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#AskLavrov: Getting to know Russia's foreign minister


Sputnik
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:03 UTC
Lavrov Q&A
© Sputnik/ Natalia Novikova
Russian Foreign Minister Holds His First Ever Radio Q&A Session
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave a live interview to Radio Sputnik, Ekho Moskvy and Govorit Moskva radio stations, answering questions of listeners and readers from around the world.

On Wednesday three Russian radio stations conducted a live interview with the country's top diplomat. It was the first time Sergei Lavrov holds a radio Q&A session answering questions from people all over the world.

In the run-up to Larvrov's Q&A session, Internet users were encouraged to ask their questions on Twitter using the hashtag #AskLavrov.
  • 14:05 - The last question (a personal one): Margarita Simonyan wonders if Lavrov really used the F-word addressing [British former foreign secretary] David Miliband in 2008.

    "I did tell Miliband "don't lecture me", but the F-word was a quote from a colleague of ours, who had returned from Tbilisi and called Saakashvili a "f*** lunatic". That's the context the F-word was used in".
    David Miliband UK
    © Agence France-Presse/ Alexander Nemenov
    David Miliband
  • 13:57 - Does the world need a policeman to prevent tragedies like the Rwandan genocide?

    "The founders of the UN realized that the organization would need its own forces, the peacekeeping forces. They are not "policemen."

Comment: Putin has surrounded himself with staff of Sergei Lavrov's caliber. Lavrov's approach to politics and foreign relations is a reassuring mirror of Putin's: sensible, measured, grounded in reality. Not something that can be said about Washington's gang of loose cannons.

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Eye 1

Ukrainian officials use corrupt system of checkpoints to prey on refugees


Sputnik News
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:42 UTC
The kickback Ukrainians pay checkpoint guards for entry to the eastern territories embroiled by civil war has jumped to 2,000 hryvnia (about $90 US), Ukrainian news hub Vesti reports.
Image
© Sputnik / John Trast
Speaking to Radio Vesti, Sergei Shakhov, a refugee from the Lugansk region and volunteer assisting the internally displaced persons organization Narodna Dovira ('People's Trust') noted that the bribe refugees and their relatives have to pay has reached "2,000 hryvnia." Moreover, Shakhov noted that people crossing the border face constant rudeness from border guards, while technical and other problems result in hundreds of people and vehicles queuing up at the checkpoints for hours at a time.

Last month, a new system of electronic passes was supposed to go into effect at checkpoints around Ukraine's eastern conflict zone. Speaking to Oksana Ermishina, the Chairwoman of the Public Committee for Internally Displaced Persons, Kiev's Voice of the Capital radio station noted that this plan has thus far failed to make a dent in combatting payoffs, with problems in electricity supply, communications, and the electronic badge databases themselves only exacerbating difficulties. Ermishina noted that in a situation of organizational chaos where nothing works as it should, "money talks, and until a clear system of automated procedures exists, corruption will only continue."

Comment: Of course the Maidan revolution didn't end corruption - it put Nazis in power and started an ethnic cleansing fer crying out loud! See:
  • The ties that bind: US training Nazis along with a media full of cover stories
  • Nazism reemerges in Europe despite millions dying to defeat it during WW II


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Dollars

The war on cash is heating up

Robert Wenzel
EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:00 UTC
Image

Robert Wenzel
Letters are apparently going out to some JPMorganChase customers announcing that cash will be prohibited from being stored in the bank's safety deposit boxes.

At the Collectors Universe message board, a commenter reports:
My mother has a SDB at a Chase branch with one of my siblings as co-signers. Last week they got a letter outlining a number of changes to the lease agreement, including this:

"Contents of the box: You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value."

Another change is that signatures will no longer be accepted to access the box. The next time they go in they have to bring two forms of ID and they will be issued a four-digit pin number that will be used to access the box then and in the future.

Comment: The trend seems clear: "capital controls" are extending right down to the cash in our own accounts. It might be wise to store some of this cash (outside the bank) while you still can. There are two other strategies that are often overlooked:

1) convert some cash assets to real property - property and goods that can help you weather the financial storms that are surely coming (including precious metals), and
2) move your cash accounts to a small healthy bank that only supports your local community, and get to know them - a small local bank is much more likely to be "user friendly" as these capital controls are rolled out.

Here is a good recent summary of the currency wars (by John Rubino and Gordon Long) going on right now at all levels:



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Snakes in Suits

Politicians warn Salafists want to establish an Islamic State in Germany


Sputnik
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:37 UTC
Image
© AP
The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Hans-Georg Maassen, said he fears that radical Islamists want to establish their own state in Germany.

Maassen told the Frankfurter Allgemeine that the growth of the Islamist scene in Germany is "unrestrained". He said:

"The breeding ground for jihad is growing too. Salafists [a movement within Sunni Islam that references the doctrine known as Salafism] want to establish an Islamic state in Germany."

He said the strongholds of radical Islamism remain in North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin and Hesse. Around 680 Islamists are believed to have traveled from Germany to Syria or Iraq. One in three of them had now returned. "The exit stream to the combat zones continues unabated," Maassen said.

Comment: What was that message again? Oh yeah, we are afraid and need the government to protect us.

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Eye 2

Saudi Prince awards 100 Bentleys to pilots who bombed Yemen civilians


Sputnik
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:29 UTC
Image
© Flickr/ DryHeatPanzer
Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal promised to award pilots with Bentleys for part in the Yemen bombing campaign which killed 943 and injured 3,487.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alaweed bin Talal promised free Bentleys to fighter pilots who took part in the Yemen bombing campaign in a Tweet he later deleted.


Comment: Unconscionable! This is like an incitement to genocide.

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Attention

Lavrov: US demands fast demolition of WW II monuments in East European country


ITAR-TASS
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:21 UTC
Image
© EPA/TASS/JAKUB GAVLAK
The United States is demanding faster demolition of World War II monuments in one of the East European countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a live interview to three Russian radio stations on Wednesday.

"We do know what type of activities the Americans are engaged in [European] capitals, and what messages they try to deliver," he said, commenting on his earlier statement Washington was using the Ukrainian crisis with the aim of spoiling Russia-EU relations.

"US emissaries have gone as far as to demand that the government of one of the East European countries, liberated by the Red Army, should speed up the demolition of monuments to World War II heroes," said Lavrov. He avoided mentioning the country he was referring to.

Comment: Rewriting history again. Before we know it, we won't recognize the war that was fought which will pave the way to the next world war.

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Info

UK, France urge Israeli-Palestinian UN deal, New Zealand drafting resolution


RT
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 12:52 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Eduardo Munoz
Britain and France are urging the UN Security Council to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, while New Zealand has begun drafting a resolution on the issue. This was prompted by the US saying it may "reassess" its position on the stalled talks.

France and New Zealand have stressed that it is imperative to act now, given that the Israeli elections are over and there is a current lull in the US before the presidential election campaign heats up.

"We have been working on a text that might serve the purpose of getting negotiations started," said New Zealand's UN Ambassador Jim McLay, adding that the country is ready to wait and see how the French initiative for a resolution will turn out.

Comment: These 'calls for action' never amount to much from the UN Security Council. Seems like just posturing.

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Snakes in Suits

Jeb Bush praises Obama for continuing NSA metadata surveillance


RT
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 12:31 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Brian Snyder
President Barack Obama isn't likely to hear many kind words from Republicans looking to succeed him in office. However, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is praising him for continuing a controversial surveillance program.

Considered a frontrunner for the GOP's 2016 presidential nomination, Bush recently said that Obama's decision to keep in place the National Security Agency's ability to monitor metadata - information such as when a phone call was made, who it was made to and how long it lasted - has helped keep the United States safe.

Comment: A preview of another Bush, more of the same as the previous Bush.

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Eye 1

Establishment cover up: Doubt grows over dementia claims made by alleged paedophile peer Greville Janner

Anil Dawar
The Express
Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:01 UTC
DPP Alison Saunders
© PA
Alison Saunders has been accused of a cover up by critics
Outrage over the failure to prosecute alleged paedophile peer Greville Janner grew yesterday after it emerged he wrote to the House of Lords a fortnight ago, despite claims he is suffering from dementia.

Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders also faced accusations of double standards and a "cover up" because several defendants with dementia have been jailed for sex crimes in recent years.


Comment: Even if he is incapable of defending himself, there is a legal precedent for establishing what took place called the 'finding of fact'.

After all, in 2012 the former Labour MP Margaret Moran was found guilty by a jury of false accounting and six charges of forgery, despite having been absent from court because she had been deemed by psychiatrists to be unfit to plead.


Lord Janner, 86, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2009 and took a formal leave of absence last October.

On April 9 this year he replied to a House of Lords query about his retirement with a personally signed letter asking to continue his break.

The fact the Labour peer was able to sign the statement cast doubts on the DPP's decision not to charge him with 22 child sex offences due to the "severity" of his dementia.


Comment: The 22 child sex offences are alleged to have taken place from 1969 to 1988, involving nine children and young adults then cared for in children's homes. These ranged from indecent assaults to buggery.


His alleged victims said it denied them their day in court and was fuelling concerns of a cover-up.

Accusations that the peer is being protected by the Establishment grew after it emerged at least 19 men with dementia have been convicted of child sex offences since 2010, including 10 in the past year.


Comment: Undoubtedly those 19 men are not members of the 'Establishment'! In a case with striking similarities to Janner's, five years ago at Exeter crown court Michael Collingwood, also suffering from dementia, was found to have 'done the act charged' when a case of the sexual abuse of under-age girls was heard in his absence.


Comment: Essentially this is yet another blatant Establishment cover up. It does not exactly inspire confidence in the latest official inquiry into child sex abuse, chaired by Judge Lowell Goddard, does it?

Recently, UK Home Secretary, Teresa May conceded that allegations into Britain's pedophile ring "is only the tip of the iceberg" and abuse is woven "into the fabric of our society".

Instead of finally exposing those depraved monsters who stalk the Establishment corridors of power, this Greville Janner case just highlights yet again their modus operandi, as explained in more detail in this article:

UK 'Establishment': Unmasking psychopathic faces - Pedophilia and murder in VERY high place

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Eye 1

How the spin masters construct a hit piece: Bloomberg 'interviews' DPR Leader Zakharchenko

Joaquin Flores
Russia Insider
Sun, 19 Apr 2015 03:14 UTC
Zakharchenko

Head of Donetsk People's Republic, Zakharchenko
Bloomberg was perhaps the first western outlet to be given an interview by Zakharchenko but its presentation could hardly be more misleading and dishonest

In a rare western interview of the leader of the Donetsk Republic, Zakharchenko was given 'the full treatment' by Bloomberg. In doing so, they indeed may have violated international law, and committed crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.

Today's article in the US publication was indeed particularly instructive. It tells us how the US and the European Atlanticists will try to spin the actual Ukrainian violations of the Minsk II Agreement and ceasefire. The US and its direct and proxy agents working in the ostensibly 'private/independent' (but de facto state controlled) media are creating the pretext to use the UN Security Council resolution which enshrines the Minsk II Agreement against those which it favors; against those whose battlefield victories made it possible. Barring that, at the very least they are breeding an internal climate and setting the national discourse to justify things which are in violation of international law.

Western media is going to do it by twisting Zakharchenko's words to fit a tremendous lie. Specifically they will do this by taking what he said out of context and then inserting them into a fictional context of western media invention.

As things unfold, we will no doubt hear that 'Zakharchenko himself' said that he intended to break the ceasefire all along.

If you do not mind being insulted or enraged by what passes for news, analysis, or commentary in the west, then we suggest you have a read for yourself : "Gunfire in Donetsk as Rebel Leader Refuses Ukrainian Unity".

In this review, we will highlight some of the most dangerously misleading and dishonest parts of the Bloomberg article. Insofar as these are used to encourage the US public to support the US government in increasing its illegal wars in the world, these are war crimes as understood by the precedent established at Nuremburg and subsequent prosecutions by the ICJ in The Hague in decades that followed.
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