Crisis in Oekraïne #62 Rusland is een tankstation.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 14:24 schreef DeJori het volgende:

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pravolivo twitterde op vrijdag 28-03-2014 om 14:01:19 How interesting: reportedly Kremlin's directives on how to cover #Ukraine in media, via @barabanch: http://t.co/GgtORIbmZS”; reageer retweet

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Ukraine leader Turchynov warns of far-right threat


Ukraine's interim President Olexander Turchynov has condemned the ultra-nationalist Right Sector, saying the group is bent on "destabilisation".

Right Sector activists blocked the parliament (Rada) building in Kiev on Thursday night and smashed windows.

They blamed the interior minister for the killing of a Right Sector leader.

Meanwhile, ousted President Viktor Yanukovych has called for a national referendum to determine each region's "status within Ukraine".

He fled to Russia last month after massive demonstrations against him and clashes between protesters and police in which more than 100 people died. The Kremlin says the new government in Kiev came to power illegally.
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Attempt to destabilise

At a parliament session on Friday, Mr Turchynov, called the Right Sector rally outside parliament "an attempt to destabilise the situation in Ukraine, in the very heart of Ukraine - Kiev. That is precisely the task that the Russian Federation's political leadership is giving to its special services".

Right Sector activists are furious over the death of Oleksandr Muzychko, better known as Sashko Bily, one of their leaders. The interior ministry said he died on Monday night in a shoot-out with police in a cafe in Rivne in western Ukraine.

A member of the far-right group in Rivne threatened revenge for the killing of Mr Muzychko.

"We will avenge ourselves on [Interior Minister] Arsen Avakov for the death of our brother. The shooting of Sashko Bily is a contract killing ordered by the minister," Right Sector member Roman Koval was quoted as saying by the Ukrayinska Pravda website.

The Right Sector played a prominent role in the Kiev protests - and the clashes with police - which led to the removal of Mr Yanukovych from power. Its main support base is in western Ukraine.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26784236

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Ex-German chancellor warns of overreaction to Ukraine

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has become the latest German politician to express understanding for Moscow’s position on Ukraine as he warned that overreaction by the West could spur Russian President Vladimir Putin to further aggression.

The 95-year-old Social Democrat sharply criticized the sanctions imposed against Russian individuals as “nonsense” and cautioned that serious economic sanctions could hurt the West, especially Germany, as much as Russia.

He said it was a mistake to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight leading nations just when it was important to maintain a dialogue, but felt the G-20 would be a better forum for resolving the issue in any case.

Schmidt’s remarks in the weekly Die Zeit come as a new poll out this week shows a majority of Germans accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a fait accompli and believe Moscow views Ukraine as part of its zone of influence.

While a majority polled believe the West’s response has been appropriate, fully a third consider even the weak sanctions imposed so far as excessive.

Schmidt’s critique comes after another former Social Democratic chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, also expressed understanding for Putin’s actions and criticized the European Union for forcing the issue in Ukraine by insisting on an either-or choice between the EU and Russia.

However, Schroeder is considered particularly close to the Russian leadership and was criticized for his links to Gazprom RU:GAZP -13.62% OGZPY +1.21% after he left office, so Schmidt’s remarks are likely to carry more weight.

The Left party in Germany, which has also criticized the Western response to Ukraine and accused the new government in Kiev of being fascist and antisemitic, quickly seized on Schmidt’s remarks as echoing their own.

German ambivalence regarding Russia and Ukraine has to be an important part of any calculation about a U.S. response, since the EU’s biggest country will steer the entire bloc in the direction it wants to go.

Schmidt said Putin’s action in Crimea was “fully understandable.” Yes, it violated international law and territorial integrity, but so did Western action in Libya. Schroeder has compared it to the war in Kosovo during his chancellorship, which he says was also technically a violation of the U.N. charter.

The agitated reaction of the West is dangerous, Schmidt said, because it will lead to a corresponding agitation of Russian public opinion.

As to whether Russia might now invade other areas of eastern Ukraine, Schmidt said: “I think it is conceivable, but I think it is a mistake for the West to act as if it was inevitably the next step. That could possibly result in fueling the appetite on the Russian side.”

Schmidt had praise for the “caution” shown in the crisis by the current chancellor, Angela Merkel. He criticized those in the U.S. like Sen. John McCain who are calling for more forceful intervention, reminding his German audience that “at the end of the 21st century, Russia will still be a big neighbor.”

The former chancellor noted that while Ukraine is certainly an independent state, historians still debate whether Ukraine is actually a distinct nation.

Schroeder, at an event sponsored earlier this month by Die Zeit, suggested the West should allow some time to pass before engaging in negotiations with Putin. It might only be possible after elections in Ukraine for a government “that represents all the people.”

Germany is particularly sensitive to the fact that the current government in Kiev includes members of the Svoboda Party, which in the past has used Nazi symbols and maintained contact to the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany.

Schmidt reminded his readers that in World War II, Russia was on the side of the West and it was Germany that was the enemy.

“It is very important to remember that despite the Second World War, the Russians have put aside hatred of Germans,” Schmidt said. “There is no hatred, no rejection of Germans by the Russian people.”

http://www.marketwatch.co(...)o-ukraine-2014-03-28

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The Danger of False Narrative
_{March 27, 2014 by Robert Parry}

Exclusive: Like a decade ago with Iraq, Official Washington’s pundits and pols are locked shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx of misguided consensus on Ukraine, presenting a false narrative that is taking U.S. policy into dangerous directions, writes Robert Parry.

The American people got a nasty taste of the danger that can come with false narrative when they were suckered into the Iraq War based on bogus claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction that he planned to share with al-Qaeda.

Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers died in the conflict along with hundreds thousands of Iraqis. The war’s total financial cost probably exceeded $1 trillion, a vast sum that siphoned off America’s economic vitality and forced cutbacks in everything from education to road repair. Plus, the war ended up creating an Iraqi base for al-Qaeda terrorists that had not existed before.

But perhaps an even more dangerous problem coming out of the Iraq War was that almost no one in Official Washington who pushed the false narrative – whether in politics or in the press – was held accountable in any meaningful way. Many of the same pols and pundits remain in place today, pushing similar false narratives on new crises, from Ukraine to Syria to Iran.

Those false narratives – and their cumulative effect on policymaking – now represent a clear and present danger to the Republic and, indeed, to the world. The United States, after all, is the preeminent superpower with unprecedented means for delivering death and destruction. But almost nothing is being done to address this enduring American crisis of deception.

Today, Official Washington is marching in lockstep just as it did in 2002-03 when it enforced the misguided consensus on Iraq’s WMD. The latest case is Ukraine where Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused of committing “aggression” to expand Russian territory at the expense of noble ”democratic” reformers in Kiev.

Not only is this the dominant storyline in the U.S. media; it is virtually the only narrative permitted in the mainstream press. But the real narrative is that the United States and the European Union provoked this crisis by trying to take Ukraine out of its traditional sphere of influence, Russia, and put it in to a new association with the EU.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with Ukraine joining with the EU or staying with Russia (or a combination of the two) – depending on the will of the people and their elected representatives – this latest U.S./EU plan was motivated, at least in part, by hostility toward Russia.

That attitude was expressed in a Sept. 26, 2013, op-ed in the Washington Post by Carl Gershman, the neoconservative president of the National Endowment for Democracy, which doles out more than $100 million in U.S. funds a year to help organize “activists,” support “journalists” and finance programs that can be used to destabilize targeted governments.

Gershman, whose job amounts to being a neocon paymaster, expressed antagonism toward Russia in the op-ed and identified Ukraine as “the biggest prize,” the capture of which could ultimately lead to the ouster of Putin, who “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

The NED, which was founded in 1983 to do in relative openness what the CIA had long done in secret, listed 65 projects that it was financing in Ukraine, using U.S. taxpayers’ money. In other words, Gershman’s op-ed reflected U.S. policy – at least inside the State Department’s still-neocon-dominated bureaucracy – which viewed the EU’s snatching of Ukraine from Russia’s embrace as a way to weaken Russia and hurt Putin.

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Export crude, not gas, to help allies, oil exec says

An oil executive told the House Foreign Relations Committee that the United States should export crude oil to allied countries to help their energy security and reduce Russia’s influence.

The testimony from Harold Hamm, chairman and CEO of Continental Resources Inc., came amid bipartisan calls to increase exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to undercut the influence Russia holds by being an energy superpower in Eastern Europe.

“We could help with oil exports that could have an immediate impact all over the world,” Hamm, who is also chairman of the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, said at the Wednesday hearing.

While Ukraine and other Eastern European countries currently lack the infrastructure to import LNG from tanker ships, they have the infrastructure for oil.

“Making America a world leader in LNG exports is a worthy goal, but the truth of the matter is these new export terminals will not be up and running for some time,” he said in written testimony. “If we want to have an overnight impact on today’s global events, we can immediately begin exporting crude oil, which does not have the same infrastructure constraints.”

Continental has significant oil drilling operations in North Dakota's Bakken region, where it is one of the largest producers.

The Domestic Energy Producers Alliance said allowing crude exports are a “longstanding tenet” of its policy platform. A law passed during the 1970s OPEC oil embargo makes it illegal to export crude.

Continental also produces natural gas. Hamm called for quick approval of the 24 applications currently pending at the Department of Energy for projects to export LNG to countries with which the United States does not have a free-trade agreement.

http://thehill.com/blogs/(...)e-says#ixzz2xGfIUEWp

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 16:30 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Hitler achtig

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 17:17 schreef DeParo het volgende:

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Afghanistan gaat steeds beter .

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Four trapped inside Kabul guesthouse stormed by Taliban
_{KABUL Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:47am EDT}
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Violence has spiraled in Afghanistan in recent weeks, with Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacking an election commission office in Kabul on Tuesday.

Last week, nine people including an AFP journalist and an election observer were killed in an attack on a highly fortified hotel in Kabul.

A senior police official said one attacker in Friday's raid was still resisting, with 18 foreigners, including children, having been evacuated and taken to a safe house.

Deputy interior minister, General Ayoub Salangi, told Reuters that at least one Australian citizen was among those rescued, but the nationalities of the others were not clear.
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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 17:35 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Je moet wat meer uitzoomen.

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As US war ends, Russia returns to Afghanistan with series of investment projects
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In Afghanistan, Russian officials point to their development activities as a counterexample to US aid projects, which many Afghans criticise as wasteful and misguided.

"The mistake of the last 12 years is that people were eager to give money, but without the proper strategy," said Russian Ambassador Andrey Avetisyan, who was also based in Kabul as a young diplomat in the 1980s.

Many Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai, praise the Soviet model even though they fought a bloody 10-year war against the country's army, which invaded in 1979 to support an unpopular communist government.

"The Soviet money went to the right place. They were efficient in spending their money and doing it through the Afghan government," Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post this month.

The new warmth between the Kremlin and Afghanistan was visible this week when the Afghan government released a message from Putin marking the Islamic new year. It was the only such message made public, and was released at a time when the United States and European governments are imposing sanctions on Russia for its expansion into Ukraine.
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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2014 17:47 schreef firefly3 het volgende:

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Leuke pro Russische propaganda crap. Zou ook voor het eerst zijn dat rusland een land hielp. Heb ze amper gezien bij rampen zoals orkanen en tsunamis.

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As the U.S. military prepares to leave Afghanistan after nearly 13 years of conflict with the Taliban, three visiting U.S. congressmen had to endure a statement from Afghan president Hamid Karzai that was released while they were in Kabul.

Citing “the free will of the Crimean people,” Karzai’s office said, “We respect the decision the people of Crimea took through a recent referendum that considers Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.” To date, only Syria and Venezuela have taken a similar position.

The New York Times suggests the Afghan move is linked to the fact that Russia “has been increasingly active in offering development aid. Given Russia’s heavy influence on countries along Afghanistan’s border, maintaining a long-term relationship with the Kremlin is seen as essential to Afghan foreign policy. Moscow is also ramping up its investment in Afghanistan. It is rebuilding the relics of the Soviet occupation and promoting its own political and cultural prowess.”

Indeed, Saturday’s Washington Post has an important article on the changing of the guard in Afghanistan:

“In Afghanistan, Russian officials point to their development activities as a counterexample to U.S. aid projects, which many Afghans criticize as wasteful and misguided. . . . Many Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai, praise the Soviet model even though they fought a bloody 10-year war against the country’s army, which invaded in 1979 to support an unpopular communist government.

“The Soviet money went to the right place. They were efficient in spending their money and doing it through the Afghan government,” Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post this month.

The irony here, of course, is rich. Afghanistan was indeed invaded by the Soviets in 1979, but that is now conveniently forgotten by the Karzai regime. It is no doubt grateful the new Russian development aid is being spent “through the Afghan government,” a euphemism for the enormous corruption and bribery Karzai’s government is famous for. For some years, the U.S. tried to bribe the Karzai regime into doing its bidding. Ultimately, they failed. It seems the U.S. is not only clumsy at nation building, but also can’t seem to get the hang of “nation bribing.”

http://www.nationalreview(...)ck-country-john-fund