A video of a Ukrainian radical, the infamous female fighter of the volunteer battalion “Aidar” Vita Zavirukha firing a grenade at a Ukrainian village appeared online.
Shocking video was posted online and was available for viewing for a short time. In the video a Ukrainian woman confidently fires from a grenade launcher at the village Shirokino, cynically asking to record the possible destruction.
The video was soon removed from YouTube, however, many managed to download it, and it became available on other sites.
A native of Vinnytsa, 22-year-old follower of Nazi ideas, Zavirukha, last year joined battalion “Aidar” with the aim of destroying the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. The woman was involved in many operations of the militants and burning people alive in Odessa on May 2, 2014.
This time Zavirukha had fun shooting at a peaceful village.
The video shows fires and destruction caused by shelling by forces of Ukraine. The target of the feminazi was the Orthodox Church and residential homes. Previously, she was involved in the arson at Lugansk TES (electric power plant), which was also caught on video.
Then she said: “This is how Lugansk TES burns. And we expect the attack of the Russians. But we saved our cat. Look how awesome everything burns!”Vita Zavirukha: “Death to the Orthodox”
This terrorist was glorified in the French fashion magazine ELLE in November. The magazine later apologized and claimed it didn’t know that she is a Nazi, that there was no indication of who she was, but that’s impossible to believe. She has openly posted online what she stands for and what she’s done.
Posted on Global Research, March 28, 2015
By Sara Flounders and Lamont Lilly
Workers.org
U.S. efforts to overturn the government of Syria have now extended into a fifth year. It is increasingly clear that thousands of predictions reported in the corporate media by Western politicians, think tanks, diplomats and generals of a quick overturn and easy destruction of Syrian sovereignty have been overly optimistic, imperialist dreams. But four years of sabotage, bombings, assassinations and a mercenary invasion of more than 20,000 fighters recruited from over 60 countries have spread great ruin and loss of life.
The U.S. State Department has once again made its arrogant demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must step down. This demand confirms U.S. imperialism’s determination to overthrow the elected Syrian government. Washington intends to impose the chaos of feuding mercenaries and fanatical militias as seen today in Libya and Iraq.
A delegation from the International Action Center headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark traveled to Syria in late February to present a different message.
Visits to hospitals, centers for displaced families and meetings with religious leaders, community organizations and government officials conveyed the IAC’s determination to resist the orchestrated efforts of U.S. imperialism acting through its proxies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Israel.
The IAC’s opportunity to again visit Syria came following its participation in a packed and well-organized meeting of the International Forum for Justice in Palestine, held in Beirut on Feb. 22 and 23. The conference was initiated by Ma’an Bashour and the Arab International Centre for Communication and Solidarity and again confirmed the centrality of the burning, unresolved issue of Palestine in the region.
The solidarity delegation to Syria included Cynthia McKinney, former six-term member of the U.S Congress; Lamont Lilly, of the youth organization FIST – Fight Imperialism, Stand Together; Eva Bartlett, from the Syrian Solidarity Movement; and Sara Flounders, IAC co-director.
The delegation traveled the rutted, mountainous, blacktop road from Beirut to Damascus to the Lebanon-Syria border. On the Syrian side, this road was a modern, 6-lane highway, a reminder of Syria’s high level of infrastructure development. Even after four years of war, this is still a well-maintained highway. Due to sanctions against Syria, hundreds of trucks attempting deliveries stretched for miles on both sides of the border.
Compared to two years ago, when the IAC visited Damascus, this year we didn’t hear the constant thud of incoming rockets from mercenary forces shelling the city. These military forces have been pushed back from their encirclement of the capital. Syrian military units, checkpoints, sandbags, blast walls and concrete blocks were now less pervasive. Markets were full of people and held more produce.
A visit to Damascus’ largest hospital showed the cumulative impact of four years of devastation. At the University Hospital, where children with amputated limbs receive treatments in the ICU, many children had been brought in maimed from explosives and with shrapnel wounds from mortars and rockets fired on Damascus by terrorist forces.
At a visit to a center for displaced families at a former school, we met with university students, who provide sports, crafts, tutoring and mentoring programs. Medical care, free food and education programs are provided by the centers. But conditions are desperately overcrowded. Each homeless family, often of 6 to 10 people, is allocated a single classroom as housing. Almost half the population has been displaced by the terror tactics of mercenary forces.
A Mosaic of cultures
A theme in almost every discussion was Syria’s heritage as a diverse, rich mosaic of religious and cultural traditions. Sectarian divisions and intolerance are consciously opposed. One can see the determination to oppose the rule of foreign-funded forces.
A visit with Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and Syrian Greek Orthodox Bishop Luca al-Khoury reflected the centuries of religious harmony that previously existed in Syria.
Mufti Hassoun stressed the need for reconciliation. He described to the visitors the assassination three years ago of his 22-year-old son, Saria, who “had never carried a weapon in his life.” Saria was gunned down after leaving his university. At the funeral, Mufti Hassoun declared he forgave the gunmen and called on them to lay down their weapons and rejoin Syria. He described his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Bishop Luca al-Khoury, as his cousin and brother.
Bishop Khoury described the ease with which he received a visa to the U.S., while Mufti Hassoun was denied a visa, although both are religious leaders. “Why do they differentiate between us?” said Khoury. “It’s part of the project to separate Christians and Muslims here. It’s over gas pipelines which are supposed to run through Syrian territory. This will only happen if there is a weak Syrian state.
“If the Syrian government would agree to give a monopoly to France to extract gas from Syria, then you would find [President François] Hollande visiting Syria the next day. If the Syrian government would give the monopoly to [the United States of] America, [President Barack] Obama would declare President al-Assad as the legitimate ruler of the Syrian people.”
“Turkey is warring on us,” Khoury continued, “with financial support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and political support from America, Europe and Britain. Drones cross our borders daily, providing coordinates for the terrorists as to where to strike.”
Both religious leaders declared, as did many others in Syria, that the only solution is an international effort to stop the flow of arms: “If the American government would like to find a solution for the Syrian crisis, they could go to the Security Council and issue a resolution under Chapter 7 for a total ban of weapons from Turkey to terrorists in Syria. In one week this would be over.”
Syria’s accomplishments
Political and media adviser to President al-Assad, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, described the problem of stopping the weapons and mercenaries flooding into the country: “With external support and financing, and an over 800-kilometer border with Turkey, it’s very difficult to stop the flow of terrorists.
“Syria was formerly one of the fastest developing countries in the world,” Shaaban continued, “and one of the safest. We have free education and health care. We did not know poverty; we grew our food and produced our own clothing. At universities, 55 percent of the students were women. In whose interest is it to destroy this heritage? Who is the beneficiary of this?”
Shaaban described her time as a Fulbright scholar at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and later as professor at Eastern Michigan University: “I always wanted to be a bridge between Syria and Western cultures. At the beginning of the crisis, they tried to buy me. They urged me to ‘come to a civilized place,’” she said. “We have baths which are over 1,000 years old and still functioning. I studied Shelley: They didn’t have baths 800 years ago in England. We did. We were having baths and coffee.”
Meeting with PFLP Leaders
The delegation headed by Ramsey Clark also had an important opportunity to meet with Abu Ahmad Fuad, deputy general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Abu Sami Marwan, of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, and hear of the ongoing developments in Palestine and the region.
According to a Feb. 25 statement released by the PFLP after the meeting, “The PFLP leaders discussed the nature of the U.S./Zionist aggression against the people of the region, their intervention in Syria and the attempts of colonial powers to impose their hegemony by force and military aggression, through division of the land and people, and by pushing the region into sectarian or religious conflict.
“This U.S. policy is nothing new.” The Front noted that the colonial powers have waged an ongoing war against the Arab people to prevent any real progress for the region on the road to liberation, self-determination and an end to Zionist occupation.
“The U.S. delegation discussed the urgent need for building ongoing solidarity with Palestine in the United States and internationally,” continued the release, “in particular to confront the deep involvement of the United States — militarily, politically and financially — in the crimes of the occupier, and to end its attacks on Syria, Iraq and the people of the entire region.
“The solidarity delegates noted that there is a colonial scheme to divide and repartition the region according to the interests of major corporations and imperial powers, targeting the resources of the people, sometimes through blatant political interference in the affairs of the region and other times through wars and military attacks on states and peoples.
“The two sides emphasized the importance of communication between the Palestinian Arab left and progressive and democratic forces in the United States to confront Zionism and imperialism in the U.S. and in Palestine alike.”
Ramsey Clark described the aim of the visit: “To find more opportunities for dialogue and coordination among the Syrian and American people. We saw culture and credibility in Syria and we appreciate the struggle of this people. We will disallow them to shift Syria into Iraq or Libya.”
Cynthia McKinney, former member at the U.S. Congress, said that she appreciated “Syria’s heroic stance, as people and leadership, in its war against the U.S. imperialism. The Syrian people are exceptional in their capability of resistance as the acts during four years have failed to achieve their goals.”
By Greg Butterfield
March 16, 2015 International Action Center
As activists, students and workers gather in Washington, D.C., for the “Spring Rising” anti-war mobilization March 18-21, many are probably unaware that 300 U.S. troops arrived in Ukraine this month, with another 300 expected to join them shortly.
The U.S. soldiers are stationed at the Yavoriv Training Area in Lviv, near the Polish border in western Ukraine. Their mission, according to the Pentagon, is to train divisions of the Ukrainian National Guard.
But their presence also establishes a provocative U.S. military “footprint” in this key agricultural and industrial country on the Russian Federation’s western border.
The first open and public U.S. military presence on Ukrainian soil comes amid a civil war raging in former southeastern Ukraine, now the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, also called Novorossiya. It’s accompanied by unprecedented NATO war games and military buildup threatening Russia.
All this despite a ceasefire agreement, negotiated by Russia, Germany and France, which went into effect Feb. 15. As happened during previous ceasefires, the U.S.-backed government in Kiev routinely violates the terms and is using the “breathing spell” to rebuild its military forces to assault the embattled Donbass mining region.
“Before this week is up, we’ll be deploying a battalion minus … to the Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces for the fight that’s taking place,” the U.S.’s 173rd Airborne Brigade commander, Michael Foster, told a meeting of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington on March 3. (Global Research, March 3)
U.S. forces are scheduled to stay six months. But discussions are underway about “how to increase the duration and the scope of the training mission,” Foster said, echoing remarks made in January by former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Derek Chollet.
Meanwhile, in London, Prime Minister David Cameron told a House of Commons committee on Feb. 24 that up to 75 British soldiers would be sent to Ukraine to develop “an infantry training program with Ukraine to improve the durability of their forces,” the BBC reported.
“Today’s announcement builds upon the work that we have already undertaken through NATO and bilaterally,” added British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon. (Sputnik, Feb. 24)
Poland, too, plans to send military instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers, Boguslaw Pacek, advisor to the country’s defense minister, told Reuters on Feb. 26.
What is the Ukrainian National Guard?
When most people in the U.S. hear the term “National Guard,” they think of the recruiting commercials touting “one weekend a month, two weeks a year” of training to “serve your country.” The Pentagon is playing on this association to make their mission sound benign.
Of course, the National Guard in the U.S. has a long history of being employed to put down rebellions and strikes in the U.S., often with the most brutal methods. And in the last 15 years, since the start of Washington’s “war on terror,” many National Guard soldiers have been required to serve long stretches in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the Ukrainian National Guard is something else altogether. The brainchild of far-right Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, it came into being one year ago, shortly after the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew Ukraine’s elected president.
The National Guard is based on neo-Nazi street-gangs and fascist political organizations that formed the power base of the Euromaidan protest movement which carried out the February 2014 coup in Kiev. It answers to Avakov, not the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which the coup makers considered unreliable, and which has continued to disintegrate during the war in the southeast.
The National Guard, in fact, has been the backbone of Kiev’s brutal “Anti-Terrorist Operation” against Novorossiya. This operation has targeted civilians throughout the Donbass mining region since April 2014. It is nearly as ruthless as the “volunteer” fascist battalions affiliated with the openly fascist Right Sector.
While the Ukrainian Armed Forces today are a meat grinder for workers, unemployed people and youth forcibly drafted, and who frequently desert at the first opportunity, the National Guard comprise the forces most loyal to the junta of oligarchs, neoliberal politicians and fascists in Kiev.
This is the force the U.S. wants to train and strengthen.
NATO provocations
But there’s much more to the story.
Throughout Europe, the Baltic and Central Asian states bordering Russia, and even on U.S. soil, an unprecedented volume of provocative war games are underway, all clearly threatening Moscow.
Why? Because the real aim of the U.S. power play in Ukraine is to establish NATO military power on Russia’s border, with the aim of fomenting regime change aimed at breaking up the Russian Federation into pliable, profitable pieces that can be easily dominated by Wall Street and its European junior partners.
That’s why since day one of the Ukrainian crisis, Democrats, Republicans and the corporate media have united to turn reality on its head by portraying Russia as the aggressor — a Big Lie to cover up their own role.
Here’s a sampling of the provocative moves in the past month, culled from U.S. military sources, Ukrainian and Russian media, as well as anti-war sites like StopNATO.org and Global Research:
On Feb. 10 — as ceasefire talks were underway in Minsk, Belarus — the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to authorize $1 billion for training, equipping and providing “lethal aid” to Kiev through September 2017.
On Feb. 24, U.S. military vehicles took part in a NATO parade in the Estonian town of Narva, just 300 meters from the Russian border. It included 140 armored vehicles and nearly 1,500 troops, including U.S. soldiers.
The same day, in Alaska, paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team performed the largest U.S. airborne mission north of the Arctic Circle in more than a decade as part of Exercise Spartan Pegasus. “This exercise demonstrated their unique ability to rapidly mass power on an objective in extremely cold and austere environments,” said an Army press release.
U.S. Marines and soldiers from the Republic of Georgia staged a “pre-deployment training” during Mission Rehearsal Exercise in Hohenfels, Germany, on Feb. 27.
NATO Supreme Commander in Europe and Chief of the U.S. European Command Philip Breedlove told the Senate Armed Forces Committee on March 3 that it is “essential” for Washington to provide “military support” to “U.S. partners Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine [which] face a different security challenge from Russia than those facing NATO allies.”
On March 6, U.S. and Canadian soldiers carried out drills “in winter conditions” with their Latvian counterparts, while live-fire training exercises were conducted at Drawsko Pomorskie in northern Poland.
Some 450 U.S. soldiers and 25 Black Hawk helicopters will be deployed to Illesheim, Germany, in March “in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, a multinational training mission to reassure Poland and the Baltic countries of NATO’s commitment in the face of Russia’s aggressive moves in Ukraine.” The deployment is to last nine months.
The European Union needs its own army to confront Russia, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told a German newspaper on March 8.
Latvia received more than 120 armored units, including tanks, from the U.S. on March 9. U.S. Army Gen. John O’Connor, who witnessed the tanks’ arrival, declared that “Freedom must be fought for, freedom must be defended.”
A major NATO naval force is amassing in the Black Sea, including U.S., Canadian, German, Italian, Turkish, Bulgarian and Romanian warships.
Washington’s unreal ‘debate’ over arming Ukraine
“Watch what they do, not what they say” — the old adage is always good advice when dealing with U.S. imperialism. And nowhere is that more apparent than in Washington’s current “debate” over arming Ukraine.
The media depict a dispute over whether the U.S. should provide “lethal weapons,” heavy weapons and offensive weapons to Ukraine for its war against “pro-Russian separatists,” as the anti-fascist resistance in Donbass is usually labeled.
For example, on March 6, leading congressional Republicans and Democrats, headed by John Boehner, urged President Obama to provide “lethal defensive weapons” to Kiev due to Russia’s “grotesque violation of international law.”
The White House states that it is still “considering” whether to provide so-called lethal aid. However, top administration officials, from Secretary of State John Kerry on down, have voiced their support.
All of this amounts to smokescreen and posturing for political gain. In fact, the Obama administration and Congress have colluded all along to arm the fascist junta, which they collaborated with in bringing to power. In December, Congress overwhelmingly approved and Obama signed the “Ukrainian Freedom Support Act,” in fact authorizing “lethal aid.”
Airfields in eastern Ukraine immediately shut down as U.S. military cargo planes flew in massive amounts of old and new NATO weaponry. Much of this war materiel was captured and put on public display by the Novorossiyan people’s militias following the defeat of Ukraine’s January 2015 military offensive.
In February, Ukrainian President Peter Poroshenko inked an arms agreement with the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. client state that frequently serves as a hub to funnel advanced weaponry to right-wing regimes and counterrevolutionary movements supported by Washington.
On March 11, Obama approved $75 million in additional “nonlethal” military aid to Ukraine, including secure communications equipment, drones, counter-mortar radars, night-vision goggles and military ambulances, to be delivered in the next six to nine months. He also approved the provision of 30 armored and 200 unarmored Humvees, Sputnik reported.
The same day, the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund approved a new $17.5 billion financial aid package for Ukraine in exchange for additional painful austerity measures. (RT.com, March 11) This is meant to ensure that Kiev will remain solvent enough to continue its proxy war in the coming months, despite its collapsing economy.
Whether or not the U.S. openly arms Ukraine with offensive weapons, or continues to do so covertly and through third countries, is far less significant that the blatant war moves of U.S. and NATO forces in the region.
Every day, it grows more urgent for the anti-war forces in the U.S. to stand up and demand: Stop the weapons, stop sanctions, stop provocations against Russia! Stand with the people of Donetsk and Lugansk resisting austerity and genocide!
The Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung reported Thursday the 26th, that the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, whom Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko recently removed from control over Ukraine’s monopoly oil-transport firm and from being governor of a Ukrainian province, had been using his private army, augmented by forces from Dmitriy Yarosh’s Right Sector party, to rob other oligarchs, especially Ukraine’s richest one, Rinat Akhmetov.
Akhmetov’s companies are mainly in eastern Ukraine, and so Akhmetov had been trying to avoid siding with either the post-coup Ukrainian government or the anti-coup residents of the far-eastern, and pro-Russian, Donbass region of Ukraine, who reject it. (That’s the dark-purple area shown on this voting map of the last Presidential election before the coup, where 90%+ of the residents had voted for Viktor Yanukovych — the man who was overthrown in the coup.) Akhmetov was thus vulnerable after the coup.
This news report, by FAZ’s Warsaw correspondent Konrad Schuller, says that Kolomoysky’s thugs had been using ”psychological pressure,” “intimidation,” “physical force,” and “kidnappings,” in order to “extend their influence.” They were “going to build in eastern Ukraine’s combat zone a network of extortion and violence that would subject everyone there to kidnapping and robbery by Kolomoysky with the help of some of his leading battalion commanders.”
This article reports that, “In the center of it all there stood a man named K., a prominent and close associate of Kolomoysky.” Earlier, the article says, “Kolomoysky’s deputy as governor, Hennadij Korban, was preparing to organize demonstrations in his stronghold Dnipropetrovsk,” which is the region to which, after the coup, Kolomoysky had been appointed governor by Oleksandr Turchynov, who had been appointed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had been appointed by Geoffrey Pyatt, at the instruction of Victoria Nuland, who had been appointed by Barack Obama.
However, apparently, Kolomoysky, who had long been known for taking over companies by raiding them with his private army, has now become too much for Obama to take, and so Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko recently removed Kolomoysky from his posts.
Back in June, Kolomoysky said publicly that he would not take instruction from President Poroshenko. But now that Obama has turned against Kolomoysky, Kolomoysky no longer has any effective political power-base in Ukraine, despite his billions and his private army and his backing from Yarosh’s Right Sector, which includes an even larger private army, very nazi. (In Ukraine, the nazis, or racist fascists, are haters of Russians, not necessarily also of Jews; Kolomoysky himself is Jewish, yet he’s also a leading Ukrainian nazi.) Yarosh’s Right Sector troops, as well as Kolomoysky’s own mercenaries, have been the most effective of all of Ukraine’s forces at killing the residents of the rebelling region, Donbass.
FAZ‘s reporter Schuller says that the Security Bureau of Ukraine (SBU) had found that Kolomoysky was planning to become Ukraine’s “final number one among the oligarchs of the country,” by stealing from Akhmetov and others.
Apparently, Obama has decided to let Poroshenko take over. The nazis, whose guns and muscle overthrew the previous president, Viktor Yanukovych, now know that Obama will no longer be beholden to them — he has had enough of them, and he expects everyone to line up now behind President Poroshenko.
There has been a contest in Ukraine as to whether the ethnic cleansing of Donbass, to get rid of its residents, would be taken over by the nazi forces or would remain under Poroshenko’s command. Evidently, it will remain under Poroshenko’s command.
U.S. President Obama accuses Russia of arming the residents in Donbass. In his National Security Strategy 2015, he uses the word “aggression” 18 times, 17 of them referring to Russia.
Huge demonstrations in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were held across Syria two weeks after the launch of the NATO-led covert war on Syria on March 16, 2011.
It is worth bearing in mind that back then the overall population of Syria was around 22,5 million in March 2011. Apart few exceptions, the al-Manar report below was totally ignored by the western mainstream and “alternative” media alike.
2 million Syrians marched in Damascus in support of President Bashar al-Assad on March 29th, 2011
Millions of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad supporters poured into the country’s streets in a show of support for their leader calling their protests “loyalty to the homeland”.
Sources told Al-Manar TV that there are about two million protesters in Damascus, another two in Aleppo, a million in Hamah, a million in Homos and hundred of thousands in other cities.
All roads leading to Sabeh Bahrat (“Seven Seas”) square in Damascus were cut off by police, as men, women and children raised Syrian flags and pictures of [President Bashar al] Assad and his father, late president Hafez al-Assad.
Syrian state TV reported on Tuesday that Al-Assad accepted the resignation of the Syrian government.
Protesters across the country were chanting slogans in support of the President, who pledged to make reforms in the country and is expected to deliver a speech tonight addressing the nation and especially Daraa people who suffered much lately.
Additional details from the investigation over Zoran Verusevski, the former head of Macedonia UBK State Security agency, reveal that he was discussing the possibility of a Ukrainian style protests that would bring down the Government in Macedonia and bring the opposition SDSM party in power.
Verusevski, who held high positions in the security services appointed by SDSM, is charged, together with SDSM leader and several others, of trying to blackmail the Government to bring SDSM into the ruling coalition, and also of cooperating with foreign intelligence agencies.
Former Head of UBK State Security Agency Zoran Verusevski. Photo: Dnevnik
Police confiscated Verusevski’s computers and other electronic devices when he was arrested in midJanuary, and since, several leaks from the investigation revealed details about his correspondence with Zaev and with Gjorgji Lazarevski, another former high ranking UBK official who is also charged. Zaev confirmed some of the leaks as authentic. Several media outlets reported on Saturday about a cache of Skype messages exchanged between Verusevski and Lazarevski, in which the two former security officials are mentioning Ukraine, as a political disturbance scenario that they could develop in Macedonia. In one message Lazarevski says that SDSM leader Zaev should move his “old behind” and be more like Vitaly Klichko, the Ukrainian boxer who energized the Maidan protests.
Verusevski responds that Zaev does not have the credibility, because “an amnestied politician is like a released pedophile”. Zaev was amnestied in 2008 by then President and leading SDSM politician Branko Crvenkovski over the charges that as mayor of the city of Strumica he allowed a corrupt real estate deal that benefited him and his business associates. In another batch of Skype messages, Verusevski says “Ukraine has collapsed”, with Lazarevski replying that “we are not far behind”, only to add that “SDSM doesn’t have the capacity for a coup”. An earlier leak from their correspondence showed Verusevski and Lazarevski discussing that what they are preparing could lead to a civil war in Macedonia.
The two are charged with recruiting an UBK surveillance system technician Zvonko Kostovski to wiretap phones from leading Government and opposition officials, and of preparing English language reports they then gave to a foreign intelligence service, which paid them substantially. Verusevski is charged with joining forces with Zaev, and planning to use the cache of information his rogue spy ring has gathered in an attempt to pressure VMRO-DPMNE leader and Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski into bringing SDSM to the Government. Gruevski responded by asking the Public Prosecutor’s office to investigate the case, and currently Zaev and Verusevski are charged, while Zaev is holding press conferences at which he is presenting audio files he claims prove corruption and election irregularities perpetrated by VMRO-DPMNE officials. VMRO-DPMNE insists that the material is taken out of context and fabricated.
Verusevski had a day long hearing at the Prosecutor’s office on Friday, with the entirety of the evidence gathered against him presented, likely for the first time. Zvonko Kostovski was already sentenced to three years in prison, in exchange for his confession, the details of which were likely presented before Verusevski on Friday as well.
The fear that political and inter-ethnic tensions could appear as result of the political situation was often discussed by commentators on both sides. Macedonia experienced an armed insurgency by ethnic Albanian rebels in 2001, which ended with international mediation and a political agreement. That insurgency was preceded by a 2000 wiretapping scandal in which then opposition leader Branko Crvenkovski blamed then VMRO’-DPMNE leader and Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski of mass wiretapping, and presented transcripts of conversations he allegedly got from insiders in the UBK service. Crvenkovski’s source was never revealed, as the country became engulfed in the 2001 insurgency, with commentators close to VMRODPMNE saying that, both in 2000 and in 2015, Verusevski was the main source of the wiretapping charges.
TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior commander of Badr Organization stressed that the US-led anti-ISIL coalition forces participated in Tikrit operations to help ISIL terrorists flee the scene of clashes and also confiscate the victories of Iraqi security and popular forces for themselves.
“The Iraqi army and popular forces have taken back 80 percent of Tikrit from ISIL control and the presence of the US and coalition forces in Tikrit operations is meant to confiscate this victory,” Brigadier General Jabar Ali al-Mashkouri told FNA on Sunday.
He said the US has been pushing the Baghdad government to take part in the Tikrit operations in a bid to help the ISIL terrorists escape the scene.
“The US warplanes have bombarded the positions of Iraq’s popular forces in the frontline in Southern Tikrit, killing at least five popular forces and injuring dozens more,” and this shows the real intention of the US meddling in Tikrit operations, he said.
Earlier today, the US fighter jets once again struck the positions of Iraq’s popular forces during their fierce clashes with ISIL terrorists near Tikrit, injuring a number of fighters.
The US and coalition forces conducted eight airstrikes near Tikrit, but they hit the popular forces’ positions instead of ISIL.
This is not the first time that the US has struck the popular forces’ positions in different parts of Iraq.
Iraqi military forces, backed by Shiite and Sunni volunteer fighters, have won control over 90 percent of Tikrit after inflicting hefty losses on the ISIL.
Some 30,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have been involved in a month-long operation to recapture Tikrit and other key towns and villages in the Northern part of Salahuddin province from the ISIL militants.
IBM has responded to questions about its relationship with the Nazis largely by characterizing the information as old news.
“The fact that Hollerith equipment manufactured by (IBM’s German unit) Dehomag was used by the Nazi administration has long been known and is not new information,” IBM representative Carol Makovich wrote in an e-mail interview. “This information was published in 1997 in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and in 1998 in Washington Jewish Week.”
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IBM also defended Chairman Thomas Watson for his dealings with Hitler and his regime.
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On September 13, 1939, The New York Times reports on Page 1 that 3 million Jews are going to be “immediately removed” from Poland, and they appear to be candidates for “physical extermination.” On September 9, the German managers of IBM Berlin send a letter to Thomas Watson with copy to staff in Geneva via phone that, due to the “situation,” they need high-speed alphabetizing equipment. IBM wanted no paper trail, so an oral agreement was made, passed from New York to Geneva to Berlin, and those alphabetizers were approved by Watson, personally, before the end of the month.
That month he also approved the opening of a new Europe-wide school for Hollerith technicians in Berlin. And at the same time he authorized a new German-based subsidiary in occupied Poland, with a printing plant across the street from the Warsaw Ghetto at 6 Rymarska Street. It produced some 15 million punch cards at that location, the major client of which was the railroad.
We have a similar example involving Romania in 1941, and The Sunday Times has actually placed the IBM documents up on their Web site…. When Nazi Germany went into France, IBM built two new factories to supply the Nazi war machine. This is the 1941-’42 era, in Vichy, France, which was technically neutral. When Germany invaded Holland in May 1940, IBM rushed a brand-new subsidiary into occupied Holland. And it even sent 132 million punch cards in 1941, mainly from New York, to support the Nazi activity there. Holland had the highest rate of Jewish extermination in all of Europe; 72 percent of Jews were killed in Holland, compared to 24 percent in France, where the machines did not operate successfully.
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When Hitler came to power in 1933, his desire to destroy European Jewry was so ambitious an enterprise, it required the resources of a computer. But in 1933 no computer existed. What did exist was the Hollerith punch-card system. It was invented by a German-American in Buffalo, New York, for the Census Bureau. This punch-card system could store all the information about individuals, places, products, inventories, schedules, in the holes that were punched or not punched in columns and rows.
Posted on Novorossiya Today
Genocide by Non-payment of Retirement Pensions by Konstantin Dolgov
Ukraine wants to improve the state of its economy at the expense of a million of lives of the retired people in Donbass.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly secured the key rights that all the people should possess. The regime that was established in Kiev after the coup of 2014 had de facto abolished the implementation of this document in regard to a group of citizens of Ukraine.
As we know, Kiev keeps on considering the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s Republics as part of Ukraine. Hypocritically declaring “the unity of the country” and “the anti-terrorist operation” in order to please the West, in reality Kiev authorities are engaged in the genocide of the population of the region with the aim of improvement of Ukraine’ s economy at the expense of human lives.
Only in accordance with the official data, in the territories of Donbass not controlled by Kiev government more than a million of Ukrainian citizens live, who are living exclusively off the retirement pensions and other social payments. They are the elderly, the WWII veterans, who defeated Hitler or went through Buchenwald or Oswensim. They are the disabled people. They are the people, who have the credit of Ukraine. They had worked for the Ukrainian state all their lives long and paid taxes in Ukraine. Social payment is the natural obligation of the state to these people — they are the only means of livelihood for many of them. Nevertheless since the summer of 2014 Ukraine terminated all social payments to the citizens living in these territories.
In autumn it became a real problem. A million (!) of the elderly and disabled people were forced to travel to the distance of hundreds kilometers for their homes to the territories controlled by Ukraine in order to receive deserved by them payments. However, eventually the Ukrainian government went even further. Since January 1, 2014 Yatsenyuk’s Cabinet terminated social payments to the people living on these territories. Millions of people were faced with a choice: to leave homes and move for good to the territories controlled by Ukraine (then the payments, although hilariously meager, are resumed), or lose the only source of livelihood and starve. Article 13 of the above mentioned Declaration says that “every person has the right to move freely and chose his/her residence within the limits of each state”. However, the “democratic” Kiev government is not going to pay attention to such trifle as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its strive to reach its goals.
Moreover, the first mentioned option is unrealistic in principle. The average retirement pension in Ukraine amounts to 1600 Hryvnya now (about 65 Euro) per month. The average cost of a bedsitter rent in Ukraine is about 2500 Hryvnya per month (a bit less than 100 Euro). A retired person cannot afford to leave his apartment in Donetsk, Lugansk, Snezhnoye, Ilovaysk and rent an apartment in a city under Ukrainian control. Kiev regime deliberately made such a decision in order to free itself from the obligations in regard to social payments – at the expense of the lives of a million of Donetsk retired people.
On March 12 the International Monetary Fund demanded that Ukraine should resume the payments, but the memorandum adopted implies the settlement of this issue toll the end of 2015, and a million of people have not been receiving the routine payments for half a year already.
Notably, this resolution of Kiev government contradicts Ukrainian laws as well. Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine states responsibility for the non-payment of pensions and other legally asserted payments. Predictably, the retired dwellers of Donbass started to sue the social bodies of Ukraine. Nevertheless the lawsuits proceeded in accordance with the predictable scenario.
The most well-known precedent is the cases handled by human right activists Kirill Beloshytskiy, Tatyana Volkova and Irina Khyzhnyak. 15 inhabitants of Donbass sued Ukrainian government for the refusal in payment of envisaged by the law pensions with the support of these layers. Surprisingly, the court verdict was just, and the first lawsuit was won by the appellants. On February11, 2015 Kiev District Administrative Court ruled the relevant government statement illegal and ordered to resume social payments to the dwellers of Donbass. However it was just the beginning of the epic.
At once after this court ruling the Ukrainian government submitted an appeal, the consideration of which is still being delayed deliberately. Although Kiev did not stop at that and decided to repress the judges who dared to defend the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ukraine living in Donbass.
As early as on February 16 search was carried out in the building of Kiev District Administrative Court. The search was conducted by the inevitable armed people in face masks, and only later the Prosecutor of Kiev Yuldashev informed the public that the search was sanctioned by him. Moreover, one of the judges concerned, Valeriy Kuzmenko, received an enlistment note soon after that. Sending of disagreeable people to war has long been viewed by Kiev as the repressive means, but it was the first time it had been used as the method of squeeze on court.
The Convention of Prevention of Genocide Crime and Punishment for It, recognized by the entire civilized world, defines genocide as “actions committed with the aim of extermination, complete or partial, of some national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such”, including by way of “deliberate creation for such group of such living conditions, which are aimed at total or partial physical elimination of it”.
If Kiev’s deprivation of a million of the Donbass aged people of all means of livelihood does not suit this definition, then in reality the Convention is not worth of the paper it is written on.
Konstantin Dolgov, the Co-Chairman of the Peoples’ Front of Novorossia, specially for “Russkaya vesna”.
NachDenkSeiten, 18. März 2015
Verantwortlich: Jens Berger
Das Bundeskanzleramt wirft dem Oberbefehlshaber der NATO in Europa, Philip M. Breedlove, “gefährliche Propaganda” vor. Zur Frage, was von dieser Kritik, die ausgerechnet von der Regierung eines Landes geübt wird, die derlei Propagandatechniken selbst immer wieder angewandt hat, zu halten ist, sprach Jens Wernicke mit dem renommierten Friedensforscher und NATO-Kenner Daniele Ganser.
Herr Ganser, das Bundeskanzleramt wirft dem Oberbefehlshaber der NATO in Europa, Philip M. Breedlove, “gefährliche Propaganda” vor. Breedlove stelle beispielsweise die militärischen Aktivitäten Russlands in der Ostukraine völlig überzogen dar. Was vollzieht sich hier? Wird hier nun ausgerechnet die NATO von ausgerechnet der deutschen Regierung der Kriegspropaganda überführt?
Das Bundeskanzleramt hat recht mit dieser Kritik. Denn meiner Meinung nach passiert derzeit etwas sehr Gefährliches: US-Generäle wie Breedlove versuchen, einen Krieg vom Zaun zu brechen, in welchem sich Deutsche und Russen gegenseitig töten, damit beide Länder geschwächt werden. Das ist ein zynischer, ja diabolischer Plan. Aber US-Strategen wie Georg Friedman, Direktor des Think Tanks Stratfor, schlagen genau dies vor. Denn vereint seien Deutschland und Russland die einzigen Mächte, welche die USA bedrohen könnten, so Friedman in einem Vortrag im Februar 2015 in Chicago.
“Unser Hauptinteresse besteht darin, sicherzustellen, dass dieser Fall nicht eintritt“, so Friedman. Man müsse daher beide Länder in einen endlosen Krieg verwickeln, so dass sie ausbluten. Nicht alle Menschen in den USA vertreten diese Haltung, aber radikale Kriegstreiber wie Friedman schon. „Die USA können als Imperium nicht andauernd in Eurasien intervenieren”, erklärte er. Daher müsse man die verschiedenen Länder Eurasiens gegeneinander aufbringen und verhindern, dass sie sich in Brüderlichkeit verbinden. “Ich empfehle eine Technik, die von Präsident Ronald Reagan eingesetzt gegen Iran und Irak wurde: Er unterstützte beide Kriegsparteien!“ so Friedman. Der Krieg zwischen Irak und Iran von 1980 bis 1988 forderte übrigens mindestens 400.000 Tote, aus Sicht der Friedensforschung ist es also erschreckend, was Friedman da empfiehlt. „Dann haben die Iraner und Iraker gegeneinander und nicht gegen uns gekämpft“, erklärte Friedman in seinem Vortrag. „Das war zynisch und amoralisch. Aber es funktionierte. Denn die USA sind nicht in der Lage, ganz Eurasien zu besetzen. In dem Moment, indem wir einen Stiefel auf europäischen Boden setzen, sind wir aufgrund der demografischen Unterschiede zahlenmäßig total unterlegen.”
Meiner Meinung nach versuchen nun radikale US-Generäle wie Breedlove genau diese Strategie umzusetzen, damit sich in Zukunft deutsche und russische Soldaten gegenseitig in der Ukraine erschießen und ganz Osteuropa destabilisiert und geschwächt wird. Das aber wäre eine Katastrophe. Darum muss die Friedensbewegung ein Gegenprogramm anbieten, nämlich Neutralität für die Ukraine. Kein NATO-Beitritt also – und Freundschaft zwischen Deutschland und Russland.
Wie geht denn die NATO vor, um den Konflikt zu schüren?
NATO-General Breedlove ist immer wieder dadurch aufgefallen, dass er übertriebene oder unwahre Behauptungen verbreitet hat. Dadurch schürt die NATO den Krieg. Das ist sehr gefährlich, weil die Situation ja angespannt ist, wie wir alle wissen. Am 12. November 2014 erklärte Breedlove zum Beispiel, dass nun russische Truppen und Panzer in die Ukraine einmarschiert seien! Doch das stimmte nicht, und das ist keine Kleinigkeit. Wörtlich sagte der NATO-General: “Wir haben gesehen, dass russische Truppen, russische Panzer, Artillerie und Luftabwehrsysteme in die Ukraine einmarschiert sind.” Das wurde von der BBC und anderen Massenmedien weltweit verbreitet, aber es war eine Lüge.
Und auch US-General Ben Hodges, Kommandeur der US-Streitkräfte in Europa, treibt den Krieg an, indem er die ukrainische Armee unterstützt. Im Januar 2015 besuchte Hodges ein Militärspital in Kiew und überreichte verwundeten ukrainischen Soldaten Tapferkeits-Abzeichen der US-Armee. Das ist völlig ungewöhnlich. Stellen sie sich vor, ein chinesischer General käme in ein Militärspital nach Berlin und würde in Afghanistan verwundeten deutschen Soldaten das Tapferkeits-Abzeichen der chinesischen Armee überreichen! Das erhöht doch die Spannungen.
US-General Hodges zeigt aber symbolisch: Die USA sind jetzt aktiv Kriegspartei in der Ukraine, sie stehen hinter der ukrainischen Armee, die die von Russland unterstützen Separatisten in der Ostukraine bekämpft. Weil Deutschland Mitglied der NATO ist besteht die Gefahr, dass deutsche Soldaten durch die USA in diesen Krieg mit hineingezogen werden, ähnlich wie schon in Afghanistan nach 2001. Wenn das passieren sollte, dann haben wir genau den Zustand, den Friedman fordert: Deutsche und Russen erschießen sich in der Ukraine gegenseitig. Natürlich hoffe ich nicht, dass das passieren wird. Die Friedensbewegung muss vor dieser Gefahr aber warnen, um sie abzuwenden.
Ist derlei denn „üblich“, ich meine: dass die NATO lügt, übertreibt oder betrügt?
Ja, leider hat die NATO immer wieder Lüge und Gewalt kombiniert. In meinem Buch „NATO-Geheimarmeen in Europa. Inszenierter Terror und verdeckte Kriegsführung“ zeige ich auf, wie die NATO im Kalten Krieg in allen Ländern Westeuropas mit Unterstützung des US-Geheimdienstes CIA und des britischen Geheimdienstes MI6 Geheimarmeen aufgebaut hatte, ohne dass die Bevölkerung oder das Parlament etwas davon wusste.
Vor allem US-Generäle sind gefährlich, denn sie haben in den letzten 70 Jahren fast ohne Unterbrechung Krieg geführt in vielen verschiedenen Ländern und sind es als Vertreter eines Imperiums nicht nur gewohnt zu töten, sondern auch zu täuschen. General Lyman Lemnitzer beispielsweise, der von 1963 bis 1969 als SACEUR der NATO diente, also ein Vorgänger des jetzigen SACEUR Breedlove, hat in den 1960er Jahren empfohlen, die USA könnten einen Krieg gegen Kuba inszenieren, indem man ein amerikanisches Schiff auf dem US-Militärstützpunkt Guantanamo selber in die Luft sprengt sowie Terroranschläge in Washington durchführt und beide Verbrechen dann Fidel Castro in die Schuhe schiebt, um das amerikanische Volk auf einen Krieg gegen Kuba einzustimmen. Diese sogenannte Operation Northwoods wurde zum Glück von Präsident John F. Kennedy gestoppt, sie zeigt aber, wie gefährlich hohe Offiziere im Pentagon sind.
Treiben denn nur die USA diese Kriege an oder sind auch andere NATO-Länder involviert?
Die NATO zählt heute 28 Mitglieder und leider sind auch andere NATO-Länder an der Kriegspropaganda beteiligt. Zum Beispiel die Briten. Vor dem Angriff auf den Irak im März 2003 erklärte der britische Premierminister Tony Blair: „Der Irak besitzt chemische und biologische Waffen. (…) Seine Raketen sind binnen 45 Minuten einsatzbereit.“ Das war eine Lüge. Der Angriff der NATO-Länder USA und Großbritannien auf den Irak wurde dann aber dennoch und zwar ohne UNO-Mandat und illegal geführt.
Und auch als die NATO am 24. März 1999 damit begann, Serbien zu bombardieren war dies ein illegaler Angriffskrieg, weil die NATO erneut kein Mandat des UNO-Sicherheitsrates hatte. Damals war es Deutschland unter Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder, Verteidigungsminister Rudolf Scharping und Außenminister Joschka Fischer, das zusammen mit den USA aktiv an diesem Angriffskrieg teilgenommen hat. Im Vorfeld des Krieges wurden Lügen erzählt, um die Menschen in den Krieg zu treiben. Schröder hat 2014 eingeräumt, dass die NATO damals gegen das Völkerrecht verstoßen hat. „Als es um die Frage ging, wie entwickelt sich das in der Republik Yugoslavien, Kosovokrieg, da haben wir unsere Flugzeuge, unsere Tornados, nach Serbien geschickt und wir haben zusammen mit der NATO einen souveränen Staat gebombt, ohne, dass es einen Sicherheitsratsbeschluss gegeben hätte“, so Schröder selbstkritisch.
Wie kommt es, dass bei alldem üblicherweise niemand wiederspricht und nachher in all unseren Medien immer dieselben NATO-Argumente und -Statements zu lesen sind?
Die Massenmedien in Deutschland führen die Menschen leider direkt in die Konfrontation mit Russland hinein, genauso, wie es sich radikale US-Amerikaner wie Stratfor-Direktor Friedman wünschen. Das heißt, es wird täglich der Hass gegenüber Russland geschürt. Nur ganz selten gibt es eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der NATO oder den strategischen Interessen des Imperiums USA, also den Kräften, welche den Krieg in der Ukraine antreiben.
Viele Journalisten getrauen sich auch gar nicht, die USA als Imperium zu bezeichnen, fürchten um ihre Stelle oder anderes. Aber es ist ganz offensichtlich, dass die USA das Imperium der Gegenwart sind, also das mächtigste Land, und natürlich verfolgen Imperien immer ihre Machtinteressen. Dies wird aber von den Massenmedien zu wenig offen dargelegt. Viele sitzen täglich vor dem Fernseher und kennen weder die Bezeichnung „Imperium USA“ noch die strategischen Interessen dieses Imperiums in Eurasien. Daher sind kritische Menschen vollkommen zurecht von den bekannten Fernsehkanälen und Zeitungen enttäuscht und versuchen, sich mehr über das Internet und alternative Medien zu informieren.
Und meinen Sie, die entsprechende Kritik unserer Regierung ist Indiz dafür, dass diese nun endlich der globalen Gewaltspirale den Kampf ansagt, sich also eine Entwicklung weg von Propaganda gegen und hin zu Respekt und Dialog mit Russland abzuzeichnen beginnt? Und: Ist sie selbst, unsere Regierung, denn wirklich glaubwürdiger als die NATO, welche sie nun so wortgewaltig kritisiert?
Ich bin ja in der Schweiz, wir sind nicht Mitglied der NATO. Ich habe also eine Außensicht auf die Politik von Deutschland und Kanzlerin Merkel. Ich sehe, dass sich in Deutschland viele Menschen Sorgen machen wegen des Krieges in der Ukraine, weil er so nahe ist. Und die meisten Deutschen, mit denen ich in Kontakt bin, wollen auf keinen Fall, dass sich deutsche und russische Soldaten in Zukunft in der Ukraine gegenseitig erschießen. Aber ich bin mir nicht sicher, was die deutsche Regierung will. Sie fährt einen Zickzackkurs. An einem Tag heizt sie als NATO-Mitglied zusammen mit den USA den Krieg in der Ukraine an, indem sie die Spannungen gegenüber Russland erhöht. Und an einem anderen Tag versucht sie, die Freundschaft oder zumindest den Respekt gegenüber Russland zu wahren etwa indem sie NATO-Kriegstreiber wie Breedlove öffentlich kritisiert. Welche Linie sich da in Zukunft durchsetzen wird, ist offen.
Und wie bewerten Sie den Abgang des Scharfmachers Anders Fogh Rasmussen als NATO-Generalsekretär? Wird Jens Stoltenberg womöglich eher friedfertigerer Nachfolger sein? Oder anders: Wieviel Einfluss hat der so genannte Generalsekretär eigentlich auf die konkrete NATO-Politik?
Wenn sie die Geschichte der NATO studieren, erkennen sie leicht, dass der Generalsekretär immer ein Europäer ist, also derzeit mit Stoltenberg ein Norweger oder zuvor mit Rasmussen ein Däne. Aber das sollte die Europäer nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass die USA das Sagen haben in der NATO. Der wichtigste Posten ist nämlich nicht jener des Generalsekretärs, sondern der des Supreme Allied Commander Europe, denn hier liegt das militärische Kommando, und das ist immer ein amerikanischer General, derzeit also Breedlove.
Hat Stoltenberg die Kriegstreiberei von Breedlove öffentlich kritisiert oder ihn gestoppt? Nein, denn das kann er gar nicht. Die Aufgabe von Stoltenberg als Generalsekretär besteht vor allem darin, der NATO ein europäisches Gesicht zu geben. Das wirkt in Europa viel besser als wenn immer ein US-Diplomat auftritt.
Ich glaube also nicht, dass Stoltenberg die NATO in eine friedensbringende Organisation verwandeln will oder kann. Und zwar auch deswegen, weil der Leistungsausweis der NATO der letzten beiden Dekaden veranschaulicht, dass NATO-Kriege und die Technik des Regime Change über all diese Jahre hinweg allerorten zerstörte Länder mit traumatisierten Menschen zurückgelassen haben, in Libyen, in Irak und in Afghanistan. Ich hoffe nicht, dass nun auch noch die Ukraine auf diese traurige Liste kommt.
Ich bedanke mich für das Gespräch.
Weiterschauen und -lesen:
George Friedman: “Europe: Destined for Conflict?”
Daniele Ganser: Die Nato dehnt sich aus und nicht Russland
Daniele Ganser (Dr. phil.) ist Schweizer Historiker, spezialisiert auf Zeitgeschichte seit 1945 und Internationale Politik. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Friedensforschung, Geostrategie, verdeckte Kriegsführung, Ressourcenkämpfe und Wirtschaftspolitik. Er unterrichtet an der Universität St. Gallen (HSG) zur Geschichte und Zukunft von Energiesystemen und an der Universität Basel im Nachdiplomstudium Konfliktanalysen zum globalen Kampf ums Erdöl. Er leitet das Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (SIPER) in Basel.
Former Head of UBK State Security Agency Zoran Verusevski. Photo: Dnevnik
Free Ukraine Now 