Echoing Helena, hope all goes well.
I’m sure you all have commented this, so I’ll highlight this, instead:

Last week, a group of Colombian plaintiffs asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their lawsuit against banana giant Chiquita. This case presents an opportunity for the Supreme Court to clarify its 2013 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell and give much needed guidance to plaintiffs and businesses regarding when a corporation may be liable under U.S. law for human rights abuses committed abroad.

Posted by: Maracatu | Jan 17 2015 21:19 utc | 4

@somebody #2
Reliable?
Source: StalinLives blogger
Video on YouTube StalinLives TV Channel 2
French Police Suspect Ukrainian Volunteer Battalion Origin for Charlie Hebdo AK47’s
From his WordPress blogsite, location Sydney, Australia – started May 31, 2014.
It could be from a propaganda site paid for by intelligence service, see the Sydney Institute with executive director Gerard Henderson.
○ Australia Think Tank Secrets – 2003

Posted by: Oui | Jan 17 2015 22:04 utc | 6

Draghi blackmails Greeks

Posted by: nmb | Jan 17 2015 22:22 utc | 8

amusingly on NBC news, in its story on Muslim riots after the publication of the New Charlie Hebdo, mentioned jewish Germans recalling “old fears” implying they might be targets but all you saw was armed German cops outside a building which giving the German Governments role in rounding up Jews in a previous century……

Posted by: heath | Jan 17 2015 23:52 utc | 10

Abu Omar Trained by British/US In Georgia

Chechen ISIL Military Commander Abu Umar al-Shishani Reportedly Killed – Again??
Back in 27 October 2014, The Daily Beast published an exclusive report on Abu Umar al-Shishani and his family back in Georgia. And this is where the best of sources laid out the facts about the mystical Chechen ISIL commander/fighter, namely, his father, Temur Borchashvili. The senior Temur is a Christian who married a woman from a Muslim family. He is a straight forward old man that has nothing to hide about his son’s radicalization and how he ended up fighting for ISIL. During the interview with the Daily Beast he spills the beans on his two sons fighting for ISIL. Yes, you read correctly, Abu Umar al-shishani is not the only one. His older brother Tamaz Borchashvili is also in Syria, but is a very shadowy individual, as he, according to their father is the real ‘mastermind’ working for ISIL.
The Secret Life of an ISIS Warlord

Posted by: Oui | Jan 18 2015 0:01 utc | 12

Israel’s Connection to Syrian Chechens via War in Georgia?
○ War in Georgia: The Israeli connection | Ynet News | Aug. 2008 |
○ IDF vets who trained Georgia troops say war with Russia is no surprise – 2008

Posted by: Oui | Jan 18 2015 0:34 utc | 14

3
It’s Go Time in Kiev
accuses Russia of having invaded Ukraine. It also invokes Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, namely NATO’s doctrine of collective security: “An attack on one member of the Atlantic alliance is an attack on all members of the Alliance.”
Ummm, when did Ukraine become a member of NATO? And how is it possible so many dual-citizens have become part of dual-citizen Israeli Poroshenko’s Kiev cabinet? Is it because Afghanistan was just the beta-test for their Perpetual Looting app?
Will UberMensch be seeking cover for their January 22nd blitzkreig on Donbass, in advance of Greek elections on January 25th? Will Draghi use strategic ‘shiny object’ diversion to invoke QEn ‘Structural Adjustments’ policy for the EU, regardless of Greek elections outcome?
Switzerland seems to think so, pulling the plug on the EU peg, as the bank runs already begin on the Greek financial system.
The Great Ziz spreads its wings across the sky, blotting out the sun.

Posted by: Chip Nihk | Jan 18 2015 0:58 utc | 16

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

ByBRENDAN JAMES
PublishedAPRIL 18, 2014, 10:43 AM EDT
A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.
Asking “[w]ho really rules?” researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.
Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.
TPM Interview: Scholar Behind Viral ‘Oligarchy’ Study Tells You What It Means
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” they write, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.
The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month’s ruling on McCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.
“Ordinary citizens,” they write, “might often be observed to ‘win’ (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 18 2015 1:08 utc | 18

17
“…one needs to analyze the two routes to Euro Crisis separately. The only way a failure of the Troika negotiations would be likely to have major effects in the rest of Europe would be if it produced an exit of Greece from the Euro. Short of that, Greece might refuse to fully repay some of its government debt. This default would produce some turmoil in Europe, but 80 percent of Greece’s government debt is now owed to other official bodies across Europe, plus the IMF, and such a loss could be managed when spread across these countries (taxpayers and deposit account holders.)” Brookings Institute
Perpetual Looting app v 15, in plain view.

Posted by: Chip Nihk | Jan 18 2015 1:31 utc | 20

20
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/04/us-usa-russia-rockets-idUSKBN0GZ02T20140904
http://nasawatch.com/archives/russia/
http://spacenews.com/orbital-sciences-orders-rd-181-engines-for-antares-rocket/
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/tsyklon.html
Tsyklon-4 is a new Ukrainian heavy-lift launch vehicle based on the Tsyklon LV family. Tsyklon launch vehicles are designed by the Yuzhnoe Design Bureau and manufactured by Yuzhmash (both in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine).
Russia still controls Dnipropetrovsk.
Behind Orange Revolution was US Neo-Con putsch for a New ‘Space Race’, one in which Boeing-Lockheed NO BID contracts would be used to recreate the defunct NASA Heavy Lift program, ostensibly around the wholly sci-fi fantasy of ‘Mission Mars’, because there’s no use developing US heavy lift engines without $100Bs to blow into WADC-NOVA offshore bank accounts.
Now it appears Boeing-Lockheed will lease the Ukrainian (RU) Tsyklon heavy-lift engine components, assemble them in Free Trade Giga-Factory zones, label them ‘Made in America’ and get NASAs NO BID future $100Bs in funding increases.
Bada-boom bada-bing

Posted by: Chip Nihk | Jan 18 2015 1:56 utc | 22

And finally a Herzen Institute project, to further the UberMensch’ recent Dark Swastika Event, by market-branding Russia-Iran as the ‘Far Right’ in MSM pan-media, versus the Dark Lords of US/UK/EU/Kiev as the ‘Third Way Freedom Lovers’, this psyop series: Special Project of Institute of Modern Russia

Posted by: Chip Nihk | Jan 18 2015 2:08 utc | 24

Re Fete’s regular (and welcome) Russian Spring reports.
It seems to me that the Kiev regime couldn’t be more militarily incompetent, careless and eerily inept, if incompetence was its goal.
Is it possible that Kiev’s ‘army’ is under exclusively civilian control?
Did Ukraine ever have a competent military apparatus – and if so, where are its pre-coup leaders and strategists now?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 18 2015 4:23 utc | 26

Posted by: Demian | Jan 17, 2015 11:52:37 PM | 26
Thank you. That explains a lot.
I had my doubts about their competence when they began shelling civilians from fixed artillery positions (relying on the presumption of a ‘safe distance’). But when they announced a ‘Winter Offensive’ it looked as though someone had a screw loose; based on the recollection that the Afghan Resistance goes home for Winter, to recuperate and prepare for a Spring Offensive.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 18 2015 5:31 utc | 28

H@27
Ukraine is a bit more developed than Afghanistan and has many more all weather roads, I think Afghanistan has one. The Ukies can’t blame their failures on the weather.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Jan 18 2015 5:46 utc | 30

@Wayoutwest #30:

I had hoped the resistance forces could have been able to retake the whole country with the help of western Ukraine supporters but the Russians seem to have decided that is not in Russia’s interest.

First of all, there is no such thing as a monolithic “the Russians” here. Strelkov speaks for many Russians, but Strelkov and Putin have different approaches to the Ukraine problem. (And yes, Ukraine is a problem, not a country.)
I personally never had an expectation that the rebels would retake “the whole country”. That would have involved a significantly nastier civil war than what exists at present, and would have cemented a Ukrainian national identity, which at present is flimsy except for fringe groups. Russians do everything they can to avoid war. Russians do not pursue the Anglo-Saxon way of war. Just recently, a Russian official called the US and Uk strategic bombardment of Germany “barbaric”.
My impression is that the Kremlin is hoping that Ukrainian nationalism will burn itself out. Extending the civil war would have confirmed the Russophobic rants of Ukrainian nationalists. Ukrainians need to solve their Nazi problem themselves. Russians cannot be expected to do that for them.

Posted by: Demian | Jan 18 2015 6:20 utc | 32

Probably fair take

Russia will obviously not allow the West-backed and installed Kiev regime to conquer the rump “NovoRossiya” by military means. This latest “offensive” of theirs will either peter out quickly or will end very badly for them if it expands in the Spring.
But the NAF is even less a coherent and organized force than the UAF/batallions (and that’s saying a lot because Kiev has very limited control of its warlords and their death squads ie the “battalions) – with no real offensive capability or logistics network. They are only really a defensive force thus far, though it must be said competent at that. The Kremlin, further, purposefully and when necessary, brutally, weeds their leadership and retards their supplies and growth to make sure they cannot become truly independent of either Russia or Ukraine.
The Kremlin has gone out of their way to prevent the NAF from seizing even the rest of Donetsk or Lugansk Republics, letting them keep only this tiny rump principality which is only a third of the territory of the respective two Republics. They wouldn’t even let the NAF take Donetsk airport for over 7 months. This was obviously a signal to the West of their limited intentions and an attempt to prevent the conflict from spiraling into anything bigger. The West either appears to have not gotten that message or completely ignored and taken advantage of it.

I guess the people in the frontlines are the “voluntary” battalions and there might be an unspoken agreement to get rid of them.
The real – political – fight is the hearts and minds, and economic viability.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 18 2015 6:34 utc | 34

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Jan 18, 2015 12:46:32 AM | 29
All-weather roads is precisely what is wrong with Winter Offensives.
Q: “Gee, I wonder where Kiev’s goons are today?”
A: “On or near an all-weather road accessible from the last all-weather road we spotted them on … maybe?”
Afghans belong to small and exclusive club – of people who’ve been making invaders choke on their fantasies, and wish they’d never heard of the place, for hundreds of years. One could do worse than to emulate their time-tested approach to conflict.
And if one wants to get technical, the Vietnamese didn’t have roads, a winter respite, or high-tech, but thrashed the French and used the same strategies to humiliate the dumbass Yankees whom, it should be remembered, went to Vietnam to show the French how REAL MEN teach primitives a lesson (while tripping over a plethora of expensive, irrelevant hardware).

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 18 2015 6:45 utc | 36

DEA maintained secret database of Americans’ phone calls

By Julian Hattem – 01/16/15 04:44 PM EST
The Drug Enforcement Administration formerly maintained a secret database of Americans’ telephone calls to some foreign countries, the Justice Department revealed this week.
A document filed by the department in a criminal case on Thursday revealed that the agency collected details about Americans’ calls to certain countries believed to be closely linked to drug trafficking networks.
The program is different from a more well-known database maintained by the National Security Agency (NSA), though it appears similar in some respects.
According to the government’s brief, the DEA tracked information about phone calls from the United States to other “designated” countries that were “determined to have a demonstrated nexus to international drug trafficking and related criminal activities.” The government did not specify how broad the program was and only noted one of targeted countries, Iran.
The document, about a specific court case, said the records contained information about the two phone numbers on the call in question, when it occurred and how the call was billed, but no details about call’s conversation.
A Justice Department spokesman claimed that the program at the DEA — which is under the Justice Department — has been dead for more than a year.
“The program was suspended in September 2013 and ultimately terminated,” the spokesman said in a statement. “It has not been active nor searchable since September 2013, and all of the information has been deleted.”
“The agency is no longer collecting bulk telephony metadata from U.S. service providers.”
Unlike the NSA’s use of a phone records database designed to track suspected terrorist targets — which is overseen by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — the DEA database appears to have no such judicial oversight. The existence of the phone records database was revealed as part of a case about a man accused of violating sanctions against Iran.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has pressed the DEA and Attorney General Eric Holder to reveal the existence of the program and not reinstate it over the last nine months, and said that the program would not have been disclosed without pressure from Congress and the courts.
“The American people deserve to know that the DEA engaged in the bulk collection of their international phone records in routine criminal investigations without judicial review,” he said in a statement on Friday. “The bulk collection was suspended over a year ago and it should never be reinstated.”
“We must continue to make progress in restoring the privacy rights of all Americans while keeping our country safe.”

Jesus Christ the American people are just so fucked… by megalomaniacs and the don’t even know.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 18 2015 7:31 utc | 38

Posted by: rufus magister | Jan 18, 2015 1:43:23 AM | 34
This here is what Europe tries to stop by sanctions – I think Russia now told them they don’t care

There is a logic behind the DNR push. The economy of DNR is not viable outside of the life system of a wider region, port, major infrastructure. People are hungry. The economy needs to work. And Russia needs access to Crimea.
Ukraine, on the other hand, can’t afford to let any of the demarcation lines slip, because any hint of weakness will be picked up elsewhere. Although the grim humanitarian situation in DNR and LNR acts as a strong counter-example to middle class in Kharkiv, Zaporizhe, Odessa etc, the same is probably not true for big business and political lobbies in these cities. The Party formerly known as the Party of Regions polled well in all of these regions — at a time that many of its natural supporters were demoralised.
In December, Gubarev told me they have people working on disrupting the situation in all these cities. I was reminded of that conversation today.
Of course, as with all Donbass posts, the unknown and overarching factor is Russia. But for me, this week shows that Russia is happy to play a plausible deniability game — using local agency — to turn up the heat, until it gets what it wants in terms of sanctions and “respect” from the West.

Basically US/Europe is telling Kyiv they will back them if they are prepared to put their lives on the line, same as Russia backs Donbass people who put their lives on the line.
It is completely immoral.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 18 2015 8:35 utc | 40

Van der Graaf Generator has come up in a previous open thread. I just listened to A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers. What a time it was, when a band could use a trippy title like that.
I think that Van der Graaf Generator have succeeded the test of time. Yes and the Who sound very seventies, whereas Van der Graaf generator just sound mind blowing. The Who’s most famous line is “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Compare that with the final line of “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers”: “All things are apart.” The Who did political philosophy. Van der Graaf Generator did metaphysics.

Posted by: Demian | Jan 18 2015 9:30 utc | 42

OSCE SMM monitoring report of January 16, 2015
The SMM concluded its third fact-finding patrol to government-controlled Volnovakha (35km south-west of Donetsk), where 12 civilian passengers of a bus had been killed and 17 injured on 13 January (see SMM Spot Report 14 January and SMM Daily Report 14 January). The SMM conducted a comprehensive inspection, focusing on five craters caused by explosions that had occurred during the incident. The investigation included comprehensive crater analysis of two specific blast craters, including the crater located 10 metres from the side of the passenger bus. In the SMM’s assessment all craters examined were caused by rockets fired from a north-north-eastern direction.

Posted by: Oui | Jan 18 2015 10:37 utc | 44

germany wants Russia to return Crimea to ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd6EAztsjXE
thatll happen when WEST Germany returns EAST germany to russia!

Posted by: brian | Jan 18 2015 11:39 utc | 46

The fascist father gives the fascist daughter fits …
Paris attacks: Jean-Marie Le Pen says French terror attacks were work of Western intelligence

“The shooting at Charlie Hebdo resembles a secret service operation but we have no proof of that,” the newspaper quoted Mr Le Pen as saying. “I don’t think it was organised by the French authorities but they permitted this crime to be committed. That, for the moment, is just a supposition.”
To justify his comments, Mr Le Pen pointed to the fact that one of the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, left his identity card in a crashed getaway car. He compared this to the “miraculous fact” – beloved by conspiracy theorists – that one of the passports of the 9/11 hijackers was found on the ground in New York after two planes collided with the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in 2001.
Mr Le Pen made two other provocative remarks in the interview. He said that the 1,500,000 who marched “against hatred” in Paris last Sunday were not “Charlies” but “Charlie Chaplins” (ie clowns). He also said that there were 15,000,00[0] to 20,000,000 Muslims in France – three or four times the generally accepted figures of 5,000,000 people who are practising Muslims or have Muslim backgrounds.
Mr Le Pen’s original quoted remarks run directly counter to the official line of his daughter and his party. They have suggested that the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket are the final proof that France faces an “enemy within”, which has been created by immigration and open EU borders.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 18 2015 14:54 utc | 48

Posted by: jfl | Jan 18, 2015 9:54:33 AM | 47
Jean-Marie le Pen is an old-fashioned fascist, Marine le Pen is a populist. He is probably the only public figure in France who can say such a thing.
Wolfgang Ischinger who organizes the Munich Security Conference admits that the Ukraine war could be finished quickly if the West guaranteed that Ukraine would not join NATO – and that the West is not prepared to do so – in German.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 18 2015 15:19 utc | 50

There is quite a stirring piece at counterpunch, Republic of Torture, Republic of Terror, evoking the horrors of the fascist Korean governments, made up of collaborators with the Japanese, setup in South Korea by the United States after WW II.
The US ingested the NAZI leadership it deemed useful to its own goals of world domination, worked with Britain to install NAZI collaborators in Greece and Italy, setup the Korean governments recalled in the article above, has now installed the neo-NAZIs in Ukraine who are – silently if one listens for news from the mshm – devastating Eastern Ukraine as we sleep, just as the Israelis are ‘silently’ devastating Gaza, and now the US has recruited French fascism, presently redirecting its racism at the Muslims and not at the Jews.
These are truly terrible times … and they’ve been terrible times for far longer than we … than I, certainly … had ever imagined. Prior to 9/11.
Maybe the monstrosity, the sheer weight of it all, will finally cause its collapse? I certainly hope so.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 18 2015 15:31 utc | 52

@49
‘ … the Ukraine war could be finished quickly… the West is not prepared to do so …’
That’s certainly the truth. Maybe the people being crushed under the greed and malice of the West, the Ukrainians, will stand aside from the war – which is, after all, killing them and destroying their country, to the great amusement and benefit of the West – step aside and let the West’s monstrous project crash and shatter.
The only people in Ukraine who support this monstrous civil war are the West’s stooges.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 18 2015 15:43 utc | 54

You do know what the Nazis did in the East, right?
Of course I do. It was horrible, atrocious and unforgivable, but that in no way excuses what the Russians did. I’m sympathetic to the ordinary people of all of Russia and Europe caught in the crossfire of a conflict in which the majority of them wanted no part and had no say. The people of France, the majority of them at least, were caught between a rock and a hard place, not to mention the ordinary people of Germany at the mercy of the Russian savage orcs when they settled in for their year-long drunken rape fest subsequent to defeating the German military.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Jan 18 2015 15:55 utc | 56

I saw this the other day, reluctant to post, but it shows what the West is trying to perpetuate with its sanctions and arms for the Banderaists.
An elderly man ate his dog, a starving grandma eaten by rats – humanitarian catastrophe in Novorossia. Normally fully read its I recommend, but I cannot bring myself to do that this Sunday morn.
Je suis Pervomaisk.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jan 18 2015 16:04 utc | 58

ps to 56 —
What’s up doc? — they’re not orcs, they’re Gremlins, from the Kremlin.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jan 18 2015 17:46 utc | 60

CNN – US losing Cold War with Russia?

Posted by: somebody | Jan 18 2015 18:05 utc | 62

@Anonymous
Another revenge strike by Bibi in Syria killing 5, an Hezbollah commander and Iranian fighters near Qunatra on Golan Heights. First reports …
Jihad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s commander of the Syrian Golan sector and the son of Lebanese terrorist Imad Mughniyah, was killed. Four other Hezbollah fighters were killed in the helicopter strike, among them field commander Mohammad Issa, who goes by the nom de guerre “Abu Issa,” and the Iranian Commander in the Syrian Golan Heights Abu Ali al-Tabtabai, also known as “Abu Ali Reza,” according to Al Arabiya, as well as other Lebanese media.
As predicted recently, excellent cooperation for terror organization Jablat al-Nusra in the area of the deadly attack by the IAF.

Posted by: Oui | Jan 18 2015 19:33 utc | 64

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Jan 18, 2015 8:36:49 AM | 47
russia liberated Aushwitz..thats the issue

Posted by: brian | Jan 18 2015 21:23 utc | 66

Posted by: somebody | Jan 18, 2015 10:19:21 AM | 50
its a sad day then when old fashioned fascists tell it like it is, and the modern ‘democracts’ spin lies in the service of empire

Posted by: brian | Jan 18 2015 21:27 utc | 68

The two videos are must view: Dr Moussa Ibrahim former spokesman for the Libyan Jamahirya is back (tho not in libya) and telling it like it is. the 2nd video is a Q and A where is answeres questions, one supports Ellen Browns april 2011 as to role of Currency in FUKUSA waging war on Libya; another make plain US embassies tell supposedly sovereign states who can or can nor stay in them (Ibrahim being on the run from Interpol)
Dr Moussa Ibrahim’s first public address since #NATO’s War on #Libya in 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdwJcqA-AhI … & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gbGpP74T7k … @AllForLibya

Posted by: brian | Jan 18 2015 22:43 utc | 70

@Demian, 42:
“Van der Graaf Generator has come up in a previous open thread… I think that Van der Graaf Generator have succeeded the test of time.”
‘Twas I who mentioned them, specifically their album Godbluff. While its four songs aren’t overtly sequential, I find numerous threads within them that are best appreciated by listening to them as a four-movement whole. As with any VDGG, have the lyrics at hand for full effect:
Undercover Man
Scorched Earth
Arrow
The Sleepwalkers
Yes, metaphysical indeed… with mind-twisting chord changes possessing fans to leave venues as though hit by a hurricane…
While Godbluff is far and away my favorite of their albums, I’m also quite partial to Still Life and The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome. And I just finished listening to A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers; thank you for that link—as rufus magister advised in the same discussion, it is good to listen to old favorites with new ears…

Posted by: Vintage Red | Jan 19 2015 0:17 utc | 72

The Western Ukrainians seem to be going for broke. If they are defeated again by the Novorussyans it is hard to imagine them being given a a third chance by the US/EU (Germany).
So then will it be a far-right coup in Ukraine against Poroshenko? Followed by a variation on Joaquin Flores’ Pravy Sektor Coup as ISIS Scenario: NATO to Feign a ‘Unilateral’ Alliance With Russia?
I guess I’m assuming that the latest attempt at total war against the Ukrainian East will fail, aren’t I? Certainly I hope it does.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 19 2015 0:50 utc | 74

Canadian Minister Scrambles to Safety after Palestinian Egging

Alluding to the ICC, Baird said he asked Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki to “strongly reconsider the consequences of moving forward with any action,” referring to accusations made against Israel for war crimes.
Following his meeting with Maliki, Baird set off for Tel-Aviv where he will meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman announced Sunday that Israel will lobby foreign powers to stop funding the ICC.

Was Canada always like this beneath their facade of ‘the peaceful kingdom’? I suppose they are like the US, the UK, France … always a ready supply of fascists, ready to grab power.
And they’ve certainly grabbed it now.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 19 2015 0:58 utc | 76

@rufus magister #75

ome of the music on that record was quite intriguing,

I especially like the fog horns bit. When I was in high school, this track was considered to be the ultimate head music. Still gathering up my energies to listen to Godbluff.
@ #73:
Nice Web site you’ve found there. Very slick. And with a nicely provocative name. It looks like the Russkies are intensifying their propaganda assault on the West. Good for them. Take this article: Geopolitical consequences of the terrorist acts in Paris.

The coexistence of White Europeans and immigrants, primarily Muslims, has long been a matter of principle in Europe, but the tragedy of January 7 has put pointblank the following question: “Who’s the boss?” The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Europeans are divided into two camps (symbolically, but still): pious traditionalists and cynical liberals. Their views on the future of Europe are poles apart.

This could have been written by the Kremlin. The idea that Russia stands for tradition, which liberalism has more or less destroyed in the West, is a mainstay of the rhetoric of Putin and Lavrov.
This article is very in your face pushing the Russian line. It is the first time I have seen such an article translated into English. So it looks like the Russians are taking the breaks off. War of Civilizations, v. 2. A thing to keep in mind here is that, unlike Western Europe, Russia does not have a Muslim problem, since Russia is the multicultural society par excellence.

Posted by: Demian | Jan 19 2015 2:58 utc | 78

D at 78 — I’ve been posting bits from Russia Insider and Ukraina.ru for a few weeks. Saker helped debut Insider. Ukraina.ru is graphically very interesting, isn’t it? They often have some pretty juicy stuff. As you say, the Federation is picking up it’s PR efforts; gotta keep up with Madison Ave,
While it certainly subjugated Moslem areas like Kazan and later Crimea, the Empire never went in for forced conversions. It did wind up pursuing Russification, but I don’t think has hard as some other imperial powers.
Soviets of course highlighted their nationalities policies, and their mix of cultural toleration combined with de-politicization. Nationality has now of course be re-politicized throughout not only Europe, but globally, since the collapse of the Union.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jan 19 2015 3:34 utc | 80

Russian Spring
01/18/2015-22:25
Summary of situation in Gorlovka by military journalist Mikhail Andronik:
The strikes were kept up through entire day upon all districts of Gorlovka. Data about killed or wounded are not known at the moment, but the count is dozens merely within civilian population.
Today many locals lost homes; infrastructure is damaged – practically no electricity, water, heating.
Per information from General Staff, today the Ukrainian army attempted to close a ring around Gorlovka. The attack directed from settlement Novoselovka (?). It was, however, repelled.
The forces of Novorossia struck at a significant number of opponent’ hardware in area of Krasniy Partizan (Red Guerrilla) (south of Gorlovka) by salvo rocked systems. The count of destruction was in order of 90-ties units of armored hardware. Most of opponent’s artillery was liquidated, though, the Ukrainian forces pull more reserves.
Russian Spring
01/18/2015-19:16
Sources from diplomatic missions in Kiyev tell that Ukrainian officers from Ministry of Defense in private conversations with the diplomats acknowledge receiving instructions of daily strikes at residential quarters of Donets, Lugansk and suburbs as well as at infrastructure targets (intersections, electric power lines, power substations, etc.) directly from Administration of President of Ukraine, namely president’s advisor Y. S. Biryukov, who is in position of aide of Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
As high-ranking Ukrainian military officials view it, these strikes intend to create in Donbass “unbearable living conditions, much worse than anywhere in Ukraine that other regions would refrain from rebellion against the Kiyev regimen”.
In addition, the foreign diplomats say, the Kiyev authorities hope that the severe living conditions would enable Novorossian population’s critical attitude toward Russia, which “can not provide so needed necessities”.
Russian Spring
01/18/2015-16:24
Chief of Artillery Staff of 2nd brigade of the Lugansk Republic army gave a summary from the front line:
What happens is an attempt of offensive by the Ukrainian forces from the site of Krimskoye (Bakhmutka area).
The active phase started 1.5 hour ago as intensive artillery strikes. The Ukrainian hardware is advancing from the site of Krimskoye.

Posted by: Fete | Jan 19 2015 5:05 utc | 82

From Fete’s Russian Spring update of 01.18 …

The strikes were kept up through entire day upon all districts of Gorlovka. Data about killed or wounded are not known at the moment, but the count is dozens merely within civilian population.
Today many locals lost homes; infrastructure is damaged – practically no electricity, water, heating. …
As high-ranking Ukrainian military officials view it, these strikes intend to create in Donbass “unbearable living conditions, much worse than anywhere in Ukraine that other regions would refrain from rebellion against the Kiyev regimen”. …

Isn’t this exactly the Israeli M.O. in Gaza, reimplemented in Ukraine?

Sources from diplomatic missions in Kiyev tell that Ukrainian officers from Ministry of Defense in private conversations with the diplomats acknowledge receiving instructions of daily strikes at residential quarters of Donets, Lugansk and suburbs as well as at infrastructure targets (intersections, electric power lines, power substations, etc.) directly from Administration of President of Ukraine, namely president’s advisor Y. S. Biryukov, who is in position of aide of Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Could those ‘diplomats’ be US/Israeli? and could the stream of instructions be going the other way? Certainly the Israelis have open access to all the information to all of the NSA’s information including satellite and gps data and cell phone locations, as of course do the US alphabet agencies themselves.
The US and Israel are playing the part of an evil dynamic duo, the perverse Batman and Robin of civilian terror world-wide.
Je suis Vania. Je suis Vania’s 5-year old brother. Je suis Shakhtersk.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 19 2015 8:22 utc | 84

Another thought came to mind: Is it coincidence that Netanyaho ratches up tensions in the Middle East and that the Ukraine is preparing for a new offensive ? There could be plans to coordinate (military) actions in both regions, to start a new war/military offensive actions in both regions at the same time. It could mean that Russia is forced to focus attention on the eastern Ukraine and be forced to not support Assad (supply him with weapons).
Is such a “Conspiricy theory” “(too) far fetched” ? Perhaps, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen this way.

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 19 2015 8:46 utc | 86

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 19, 2015 3:46:14 AM | 86
Doubt it, there is something called multitasking. Lots of stuff goes on whilst we aren’t looking and interdependence is uncontrolable. Like Iranian Russian military cooperation
Here a very knowledgable pianist – Lisitska – talk about Ukraine – in German.
Interesting part – Ukrainian private administrative school MAUP – funded by Arab States.
Notable alumni
Volodymyr Groysman, mayor of Vinnytsia, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine
David Duke, American politician, political writer, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and former candidate for governor of the state of Louisiana

Founded in 1989 as a non-state establishment, the MAUP consists of a preparatory department, a lyceum, college, institutes and postgraduate school and has over 50,000 students in many branches throughout the country. Since 1991, MAUP has been publishing the Personnel magazine and the Personnel Plus newspaper. In 2008, the U.S. State Department published its “Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the United States Congress”[1] and singled out MAUP when it stated the Ukrainian-based organization “is one of the most persistent anti-Semitic institutions in Eastern Europe.”

and

The MAUP is also resposible for the univeristy education for the largets amount of MPs in the current Ukriane Parliament when compared to all other Ukrianian educational institutions.
It ahs been reported that out of all the Neo-Nazi and Anti-Semetic literture published in the last 10 years in Ukraine that MUAP has been responsible for publishing around 90%.

The founder of MUAP seems to have tried to found Ukrainian Nationalism on an anti-Polish peasant uprising.
MAUP has connections with Damascus and Teheran.
Maup’s founder has very warm relations with Syria still in 2011
The world is a complex place.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 19 2015 10:50 utc | 88

@88: Interesting links. It’s clear the Ukraine will sink into more & more chaos. “Mission accomplished”, right ?

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 19 2015 13:37 utc | 90

91
This is the correct counterpunch link – thanks!

Posted by: somebody | Jan 19 2015 14:18 utc | 92

Interesting & thoughtful article regarding the shooting at Charlie Hebdo:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/17/frances-wavy-line-on-free-speech/

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 19 2015 14:25 utc | 94

From a Google ‘translation’ of Colonel Cassad posted by Saker …

In Kiev, in the coming days waiting for an inspection of the “black gentleman” led by the commander of US forces in Europe Hodges. Hodges apparently must be in place to assess the situation and give the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommendations on military aid (in the Senate just recently stepped up demands to begin deliveries of “lethal” weapons) and give obektivku on the actual state of affairs at the front.
Sam Hodges is uporotyh “hawk” in the spirit of John McCain, so it is not hard to imagine that he would recommend.
While Russia’s hands tied Ukraine, countries around the perimeter of Russia have two or three years to prepare for a similar scenario (s) Hodges
Well, you understand, will set fire to the entire perimeter.

With the Democrat neo-cons out of power the Republican neo-cons plan to burn the world … using other peoples’ bodies. Obama, of course, is just following orders.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 19 2015 19:59 utc | 96

“Capture of Top al-Qaeda Operative Highlights Turkey’s Role in U.S.-NATO Terror Operations”
http://boiling.thedevbox.net/2014/12/31/capture-of-top-al-qaeda-operative-highlights-turkeys-role-in-u-s-nato-terror-operations

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 19 2015 20:20 utc | 98

Help me out. Assuming that ISIS is selling oil as their source of funding, how can the distribution logistics be in place if they are subjected to heavy bombardment from US sorties on a daily basis??

Posted by: georgeg | Jan 19 2015 20:26 utc | 100