans in Ukraine’s name, pocket the cash and leave the country indebted. They sell state assets to Western companies and ask for NATO to come in and protect the investment.

They play a hard game, brass knuckles and all. The Black Guard, a new SS-like armed force of the neo-nazi Right Sector, prowls the land. They arrest or kill dissidents, activists, journalists. Hundreds of American soldiers, belonging to the “private” company Academi (formerly Blackwater) are spread out in Novorossia, the pro-Russian provinces in the East and South-East. IMF–dictated reforms slashed pensions by half and doubled the housing rents. In the market, US Army rations took the place of local food.

The new Kiev regime had dropped the last pretence of democracy by expelling the Communists from the parliament. This should endear them to the US even more. Expel Communists, apply for NATO, condemn Russia, arrange a gay parade and you may do anything at all, even fry dozens of citizens alive. And so they did.

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Stephen Lendman

“Time to grab guns and kill damn Russians.” –Former
Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko in leaked phone call

Jill Abramson is gone. Dean Baquet replaced her as executive editor. Deplorable policy remains unchanged. It's featured daily. It's done so in articles, commentaries and editorials. Disgraceful op-eds are standard practice. Scoundrels are invited. Truth-tellers aren't welcome. Misinformation rubbish is featured. What readers most need to know is buried. Lies, damn lies and Big Ones infest Times pages.

Yulia Tymoshenko is a former illegitimate Orange Revolution prime minister. She's billionaire mega-thief. She accumulated wealth the old-fashioned way. She stole it. She was imprisoned for embezzlement and serious "abuse of public office." Charges included illegally diverting $425 million meant for environmental projects into pension funds. A second case involved stealing around $130 million for personal use.

Putschists freed her. They did so lawlessly. She has presidential aspirations. She enjoys weak support.

Earlier she had dozens of secret offshore bank accounts in over two dozen countries. Reportedly most are closed. At least 13 worldwide remain open. They hide her ill-gotten wealth. She conspired with former prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko among others. From the mid-1990s, enormous funds were stolen. They disappeared. They did so when Tymoshenko ran United Energy Systems (UES). Lazarenko awarded it monopoly rights to import Russian natural gas. In 2004, a US court convicted him of money laundering, theft, and hiding funds in foreign accounts.

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