Puppet Masters

Rule by oligarchs: Kiev appoints billionaires to govern east

RT
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 08:36 UTC

The self-proclaimed government in Kiev has appointed two of Ukraine's richest men to govern large industrial regions in the defiant east. One of the reasons for the Maidan protest was the influence the rich have on politics in the country.

The appointments of new governors of Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk Regions are among 18 made on Sunday by Kiev, which is struggling to consolidate power after the coup which ousted President Yanukovich last month.

The newly-appointed Dnepropetrovsk governor is Igor Kolomoysky, Ukraine's third-wealthiest man, with an estimated fortune of $2.4 billion. He co-owns the informal commercial group Privat, which includes Ukraine's largest bank Privatbank, which Kolomoysky heads, as well as assets in the oil, ferroalloys and food industries, agriculture and transport.

A former ally of Yulia Tymoshenko, Kolomoysky reportedly had a falling out with her and refused to finance her election campaign in 2010, which the ex-prime minister subsequently lost to Yanukovich. Kolomoysky was reported to be a principal sponsor of the UDAR party, which is one of the three fueling the street campaign to oust Yanukovich. Kolomoysky has a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship and controls his business empire from Switzerland.

US funded regime change: 9 things you need to know about Venezuela and the recent violence

Pablo Vivanco
Venezuelanalysis
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 07:03 UTC

Pro-government student march in Venezuela

1. The students marches are from the right-wing of the student movement

Unlike in places like Chile, there is no single or united student movement in Venezuela. Not only are students groups highly decentralized, but they are also divided along political lines.

Another unique feature of the student groups identifying with the opposition is that they do not organize around accessible or free education (since education has been made accessible to the sector of society that was previously excluded, resulting in an increase of 1,809,432 post-secondary students from 1999 to 2014).

The most recent opposition student demonstrations began in the western city of Tachira near the Colombian border. On the third day of student demonstrations about insecurity on the campus, the State Governor's house was attacked and four people were subsequently arrested (two of whom weren't students). These arrests led to student demonstrations in other cities - all of these demonstrations were not shut down by police - which led to the February 12th demonstration, where three people died.

On February 12, however, its important to know that there were thousands of Bolivarian students and youth marching for 'El Dia de la Juventud' (Youth Day), on the other side of Caracas. When speaking about the 'student movement' the logical question that has to follow is 'which one'?

Staggering new depths of hypocrisy: Kerry tells Russia 'You don't invade a country on completely phony pretexts'

RT
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 12:09 UTC

U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry pitifully latched onto bogus anti-Jewish leaflet to shore up his inherently weak position on Ukraine.

The US Secretary of State spoke today of the unacceptability of invading a sovereign country on phony pretexts in order to assert one's own interests in the 21st century. But no, he was not speaking about the United States, as one might have thought.

"You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests," John Kerry said during an interview with NBC's Meet the Press. "This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It's really 19th century behaviour in the 21st century."

Kerry has also threatened to isolate Russia economically and politically and warned of potential asset freezes and visa bans, adding to media and political hype that followed Russia authorization of sending a stabilization force in Crimea on official request from the authorities.

"There could be certainly disruption of any of the normal trade routine, there could be business drawback on investment in the country," he said. "There could even be ultimately asset freezes, visa bans."

Although Kerry was never challenged by the interviewer to comment in terms of that statement on Washington's own constant threats to use force and military invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who watched the interview immediately smelled the hypocrisy.

Despite negligible authority,Yanukovych is still legitimate head of Ukrainian state: Russia

Press TV
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 06:40 UTC

© Unknown
Medvedev says that if Yanukovych was guilty of crimes, an impeachment process should have been launched against him in Ukraine and "everything else is just arbitrary. A seizure of power."

Russia says Viktor Yanukovych is still the legitimate head of the Ukrainian state and that Moscow does not recognize the new leaders in Ukraine.

The comments were made by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev who posted them on his Facebook page on Monday. He added that while the authority of President Yanukovych is practically negligible, he is still the legitimate leader of Ukraine according to the country's constitution.

The Russian prime minister also said that Moscow does not recognize Ukraine's interim leaders, as they violated the country's constitution when they took power. He said those new leaders won't last long.

"Ukraine is not for us the group of people who shed blood... and took power in violation of the constitution and other laws of their state," said Medvedev.

The prime minister continued by saying thatif Yanukovych was guilty of crimes, an impeachment process should have been launched against him in Ukraine and "everything else is just arbitrary. A seizure of power."

Ukraine, Egypt and the tale of two coups

Eric Walberg
Press TV
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 06:22 UTC

US plans for Egypt and Ukraine are falling apart and Russia is scrambling to pick up the pieces.

In the latest color revolution, it was not an army but a rump parliament that pulled the plug on the elected president on wave of protest, pushing out Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich on 22 February.

He apologized from exile in the Russian city of Rostov-on-the-Don for his weakness during the uprising, but his fate was sealed when he was disowned by his own Party of the Regions, the largest party in the fractious parliament. The rump parliament unsurprisingly ordered the release of Yanukovich's arch rival, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison, a condition for Ukraine's signing a European Union Association Agreement.

The collapse of authority in Ukraine led to what appears to be the breakaway of an already autonomous Crimea, now to be aligned with Russia. The frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy (the flagship of the Ukrainian Navy), on NATO maneuvers in the Gulf of Aden, refused to take orders from Kiev and raised the Russian naval flag as it returned to Simferopol. Simultaneously, Russian troops blocked three Crimean bases, demanding Ukrainian forces surrender, and high ranking Ukrainian military and security officials swore their allegiance to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, rejecting the new government in Kiev as illegitimate. Residents have announced they are going to hold a referendum on 30 March to determine the fate of Crimea.

Lebanon and Syria are actually the same country, and other absurdities the Middle East inherited from the West's divide-and conquer strategy

Robert Fisk
The Independent, UK
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:56 UTC

British imperialist Mark Sykes: "The fuzzy-wuzzies are getting restless about us taking their oil. Let us divide and conquer them in perpetuity!"

Borders are becoming a bit odd in the Middle East. They always have been, of course. Ever since Mark Sykes and François Georges Picot - the latter a former French consul in Beirut, by the way, who cost a lot of brave Lebanese their lives by his carelessness in sealing their anti-Ottoman letters behind an embassy wall - divvied up the Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, etc, one lot of Arabs (or their grandchildren) found themselves living as hated refugees not many miles from their original homes, cursed and spat at and sometimes killed by another lot of Arabs who turned out to be - much to their own surprise, in some cases - Lebanese or Syrians.

Then we come to the question of a state called Israel which exists in a land that was called Palestine, 22 per cent of which - and the percentage is growing smaller by the day - is supposed to be called "Palestine". Well, maybe.

Which brings me to the point. For last week, the Strategic Affairs Minister - is there any other nation on earth which has such a ministry, I ask myself? - of Israel, warned Lebanon that it must prevent Hezbollah (Iranian-armed, Syrian-supported, you know the usual and true clichés) from attacking Israel in reprisal for Israel's attack on a weapons convoy - an attack which, as is often the case, Israel didn't actually admit to having carried out.

Russia, China 'in broad agreement' on Ukraine despite G7 flap

Press TV
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 05:24 UTC

The Russian Foreign Ministry says Russia is in broad agreement with China on the situation in crisis-hit Ukraine.

The ministry's announcement followed a telephone conversation between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Monday.

"The foreign ministers have exchanged their views on the situation in Ukraine. They noted a broad overlap of the Russian and Chinese views on the current situation in and around this country (Ukraine)," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

In addition, the Russian ministry said the two ministers pledged to continue close contacts on the issue.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to meet with Lavrov later in the day on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to discuss the spiraling crisis in Ukraine.

Five top Ukrainian military and police commanders switch allegiances to Autonomous Region of Crimea‏

RT
Sun, 02 Mar 2014 21:07 UTC

A number of high ranking Ukrainian military and security officials in Crimea have sworn their allegiance to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as Simferopol pushes for its autonomy from the self-imposed government in Kiev.

The head of the Security Service of Crimea Petyor Zima, Chief of Department of Internal Affairs in the Crimea Sergey Abisov, the head of Service for Emergency Situations Sergei Shakhov and acting Chief of the Border Guards of Crimea Victor Melnichenko all took an oath of allegiance to the people of Crimea.

Ten black-clad sword and machete-wielding terrorists slaughter at least 33, wound 130 commuters in southwestern Chinese city of Kunming

Tom Watkins
CNN
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 03:04 UTC

A day after men armed with long knives stormed a railway station in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 100, authorities described what happened as a premeditated terrorist attack.

Police shot dead at least four of the attackers -- who numbered more than 10 -- and were looking for the others, officials told the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Premier Li Keqiang asked that security in public places be tightened.

But for Chen Guizhen, that request came too late.

The 50-year-old woman told Xinhua at the hospital that her husband, Xiong Wenguang, 59, was killed in the attack.

"Why are the terrorists so cruel?" asked Chen, her husband's bloody ID card shaking in her hands.

The attackers gave no warning.

Comment: The death toll has since gone up to 33 in this horrific attack.

This does indeed seem different from incidents in recent years where 'lone knife-wielders' went off and slashed classrooms-full of schoolchildren.

Whoever this organized unit was, at this point it's known that the separatists in Xinjiang are being radicalized in Afghanistan by the CIA:

US trained Uighur terrorists for eventuality of war with China

U.S. stay-behind death squads: 700 slaughtered in Iraq last month alone‏

RT
Sat, 01 Mar 2014 02:55 UTC

© Reuters/Alaa Al-Marjani
Mourners carry the coffin of a victim who was killed in a mortar attack, during a funeral in Mussayab, 60km (40 miles) south of the capital Baghdad, February 21, 2014.

Over 700 people were killed in violence in Iraq this February with the capital city of Baghdad worst affected by the wave of violence.

Iraq has been hit by a surge of violence over the last year, the worst since 2008. The Iraq government put the total of dead in February at 790, while the UN said that 703 people perished in the bloodshed.

Comment: The official story is that Iraq is simply a country of violent, crazy Arabs who live to kill each other over Shiite/Sunni divisions. The reality is that these divisions have to be repeatedly and constantly inflamed by the very forces that seek to benefit from such conflicts. John Steele: America's Director of Death Squads in Iraq
Terrorism with a "human face": The history of America's death squads

JP Sears - Why two classes of citizens is a GREAT idea: [Link]

Animanarchy

Is this not a case of, The pot calling the kettle black.

Winternights3

Here's a Mandela Effect for you. I swear I read more than one article saying she died about 4 months ago. 4 Months later I read this - at least I...

scrutinizer

Wait!.. WHAT?! Agents de Surete Ferroviaire with Service Weapon?!? I know I left france a while back, but back then even cops were not allowed...

tof

US politics is as complex as the money supply issue One big scam hidden under layers of deception Tbh..I could care less if she drops down dead...

LMAO

Puppet Masters

Rule by oligarchs: Kiev appoints billionaires to govern east

US funded regime change: 9 things you need to know about Venezuela and the recent violence

Staggering new depths of hypocrisy: Kerry tells Russia 'You don't invade a country on completely phony pretexts'

Despite negligible authority,Yanukovych is still legitimate head of Ukrainian state: Russia

Ukraine, Egypt and the tale of two coups

Lebanon and Syria are actually the same country, and other absurdities the Middle East inherited from the West's divide-and conquer strategy

Russia, China 'in broad agreement' on Ukraine despite G7 flap

Five top Ukrainian military and police commanders switch allegiances to Autonomous Region of Crimea‏

Ten black-clad sword and machete-wielding terrorists slaughter at least 33, wound 130 commuters in southwestern Chinese city of Kunming

U.S. stay-behind death squads: 700 slaughtered in Iraq last month alone‏

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