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DPR defense ministry reports 34 episodes of shelling by Kiev troops

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From TASS, March 21, 2015

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/. Thirty-four episodes of shelling by Kiev troops at militia positions and settlements of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have been fixed over the past 24 hours, republic’s defence ministry reports.

There have been no early reports about casualties among the population, but destruction in the private sector has been reported, the Donetsk News Agency quotes the ministry as saying.

“The enemy attacked both positions of militias and residential areas,” the ministry reported, adding that the cities of Gorlovka, Donetsk and Lozovoye were also shelled.

Marathon talks between the Normandy Four leaders – Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko – in Minsk on February 12 yielded a package of agreements, which in particular envisaged ceasefire between the Ukrainian conflicting sides starting from midnight on February 15.

The package of measures envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometers wide for artillery systems with a caliber of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometers wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U.

The final document says that the Ukrainian troops are to be pulled back away from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.

http://tass.ru/en/world/784157

Occupants or liberators: the USSR’s role in WW II

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From TASS

Putin blasts attempts to rewrite history of Russia’s role in WWII as ‘cynical lies’
March 17, 2015

Defamation of the whole generation of people, who gave everything for this Victory and stood up for peace in the world is aimed at eroding the power and moral authority of modern Russia, Putin says

People in Sofia greeting Soviet soldiers, 1944

People in Sofia greeting Soviet soldiers, 1944

© Fotokhronika TASS

 MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. Recent attempts to rewrite the history of the World War II and Russia’s role in it are nothing but ‘cynical lies’ aimed to deprive the country of its ‘victor-country status,’ President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

The Russian president said that “the insolent defamation of the whole generation of people, who gave everything they had for this Victory and stood up for peace in the world,” was aimed “at eroding the power and moral authority of modern Russia and to deprive it of the status of the victor-country with all the following international legal consequences.”

Russian President has instructed Russia’s Victory Day celebration organizing committee to effectively counter attempts to distort the truth about World War II.

“The task of the Russian organizing committee in each Russian region is to effectively counter these challenges with the citizens’ active participation and support; it is important to use all the possibilities to tell the truth about the Fatherland history, about combat heroism and labor achievements of our ancestors, to open the doors before those who want to become known in this field, fulfil their aspiration to make a contribution to the national cause, patriotic education, defending the own country’s national interests,” the president said at a meeting of the Victory organizing committee.

http://tass.ru/en/russia/783247

False statements on attitude to Soviet WWII soldiers easily refuted
March 20, 2015

Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration made this statement visiting a Second World War memorial in Moscow together with head of the General Office of the Communist Party of China

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. False statement about Soviet troops treated “not as liberators but as occupants” during World War Two are easily refuted by documents, including by photographs of those years, Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergey Ivanov said while visiting a Second World War memorial in Moscow together with head of the General Office of the Communist Party of China Li Zhanshu.

Ivanov noted that various statements to this effect that could be heard now were nothing else but attempts to falsify history. They claim that “that was not liberation but enslavement and occupation”. “When we show photos depicting people with flowers welcoming Soviet troops, these myths are debunked,” he said.

Ivanov and Li Zhanshu began the museum tour by visiting the Hall of Remembrance and Sorrow, which honors all Soviet people who perished in the war or were reported missing.

The two politicians also visited an international exhibition dedicated to the 1938 Battle of Wuhan and Soviet assistance to China in its struggle against Japan.

In conclusion, their paid a visit to the Hall of Glory featuring feats of heroism by Red Army soldiers and officers.

http://tass.ru/en/russia/784072

The US is juggling chaos and coordination in order to contain China

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An exceptional, in-depth article on the threats to China, and the U.S. involvement.

From Oriental Review.org
By Andrew Korybko
March 16, 2015

It’s no secret by now that the US is dead set on containing China, yet it’s shying away from engaging in a direct confrontation with it. Instead, the US is managing a dual policy of creating chaos along China’s western and southwest reaches, while coordinating a containment alliance along its southeastern and northeastern periphery. Central Asia, northeast India, and Myanmar represent the chaos components, while the ‘unsinkable aircraft carriers’ of Japan and the Philippines are the coordinated ones. In this manner, the US is literally surrounding the country with hostile situations and states (with the obvious exception being the Russian frontier), hoping that this can disorient China’s decision makers and consequently pave the way for the external destabilization to infiltrate inwards. Amidst all this plotting, China isn’t sitting on its hands and behaving passively, since it has three specific strategies in mind to break the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) and counter the US’ Pivot to Asia.

Cultivating Chaos

The western and southwestern strategy of the CCC is to create a destabilized ‘rimland’ capable of infecting China’s vulnerable peripheral provinces with contagious chaos. This section examines how American grand strategy in Central and West Southeast Asia is designed to do just that, while a previous publication by the author already explored the prospects of a chain reaction of Color Revolutions emanating from Hong Kong.

Turkmenistan:
The Central Asian ‘hermit state’ is identified as the country most vulnerable to a transnational Taliban offensive sometime in the future. Should this come to pass and the country is not properly prepared to defend itself, then the disastrous consequences would immediately spread to Russia, Iran, and China, as was explained in a previous article by the author. Pertaining to the latter, this involves the massive destabilization of China’s regional gas imports from its largest current supplier, which would of course have negative reverberations in Xinjiang, the ultimate target of the US’ Central Asian chaos policies as they apply to the People’s Republic. The more endangered and insecure China’s continental energy imports are, the more reliant the country becomes on receiving them via maritime channels, which given the US’ naval superiority, places them directly under Washington’s control in the event of a crisis.

Kyrgyzstan:
The chaotic threat originating in Kyrgyzstan is more tangible than the one in Turkmenistan, as the Map_of_Central_Asiamountainous republic directly abuts Xinjiang. When looking at the US’ destructive Central Asian strategy, it becomes evident that it has an interest in ushering in the collapse of the Kyrgyz government via a new Color Revolution in order to, among other things, create an Uighur terrorist haven that can enflame the externally directed ethno-religious insurgency against Beijing. From the perspective of American foreign policy, then, a crisis in Kyrgyzstan is a geopolitical lever that can be ‘pulled’ to activate more instability in Xinjiang, with the aim of potentially luring the People’s Liberation Army into a quagmire. In the general scheme of things, both Central Asian republics, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, are essentially anti-Chinese weapons waiting to be (de)constructed by the US for use against the strategic province of Xinjiang, with Uzbekistan also playing a similar role if it implodes (or is prodded to do so by the US).

Northeast India:
In this corner of India, which could culturally be considered the northwestern fringe of Southeast Asia, the myriad ethnic tensions and bubbling insurgencies there could make the leap from being a domestic to an international crisis. The author previously assessed that one of the repercussions of last year’s Bodo-inspired violence was to destabilize the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) trade corridor, which would negatively affect Beijing’s plans for a ‘Bay of Bengal Silk Road’. Internationalizing the situation, however, could see ethnic warfare emboldening militant non-state actors in Myanmar, with the end goal that they finally destabilize Yunnan Province, the most culturally diverse area in China that has even been liked to “a perfect microcosm” of it. Although there is no evidence that has yet been procured to suggest that the US played any role in instigating the latest violence in Assam, it doesn’t mean that it can’t do so in the future, especially now that the die of ethnic tension has already been cast. This Damocles’ Sword is continually hanging over the head of India’s decision makers, since they understand that it can be applied against them in the event that they resist Washington’s pressure to commit more closely to the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC).

Myanmar:
The greatest conventional threat to China along its southern edge (notwithstanding a hostile India) lies in the overspill of ethnic warfare from Myanmar into Yunnan. This is actually already happening, since the recent violence in Kokang (Shan State) has forced thousands from their homes and into China as refugees, where they are reportedly being seen as ‘burdensome’ to the authorities. Quite obviously, China comprehends the vulnerabilities of Yunnan to Xinjiang-like external destabilization, albeit manifested in a different manner, hence its sensitivity to what may be the reignition of Myanmar’s civil war. After all, the unexpected outbreak of violence has yet again delayed the country’s long-awaited peace talks from being concluded, which were reportedly set to be finalized prior to this.

Now, however, other ethnic groups have become emboldened by the clashes, and are sending their own fighters and mercenaries to Kokang, which has also been put under martial law. It now looks like the fragile nationwide peace process is on the verge of being completely shattered, and the fighting may spread to other ethnic regions if their respective militias decide to take advantage of any perceived government setbacks in Kokang to launch their own offensives. All of this would lead to the deterioration of Yunnan’s security and the influx of thousands of more refugees, some of whom may even be militant-affiliated and intent on starting their own uprisings inside China. It is this factor that scares Beijing the most, namely, that Yunnan’s jungles could one day become home to Xinjiang-like fighters intent on throwing another corner of the country into chaos.

Chaotic Patterns:
Making sense out of this grand chaos is the fact that it does follow some semblance of order in terms of US strategy. The countries in focus are along China’s western and southwestern edge, which is already j09-xinj-340ripe for ethnic provocations. Additionally, two of the states abutting the targeted provinces, Kyrgyzstan for Xinjiang and Myanmar for Yunnan, are inherently unstable for their own reasons, thus making them ‘ticking time bombs’ that could be prodded by the US to explode on China’s doorstep. As regards Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and northeast India, their destabilizations are tripwires for the two main ‘bombs’, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar, although the disruption of any of the three aforementioned areas does undermine China in its own right. In short, this vector of American grand strategy is aimed at the destruction of key peripheral states surrounding China in order to chip away at the strength of the central government along its own peripheral areas, two of which (Xinjiang and Yunnan) are susceptible to outside-directed destabilization aimed at ethnic agitation.

Coordinating Containment

On the other side of China, the US is crafting a Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) to confront Beijing and provoke it into a Reverse Brzezinski intervention in the South China Sea (if it isn’t dragged into one in Myanmar first). Japan and the Philippines are the centerpieces of this strategy, and South Korea and Vietnam are envisioned as playing crucial roles as well. Let’s take a look at Washington’s plans for each highlighted country, as well as how they all fit together into the bigger picture:

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Against the US regime change operation: The Syrian people spoke, and they want to keep Assad

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How do we stop this machine of death? That’s the question! I’m not sure, but I am sure that one of the initial steps will be learning to respect the rights of a people to control who their own elected officials are and, in this case, this means respecting the fact that the Syrian people have chosen to stick with Bashar Al-Assad!

This is from last year, June 19, 2014, after the election.

From Prayers for Syria.com
By Father Dave

I did not vote for Bashar Al-Assad.

I didn’t vote in the Syrian elections at all because I am not Syrian! If I had been Syrian I don’t know if I would have voted for Assad. I really didn’t take a close look at the persons running against him, and why would I? I’m not Syrian!

As an Australian, it’s none of my business to decide who runs Syria! Why can’t the rest of the non-Syrian world accept this simple fact – that who holds public office in Syria is not our decision? Moreover, the Syrian people have spoken unambiguously as to whom they want running their country. Assad scored roughly 90% of the vote!

To those who have labelled the election as farcical and illegitimate, a few pointers:

Firstly, the voter turnout was incredible! Apparently 72% of those who were able to vote did vote and, according to my friends who went to Syria as neutral observers of the election, there was no evidence of coercion or fraud.

Secondly, while those who voted from within Syria were all from government-controlled areas, that actually accounts for about 90% of all Syrians still living in Syria. Government forces now control all of the major cities. It’s only the outlying rural villages that are controlled by the rebels now.

Moreover, the six million Syrians who have been displaced – either internally or as refugees in Lebanon and Jordan – are almost all from rebel-controlled areas. Syrians aren’t fleeing government-controlled cities. They are fleeing from the rebel-controlled areas to the government-controlled cities.

Thirdly, the voter turnout in countries like Lebanon was extraordinary! Millions of refugees cast their vote, and they voted overwhelmingly for Assad!  The Western media had no explanation for this so they simply ignored it!

Of course those who refuse to accept the outcome of the election are not Syrians but are more likely to be Americans.

John Kerry said that the very idea of holding an election during a civil war was outrageous. I guess he was relying on the fact that there are now no Americans still living who can remember the re-election of Abraham Lincoln who won his second term right in the middle of the bloody US Civil War. I can’t imagine Kerry thinks that the non-participation of the Confederates in that election (almost all of whom would have voted against Lincoln) delegitimised it, even though Confederates made up one third of the total population!

In truth, I don’t think we can take the U.S.A. seriously any more as an arbitrator of electoral fairness (if we ever could). We’ve recently watched Washing give its imprimatur to sham elections in both Egypt and the Ukraine, where empty voting booths in both cases testified to the vacuous nature of these attempts to give respectability to governments that had seized power by military coup.

No. The response of the US to the Syrian election is entirely reminiscent of their response to the election of Hamas in Palestine in 2006. There was really no question that the results were fair and representative of the will of the people. The problem, so far as Washington was concerned, was simply that the people had elected the wrong candidate.

Of course the problem in the case of Syria is that there was no US-preferred candidate on the ballot papers! If things had been different and if Obama had been given the green light to carpet-bomb Damascus last year we would ended up with Syrians being given a choice between a handful of US puppets, with none of the key rebel groups (let alone Assad supporters) being allowed to participate!

So this is where we are up to in what we call the ‘War on Terror’, or was it the ‘Battle for Democracy and Freedom’, or was it the ‘Civilizing of the pagan world’? No … I think that last one was either the Nazis or the crusaders (or both). Either way, it’s the same rampaging machine of imperial violence that has cursed humanity in every age, wearing, as ever, that same transparent veil of self-righteous moralism.

How do we stop this machine of death? That’s the question! I’m not sure, but I am sure that one of the initial steps will be learning to respect the rights of a people to control who their own elected officials are and, in this case, this means respecting the fact that the Syrian people have chosen to stick with Bashar Al-Assad!

Father Dave
 Parish Priest, Professional Boxer, Community Worker, Agitator
www.fatherdave.org…
www.prayersforsyria.com…
www.israelandpalestine.org…

The Syrian people have spoken and they want to keep Assad!

Syria is like a hunted animal, being slowly killed one American arrow at a time

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This website has some exceptional information about Syria.

From Prayers for Syria.com,  September 30, 2014

The following article is written by my friend, Declan Hayes – a passionate Irishman. I was with Declan in Damascus in April of this year. He has been back to Syria twice since then and spent the bulk of his time meeting with ordinary individuals and families on the front line, and doing his best to contribute to the rebuilding of the country.

Declan is an academic by trade – a lecturer in finance at the University of Southampton – and hence not the most obvious character to be playing a key role in the rebuilding of Syria, and yet it tends to be the Good Lord’s pattern to choose the most unlikely characters to spearhead His work.

Declan introduces his article as follows:

“The comments that follow are based on my experiences and observations from the last month which I spent in government-controlled Syria, in particular, from my time in Damascus, Ma’lulah, Saydnaya, Latakia and Kasab where I saw at first-hand the results of the terrorist war of attrition the Syrian rebels, Turkey and their Western allies are waging against the Syrian people.”

Declan’s article is long and it is a hard read as it will likely bring a tear to your eye. But I would encourage you to read it through to the end. Our Western governments need to know what they are involved in in Syria and if no one speaks out then the killing will continue unabated.

Father Dave

———————————————————————

By Dr Declan Hayes

Syria is like a hunted animal, being slowly killed one American arrow at a time. In Syria’s north east, the Islamic State forces, obviously trained, supported and supplied by their regional allies, Turkey in particular, inflict heavy losses on the outgunned Syrian Arab Army forces. In the north, roving bands of Western armed and funded “moderate” gangs, aided and assisted by Turkey, plunder isolated Christian communities at will, slaughtering the inhabitants and, crucially, ripping the heart out of these communities.

Across the border, in Turkey, Western aid, most of it channeled through the terrorist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood organization, is given to the Islamic bands who control the refugee camps; some of the aid is given to the families of the fighters, more is given to opportunistic entrepreneurs and the rest is sent to the “moderate” Islamic fighters across the border in Syria to help them rid areas contiguous to Turkey of all non-Sunni minorities. All of this is designed to dismember Syria and to divide it, like ancient Gaul and modern Iraq, into three dysfunctional but malleable pieces, all the better to control and exploit it.

Aleppo, the industrial heartland of Syria, has been stripped of its factories, which have been sold as war booty in Turkey. Scores of civilians remain missing, sold, no doubt in Raqaa to Turks or Saudis who are not too particular how they acquire their non-Sunni sex slaves whom they regard as sub-humans.

Across the border, Lebanese soldiers are kidnaped by American-trained rebels and are beheaded so that Lebanon, which stands at the edge of the Syrian abyss, might also be devoured by the sectarian fires all of Syria’s armed rebels, along with their foreign mercenaries and the foreign powers, which fund them, stoke.

In the north, the mothers of Tartous and Latakia continue to bury their sons, who die in the uniforms of the Syria Arab Army, defending their families from the unspeakable fate Obama’s moderate rebels have decreed for them and which was visited in person to the mothers of Latakia in August 2013 by suspected war criminal and White House darling General Sam Idriss, when his moderate rebels kidnapped hundreds of women and children and slaughtered entire villages for no other crime than being moderate in their beliefs.  Syria’s Christians, meanwhile, their churches ransacked, scour the world, looking for a refuge, any refuge, from the fate that the West has decreed for them and for Lebanon’s Christians by the hands of the moderate Syrian rebels, who delight only in death and destruction, pillage and rape.

To the south, Israeli artillery units give covering fire to moderate rebels as they over-run Druze villages and behead their elders. In the outskirts of Damascus, the story is not much different. The moderate rebels shell residential communities on a daily basis and, when the Syrian Army counter-attacks, the West condemns them for defending their homeland against foreign rebels and mercenaries who brook no resistance, who countenance no contrary opinion and who execute all who are not fully subservient to them and their sectarian, slaughter campaign.

Syria’s true opposition, meanwhile, are numbed into inertia by all of this. This group, which includes opposition MPs, doctors working in Syria’s hospitals, as well as voluntary and church workers, cannot understand why Syria’s most sectarian forces, the extremist and ultra-sectarian Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in particular, are the darlings of the West. Though they can point to countless atrocities committed by these embittered thugs, they cannot understand why the John Kerry continues not only to wine and dine them but also allows them to continue their criminal enterprises.

This is not to say that they do not comprehend what the Pentagon has in store for Syria and her people; with Iraq just over the border, no one could fail to understand that the entire region is being fashioned to the design of the obnoxious regime of Saudi Arabia, which beheads far more people than do their Islamic State proxies and which suppresses freedom of expression in Bahrain with the same gusto than do the moderate rebels in Syria.

They know that the rebels could not function without the help of Saudi Arabia and Turkey and that their help is, in turn, conditional on the United States and the human rights groups she controls turning a blind eye to their crimes. They know all that but they cannot understand why the West wants to sacrifice them on the altar of Saudi Arabia’s ugly obscurantism. They cannot understand why Turkey is allowed to collude in blatant war crimes against the civilians of Kasab, Idlib and Aleppo and why the West also colludes in the final solution of extermination that is their lot.

The West’s leaders could be a part of the solution and not the problem if they wished. First off, they could immediately criminalize the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and prosecute those involved in its charity racketeering. Next off, they could investigate the role of Turkey’s leaders in the vast number of atrocities that have their paw prints indelibly embedded in them and take appropriate action against them and the Turkish state. Next, it could send fact-finding delegations to Damascus to get a feel for life under perpetual mortar fire, fortified by the West’s sanctions.

They could do all that and more but they do not want to because they want Syria destroyed and her people pauperized and impoverished. The moderate rebels have driven Syria’s farmers off their lands, they have stripped bare the factories of Aleppo, America’s green light has allowed them to hire armies of rapacious Chechen mercenaries and pay them three times as much in a day than Syrian soldiers can hope to earn in a month. That is the White House way.

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Authorities in Latvian capital permit march of Waffen SS legion veterans

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From TASS, March 5, 2015

Russian-speaking anti-fascists will hold an action of protest the same day

Latvian Waffen SS legion veterans march

Latvian Waffen SS legion veterans march
© ITAR-TASS/Timur Subkhankulov

RIGA, March 5. /TASS/. City Hall in the Latvian capital Riga has issued permission to Latvia’s extremist organizations to hold public events on March 16, which is observed unofficially as the day of commemoration of the Latvian Waffen SS legion.

Russian-speaking anti-fascists will hold an action of protest the same day, the City Hall spokesman Ugis Vidauskis told reporters on Thursday.

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Riga’s City Hall received four requests for holding public functions on March 16 this year. The organization of Waffen SS veterans, Daugavas Vanagi (the Daugava Hawks in Latvia) plans holding a traditional march of former Latvian legion soldiers and their supporters from among the young radicals to Freedom Monument in the downtown from 11:00 hours to 13:00 hours EET.

A meeting of Society in Support of National Warriors is to take place on the square in front of the Freedom Monument from 06:00 hours to 13:00 hours.

The Latvian Anti-Fascist Committee has scheduled an action of protest against the march of the legion veterans.

Igor Shishkin (Latvian spelling Igors Siskins), the leader of a radical nationalist center named after Latvia’s notorious Nazi collaborationist Gustavs Celmins, has filed a private request for permitting an action near the Freedom Monument on March 16.

Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma said on Wednesday government ministers would not take part in the Waffen SS proponents’ march.

“All the ministers have consent on and understanding of the fact that the nationwide Day of Memory of Fallen Soldiers is November 11 and that’s why they’ll abstain from the potentially provocative public actions,” she said.

On the eve of March 16, 2014, the government passed an official decision to prohibit ministers’ participation in the public events organized by radicals.

This year, however, the Minister of Environment and Regional Development, Einars Cilinskis who represents the nationalistic bloc said he was going to join the march in spite of the ban. In the wake of his decision, Prime Minister Straujuma took a decision to dismiss him.

http://tass.ru/en/world/781343

Moscow condemns EU attempts to use Victory Day anniversary for attacks on Russia

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From TASS, March 5, 2015

Children congratulate a Russian WWII veteran on May 9, the Victory Day

Children congratulate a Russian WWII veteran on May 9, the Victory Day

© ITAR-TASS/Stanislav Krasilnikov

 Infographics The US and Ukraine voted against the UN resolution condemning the glorification of NazismThe US and Ukraine voted against the UN resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism
The text of the resolution proposes banning the whitewashing and glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former Waffen-SS members, erecting monuments to them and holding public rallies to commemorate them. Infographics TASS

MOSCOW, 5 March. /TASS/. Attempts to distort the truth about World War II are an insult to the memory of the victims of Nazism and millions of Soviet soldiers who died for the liberation of Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a briefing on Thursday.

“We condemn the desire of the European Union to use the upcoming VE-Day anniversary for new attacks on Russia,” he said. “We call on the EU to stop playing along with the openly revanchist sentiments of some of its members used in an opportunistic attempt to revise the results of World War II and the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal.”

Lukashevich drew attention to the statement by a European Union representative at the UN General Assembly session, adopting the resolution on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, alleging that this event brought not freedom to many European countries, but new crimes against humanity. The Russian diplomat said that EU representatives had made such statements before, in particular, during the November 2014 vote in the UN General Assembly on the resolution against the glorification of Nazism and during adopting the declaration on the 79th anniversary of the end of World War II at a meeting of the OSCE Council of Ministers in Basel in December 2014.

Latvian Waffen SS legion veterans march

© ITAR-TASS/Timur Subkhankulov

 Authorities in Latvian capital permit march of Waffen SS legion veterans

“So the statement made by the EU official in the UN is not accidental,” he said. “In this regard, we express our indignation and strong opposition to this arbitrary and blasphemous pseudo-legal appraisal. We regret that the EU has again done the bidding of some of its members that are obsessed with anti-Russian aspirations and resorted to the absolutely unacceptable interpretation of events related to World War II.”

Lukashevich said that after the liberation of occupied territories by the Red Army “numerous accounts of atrocities and crimes committed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators against civilians of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were collected and documented.”

“It should be emphasised that the principles enshrined in the UN Charter and decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal are recognized by the UN General Assembly as the principles of international law, so any EU attempts to distort the truth about World War II or the Nuremberg Tribunal decisions are an insult to the memory of millions and millions of Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Europe, innocent victims of the Nazi regime.”.

http://tass.ru/en/russia/781292

U.S. propaganda in Korea exposes American TV as social engineering tool

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“Convincing a population to be self-absorbed moral and social degenerates is “mind-altering,” however it has little or nothing to do with the pursuit of freedom. The weakness sown amongst populations encouraged to break up first their families, then their local communities, is tantamount to a domestic military campaign of sociopolitical “divide and conquer.” Local communities that are incapable of organizing themselves, because individuals themselves are incapable of building families, reduces the potential of competitors rising up and challenging the status quo established by Wall Street and Washington.

More importantly, it encourages servile dependency on a particular type of consumerist paradigm perfected and exclusively dominated by Western interests that best feeds the sort of self-absorbed behavior endlessly promoted across Western media.

I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Father Knows Best, Happy Days, Golden Girls, Friends, MTV, Gilligan’s Island, Cops, Cheers, Desperate Housewives,  and the endless sitcoms and now “reality” shows, Dancing with the Stars and American Idol — there is so much to distract from real people, relationships, community, and issues. While “I Love Lucy” was popular, the U.S. was doing atomic weapons testing. “My Three Sons” played while the Vietnam War raged and the civil rights movement struggled. Millions of Americans, glued to their TV screens, watch “heart-warming” dramas or “cute” comedies, while critical issues are neglected and people die. Children grow up expecting all the things they see on TV, including the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”, as reality. TV advertisements say that happiness comes from buying the right things. American young people aim for “good-paying” jobs which will allow them to accumulate material luxuries and retire early.

It’s been very successful, this social engineering.  Advertisements show happy families having quality time together…around a television set. A TV or screen in every room. People don’t talk to each other, even lose the ability to connect with each other.  Children go outside to play less and less, don’t go camping with their families or on picnics, and don’t get together with neighborhood kids to play. Together with technology’s intrusion, what the industry itself calls “disruptive”, many American families are increasingly empty and fragmented. Decreasing satisfaction from family life and married life leads to greater consumerism — it’s a self-feeding cycle.  The toll that online pornography has taken on young men is well known; that fewer and fewer are able to have a healthy relationship is a frightening societal trend. Finally, it seems that community focus and community life is diminishing rapidly.

TV doesn’t shatter illusions; it builds them. That is part of the allure.And while we are watching even the most noteworthy program, life is going by around us — real opportunities, real people, real recreation, real life.

On an old BBC series, “All Creatures Great and Small”, one of the characters remarked about the coming of television to England, “Think of it — millions of people are watching exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.” That fact has not escaped the attention of our respective governments.

The best thing for ourselves, our communities, and our countries would be for people to turn TVs and technology off.

From  New Eastern Outlook, 3-20-15
By Tony Cartalucci

When Wired published its article, “The Plot to Free North Korea with Smuggled Episodes of ‘Friends,’” it probably hoped that its impressionable, politically ignorant audience would not pick up on the underlying facts and their implications, and simply see a “cute” anecdote poking fun at the besieged East Asian country while inflating their own sense of unwarranted cultural superiority.

What they missed, of course, is the fact that the program peddled by Wired as the work of “the North Korea Strategy Center and its 46-year-old founder, Kang Chol-hwan,” is in fact funded and organized instead by the US State Department.

Indeed, the North Korea Strategy Center is partnered directly with the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the US Department of State, the US State Department’s Radio Free Asia propaganda network, and the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a defacto “department of regime change” backed by Wall Street’s Fortune 500, solely for the interests of Wall Street’s Fortune 500.

Readers of Wired’s latest, long-winded spin on US-backed sedition abroad also most likely missed the fact that if TV shows from America are considered a tool for social engineering in North Korea, they are most likely being used as a tool of social engineering in the United States as well. The degradation of American culture, the family, and weakening of local communities, versus the growing centralized dominance of corporate-financier monopolies and their increasingly draconian police and surveillance state is a direct result of this.

Wired would admit in their article that:

Kang likens the USB sticks to the red pill from The Matrix: a mind-altering treatment that has the power to shatter a world of illusions. “When North Koreans watch Desperate Housewives, they see that Americans aren’t all war-loving imperialists,” Kang says. “They’re just people having affairs or whatever. They see the leisure, the freedom. They realize that this isn’t the enemy; it’s what they want for themselves. It cancels out everything they’ve been told. And when that happens, it starts a revolution in their mind.”

Indeed, convincing a population to be self-absorbed moral and social degenerates is “mind-altering,” however it has little or nothing to do with the pursuit of freedom. The weakness sown amongst populations encouraged to break up first their families, then their local communities, is tantamount to a domestic military campaign of sociopolitical “divide and conquer.” Local communities that are incapable of organizing themselves, because individuals themselves are incapable of building families, reduces the potential of competitors rising up and challenging the status quo established by Wall Street and Washington.

More importantly, it encourages servile dependency on a particular type of consumerist paradigm perfected and exclusively dominated by Western interests that best feeds the sort of self-absorbed behavior endlessly promoted across Western media.

Essentially, NKSC is not working to “free” anyone. Instead, they are working to corral North Koreans out of one cage, and into another. Some might argue this “other cage” is more comfortable, but it is still a cage nonetheless. It is not done for any altruistic purpose, but simply to enroll millions more from yet another region of the planet into Wall Street’s global-spanning, unsustainable, exploitative consumerist paradigm – one which strangles the environment, society, and individuals.

How can NKSC Show People the “Truth” if it Can’t Even be Honest About Who is Behind its Work?It is also a consumerist paradigm admittedly being built up and sustained with US taxpayers’ money, through the US State Department whose mission is allegedly to represent the American people and their best interests, but which is instead demonstrably imposing US corporate-financier interests on other people, through tricks when possible, and through force when necessary.

Wired’s article, like many others it has written to spin what is essentially colonialism 2.0, is meant to give readers a sense of moral superiority over the West’s many perceived enemies.

That Wired never mentions the US State Department’s role in this particular propaganda campaign illustrates that not only are people being manipulated, they are being manipulated through an extraordinarily dishonest campaign. Would Kang’s sedition be as palatable to North Koreans if they knew it was in fact fully funded, supported, and even the creation of the US State Department? Would that bolster Kang’s allegations that North Korea is unreasonably paranoid regarding American designs to subvert, destroy, and overrun the nation? Or does the fact that his work is fully underwritten by the US State Department undermine entirely the lies he uses to defend it?

When offering “freedom” to others, truth and transparency is essential. The ill-informed or misinformed cannot make truly honest decisions about their future. If North Korea’s crime is deceiving its people about the state of the world beyond its borders, than Kang and the North Korea Strategy Center’s campaign to show them the “true world” with propaganda funded by the US State Department – a fact never mentioned by Kang and the NKSC – is just as deceptive.

As is often said, two wrongs don’t make a right – and that’s if one foolishly assumes the US State Department is seeking to make a right in the first place.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/20/us-propaganda-op-in-korea-exposes-american-tv-as-social-engineering-tool/

 

The Western connection in the assassination of Serbia’s Prime Minister Djindjic on March 14, 2003

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Posted on the Saker, March 20, 2015

by Nikola Vrzic

Several days ago, on March 12th, Serbia marked another – twelfth – anniversary of the assassination of Serbia’s prime minister Zoran Djindjic. The official narrative of Djindjic, as a reformer who was killed by criminals and Serbian nationalists, this year was confronted with evidence revealing the story as much more complex, with a strong presence of Western, primarily British and US secret services…

The official version of Djindjic’s death, established on a day of his assassination in 2003 and later confirmed by the court, says that Djindjic, pro-Western reformer, “the quisling of Belgrade” as Neil Clark called him in The Guardian on March 14 2003, was killed by members of (Belgrade suburb) Zemun criminal clan and “red berets”, Serbian secret police unit for special operations which had fought in wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Criminals, the story goes, wanted Djindjic dead as they wanted to avoid their imminent arrest, while the “red berets”, allegedly supported by nationalistic circles in Serbian society (in the army, in political parties, Serbian orthodox church…), wanted Djindjic dead for his cooperation with The Hague Tribunal and, broadly speaking, betraying Serbian national interests by collaborating with the West.

Djindjic was killed as his motorcade came to the building of Serbian government. According to the official version, he got out of his car, walked (on crutches, he previously injured his left leg playing football) to the door which was closed, turned against the door in an attempt to open it himself by pushing it with his back, and at that point he was shot with a single bullet (which was never recovered). After Djindjic was shot, there was a second shot which injured Djindjic’s bodyguard Milan Veruovic and, piercing his body, ended in a stone wall next to the door where Djindjic was shot.

That is the official version.

This is where our investigation started.

In a recently published book “The Third Bullet. The Political Background of the Assassination of Zoran Djindjic” by Milan Veruovic, Djindjic’s wounded bodyguard, and the author of this article, journalist Nikola Vrzic, the official version of Serbian PM’s assassination is scrutinized through comprehensive analysis of all the evidence presented to the court, testimonies, police documents…, and, as a result, the book refuted the official version of Djindjic’s assassination both in terms of what really happened on March 12 2003, as well as regarding the political motives that led to his death. In short, conspiracy seems to be much, much wider, going beyond Serbia’s borders.

Both witnesses’ testimonies and material evidence show there were three, not just two bullets fired on that day, which means – to make a longer story short – there was another sniper; again, both witnesses and all the material evidence prove that Djindjic was shot by that other sniper, as he did not turn his back to the government building trying to open the door himself (with nine bodyguards around him) – the door, in fact, was open – but he was shot facing the government building, meaning, from exactly the opposite direction than officially acknowledged; Djindjic’s entry wound (33×20 mm), consistent with damages on his clothes, is significantly larger than Veruovic’s entry wound (6×7 mm), which also proves that they were shot from two different rifles of different calibers, with Veruovic’s wound being consistent with the caliber (diameter of a bullet) 7,62 mm of the only rifle that was, officially, used on March 12 2003; as far as that rifle is concerned, the comparison of Serbian police’s documentation with the documentation of German police (which examined the rifle afterwards) show strong indications that different rifle was planted instead of the one originally found; in a days after Djindjic was shot, a man from Croatia, with criminal contacts, was identified as possibly being one of the assassins, however, Serbian police did not even present his photograph to the witnesses and did not follow up on this lead, but, instead, directed the public attention to an innocent Belgrade man in order to divert the attention from the Croatian trail; furthermore, the police concealed the automobile used by the Croatian man, and this automobile – black “Volvo” 240 – belonged to one of Serbian security services…

To cut a long story short, the official version proved to be the official lie about Djindjic’s assassination.

Which leads to the crucial question – who is guilty for this lie? One answer is obvious: police who investigated the crime, prosecutors and judges who confirmed the false official version, despite all the evidence and testimonies suggesting the opposite. Above them, Djindjic’s successors in his party and Serbian government, who had provided strong political support for the false official version, actively participating in establishing this, i.e. their version of Djindjic’s assassination.

These successors of Zoran Djindjic, it should be noted, are among the most pro-Western political forces in Serbia.

And this brings us to the, possibly, crucial aspect of the story. West’s involvement in the events preceding Djindjic’s assassination, as well as after it, in the establishment of the false official version, is profound.

Based on public documents, Serbian police and secret service documents, court testimonies, US diplomatic cables revealed by the WikiLeaks, we can be certain that:

– CIA’s agents in Hungary helped in arranging the protection of the crucial “protected witness” Ljubisa Buha Cume, former boss of Zemun criminal clan, who started the chain of events that led to Djindjic’s murder. British intelligence service also played its part in protecting this man, by arranging his transfer from Turkey to Slovakia when Zemun clan’s hitmen were after Buha.

– CIA had its agent inside the Zemun clan, Cedomir Mihajlovic (alias Igor Baruh). British service, according to court testimonies, also had the clan under the surveillance, and even had the information they were about to assassinate Djindjic – this according to Vladimir Popovic, former Djindjic’s associate with whom Djindjic parted in the fall of 2002.

– This man, Vladimir Popovic, who came to the government building exactly 5 minutes after Djindjic’s assassination and who can be regarded as the creator of the official version, was accused by former Serbian secret police chief Jovica Stanisic for being recruited by the British intelligence. Stanisic said this in the statement to the Serbian police when he was arrested. Popovic himself, in his court testimony, spoke about his contacts with British intelligence.

– UBPOK, Serbian police unit that conducted the investigation, was created shortly beforehand under the British auspice.

– Anthony Monckton, who was revealed as the MI6 agent in Serbia, also participated in the investigation, according to The Sunday Times and The Guardian.

– Special prosecutor Jovan Prijic, the author of the indictment based on the false official version, enjoyed political protection from then US ambassador in Belgrade Michael Polt, EU high representative Javier Solana and other Western diplomats, which was revealed when the government of Vojislav Kostunica tried to remove Prijic from the office. Eventually he was removed, however, on a condition to remain leading prosecutor in Djindjic’s case.

– US diplomatic cables, revealed by WikiLeaks, showed that US embassy in Belgrade, supervising the trial, was in constant contact with the presiding judge in Djindjic case, even consulting with him about who will, among Zemun clan members, become a protected witness, i.e. collaborator of the prosecution.

– Finally, German intelligence, during Djindjic’s lifetime, conducted a security check of his places of work and residence, which could mean that they knew exactly from which locations his life could be threatened. Their report was never presented to the Serbian authorities. Germans also officially participated in the investigation of Djindjic’s assassination.

And then, there is also Djindjic’s policy. Even though he was brought to power in Serbia with Western help, by the beginning of 2003, from being part of the solution when he was removing Slobodan Milosevic, he became part of the problem, endangering pax Americana in the Balkans by demanding Kosovo to remain part of Serbia and to immediately start negotiations on Kosovo’s final status, which was strongly opposed by both the US and the EU. He demanded Serbian police to return to Kosovo, according to the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1244. He threatened with the independence of Serbian republic in Bosnia in the case of Kosovo’s independence sponsored by Western powers. He refused to hand over the archives of Serbian police and army to The Hague Tribunal, refusing also to extradite Serbian generals which were about to be indicted by the Tribunal.

Before he was killed, Zoran Djindjic had been labeled as a “new Slobodan Milosevic” for his confronting the West.

After his death, this Djindjic’s policy of confronting the West was completely overturned by his successors, who made every attempt to make the public forget about Djindjic’s clash with the West prior to his assassination. Furthermore, Western engineering of Serbian political scene accelerated in the years following Djindjic’s death, eventually resulting in total consensus in Serbia’s parliament on country’s EU integrations.

Last, but not the least, after Djindjic’s death every party in Serbia held the power at some point. During this turmoil, everything could change but two things: Serbia continued to approach NATO – this also started after Djindjic’s assassination – and nobody dared to publicly question the official version of the murder of Zoran Djindjic. There must be a strong reason for this.

Western Connection in the Assassination of Serbia’s Prime Minister Djindjic

March 25-26, Washington DC, U.S.-Russia Forum: Advancing a Constructive Agenda for U.S.-Russian Relations

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Sponsored by the Eurasia Center, US-Russia.org, & Russian Center NY

US-Russia Forum
Advancing A Constructive Agenda for U.S.-Russia Relations
March 25-26, 2015
The United States Senate Office Building
The Russian Cultural Centre in Washington, DC

AGENDA FOR THE US-RUSSIA WORLD FORUM

REGISTRATION FOR THE US-RUSSIA WORLD FORUM
Please be advised that there is no registration fee to attend both Forum days except $100 for the Russian Embassy reception on March 26.

Program Schedule

Wednesday, March 25, 2015
The Russian Cultural Centre
1825 Phelps Place, NW, Washington, DC
10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Advancing US-Russia Educational and Science Cooperation:

Steven Barnes – George Mason University
Steve Breyman – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Sergei Chasovskikh – Georgetown University
Sharyl Cross – St. Edwards University
Igor Efimov – George Washington University
Rita Guenther – National Academy of Sciences
Maija Kukla – National Science Foundation
Edward Lozansky – American University in Moscow, Moderator
Michail Myagkov – Skolkovo
Artem Oganov – Stony Brook University & Skolkovo
Igor Okunev – Russian State University of International Relations (MGIMO)
Andrey Rezaev – St. Petersburg State University
Natalia Romashkina – National Research Nuclear University
Kevin Ryan – Harvard University
Michael Stopford – University of Nebraska
Nathaniel Trumbull – University of Connecticut
Nikolai Vasilyev – Harvard Medical School
Kendrick White – University of Nizhni Novgorod & Marchmont Capital Partners

Reception to follow
5:30 – 7:30 PM: Reception at The Russian Cultural Centre 

Thursday, March 26, 2015
Hart Senate Office Building, Room 216
Constitution Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets, NE, Washington, DC
2:30 – 6:00 PM with coffee break

Military conflict in Ukraine. Major Crisis in US – Russia relations. Searching for the way out.

2:30 – 4:00 PM:
His Excellency Sergei Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to US – Welcoming Remarks
Steven Cohen – New York and Princeton Universities
Gilbert Doctorow – European Committee for East – West Accord
Edward Lozansky – American University in Moscow, Moderator
John Mearsheimer – University of Chicago
Dana Rohrabacher (R -CA) – Member of Congress, TBC

4:00 – 4:20 PM: – Coffee Break

4:20 – 6:00 PM:
The Ukrainian Crisis: Alternative Media, Alternative Narratives.

Charles Bausman – Russia-Insider.com
James Carden – American Conservative
Katrina vanden Heuvel – The Nation, Moderator
Robert Parry – Consortium News
Ray McGovern – RayMcgovern.com
Patrick Smith – Salon.com

6:30 – 9:30 PM Reception at the Russian Embassy

 

Forum agenda:
http://www.eurasiacenter.org/2015%20US-Russia%20Forum%20Agenda%20Final.docx

Registration
http://www.eurasiacenter.org/2015%20US-Russia%20Forum%20Registration%20Form.doc