From an interview with Vladimir Kouznetsov, ret. Russian chief of nuclear security in Russia, Le Temps, 9 april 2015. My comments in (..)
Ukraine has no fossil fuels except coal. (All the talk about fracking is just dreck.) It produces 50% of its electricity in nuclear plants. There are 15 production units. In Khmelnitski, Rovno, the South Ukraine sector, and Zaporozhye.
The Gvmt. has said it will increase production to 65%, but expansion, new construction, upgrading is on hold. Production units are all working at 100% and some units are beyond their projected life-span. Stress tests and security tests and extra maintenance on the existing units are not being carried out properly. Either dropped entirely, as production is never halted, or shelved to the future, or are being implemented partially. Because: funding is unavailable, late, or not enough, and the Gvmt. does not understand the importance of doing this (quelle surprise.) The Ukranian nuclear industry will become completely degraded and can at present only be saved by decisive, prompt, coordinated investment and actions.
Security culture and measures in the plants is weak, insufficient. The problem of nuclear waste has not been solved and Chernobyl remains an unholy mess and is not run by a professional team, contrary to ALL legislation on these matters.
(Frau Angela, please do something for your future generations! Call Vladimir!)
(To top it all off…) The profs, students, equipment, etc. at the National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry have become…Russian! (It was in Sevastopol.) The National Polytech in Odessa cannot train the experts needed, perhaps a few low-level ppl, not more.
——————-
The last report of the State Nuclear Inspectorate of Ukraine seems to be for 2012. That is in English, so who knows. Still, one would expect some err interest, pressure?
I could not find anything of substance concerning the IAEA and Ukraine after around 2010. Except for some small accident reports and the matter of switching fuel to USA providers, which, btw, is impossible for now and in the foreseeable future, for purely technical reasons. Also documents relating to the Crimea question, the legal status of treaties, cooperation, etc. As usual, the Kiev Gvmt tried to refuse having Crimea put under Russia; but in Dec 2014 Kiev requested the IAEA to order Russia to be responsible (which is what Russia proposed bang off.) Where this affair is at present, I am not sure, though one obscure article did state that the IAEA took the decision to consider Crimea Russian for their remit, naturally enough this news is not (as far as I can see) official or made public.
http://www.snrc.gov.ua/nuclear/en/publish/article/119456
kiev post:
http://tinyurl.com/lehyczr
Ukraine did not pay its IAEA membership fees for 2014. Capital (Ukr. site, eng.):
http://tinyurl.com/lq9q6mw
Idk if they have paid anything since but I doubt it. As far as I understand it, they still have a little time, 6 months or more, before being excluded, as per IAEA statutes. I suppose some deal will be cobbled together to keep Kiev amongst the respectable.
Pravy Sektor tried to occupy the Zaporozhye plant in May 2014, vid 1 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR4Mk62FKeU

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 11 2015 19:30 utc | 3

Another fake FBI ‘terror plot’, this time an innocent bystander is charged as well (the ‘suspects’ friend, who lent him money for a storage locker).
How many of these are there now? Still no mass outrage. Media spin remains essential to the formula.
The Newburgh Four doc on HBO is pretty good, it shows how the FBI had cameras set up in multiple locations to basically make a ‘movie’ out of the entrapment. Thousands of hours of video as well as roving HD surveillance of every meeting the agent has with the men. Now this should have proven the entrapment(and it very explicitly does down to the bribery involving large sums – $250K to this indigent ‘group’), but all were given life sentences. It’s all on film. At one point the handler is contacted by the FBI after one of his indoctrination sessions with the ‘suspects’ and he states; “It was perfect, like a movie script”. And there are further byzantine schemes illuminated as well, such as driving to the next state to pick up materials so federal charges could be brought.
Fake bombs, fake ‘FBI informant’ who’s actually an agent/handler of shady provenance, fake motivation(group admitted doing it for $$, not Islam).
Always the same. And I really have lost count the number of times this has happened. 10? 15? The high profile ones at least.
Now I see that the “KKK murder plot” of late was also an FBI fake. A fake post-mortum pic of the un-dead ‘target’ was shown to the suspects to entrap them as well.

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 11 2015 19:51 utc | 5

One has to take the news from RT with a grain of salt. One has to keep in mind who’s behind RT. Like one also has to be skeptical when one reads US newssources.
But the news about France having second thoughts is credible.

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 11 2015 20:39 utc | 7

Wrong link. Should have been this one: https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/goodbye-lenin/

Posted by: KMF | Apr 11 2015 21:55 utc | 9

Willy2, Russian sources like RT have a good track record. The Western media and governments now practice agitprop and disinformation that they must have learned from the USSR before it collapsed.

Posted by: Arius | Apr 11 2015 22:05 utc | 11

good blog post on the issue of Valentina Lisitsa not performing for the tso in toronto..

Posted by: james | Apr 11 2015 23:18 utc | 13

@4, @6
I don’t know that gag-rules originated in the USA, but they certainly were made use of here …
Gag rule

After the beginning of the earnest agitation of the Northern abolitionists against the institution of slavery in 1831, petitions of various kinds poured into the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate praying for the abolition or the restriction of that institution. …
The pro-slavery forces responded with a series of gag rules that automatically “tabled” all such petitions, preventing them from being read or discussed. The House passed the Pinckney Resolutions, authored by Henry L. Pinckney of South Carolina, on May 26, 1836, the third of which was known from the beginning as the “gag rule” and passed with a vote of 117 to 68. (The first stated that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states and the second that it “ought not” do so in the District of Columbia.)

There’re also the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) and, of course, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate’s favorite : Espionage Act (1917} … beneath the veneer of civilized government (?) the USA is still a crypto-fascist state.
It’s great to see the Spanish so creatively resisting! Sorry not to see Podemos doing better in the recent elections, though.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 12 2015 1:01 utc | 15

04/11/2015 21:11
Russian Spring
“In pursuance of mandate of the Ukrainian President, in the zone of the carried out antiterrorist operation, as of today, all military groups have joined either ranks of the Ukrainian Military Forces or regular units of the National Guard”, announced Stepan Poltorak, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine.
According to the head of the Defense Department of Ukraine, neither volunteer formations nor other armed groups exist in the area of military campaign or at the line of engagement.

Posted by: Fete | Apr 12 2015 4:11 utc | 17

@chuckvw #18:
I’m not so sure. I have a feeling that the Pentagon and CIA have realized that the Ukie military and punitive battalions (which have apparently been integrated into the military, according to #17) are no match for the NAF, who have reason as opposed to blind hatered on their side. USG wants to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, but as usual, is averse to American casualties, even if they are only mercenaries private contractors.
The Minsk II ceasefire appears to be holding as well as it ever has. I haven’t really followed the Ukrainian situation during the past few weeks. As far as I can tell, the main reason to think that the Ukies will launch another assault is that they need to keep the war going to keep the regime from imploding.
I would love to hear what US military in Ukraine (as opposed to CIA operatives, who are scumbags) think of their Ukrainian colleagues. Do they have a name for them, like “desert nigger” or “towel heads” for Arabs? I find it hard to believe that US pro-fascist junta propaganda works on American soldiers once they meet actual Ukies.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 12 2015 6:02 utc | 19

@Fernando #20:
RT is one of the best news sources out there
Is that really the case? Of course, RT operates on an incomparably higher level of journalistic integrity than any news channel from the Anglosphere, like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or the BBC. But I have read that RT too uncritically regurgitates what Western media report. So I no longer keep track of what RT is reporting. Where I get my Russian news from is Fort Russ, Russia Insider, and New Cold War, and Russian language news sites and blogs.
Another issue is other channels like RT. As far as I know, the main ones are Al Jazeera, PressTV, and teleSUR. I don’t trust Al Jazeera so I don’t follow it, but do you think RT is significantly better than these other two (other than from having a significantly bigger budget)?
As an aside, something I’ve wondered about is why Turkey hasn’t created its own equivalent of PressTV. Maybe that’s something that NATO members aren’t allowed to do?

Posted by: Demian | Apr 12 2015 6:37 utc | 21

RT reports that the Russian Navy evacuated 18 Americans – whom the USG refused to concern itself with – among 300 others …
‘Nobody will help us evacuate:’ Americans urge Washington to help flee Yemen war
Russian naval ship evacuates over 300 people stranded in Yemen
Sanaa-tized? Rights groups sue State Dept for refusing to evacuate 1,000s of Americans from Yemen
… of course Russia had earlier taken care of its own.
Apparently there remain as many as 4,000 Americans in Yemen whom the USG has just written off.
Too busy helping their allies, I guess …
Exclusive: U.S. expands intelligence sharing with Saudis in Yemen operation
Reuters is still pushing the “Iran-linked Houthi forces” line. Part of the US’ European MSM Unit.
It was Summer Nasser whose report I had read earlier … I imagine she’s one the American citizens whom the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate reserves the right to kill … Perhaps he was hoping the Saudis would get her. Now – if she is one of the 18 – he’ll have to hit her himself in Djibouti.
Otherwise … he’ll be delivering her coordinates to the Saudis.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 12 2015 7:52 utc | 23

jfl at 10, yes I saw that report. In my post I said ‘impossible’ meaning ‘impossible as too difficult to carry out in the present conditions’ – it requires a huge amount of changes, retro-fitting, testing, etc. (i have read, i’m no expert. this aint twigs, paper, ciggie buts, birch logs you pitch into your fireplace.) So who knows what actually took place there, the article really only stresses that it has nothing to do with Westinghouse. One previous ‘accident’ I did read about, which also provoked an automated electrical shut down was due to a defective replacement part being used. (no links as one can’t be sure what really occurred.) Anyway it is all scary as hell.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 12 2015 12:09 utc | 25

Has anyone else noticed that there is an almost complete blackout on news from and about Tikrit? The lead Reuters reporter who reported directly about the problems immediately after much of the city was captured including a lynching was run out of the country by death threats from Shia groups. Even the Iraqi news sources have nothing to say about current conditions in the city or if the Militias have left or if fighting continues.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 12 2015 15:59 utc | 27

@3 noirette.. very interesting to stay on top of and watch unfold.. thanks.
@7 willy2… and how much are we reading about the french position in any western msm? i would imagine next to nothing as it doesn’t go along with the 24/7 chart against russia and big bad putin.. ps, i agree with @11 arius..
@9 kmf… paul wrote a good article their. josh wrote a nice response to it too.. thanks..
@14 dh.. yes, it is definetely so.. the canadian ukraine congress is a lobby group that managed to influence the head of the tso.. canada has the largest ukraine population outside of ukraine and russia – 1.3 million or something like that.. there are a few politically rabid ones too who spout off the same bullshit anti russia/putin meme that annie apple ass writes about regularly in her articles to mainstream new con media outlets too..
@17 fete. thanks.
@20 fernando.. i tend to agree with you..
@21 demian.. what i would like to know is why the http://english.al-akhbar.com/ site no longer publishes in english.. i enjoyed reading the stories for the greater variety of info sources in the mid east area..
@22 d falling… that person you highlight and many others – just swallow the cool aid given out via the western msm without question.. that is the beauty of propaganda.. most won’t question any of it.. russia – bad, putin – evil – wash, rinse and recycle.. note willy 2 questions rt.. that is generally a good sign, especially if they do that to all the western msm outlets that play fast and loose with the info they opt to share..

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2015 16:22 utc | 29

@30 df.. isn’t that one of the exceptional nations other main exports after war equipment and financial derivatives? wacky funny mental christianity – coming to a faraway part of the world where people have never heard of jimmy swaggert, jerry falwell and etc. etc.. if they could just wrap a bible around the bomb – whether military or financial – they could kill a few birds with one bomb, lol..

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2015 17:00 utc | 31

Sputnik has a report one the ongoing fascist coup in the Ukraine, as Kiev Becomes First European Capital to Openly Glorify Criminal Ideology. “‘Neo-Nazism is becoming a new state ideology in Ukraine,’ Mateusz Piskorski, head of the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis, told RIA Novosti.”

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 12 2015 21:04 utc | 33

UAE to declare war on Pakistan?

In a statement released on Sunday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan criticized Abu Dhabi for “making threats” against Islamabad.
“This is not only ironic but a thought-provoking moment that a minister of UAE is hurling threats at Pakistan. The statement of the UAE minister is in stark violation of all diplomatic norms prevalent according to the principals of international relations,” he said.
The Pakistani official’s remarks were made in response to UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammed Gargash, who described Pakistan’s parliamentary vote on the Yemen crisis as “contradictory and dangerous”, warning Islamabad of “heavy price” for taking on what he called an “ambiguous stand” over the issue.

Unanimous = Ambiguous. Only in a 2-bit despotism (ok, a 2-gigabit despotism), where only one vote counts, can such a statement roll off the tongue of … an emir, I guess.
Among the data in wikipedia’s sidebar on the UAE …

Ethnic groups (2009)
  16.6% Emirati (citizenry)
  23% other Arabs
  42.3% South Asian
  12.1% other Asian
  6.0% other expatriates

… wonder how many among those 42.3% are Pakistani? Wonder how many among those 23% are Syrians, Iraqis, and Palestinians?

Posted by: jfl | Apr 12 2015 22:26 utc | 35

ISIL HELPS ISRAEL CONCEAL HISTORICAL ORIGIN
https://ashraf62.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/isil-helps-israel-conceal-its-historical-origin/

Posted by: ALAN | Apr 13 2015 0:19 utc | 37

WayOutWest with more ISIS-friendly, link-free conspiracy theories.
So, apparently the reporter group received some death threats on Facebook by some unknown group that could well be anybody.
WayOutWest is far more concerned with the war-time deaths of some ISIS fighters – make that the “lynching” (according to a Western reporter) of a single ISIS fighter – than with the liberation of a whole city in Iraq. And there is plenty of reporting still going on, though WayOutWest wants to make it sound as if the result of a single Reuters reporter shivering in his diapers is that there is a news blackout from the city.
You are the biggest ISIS-boosting propagandist that I have ever seen. You’re disgusting. You spit on the graves of not just all those who have died in Syria and Iraq under the ISIS knife, but also of the 3,000 who died from the collusion of Islamist fanaticism and US warmongering on 9/11. Get lost you fraud.
Here’s some news from Tikrit, for everyone, especially for the Google-challenged, ISIS-blinkered pawn WayOutWest.

The second battle of Tikrit is now over. It began on March 2 and lasted until April 4, when Iraqi commanders confirmed that the last pocket of Islamic State militants in the city had been eliminated.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-v-micallef/lessons-from-the-second-b_b_7049430.html

Senior Coalition Source: No Large Scale Human Rights Abuses in Tikrit
http://www.basnews.com/en/news/2015/04/11/senior-coalition-source-no-large-scale-human-rights-abuses-in-tikrit/

Posted by: guest77 | Apr 13 2015 0:29 utc | 39

Nice try, G that report was bases on hearsay from last year with an unattributed picture of about ten bodies from who knows where. I didn’t read the Huff Post story because only nitwits use them for sources.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 13 2015 1:59 utc | 41

@WoW #40:
I didn’t read the Huff Post story because only nitwits use them for sources.
For those who haven’t seen this:
‘Huffington Post’ Employee Sucked Into Aggregation Turbine
Horrified Workers Watch As Colleague Torn Apart By Powerful Content-Gathering Engine
My favorite Onion piece, after the one about Planned Parenthood opening its new abortionplex in Kansas.

Although we’ve traditionally dedicated 97 percent of our resources to other important services such as contraception distribution, cancer screening, and STD testing, this new complex allows us to devote our full attention to what has always been our true passion: abortion

Posted by: Demian | Apr 13 2015 2:51 utc | 43

@41
Thanks, ruralito. Never mistake a wolf in sheep’s clothing for a sheep.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 13 2015 3:37 utc | 45

@45
The most recent date I saw in the article linked is 2 March…
Turkey, Iran ‘should act together to stop bloodshed’

Erdoan hosted Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Interior Minister Prince Mohammad bin Nayef al-Saud at a lengthy meeting hours before departing for an official visit to Tehran.
Bin Nayef’s visit was not announced on the daily schedule of Erdoan regularly posted on the official webpage of the presidency of the Republic of Turkey.
Accompanied by a delegation, the visiting deputy crown prince arrived in the Turkish capital at around 6 p.m. on April 6, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The agency noted that the delegation, which travelled to Turkey on Bin Nayef’s private plane, was welcomed by Interior Minister Sebahattin -ztrk at the airport.
Later in the evening of April 6, Anadolu briefly reported that the meeting between Erdoan and Bin Nayef, which took place at the former’s presidential palace, lasted for an hour and 40 minutes.
The surprise meeting came just hours before Erdoan’s scheduled visit to neighboring Iran on April 7, despite recent tensions between Ankara and Tehran over the Saudi-led bombing operation in Yemen.
During a joint press conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on April 7, Erdoan said, “History and culture has been slaughtered in Iraq,” noting that more than 100,000 people have died in Iraq and at least 300,000 people have died in Syria as well.
“I don’t look at the sect. It does not concern me whether those killed are Shiite or Sunni, what concerns me is Muslims,” Erdoan said during his one-day visit to the neighboring country, adding that Iran and Turkey should mediate between the battling parties and hope to obtain a result.
“We have to put an end to this bloodshed, this death,” said the president.
Erdoan and Turkey have backed a Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi insurgents in Yemen. Tehran supports the Shiite Houthis, and Erdoan’s remarks regarding the situation in Yemen had angered some Iranian officials.
“We both believed that it is necessary for us to witness the end of war and bloodletting in Yemen as soon as possible,” Rouhani said.
The two presidents signed eight agreements and emphasized the need for greater economic cooperation, with Erdoan saying the two countries were far behind a target to lift trade volume to 30 billion a year.
Trade between the two totaled around 14 billion in 2014.
He also said Turkey and Iran should start trading in their own currencies instead of dollars or euros to avoid foreign exchange volatility, and complained about the price of natural gas imports from Iran.

… Doesnt look at the sect … no more blood in Yemen, but killing Syrians is OK? Erdo[g]an seems inherently untrustworthy to me. He seems constantly to be looking for an opportunity to capitalize upon, regardless anything he may have said in the past.
That’s Turkey on the right and Pakistan in the left who have both evinced an interest in Iranian gas, though, Erdoan wants a discount, too. Trade in local currencies is a good idea for anyone who believes TIAA.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 13 2015 7:46 utc | 47

Police Told Dying Black Man: ‘F*ck Your Breath’

A new video recording, which emerged Friday, shows Eric Harris dying from the shot wound from Oklahoma reserve officer Robert Bates.
Tulsa Police Sgt. Jim Clark told the press conference that the Tulsa County Sheriffs Office inquiry decided that Bates was not guilty of a crime.
Bates claims he mistakenly shot the man dead with a firearm, thinking he was using a taser. “Oh! I shot him. I’m sorry,” the video depicts the 73-year-old reserve officer, who is a wealthy donor to the sheriff’s department, as saying.

A 73 year-old cop?
A 73 year-old cop who is a ‘reserve officer’?
A wealthy 73 year-old ‘reserve officer’ who ‘donates’ to the sheriff’s department?
Sounds like pay to kill a black guy to me.
The other cops are his body guards, they’re there to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 13 2015 8:04 utc | 49

Erdogan is definitely one of the most disappointing characters in the region. He started as a leader of “democratic-religious” movement, and at the time the secular parties in Turkey were tainted with fascist/extreme nationalist aspects of Kemalism, i.e. the system was formally democratic but effectively quite authoritarian, intolerant of cultural rights of minorities, doctoring the past, condoning death squads and so on. Erdogan started with good reforms, plus some activity to “strengthen the Muslim character”. Economy improved, and so were the rights of Kurds. But he is also a megalomaniac idiot and at some point things were starting to seriously drift downhill. He is cunning enough to stay in power using a combination of wedge issues that alienate almost half of the voters while gaining support of the rest, with the help of heavy buyout, intimidation and persecution of the media. And he uses the accumulated power to pursue deeply erratic policies.
For example, at some point he was “seriously” concerned with Israeli abuses and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but since then the issue was heavily downgraded among his kaleidoscopic priorities, where regime change in Syria drifted to the top. But to change a regime you need to make bets on the opponents and here he has obvious problems. The dominant style of Islam in Turkey is “relatively progressive” type of Sunni, but he ended up effectively supporting both wings of al-Qaeda, “moderate” al-Nusra and “radical” ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. All reporting on the interactions with ISIS is officially forbidden in Turkey, and so are investigations into what military intelligence is doing, what they are trucking to whom. Investigating what bribes are collected by Turkish officials is also practically forbidden, both are firing offenses for members of investigative institutions and the judiciary. Indisputably, al-Nusra gets huge direct support, while there are glimpses of deals with ISIS, like a ISIS commander (who is Turkish) comfortably getting treatment for wounds in Turkish hospital (a regular hospital, not in a prison). He also openly itches to invade Syria, but Obama refused to support him on that, Iran, Russia and perhaps China probably all had some “words of caution” as well.
On Yemen the situation is “funny”. My guess is that Turks got huge personal bribes from Saudis and Gulfies to uncritically supply the Salafist extremists in Syria, and so he is under heavy pressure to send troops to Yemen in the support of “Sunni cause”. But like in Pakistan, this is very unpopular, both among the population and within the military. Hey, if that was such a nice job, Saudies and Gulfies have their own troops too! Yemen has too many similarities to Afghanistan to make it a candidate for “profitable occupation”, which is probably the Saudi plan. So while Erdogan dislikes Shias and other heterodox sects, he definitely does not hate them like Salafis do, and it is hard to see reason to prefer a former Communist recently converted to the role of Saudi puppet over a coalition of Shia and secular nationalists. The general impression among the population seems “Saudis are bombing Muslim and that should not be done”. This is what I heard from a person from that region, and it is consistent with the comments from the region, and to me, it reflects a combination of the usual prejudice with common sense.
By the way of contrast, thinking in Washington is untainted by prejudice (who cares about the distinctions between Zaidis, Twelvers, Ikwan, Salafis, Naserists and Marxists) and common sense (which requires to care a bit), so the Washington simply follows the first impulse, to fulfill the orders of the best customers of the military-industrial complex. Especially if we are not asked to send actual troops.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 13 2015 9:33 utc | 51

Is there a pattern to this madness currently going on in Syria, Iraq, Yemen. why are the Assyrian, Yemenese, Babylonian areas being targeted. Why has this Jesuit Pope suddenly got involved in the Armenian controversy, is this a red herring to what is the real motive. People there is a pattern to this madness, according to Dr. Ashraf Ezzat.
You can read her analysis here

Posted by: papa | Apr 13 2015 10:30 utc | 53

to follow news from yemen check here
http://www.yementimes.com/

Posted by: Mina | Apr 13 2015 10:48 utc | 55

@45
This Huff piece seems to be based on authorized White House leaks, notice the disclaimer and other reported information.
It still may have some importance and it does reinforce my comment at the earlier post about Yemen and the new Saudi foreign policy. The Saudis are even willing to set aside their hatred for the Muslim Brotherhood to work with Turkey on this coming invasion.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 13 2015 15:16 utc | 57

@51 papa.. interesting link. thanks..

Posted by: james | Apr 13 2015 15:48 utc | 59

L@60
You should do a little research before jumping to conclusions about Yarmouk. The Assad regime has besieged and bombed the camp for more than two years in support of their ally the PFLP and against the FSA and their Palestinian allies. Now that Nusra/IS has control of most of the camp the bombing will continue. I’m sure that most of the remaining civilians would want the fighting to just stop but this is war.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 13 2015 21:44 utc | 61

@jfl #62:
Ridiculous, indeed.
The Israelis claim the Palestinian children they ‘inadvertantly’ murder are being used as human shields by the grown-up the Israelis have set out to murder
Hard as it is to believe, the Ukrainians are even worse. At least the Israelis don’t deny shooting Palestinian children. The Ukrainians claim that civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure in the Donbass are due to rebels bombing their own cities and villages. Also, Ukrainians claim that anti-junta demonstrators set themselves on fire in the 2 May 2014 Odessa Trade Union building massacre. Zionists may be racist, but they are not clinically insane like Ukrainian nationalists.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 14 2015 1:54 utc | 63

Interesting story at Al Monitor about Hamas’s statement/nonstatement supporting the Saudi war in Yemen. They seem to be trying to lightly kiss some Saudi butt while keeping a hand on the Iranian udder but it doesn’t appear to fool anyone. Supporting the legal government in Yemen may be a lawyer’s way of dodging the issue but they may soon have to decide which side of the sectarian divide they belong to.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 14 2015 4:24 utc | 65

New slap in the Gulfee-faces with Egypt denying yesterday’s rumour about 5000 ground troops coming
القاهرة تشارك في “عاصفة الحزم” جوا وبحرا فقط
http://ar.rt.com/gpwo

Posted by: Mina | Apr 14 2015 12:57 utc | 67

Been off grid for a few days… enough to see some further reports on what is going on in the Odessa/Bessarabia region.
While as rufus magister wrote @26 we do not appear to have an Odessa Commune, there does seem to be a new, open level of defiance of the junta by the people of the region. On 10 April antifascists upstaged a junta attempt to coopt the anniversary of the city’s liberation from the Nazis, clashing with reinforced police as uniformed EuroMaidan supporters tried to snatch red flags from gathered Odessans. This is the fifth straight day of mass protests, following months of bombings and other sabotage and mass arrests concurrent with the recent declaration of a separatist Odessa People’s Republic (clearly illegal under junta rule) and a quasi-legal Popular Rada of Bessarabia (see below—perhaps a manifestation of transitional tactics? Not that this stops the SBU from its repression). The Southwest may be far from the DPR/LPR and the Russian border but it is directly adjacent to Transdniestria, which makes it vulnerable in the minds of both the Kiev junta and neighboring Moldova.
Figures vary on how many antifascists have been arrested, from 20 to 39 (“and a large cache of arms and explosives was seized”—believable in light of reports over the winter from Odessa, Kharkov and Nikolaev). Arrests on this scale would be a grievous blow to the leadership of any local underground organization, but they do not seem to be subduing the people of Odessa. So far events are consistent with any of the scenarios I outlined earlier: a premature uprising provoked by the SBU roundup of “domestic separatists,” a planned uprising meeting a strong SBU counterstrike, and a spontaneous uprising joined by the underground leadership.
A new front in the antifascist struggle seems to be emerging, both geographically and in form. The new form has been called “a para-government, dual-power organization” by Fort Russ and a “guerrilla republic” by me in an earlier post. The ground is softening under the boots of the junta. I’ll bet that there are already neighborhoods of Odessa and surrounding territory that the fascists write off as “Indian country”…
From Russia Insider:
20 Detained, legalities of multinational People’s Rada of Bessarabia, Moldovan government worried
39 arrested, charged with “planning acts of sabotage and bombings”
Poroshenko and his SS outnumbered by fearless antifascists in Odessa while attempting to coopt anniversary of city’s liberation from Nazis
Poroshenko and SS told “Fascism will not pass!” (1 min video)

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 14 2015 18:29 utc | 69

A@68
The Saudis told the UNSC to piss-off in 2013 over their inaction on removing Assad so they didn’t even bother to ask permission for this action, they did come to Washington to announce this intervention holding hands with the Hegemon, the only power that matters.
This meaningless UN embargo and tepid begging for a ceasefire will have little effect on this conflict and the Saudis will ignore it just as they have ignored all other pleas for restraint.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 14 2015 19:15 utc | 71

@66
U.S. ships of the coast of Yemen. I guess the trapped American citizens could swim out to them. I know USISRAEL is busy trying to get their Iran War on, but really… what a disgrace. American citizens stranded under the bombs of an “ally” and the State Department flacks just chuckle…

Posted by: chuckvw | Apr 14 2015 21:11 utc | 73

@72
‘ eunuchs running the EU ‘ that’d be the EUnuchs, wouldn’t it. Very apt appellation.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 15 2015 2:50 utc | 75

As Drought Grips California, Networks Come Up Dry on Climate Science

California is coming off its hottest year on record, is still in the midst of a drought that’s the deepest on record, and is coming out of winter with a snowpack water reserve that’s by far the smallest on record.
Historically, temperatures and precipitation have fluctuated randomly. But as Climate Central reports, now global warming is changing the odds, making it more likely a dry year will also be a warm year, making extreme drought more likely. “It used to be flipping two coins independently and getting two tails one-quarter of time. Now we’re getting tails on the temperature coin much more often,” says Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh. By 2030—or by the time a child born today is in high school—climate scientists expect every single year to be warmer than normal by historic standards.

What’re the ‘indispensible’ nation, the EUnuchs, Russia, China … all of them trying to do?
Secure supply/control of fossil fuels, the carbon-crack that is killing the world as we know it.
Ride the increase in fossil fuel use right over the cliff … if they’re unable to end the world in a nuclear flash during their ‘squabbles’.
To paraphrase Ghandi, ‘What do you think of human intelligence and invention?’
I think it would be a good idea.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 15 2015 22:22 utc | 77

@james#29: Without Al Akhbar English, I am at a loss for a reliable source for news of the Middle East. I haven’t trusted AlQatara since the beginning of the Arab Spring. The (Saudi-funded) Daily Star is no substitute.
@papa#53: Pope Francis has been much more outspoken about conflicts in the Middle East and the situation of a variety of Christians there (not just Roman Catholics). Also, he appears to be moving toward healing some of the divisions between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches (which could open up the possibility in a few years for married men to become diocesan priests in the Roman Catholic Church, just as they are able in the Greek Orthodox Church).
Finally, 100 years after the Armenian genocide, well after all the people who committed the atrocity have died, Turkey still will not admit that a genocide occurred. The question is not why the Pope is bringing up the issue, but why other nations are still letting Turkey get away with denying the truth.

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Apr 15 2015 23:21 utc | 79

Iran Assails U.S. Plan for a Vote in Congress

TEHRAN — Iran’s president on Wednesday dismissed the compromise worked out between the Obama administration and Congress over an impending nuclear agreement as internal American politics, saying the Iranians were negotiating with six countries, not just with the United States.

This tack sounds promising. Replace P5+1 with P6-1. Allow the US to isolate itself as it so obviously desires. A weekend shacked up alone in the no-tell-motel with Bibi will do wonders for our perspective.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 16 2015 4:51 utc | 81

Russia Insider extracted a section of an interview with Zakharchenko, arguing 90 Percent Chance of Full-Scale War with Ukraine. “We will liberate all our compatriots…. Don’t forget, our mothers and our sisters live there, so don’t make us out to be bloodthirsty beasts.”
RI noted it was his first interview with the MSM in some time and linked back to the full article on Bloomberg. Gunfire in Donetsk as Rebel Leader Refuses Ukrainian Unity is your typical MSM product, reality light served in a delicate propaganda sauce of misdirection and omission, ergo no warranties expressed or implied.
The title, for example, is mostly sauce. The do actually quote Zakharchenko:

Nobody wants to come back to Ukraine under any pretext…. I can’t even imagine this happening. Fundamental disagreements between us and Kiev are not disappearing. In fact they become stronger every day….
We thought, still think and will think of ourselves as a part of the Soviet Union, of Russia.

Fort Russ has posted a transcript of Buzina’s last interview.

Why is there a conflict between Russia and the West on the territory of Ukraine? What’s going on, is not a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, it’s between the West and Russia….
For many years the West increased its positions in Ukraine, created groups of influence…. These people received grants, traveled to the USA, they were spoofed.
Real Ukraine lived below. The real Ukraine depends for its economic livelihood on Russia.

You can easily see why Kiev had him killed. The hosts’ questioning is quite interesting; this is the only station that would have him on, so I can imagine the reception he might get elsewhere.
Along with the sudden rash of “suicides,” it signifies an unhealthy increase in extra-judicial repression. Confidence or desperation, neither motive bodes well.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 16 2015 23:14 utc | 83

@84 It could just be the vastness of the place. Britain looks so manicured and cozy by comparison.

Posted by: dh | Apr 17 2015 0:25 utc | 85

@86 Alaska has its share of rebels and misfits I understand.

Posted by: dh | Apr 17 2015 2:51 utc | 87

More idiotic trash from Salon:
Putin hates this film: KGB agent seeks redemption in “Child 44,” Tom Hardy’s murky Soviet-era thriller
American critics and audiences hate it, too: it has a thoroughly rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes. (Still, I’ll probably skip through it when it shows up you know where, in order to see how bad it is.) The only thing in Salon worth reading now are the weekly columns by Patrick Smith.
Speaking of how Hollywood portrays Russia, I just watched the latest episode of The Americans, and I’m more convinced than ever that this TV series presents Russian spies in the US in an extremely sympathetic light. The explanation for this might be that as someone wrote recently in The Atlantic, this series is not really a political thriller, but a family drama.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 17 2015 3:40 utc | 89

Demian — at 88
I didn’t mean to imply any theological equivalency. I merely meant that dissident religious trends could find solace on the unpoliced frontier, and I intended no offense.
Smith apparently had a history as a con man prior to his “revelation,” his fake history of the “Lost Tribes” was ethnographically laughable in 1850 (I think Mel Brooks riffs on this in “Blazing Saddles”), and their practice of baptizing posthumously ancestors of converts is offensive. They apparently were doing this with Holocaust victims, as well, for a time.
I’ve mentioned Mrs. M’s affiliation once or twice before. I’d probably take more or less the same view, given my background and my tendency to accept things in their complexity. Reality has a way of kicking you in the gut, otherwise, I’ve found. And not just in intellectual matters.
Anyway, as I’ve argued, early on, the Church was a progressive force, preserving literacy (and with it, selectively, antiquity) and advancing human dignity and morality.
But that had pretty much ended, even before Luther. Erasmus is rather the last gasp of the Latin “Fathers of the Church,” a kind of late-meidieval mass market Acquinas. It got some of his work banned and he nearly got declared a heretic, hence the hang-out with his Swiss printer, if I recall.
And as folks might recall, figures such as Weber and Tawney have discussed the role Protestantism played in enabling capitalism. The north/south-industrial/agricultural-Prot./Cath. divide in Eur. is a well-known topic.
I saw that piece about the Vatican and Orthodoxy, I didn’t read it too closely. I’d say the “Time of Troubles,” the interregnum between the Rurikids and the Romanovs, was really the only time Rome actually did anything substantive. They finally provoked a nationalist rising lead by Nizhni Novgorod, and I believe that convinced them of the firmness of Russian attachment to Orthodoxy.
Disputes between the Eastern and Western Churches over sites in Jerusalem were, of course, an important stalking horse for rival imperialist designs on the Ottoman empire.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 17 2015 5:50 utc | 91

D at 92 —
I’m only a little surprised at your remarks on the Anglophone world. You may know the (apocryphal?) headline in an English paper — “Channel Fogged; Continent Cut-off.” But it was the English that broke Muscovy’s Polish-Swedish isolation by pioneer trade through Archangel. Solid customers for naval stores. By the 1800’s, rivals due to conflicting interests; both wanted chunks of the Ottoman and Mughal realms in “the Great Game.”
On Lutheranism — as far as I can tell, it’s disliked as foreign and non-orthodox. Paul’s flirtation with Lutheran modes of dress and worship is amongst the issues that got him assassinated and deposed in favor of Alexander I.
Given that Lutheran Germans were the first foreigners in numbers in Muscovy, and were long a source of personnel and imperial consorts, linking them with Poles is definitely not kosher. The Vatican might have let it go after the Romanovs, but not the Poles, not even today for many.
Habermas and anything with “discourse” in it is usually above my head. You know, you’re drifting towards post-modernism with that kind of vocablulary? If I could rework a MADD slogan — Friends don’t let friends talk po-mo.
If I were discussing, at length, capitalism and Protestantism, I might disentangle the Calvinist from the Anglican from the Dissenting Protestant threads. I merely noted the correlation; the former Hansa & Lutheran Ruhr did OK with early capitalism
All three were notable presences in England. I don’t recall where I saw it, but one historian of the matter noted that it was the non-COE Prots who really drove the econ. Barred from public and academic life by the Test Acts through the early 1800’s, they focused on business as the only avenue for their talents and energies. Quakers, e.g., pioneered coke for smelting.
Notably, Weber’s favorite examples are from Benjamin Franklin, refugee from Congregationalist Boston and a honored member of Christ Church, Episcopal, where he’s buried.
Interesting paradox — Catholicism somehow lacks legitimacy, but Lutheranism is the closest to it. Like the Anglicans, it’s old ritual, with a little revamping of the theology and the rules for the clergy. Puzzler like that gets the brain working in the AM, tx!

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 17 2015 12:20 utc | 93

Counterpunch reprints Tariq Ali from the London Review of Books on The New World Disorder. Quite interesting, it takes a global view of the vast, sordid spectacle. Here’s part of what he says on Germany.

The reason the Germans were so shocked by the Snowden revelations is that it was suddenly clear they were living under permanent surveillance, when one of the big ideological campaigns in West Germany had to do with the evils of the Stasi, who, it was said, spied on everyone all the time. Well, the Stasi didn’t have the technical capacity for ubiquitous spying – on the scale of surveillance, the United States is far ahead of West Germany’s old enemy.

Elsewhere he discusses the Soviet collapse (noting the preference of most East Germans for the DDR), notes the demoralizing failure of the Arab Spring, considers “declinism,” and argues against the prevaiing neo-liberal regime of authoritarian austerity.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 17 2015 23:35 utc | 95

I have been down lately.
Some here have accused me of being a shill for the imperial state. Sadly I barely get by on my SS check.
Sometimes near the end of the month I’m forced to take to the streets in women’s clothing to entertain strange middle aged men in parked cars.
There’s no fool like an old fool. And there’s nothing sadder than an old whore. Oh well, pour me another. Bottoms up, bar mates!

Posted by: Washout west | Apr 18 2015 1:49 utc | 97

Wayout at 96 —
Yea, but what has Islam done lately?
The truth about Islam is that it stagnated ca. 1500. The unwashed Christians might not have known their Aristotle, but Charles Martel held the ground. By 1492 the Reconquista had subdued the Moorish kingdoms. In part, because Renaissance Europe had better appreciated and internalized the Aristotelian mathematics the Greeks and Arabs were so kind to preserve and transmit. Averroes, for all of his classical sophistication, remained a censor.
The Church was hardly the cause of the shrinkage of population and economic activity associated with the fading fortunes of the Western Roman Empire. In such an environment, literacy became an unnecessary luxury for many outside the Church. Have you even heard of the Carolingian Renaissance?
If you know Pirenne’s Mohammed et Charlemagne you know that the Egyptian product papyrus had been in regular use in the Roman Empire. Pirenne documented it in inventories of goods received by various monasteries. It disappears ca. 700, after the destabilization of trade in the Mediterranean Basin wrought by the rise of Islam. The weakening of the Byzantine fleet meant piracy reappeared for the first time since Pompey drove them from the seas in the 1st. cent. BC.
When the economy and political environment began to stabilize after ca. 1250, townsmen began to gain literacy in the vernaculars through academies serving them. I know of no serious opposition by Rome to this, even though it permitted the circulation of anti-clerical verse.
The disparity between the Europeans and the Ottomans began to widen. Where Suleiman the Magnificent had been a terror to Spain and an ally of France, by 1800 it was the “sick man of Europe,” wasting away slowly rather than collapsing rapidly only because the Great Powers couldn’t agree amongst themselves on the division of the spoils.
I don’t find your crude ad hominen attacks particularly amusing, and Demian does anti-popery with much more flair, knowledge and feeling.
Stick to whatever it is that you do. Apologetics for some of the most backward, reactionary forces presently on the planet, I’m given to understand. I seldom read it closely as I take little pleasure in it. Your venomous ignorance is certainly in keeping with such politics.
Did that bring a smile to your face? It did to mine.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 18 2015 5:00 utc | 99