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West error to don Ukraine European: Analyst

Ukraine riot
© TACCThis would never be allowed in the US, according to FBI agents. Police would counter with deadly force.
Press TV has conducted an interview with James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst, from Washington, about the situation in Ukraine.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Our guest in New York [Mr. Peter Sinnott] is basically saying that the situation in Ukraine has nothing to do with external forces and is basically homegrown and a simple reaction to a government that the people no longer wanted, your take, sir.

Jatras: I think it's much more complicated than that. Certainly there are strong homegrown elements in Ukraine because there are very sharp divisions among people in Ukraine.

In the United States, we're familiar with the concept of the red states and blue states, and the divisions in Ukraine are far sharper and far more fundamental than even those in the United States.

Regarding this idea for example that the European orientation for Ukraine is something that the Ukrainian people wanted, this is not entirely true. Yes, a very large portion of the Ukrainian people want that but a very large portion of the Ukrainian people want a close relationship with Russia.

That's why it's a huge mistake of the Western powers to insist that Ukraine must have a single, pro-Western orientation.

Let's keep in mind too, the European Union was never offering Ukraine membership. They went out of their way to offer even the distant prospect of membership that this was purely a trade agreement and one that would lock Ukraine into a Western orientation essentially against Russia and against Ukraine's economic benefit especially in the eastern part of the country.

Horse

Horse hockey: US-Japan joint drill was not a message to China

military drill 'Iron fist'
© UnknownUS Marines and Japanese soldiers practiced how to invade and retake an island captured by enemy forces during a joint military drill in Camp Pendleton, California.

US military officials say a joint military exercise in which Japanese and US forces practiced how to invade an island was not a message to China.


In last week's annual military exercise, called Iron Fist, Japanese soldiers and US Marines practiced how to invade and retake an island captured by enemy forces in Camp Pendleton in the US state of California.

The joint drill came against the backdrop of rising tensions between China and Japan over a set of islands claimed by both countries in the East China Sea.

Tensions between Beijing and Tokyo dramatically intensified after Japan nationalized some of the islands in 2012. Beijing claims around 80 percent of the South China Sea as its historic waters.

However, according to the New York Times, US military officials insist that the joint military drill in California had nothing to do with the simmering territorial dispute between the two countries and was not a message to China.

Comment: Who can take what these guys say seriously anymore? A sign of the Orwellian world we live in, where double-speak is everywhere.


Display

'I'm not leaving': Yanukovich accuses opposition of coup d'etat, calls on EU to fulfill obligations

Ukrainian government
© Reuters / StringerA general view of Ukraine's parliament during the vote to remove President Viktor Yanukovich from office hours after he abandoned his Kiev office to protesters and denounced what he described as a coup, in a session in Kiev February 22, 2014.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has called the latest developments in the country a coup d'etat, denying speculations of his resignation. He also accused international mediators of not fulfilling their obligations.

"I'm always threatened with ultimatums. I'm not going to leave the country," Yanukovich said in an interview with local UBR TV channel. "I'm not going to resign. I'm a legitimately elected president."

The interview with the embattled president was broadcast right after the opposition claimed it had received verbal assurances that Yanukovich was resigning.

But as parliament deputies said they were waiting for the written confirmation on his resignation, the president announced his plans to travel across the country's southeast, which is "so far, less dangerous."

"Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and bandits and a coup d'etat," Yanukovich said in a televised statement.

On Saturday, Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) held a new emergency session, during which it passed a law on the return to the 2004 constitution without the president's signature, saying that the president had removed himself from power.

It also appointed a new head of the Ministry of Interior and a new head speaker of the Rada. In addition, parliament ruled to free former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison and set early presidential elections for May 25.

Comment: See also: US Hypocrisy and 'Regime change': The Simple Truth About Ukraine - Video


No Entry

Iceland no longer willing to join EU, referendum canceled

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© Fickr.com/aromano/cc-by-nc-sa 3.0
Iceland's government supported the proposal of Foreign Minister of the country Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson to drop the plan of joining the EU. The night before both the Progressive Party and the Independence Party reached an agreement to withdraw its application for accession to the European Union, Icelandic State TV and Radio Broadcasting Service reports.

The government also decided to cancel the referendum on whether to continue negotiations with the EU.

"In 2009, our former Foreign Minister suggested to submit a formal application for EU membership, so it was done. Quite naturally, I made a proposal to withdraw this statement," Sveinsson said to Icelandic reporters.

There is not much of a surprise in this outcome. Negotiations between Iceland and the European Union have been suspended more than a year ago. The center-right government that came to power in April has openly stated that it does not support the project of joining the European community, which their socialistic predecessors tried to realize.

In September, Foreign Ministry of Iceland dismissed 10 negotiating groups, advisory committee and national delegation, which had been working on issues related to the possible entry into the EU for the last four years.

Dominoes

Ukrainian opposition fails to deliver on deal with Yanukovych - Russian FM

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© RTRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday the opposition in Ukraine had failed to deliver on the Feb. 21 agreement with President Viktor Yanukovych. The Foreign Ministry said that was the message Lavrov conveyed to his German, Polish and French counterparts - the European Union trio that helped reach the deal between the rival sides in Kiev - on the phone on Saturday

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his deepest concern to the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland about the Ukrainian opposition's inability to negotiate on the agreement signed February 21 in Kiev, the Russian Foreign Ministry reports.

In a telephone conversation with his European colleagues, Lavrov "expressed the gravest concern about the opposition's inability to negotiate on the agreement signed February 21 in Kiev."

Stop

Polish minister warned Ukrainian protest leader: Back deal or die

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© ReutersPoland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski (centre) with other delegates after the deal was agreed.
Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was at the centre of negotiations between the Ukrainian government and opposition leaders.

Earlier in the day, the diplomat was overheard telling a Ukrainian opposition leader: "If you don't support this [deal] you'll have martial law, you'll have the army. You will all be dead."

He later told ITV News' Europe Editor James Mates that martial law in Ukraine was a "real possibility" and interior troops were being "readied" up until an agreement was signed.

The foreign minister told ITV News: "Well, as you can see it's almost miraculous. Within minutes of the agreement being signed the riot police are leaving."


Info

Denmark bans kosher and halal slaughter as minister says 'animal rights come before religion'

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© IndependentNew law, denounced as ‘anti-Semitism’ by Jewish leaders, comes after country controversially slaughtered a giraffe in public and fed him to lions.
Denmark's government has brought in a ban on the religious slaughter of animals for the production of halal and kosher meat, after years of campaigning from welfare activists.

The change to the law, announced last week and effective as of yesterday, has been called "anti-Semitism" by Jewish leaders and "a clear interference in religious freedom" by the non-profit group Danish Halal.

European regulations require animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered, but grants exemptions on religious grounds. For meat to be considered kosher under Jewish law or halal under Islamic law, the animal must be conscious when killed.

Yet defending his government's decision to remove this exemption, the minister for agriculture and food Dan Jørgensen told Denmark's TV2 that "animal rights come before religion".

Commenting on the change, Israel's deputy minister of religious services Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan told the Jewish Daily Forward: "European anti-Semitism is showing its true colours across Europe, and is even intensifying in the government institutions."

Comment:
Barbarians! Shameful! Marius the giraffe killed and dissected at Copenhagen zoo despite worldwide protests


Chess

Russia tells U.S. that Ukraine's peace deal is under threat

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© RIA NovostiRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday that the peace deal signed in Ukraine had been "sharply degraded by opposition forces' inability or lack of desire" to respect it, the ministry said.

"Illegal extremist groups are refusing to disarm and in fact are taking Kiev under their control with the connivance of opposition leaders," Lavrov told Kerry by telephone, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement.

Whistle

Silencing the Scientist: Tyrone Hayes on being targeted by herbicide firm Syngenta

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We speak with scientist Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, who discovered a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. But when he tried to publish the results, the chemical's manufacturer launched a campaign to discredit his work. Hayes was first hired in 1997 by a company, which later became agribusiness giant Syngenta, to study their product, atrazine, a pesticide that is applied to more than half the corn crops in the United States, and widely used on golf courses and Christmas tree farms. When Hayes found results Syngenta did not expect - that atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs, and could cause the same problems for humans - it refused to allow him to publish his findings. A new article in The New Yorker magazine uses court documents from a class action lawsuit against Syngenta to show how it sought to smear Hayes' reputation and prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is already banned by the European Union.

Comment: Additional articles about Dr. Tyron Hayes on going battle with the Syngenta Corporation:


Bad Guys

Tymoshenko tells Kiev protesters they should keep up protests

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© EPAYulia Tymoshenko
Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko urged President Viktor Yanukovich's opponents on Saturday not to abandon their protests in central Kiev even though parliament has voted to oust him.

In an emotional speech to thousands of protesters in Kiev's Independence Square after she was carried on to a stage in a wheelchair, she said: "You have no right to leave the Maidan (square)... Don't stop yet."

Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, was released earlier on Saturday from the hospital where she had been held under prison guard for much of the time since she was convicted in 2011 on charges of abuse of office. Supporters say the case was politically motivated.

Her speech was briefly interrupted by a heckler but she later carried on addressing the crowd. Some people welcomed her speech but others whistled.

Comment:
Free-dumb and Democrazi: Ukraine MPs vote for release of ex-PM and gas billionaire Tymoshenko, along with a return to 2004 CIA-imposed constitution

The Country Run by a Mafia: Ukrainian ex-PM Tymoshenko may face life in prison for 'ordering murder'