Month: February 2015

Ukraine agrees to Monsanto land grab for $17 billion IMF loan

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From Popular Resistance, February 13, 2015
By Christina Sarich

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) is helping biotech run the latest war in Ukraine. Make no mistake that what is happening in the Ukraine now is deeply tied to the interests of Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, and other big players in the poison food game.

Monsanto has an office in Ukraine. While this does not shout ‘culpability’ from every corner, it is no different than the US military’s habit to place bases in places that they want to gain political control. The opening of this office coincided with land grabs with loans from the IMF and World Bank to one of the world’s most hated corporations – all in support of their biotech takeover.

Previously, there was a ban on private sector land ownership in the country – but it was lifted ‘just in time’ for Monsanto to have its way with the Ukraine.

In fact, a bit of political maneuvering by the IMF gave the Ukraine a $17 billion loan – but only if they would open up to biotech farming and the selling of Monsanto’s poison crops and chemicals – destroying a farmland that is one of the most pristine in all of Europe. Farm equipment dealer, Deere, along with seed producers Dupont and Monsanto, will have a heyday.

In the guise of ‘aid,’ a claim has been made on Ukraine’s vast agricultural riches. It is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat. Ukraine has deep, rich, black soil that can grow almost anything, and its ability to produce high volumes of GM grain is what made biotech come rushing to take it over.

As reported by The Ecologist, according to the Oakland Institute:

“Whereas Ukraine does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, Article 404 of the EU agreement, which relates to agriculture, includes a clause that has generally gone unnoticed: it indicates, among other things, that both parties will cooperate to extend the use of biotechnologies.

There is no doubt that this provision meets the expectations of the agribusiness industry. As observed by Michael Cox, research director at the investment bank Piper Jaffray, ‘Ukraine and, to a wider extent, Eastern Europe, are among the most promising growth markets for farm-equipment giant Deere, as well as seed producers Monsanto and DuPont’.”

The nation WAS Europe’s breadbasket – and now in an act of bio-warfare, it will become the wasteland that many US farmlands have become due to copious amounts of herbicide spraying, the depletion of soil, and the overall disruption of a perfect ecosystem.

The aim of US government entities is to support the takeover of Ukraine for biotech interests (among other strategies involving the prop-up of a failing cabalistic banking system that Russia has also refused with its new alignment with BRICS and its own payment system called SWIFT). This is similar to biotech’s desired takeover of Hawaiian islands and land in Africa.

The Ukraine war has many angles that haven’t been exposed to the general public – and you can bet that biotech has their hands in the proverbial corn pie.

https://www.popularresistance.org/ukraine-agrees-to-monsanto-land-grab-for-17-billion-imf-loan/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-agrees-to-monsanto-land-grab-for-17-billion-imf-loan/5431312

The history of Wall Street’s unspoken relationship to Nazi Germany: dragon teeth to be planted all over Europe again

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Questions:

  • Do modern Germany and perhaps other NATO allies still want Lebensraum (“living space”) and the “conquest of Lebensraum”? The land grabs underway in Africa and Asia demonstrate that this issue hasn’t gone away, and Russia is so much closer.
  • Do Germany and European “elites” still regard Russia as Slavic Untermenschen (sub-humans)? These are the sentiments of the Kiev regime and its partners. Those sentiments don’t bother the United States, Britain, Canada, Poland, or the other allies or their respective mass media. The genocide/ethnic cleansing directed against Russian speakers and others in Ukraine takes place without any condemnation by those allies, and is in fact being facilitated by those allies. That raises questions about how widespread these sentiments are.

By Yuriy Rubtsov
Posted on Strategic Culture Foundation, September 1, 2014
Edited by Global Research

Many media outlets compare the contemporary situation in Europe with the days before WWII. I would like to make an important correction here. Now we are watching the West fostering another Nazi regime represented by Kiev junta and it makes remember the second half of the 1930s when it did the very same thing cooperating with Germany turned into a fascist state.

Of course, the Ukraine we know today cannot measure up to Hitler’s Germany. But the first blow is half the battle. The running amok Fuhrer started as an unknown corporal preaching xenophobia and revenge.

It’s an open secret that Adolf Hitler was supported by the United States. The US penetration was significant, especially its cooperation with the German war industry. By 1933 the United States controlled key branches of Germany’s economy, as well as several large banks such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, etc.

Big business started to trust Hitler. Those were the days of affluence for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party as funds from abroad began to pour in. Thanks to large donations from Fritz Thyssen’s group including the United Steelworks (Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG), I.G. Farbenindustrie AG (Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG) and mining industry tycoon Emil Kirdorf the party received 6,4 million votes to become the second largest in the Reichstag (parliament). Hjalmar Schacht (22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970), a German economist, banker, liberal politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party, became the key connecting link between German industry and foreign donors.

British business and banking interests also started to channel donations to the Nazi party. On January 4, 1932 Montague Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944, met Hitler and German Chancellor Franz von Papen to conclude a secret accord on providing funds for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The US was also represented at this meeting. Both Dulles brothers were present. Western historians shy away from mentioning the fact. John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles were politically connected Wall Street lawyers, servants of corporate power, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today’s world.

It is worth noting, that during the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, the two immensely powerful Dulles brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world. John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Federal elections were held in Germany on 5 March 1933. As a result of lavish donations coming in from abroad, the ruling Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler, who was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, registered a large increase in votes emerging as the largest party by far. Nevertheless they failed to obtain an absolute majority in their own right and needed the votes of their coalition partner, the German National People’s Party (DNVP), for a Reichstag majority.

The new German government was treated extremely favorably by US and UK ruling circles. Western democracies kept silent when Berlin refused to pay reparations. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics, went to the United States in May 1933 to meet President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and leading Wall Street bankers. Germany was granted a $1 billion credit. And in June, during a visit to Norman in London, Schacht requested an addition $2 billion in loans as well as a reduction and eventual cessation of payment on old loans. Thus, the Nazis got something that the previous government could not.

In the summer of 1934, Britain signed the Anglo-German Transfer Agreement, which became one of the foundations of British policy towards the Third Reich, and by the end of the 1930′s, Germany developed into Britain’s primary trading partner. Schroeder’s bank turned into Germany and Great Britain’s main agent, and in 1936, its New York branch merged with a Rockefeller holding to create the investment bank «Schroeder, Rockefeller and Co.», which the New York Times described as «economic-propagandist axis of Berlin-Rome».

The ‘Secret Memorandum’ was issued by Adolf Hitler in August 1936. The memorandum went out only to a few senior Nazi leaders and its contents – information about the Four-Year Plan – was formally announced to the party’s faithful in September 1936 at the party rally in Nuremberg. The Secret Memorandum stated that in four years Germany was to develop capable combat-ready armed forces and its economy was to be mobilized to meet the needs of war. As he admitted to himself, Hitler viewed foreign credit as the financial basis for his four-year plan, so this didn’t raise the slightest alarm.

In August 1934, American oil giant Standard Oil purchased 730,000 acres of land in Germany and built large oil refineries that supplied the Nazis with oil. At the same time, the United States secretly provided Germany with the most modern equipment for its airplane factories, which were slated to produce Germany’s military aircraft.

In turn, Germany received a large number of patents from several American companies including Pratt and Whitney, Douglas, and the Bendix Corporation, and the “Junkers-87″ dive-bomber was built using purely American technology. As the war broke out, the monopolies stuck to the good old tried-and-true rule – nothing personal, only business. By 1941, when the Second World War was in full swing, American investment in the German economy totaled $475 million: Standard Oil invested $120 million alone, General Motors — $35 million, ITT — $30 million, and Ford — $17.5 million.

What motivated the interest of Western business in the growing might of Nazi Germany?

The goal was to direct Hitler to the East involving a German invasion of Russia. The conquest of Lebensraum («living space») was for Hitler and the rest of the National Socialists the most important German foreign policy goal. At his first meeting with the leading Generals and Admirals of the Reich («Empire») on February 3, 1933, Hitler spoke of “conquest of Lebensraum” in the East and ruthless ‘Germanization’ as his two ultimate foreign policy objectives.

For Hitler, the land which would provide sufficient Lebensraum for Germany was the Soviet Union, which in Hitler eyes was both a nation that possessed vast and rich agricultural land and was inhabited by what Hitler considered as Slavic Untermenschen (sub-humans) ruled over by what he regarded as a gang of blood-thirsty, but grossly incompetent “Jewish revolutionaries”. These people were not “Germanizable” in his eyes; only the soil was.

The US and Britain, which were firmly opposed to the rise of Communism in the Soviet Union, tacitly endorsed Hitler’s “conquest of Lebensraum” in the East, as initially stated in Mein Kampf:

“We National Socialists consciously draw a line under the direction of our foreign policy war. We begin where we ended six centuries ago. We stop the perpetual Germanic march towards the south and west of Europe, and have the view on the country in the east. We finally put the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war and go over to the territorial policy of the future. But if we speak today in Europe of new land, we primarily point to Russia and the border states”

In turn, the policy of appeasement was implemented by Western countries in the 1930s against a background of financial and economic cooperation of Anglo-American business interests with Nazi Germany.

In October 1930, Germany withdrew from both the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of 1932–1934 (sometimes named the World Disarmament Conference or Geneva Disarmament Conference) and the League of Nations.

In March 1936, Hitler ordered his troops to openly re-enter the Rhineland which had been demilitarized under the Versailles Treaty.

In March 1938 Austria was annexed.

The West did not react.

Fall Grün (Operation Green), a German military plan to occupy Czechoslovakia, was approved by Hitler in December 1937. The execution of Operation Green was called off after the Munich Pact was concluded between England, France, Italy and Nazi Germany on September 30, 1938.

While Hitler signed the Munich agreement along with Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier and Benito Mussolini,  the operation to invade Czechoslovakia prevailed. On October 21 he ordered to start preparations for the military annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia and the Klaipeda Region (also known as the Memel Territory) which had been part of Lithuania since 1923.

In March 1939, Germany delivered an ultimatum to Poland demanding renegotiation of the Danzig agreement. The Polish Corridor (also known as Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdansk Corridor) was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia (eastern Pomerania, formerly part of West Prussia), which provided the Second Republic of Poland (1920–1939) with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from the province of East Prussia. The Free city of Danzig (now the Polish city of Gdansk) was separate from both Poland and Germany.

But Memel and Danzig were not the ultimate goal of Nazi Germany. Adolph Hitler was fully aware that nobody in the West had any intention to stand in his way. On April 1939 he secretly ordered Poland to be attacked on September 1.

With the seizure of Czechoslovakia, Hitler’s duel-track policy was an open secret even for the most shortsighted politicians and diplomats. The Soviet Union still cherished hope to build a collective system of security in Europe. It managed to make London and Paris start talks on creating a really effective alliance to counter the aggressor. But these talks were to reveal that the Western partners were reluctant to hinder Hitler’s expansionary policy to the East. Sir Alexander Cadogan (Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office) cited Chamberlain saying he would rather resign the premiership than conclude an agreement with the Soviets.

When Germany attacked Poland and the Second World War started, Western leaders pointed their finger at both the Soviet Union and Germany which signed the Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939. Supported by a choir of propaganda, they said it was not the Western appeasement policy, but rather the USSR-Germany Non-Aggression Pact which triggered the war.

In the wake of World War II, neither London, nor Washington, nor Paris want to hear the truth about these historical events. They signed the Nuremberg Trial verdict that found Germany guilty of grave crimes and violations of international law and the laws of war, without acknowledging who was behind Nazi Germany?  The political and financial elites of the United States, Great Britain and France were directly involved in fostering Nazi regime. They incited Hitler to move east.

The West has never recognized its responsibility for supporting Hitler’s regime.

In today’s context, it has done its utmost to prevent Russia’s return on the world stage as a leading actor.

Today it is fostering the ulcer of Nazism and xenophobia emerging right in front of our very eyes. To hide the truth it circulates the Washington-invented and Europe-inculcated story about “Russian aggression” against Ukraine.

Russia is demonized and provoked into direct confrontation with a view to triggering its involvement in Ukraine’s internal conflict.

While the Kiev junta is not “in the same league” as Germany’s Nazi regime, history shows that the ulcer of Nazism combined with the thrust of Russophobia is gaining momentum. And sooner or later it may be beyond the control of those who encouraged it in the first place.

The slogan “Ukraine above all” sounds  very much like a remake of Nazi Germany’s “Deutschland über alles”, (Germany above all). “Ukraine above all”  is being used to justify the crimes committed by Ukraine forces in Novorossiya.

Edited by Global Research

Original article:

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/09/01/dragon-teeth-to-be-planted-all-over-europe-again.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-history-of-wall-streets-unspoken-relationship-to-nazi-germany-dragon-teeth-to-be-planted-all-over-europe-again/5398757

Profits über Alles! Corporate America’s partnership with Nazi Germany — video and report

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This report answers questions about American foreign policy and American government loyalties and objectives.

This report also shows the seamless continuum of events to the present day. It provides background on the drivers and facilitators, including the intelligence community, the military, and the corporate captains, the ongoing issues, including the attacks on Russia, and the ongoing collaboration with Nazi and fascist members in world society.

From Global Research
Video by Jacques R. Pauwels, February 12, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6UgHmeiXyo&list=UUvtTGZEcS8mbWdB7prg4QNw

Profits über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler. Review Article.
By Jacques R. Pauwels.
Global Research, May 15, 2014.

Editorial Note
This article was first published by Global Research almost ten years ago [now eleven years ago] on 8 June 2004.

While America is at war in Ukraine, supportive of Neo-Nazi proxy regime, this incisive and carefully researched article by Dr. Jacques Pauwels provides us with a historical understanding of the relationship between American corporations and Nazi Germany.

The support of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine is part of a longstanding relationship.
GR Editor, May 15, 2014

In the United States, World War II is generally known as “the good war.”

In contrast to some of America’s admittedly bad wars, such as the near-genocidal Indian Wars and the vicious conflict in Vietnam, World War II is widely celebrated as a “crusade” in which the US fought unreservedly on the side of democracy, freedom, and justice against dictatorship.

No wonder President George W. Bush likes to compare his ongoing “war against terrorism” with World War II, suggesting that America is once again involved on the right side in an apocalyptic conflict between good and evil. Wars, however, are never quite as black-and-white as Mr. Bush would have us believe, and this also applies to World War II. America certainly deserves credit for its important contribution to the hard-fought victory that was ultimately achieved by the Allies. But the role of corporate America in the war is hardly synthesized by President Roosevelt’s claim that the US was the “arsenal of democracy.” When Americans landed in Normandy in June 1944 and captured their first German trucks, they discovered that these vehicles were powered by engines produced by American firms such as Ford and General Motors. 1 Corporate America, it turned out, had also been serving as the arsenal of Nazism. Continue reading →

Obama: “We have to twist arms when countries don’t do what we need them to do”

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From RT

President Barack Obama has said the reality of “American leadership” at times entails “twisting the arms” of states which “don’t do what we need them to do,” and that the US relied on its military strength and other leverage to achieve its goals.

In a broad-ranging interview with Vox, which Obama himself described as a venue “for the brainiac-nerd types,” the US president both denied the efficacy of a purely “realist” foreign policy but also arguing that at times the US, which has a defense budget that exceeds the next 10 countries combined, needed to rely on its military muscle and other levers of power.

Lauding the rule-based system to emerge in the post-World War II era, Obama admitted it wasn’t perfect, but argued “the UN, the IMF, and a whole host of treaties and rules and norms that were established really helped to stabilize the world in ways that it wouldn’t otherwise be.”

He argued, however, that the efficacy of this idealistic, Wilsonian, rule-based system was severely tested by the fact that “there are bad people out there who are trying to do us harm.”

In the president’s view, the reality of those threats has compelled the US to have “the strongest military in the world.” Obama further says that “we occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn’t do what we need them to do if it weren’t for the various economic or diplomatic or, in some cases, military leverage that we had — if we didn’t have that dose of realism, we wouldn’t get anything done, either.”

‘We occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn’t do what we need them to do’

Obama argues that the US doesn’t have “military solutions” to all the challenges in the modern world, though he goes on to add that “we don’t have a peer” in terms of states that could attack or provoke the United States.

“The closest we have, obviously, is Russia, with its nuclear arsenal, but generally speaking they can’t project the way we can around the world. China can’t, either. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined,” he said.

Within this context, Obama said that “disorder” stemming from “failed states” and “asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations” were the biggest challenges facing the international community today.

Obama also argued that tackling these and other problems entailed “leveraging other countries” and “other resources” whenever possible, while also recognizing that Washington is “the lead partner because we have capabilities that other folks don’t have.”

‘We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined’

This approach, he said, also led to “some burden-sharing and there’s some ownership for outcomes.” Continue reading →

Washington wastes no time to sabotage Minsk

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By Finian Cunningham
Posted on Strategic Culture Foundation, February 14, 2015

With their noses out of joint and egos bruised, the United States and its European lieutenants immediately got to work to undermine the Minsk ceasefire deal by twisting the terms of the accord and seeking to frame Russia for its imminent failure.

A Washington Post headline set the pace with this headline hours after the Minsk negotiations wrapped up in the Belarus capital. ‘Putin announces ceasefire with Ukraine,’ declared the Post, mendaciously implicating Russia as a protagonist in the year-old conflict, which, it is inferred, is now suing for a peace settlement.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, along with trusty British and Polish allies, warned Russia of more sanctions if the Minsk truce was not «fully implemented».

«The United States is prepared to consider rolling back sanctions on Russia when the Minsk agreements of September 2014, and now this agreement, are fully implemented,» Kerry said in a statement.

In other words, Washington is still peddling the hoary narrative that Moscow is an aggressor and is to blame for the conflict. Rolling back sanctions «when» Minsk is «fully implemented» is the US giving itself a licence to covertly sabotage the ceasefire at every turn and to maintain its unwarranted sanctions on Russia, as well as following up on promised supply of weapons to the Kiev regime.

There seems little doubt that the Americans are reeling from the diplomatic coup that Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled off in Minsk this week, along with German and French leaders, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande.

Amid threats from the US last week that it was going to flood Ukraine with more heavy weapons, Putin and his European counterparts managed to broker a ceasefire to the conflict after marathon 17-hour negotiations. The truce is to be implemented this weekend and, it has to be said, constitutes only a slim prospect of bringing the civil war in Ukraine to a halt. It is fraught with many thorny issues, such as withdrawal of fighting units on both sides and the accepted definition of a demarcation line. The autonomous status of the separatist Donbas region is also far from clear, or whether Kiev is prepared to follow up with mutual negotiations with the breakaway ethnic Russian population.

Nevertheless, the mere agreement, in principle, by the Kiev regime and the pro-separatist rebels of the eastern Ukrainian region is a welcome chance for a cessation in violence that has cost nearly 5,500 lives and more than one million refugees. That Putin, along with Merkel and Hollande, managed to achieve this tentative breakthrough is something of a feat in diplomatic skills and commitment. The development also tends to negate the official Western narrative that purports to paint Russia as an aggressor and threat to European peace.

The Minsk deal properly frames the conflict as a civil war between the Kiev regime and the Donbas separatists, which Russia is trying to dampen by acting as a facilitator of negotiations between the warring sides.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was on the mark when he said after the Minsk talks that Russia is a guarantor of the peace deal, not a party obliged to fulfil its implementation. He reiterated that Moscow is not a participant in the conflict, as Western media have, and continue, to assert.

«Russia is the country that was called by the parties of the conflict,» said Peskov. «This is the country that called on the parties of the conflict to sign a complex of measures to fulfil the Minsk agreements. But Russia is not one of the parties to fulfil these measures. This is the country that is acting as the guarantor, that comes forward with a call, but, obviously, it’s not a party that needs to take any actions for [the fulfilment]. We simply can’t do this physically because Russia is not a participant in the conflict,» added the Kremlin spokesman.

It was left to the British premier David Cameron and the ex-Polish president Donald Tusk to undermine the latest Minsk chance for peace by casting aspersions on Russia and re-framing the conflict as one of external aggression on Ukraine.

Cameron talked, with typical British haughtiness, of Putin needing to change his behaviour, while Tusk added to the narrative of demonising the Russian leader by insinuating that he is not trustworthy.

Cameron, speaking at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, said: «If this is a genuine ceasefire, then of course that would be welcome. But what matters most of all is actually actions on the ground rather than just words on a piece of paper. I think we should be very clear that Putin needs to know that unless his behaviour changes, the sanctions we have in place won’t be altered.»

Tusk, who is now the European Council President, said: «If [the Minsk agreement] does not happen we will not hesitate to take the necessary steps. Our trust in the goodwill of President Putin is limited. This is why we have to maintain our decision on sanctions.»

Given that the Western-backed Kiev regime has serially violated past ceasefires, which led to the latest escalation of violence, it would be naive to expect that the latest peace bid will be honoured. The Kiev junta has been emboldened to prosecute its criminal war against the Donbas population because of the unswerving political, financial and military support that Washington has indulged. Massive, systematic war crimes by Kiev have been whitewashed and absolved by Washington with spurious, unfounded claims of «Russian aggression».

This is because the US-backed regime-change operation in Ukraine that brought the Kiev junta to power last February is fundamentally predicated on Washington’s long-term objective of destabilising Russia. That is why the prospects of a ceasefire being implemented are something of an oxymoron. A peace settlement in Ukraine would only be an impediment to Washington’s geopolitical objective of undermining Russia.

The criminal regime in Kiev has become something of a specialist in committing false flag terrorist atrocities, which it and its Western sponsors then duly attribute to «Russian-backed rebels». The massacre in Donetsk on January 21, in Mariupol on January 24, and this week in Kramatorsk, in which up to 17 people were killed from Smerch rockets, have all the hallmarks of false-flag operations perpetrated by the US-backed, trained and equipped Kiev regime forces.

In the Kramatorsk incident, on the eve of the Minsk summit, the Kiev regime claimed that the Smerch rockets were fired from separatist-held Gorlovka, which is 80 kilometres away, and the outer limit of the munition’s range. The separatists denied the attack, saying that they do not target civilian areas. Hours after the massacre, Kiev President Petro Poroshenko arrived in Kramatorsk for photo-opportunities with victims lying on hospital beds. That Poroshenko would hurry to a town that is under fire is doubtful if the rebel threat was real. Also speaking as if from a script, he said: «It is savages who use cluster bombs against civilians. It is a crime against humanity when civilians are killed by Russian weapons in their homes.»

The next day, the «outraged» Poroshenko was in Minsk warmly shaking hands with Putin. So much for Russia war crimes.

To say that the latest ceasefire will be easily sabotaged is an understatement, given the past conduct of the Kiev regime. All it has to do is to keep fighting and committing crimes and that will be «evidence» of Russia not implementing Minsk. That will then allow Washington and its dutiful British and Polish allies, along with the obliging Western news media propagandists, to blame Russia for the failure in «fully implementing» the ceasefire. More American weapons can then be funnelled into Ukraine and more sanctions ratcheted up.

Russian President Vladimir Putin deserves huge credit for showing statesmanlike leadership over the Ukraine crisis. The trouble is that the Americans are playing a very different and dirty game in which there are no rules to abide by.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/02/14/washington-wastes-no-time-to-sabotage-minsk.html

 

Vladimir Putin’s remarks following adoption of declaration on Ukraine, February 12

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“Kiev authorities still refuse to have direct contacts with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. Even though they have not been recognised, we have to proceed from the realities of life and if everyone wishes to achieve an agreement on establishing long-term relations, direct contacts are essential.”

From The Kremlin, February 12, 2015

Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Petro Poroshenko took part in the talks on a settlement to the situation in Ukraine. At the final stage, they were joined by Heidi Tagliavini, OSCE Special Representative to the Trilateral Contact Group on the Ukrainian Settlement.

Participants from the Russian side included Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Karasin, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov, and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office and Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov.

Following the Normandy format talks, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany adopted a declaration in support of the Measures to Implement the Minsk Agreements adopted on February 12 by the Contact Group on the Ukrainian Settlement.

Vladimir Putin also made a statement for the press.

* * *

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good morning,

This was not the best night of my life, but the morning, I believe, is good. This is because, despite the difficult negotiations, we finally managed to agree on the key issues.

Incidentally, you might wonder why the negotiations took so long. In my opinion, this was because unfortunately the Kiev authorities still refuse to have direct contacts with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. Even though they have not been recognised, we have to proceed from the realities of life and if everyone wishes to achieve an agreement on establishing long-term relations, direct contacts are essential.

We operated under the existing conditions and, in my view, have managed to agree on many things. The first is that we agreed on a ceasefire to begin at midnight on February 15. The second item that I find extremely important is the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the current line of confrontation for Ukrainian troops and from the line established on September 19, 2014 in Minsk for the Donbass self-defence forces.

Then comes a set of matters dealing with a long-term political settlement. This includes several items, the first being a constitutional reform that should take into consideration the lawful interests of the people residing on the territory of Donbass.

This is followed by matters dealing with a solution to border issues upon agreement with the Donbass militia, humanitarian issues, and the implementation of the earlier adopted law on the special status of the Donetsk and Lugansk territories.

Finally, there is a set of economic and humanitarian items.

We proceed from the notion that all the parties will show restraint until the complete ceasefire. The problem here was that representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics claimed that in response to the aggressive actions of the Kiev authorities they not only held back the Kiev forces but also managed to mount an offensive and surrounded a group of 6,000 to 8,000 servicemen. They, of course, proceed from the idea that this group will lay down arms and stop its resistance.

We nevertheless call on both sides to show restraint and in order to avoid unnecessary excessive bloodshed and casualties they should do everything possible to ensure that the separation of forces, mainly the heavy equipment, is conducted without unnecessary bloodshed.

Representatives of the Ukrainian authorities believe their troops have not been surrounded and therefore think this process will go sufficiently smoothly. I had some initial doubts that I can share with you. If the troops really had been surrounded, then, logically, they will try to break free, while those who are on the outside will try to arrange for a corridor for their trapped servicemen.

Eventually, we agreed with President Poroshenko that we will instruct our experts – I am ready to do so – to establish what is actually going on there. In addition, I will repeat, we will try to develop a set of measures to verify the implementation of our decisions by both sides.

I would like to call on both conflicting parties once again to stop the bloodshed as soon as possible and proceed to a truly political process of a long-term settlement.

Thank you for your attention.

<…>

(Answering a question from a Russian journalist.)

One document has just been signed by the Minsk Contact Group, it is called Measures to Implement the Minsk Agreements.

The other document does not require signing: it is a statement by the President of France, the President of Ukraine, yours truly and the Federal Chancellor of Germany to the effect that we support the process.

Thank you.

 

http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/23594

Vladimir Putin’s interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram

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Posted on The Kremlin, February 9, 2015

Excerpt:
In the run-up to his visit to the Arab Republic of Egypt, Vladimir Putin gave an interview to the Al-Ahram daily newspaper…

QUESTION: How would you assess the situation in Ukraine and around it? What do you think will be the most appropriate way out of the Ukrainian crisis?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: I would like to remind Egyptian readers that the Ukrainian crisis was not caused by the Russian Federation. It has emerged in response to the attempts of the USA and its western allies who considered themselves ‘winners’ of the cold war to impose their will everywhere. Promises of non-expansion of the NATO to the East (given yet to the Soviet authorities) have turned out to be hollow statements. We have seen how NATO’s infrastructure was moving closer and closer towards Russian borders and how Russian interests were being ignored.

Moreover, in the framework of the EU Eastern Partnership Program there have been attempts to tear states which had been parts of the former USSR off Russia and to prompt them to make an artificial choice “between Russia and Europe.” The Ukrainian crisis has become a high point of these negative trends. We repeatedly warned the USA and its western allies about harmful consequences of their interference in Ukrainian domestic affairs but they did not listen to our opinion.

Last February the USA and a number of EU member states supported the coup d’état in Kiev. The ultranationalists who seized the power using military force put the country on the edge of disruption and started the fratricidal war.

Unfortunately, today we can see how the ‘war party’ in Kiev actively supported from the outside continues its attempts to push the Ukrainian people over the edge of a catastrophe. The situation in Donbas has aggravated dramatically. Ukrainian security forces resumed the bombing of Donetsk, Lugansk and other residential areas in the region. They are building up their military presence there. The “new wave” of mass mobilization has been announced in the country; there are calls for “taking revenge” after summer “military failures” and for a forceful “Ukrainization of Donbas.”

Ukraine is militarizing rapidly. We can judge by the statistics: in 2014, the Ukrainian military budget increased by almost 41 percent. This year, according to preliminary data, it will more than triple and reach more than $3 billion – which is about 5 percent of the country’s GDP. And this is happening when its economy supported mostly with international, including Russian, funds is in rather deplorable situation.

We certainly feel worried. We hope that common sense will prevail. Russia strongly calls for a comprehensive and exclusively peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis based on the Minsk agreements which were largely achieved owing to the initiative and efforts of the Russian side.

The most important condition for the stabilization of the situation is immediate cease-fire and ending of a so called ‘anti-terrorist’, but in fact punitive, operation in the south-east of Ukraine. Kiev’s attempts to exert economic pressure on Donbas and disrupt its daily life only aggravate the situation. This is a dead-end track, fraught with a big catastrophe.

It is evident that the crisis will continue until the Ukrainians themselves agree with each other. Until the unbridled radicalism and nationalism are finished with, and the society is consolidated around positive values and genuine interests of Ukraine. To achieve this, Kiev authorities need to listen to their people, find a common language and reach an agreement with all political forces and regions of the country. They need to elaborate such constitutional state system formula that would provide for a safe and comfortable living for all citizens with human rights being fully observed.

In the meantime, it is necessary to do one’s utmost to make all the parties to the conflict gather around the negotiating table. In this context, the Russian side stands for forging sustainable and direct contacts between Kiev and Donetsk and Lugansk, for continued work within the Contact Group. On our part, we intend to actively contribute to that process.

For the full interview with questions on many topics:

http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/23575

Venezuela foils Washington’s coup plot

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Another coup plot by the United States government, with a sitting president and vice president leading it.

Posted on Global Research, February 14, 2015
By Stephen Lendman

On February 12, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced Obama’s plot to kill him, oust his government, and seize power forcefully was thwarted. More on this below.

Throughout his tenure, Obama waged war on humanity. It continues against free people everywhere.

His deplorable record might make some despots blush. He viciously targets fundamental freedoms at home and abroad.

Governs under a police state apparatus. Unilaterally decides who lives, dies, stays free or is imprisoned.

He continues waging war on Afghanistan after pledging to end it during his first year in office.

No end of conflict looms. Permanent war and occupation is planned. Afghanistan is a wasteland of dystopian misery.

Obama ravaged and destroyed Libya. Turning North Africa’s most developed country into an out-of-control cauldron of violence. Its people stripped of all social benefits and rights Gaddafi provided.

In June 2009, he orchestrated Honduran President Manuel Zelaya’s ouster. A US supported fascist despot replaced him.

After Haiti’s devastating January 2010 earthquake, Obama militarized the country, plunders it freely, exploits its people ruthlessly, orchestrated rigged elections, and prohibits democratic governance.

In September 2010, his attempt to topple Ecuador’s Rafael Correa failed. In 2012, he orchestrated Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo’s ouster by rigged parliamentary impeachment.

In February 2011, he manipulated Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak’s removal. So-called Arab spring was more mirage than real.

In July 2013, Mohamed Morsi’s toppling followed. Obama’s dirty hands conspired with Egypt’s General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi to install junta rule.

In February 2014, He ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected government. Put neo-Nazi putschists in charge.

Uses them to wage war on their own people. So-called February 12 Minsk resolution is pure fantasy.

No end of conflict looms. Peace is a convenient illusion. So is democracy. America tolerates none at home or abroad.

Throughout Chavez’s tenure as Venezuela’s president, Washington went all-out to oust him. Obama succeeded by killing him.

He wants fascist rule replacing Maduro. Bolivarian social justice ended. Predatory capitalism replacing it.

He’s waging relentless economic and political war. A previous article discussed Maduro accusing Vice President Joe Biden of directing efforts to oust him.

Likely kill him. On February 2, he said, “(t)he northern imperial power has entered a dangerous phase of desperation, going to talk to the continent’s governments to announce the overthrow of my government. And I accuse Vice-president Joe Biden of this” plot.

“There are US diplomats in Venezuela contracting military officials to betray their country, looking to influence socialist political leaders, public opinion leaders and entrepreneurs to provoke a coup.”

He called Washington’s plot no ordinary crisis. He appealed to Venezuelans to remain on high alert against “a bloody coup underway” against everything Bolivarianism represents.

In a televised Thursday address, he announced a US-instigated foiled coup plot.

Saying “(i)t is the government of the United States that is behind the plans of destabilization and coups against Venezuela. I have come here to denounce it.”

“We have dismantled a coup attempt against democracy, against the stability of our homeland.”

“It was an attempt to use a group of officials from the air force to provoke a violent act, an attack.”

Civilians and military members were involved. They were arrested. They remain detained.

They’re connected to four Venezuelan air force generals involved in a 2014 plot to oust Maduro. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said “Bolivarian Armed Forces remain resolute in their democratic beliefs and reject coup schemes that threaten the peace of the republic.”

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello explained details of Obama’s plot.

Scheduled on the anniversary of the start of last year’s US-orchestrated street violence. Plans included killing people during marches and demonstrations.

Using a Tucano jet aircraft to bomb strategic targets, including:

  • the Miraflores (presidential palace);
  • military intelligence headquarters;
  • defense and justice ministries;
  • Caracas municipality building;
  • public prosecutor’s office;
  • TeleSUR building;
  • National Electoral Council (CNE); and
  • central Caracas’ Metro station Zona Rental;

Installing “transitional” governance would follow. Opposition legislator Julio Borges was accused of choosing locations to be attacked.

Caracas Mayor Jorge Rodriquez said “he’ll have to explain if he was planning this map of attack targets…”

(A)mong them was the (western area of Caracas) La Cadelaria where the opposition always wins elections…”

(W)hat were they going to say to the people who came out of their houses because they were going to be bombed…”

(W)hen they were going to bomb the international channel, TeleSUR?”

Cabello said authorities seized grenades, military and Sebin (intelligence) uniforms, and a video coup plot declaration by masked military officials displaying deadly AR15 rifles.

Automatic versions can fire 800 rounds per minute. Semi-automatic ones are widely available in America. Venezuelan civilians are prohibited from owning them.

“Venezuela has a very violent sector of the opposition that doesn’t hesitate to plan actions that could mean dozens of deaths or the assassination of the president,” said Rodriguez.

Cabello said Borges and opposition leader Antonio Ledezma planned to announce the coup publicly.

Sign it. Then have corporate controlled anti-Bolivarian national media publish it.

Maduro said one suspect arrested was under surveillance since last year’s street violence. He and others continued plotting to oust Venezuela’s government.

With considerable help from Washington. A four-stage plan was hatched. Including economic and political war.

Inventing a nonexistent humanitarian crisis. A political coup. Followed by a military one installing transitional governance.

Maduro said the plot was discovered after military officials approached to participate reported the scheme to civilian authorities.

On Thursday, Maduro urged Venezuelans to remain on alert. Prepare to counter US-directed fascist attempts to seize power forcefully, he said.

Families of victims of last year’s fascist street violence want everyone to know hard truths about what happened.

Washington’s orchestrated right-wing rampage left 43 dead. Hundreds of others injured. A deadly repeat looms.

Obama wants Venezuela looking like Ukraine. He wants its democratic governance destroyed. Its valued energy resources plundered. Its people exploited.

Venezuelans want the whole world to know what happened last year. What’s planned against their country.

According to a committee representing families of victims of last year’s violence, perpetrators blamed government authorities for their crimes.

Hard truths were “silenced or distorted by some media and politicians, as well as by certain international human rights organizations, which portray the intellectual and material authors of the violence as the victims of state power, forgetting those who really suffered the consequences of the call to violence.”

“That’s why, we have decided to demand that the events be investigated and the truth determined, about who was intellectually and materially responsible for these human rights violations, and what their real motivations were,” they said.

“Above all, that they be punished accordingly. We are convinced that there won’t be justice until the truth of what happened is known by everyone, inside and outside our country.”

The day after Maduro’s April 2013 election, opposition candidate Henrique Capriles called on supporters to rage (arrechera) in the streets.

Weeks of violence, deaths and destruction followed selectively in middle and upscale neighborhoods. The vast majority of Venezuelans opposed it. They still do.

Obama continues going all-out to crush Bolivarianism once and for all. To return Venezuela to its bad old days. To restore dark side rule. Millions of Venezuelans are a bulwark against him.

Obama’s failed scheme is Washington’s latest attempt to replace Venezuelan democracy with fascist rule.

Expect more of the same ahead. Expect Obama to keep menacing humanity throughout his remaining months in office.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net . His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-foils-obamas-coup-plot/5431160

Report: Georgia’s Saakashvili named head of Ukraine’s foreign affairs advisors

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From Stop NATO

Trend News Agency
February 11, 2015

Georgia’s ex-president named head of Ukrainian presidential advisors

Baku: Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been appointed the chairman of the council of advisors for international affairs under Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, News- Georgia agency reported citing the Pirveli Radio.

Georgia-News also reported citing the radio that a briefing to be held in Kiev will be also attended by Saakashvili.

Meanwhile, the press service of Saakashvili’s party, the United National Movement, said they currently can’t confirm the report.

“So far we have no information,” said the press service.

The MPs from the United National Movement haven’t commented on the report either.

“I have no information on the matter, and I can’t confirm it,” Goga Khachidze, an MP from the United National Movement, told News-Georgia.

Saakashvili left Georgia after the inauguration of the new president, Giorgi Margvelashvili, in November 2013.

The Georgian Prosecutor General’s Office filed charges in absentia against Saakashvili on several criminal cases, including the embezzlement of about $5 million of public funds for personal needs.

Bulgarian protesters denounce planned NATO base

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From Stop NATO

Press TV
February 9, 2015

Bulgarian protesters censure NATO base plans

Bulgarian protesters have held a demonstration to condemn the government’s plan to allow the setting up of a NATO military command base on the country’s soil.

The demonstrators assembled in front of the presidency building in the capital city of Sofia on Sunday and later marched to the parliament, carrying banners that bore anti-EU and NATO messages.

“25 years of American democracy – robbery, ruin, destruction of the state,” read one banner.

The demonstrators also called for the resignation of Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev.

The protest came after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced earlier this month that NATO would immediately be establishing command and control units in six eastern European states, including Bulgaria.

The Western military block has over the past year increased its presence and conducted several drills in Eastern Europe amid the crisis in Ukraine. In 2014, NATO forces held some 200 military exercises with Stoltenberg promising that such maneuvers would continue.

Russia has also condemned NATO’s exercises and military buildup toward its borders on numerous occasions.

https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/bulgarian-protesters-denounce-planned-nato-base/