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Donbass nationalizes Ukrainian oligarchs' businesses - neo-Nazi blockade continues - UPDATE

Eduard Popov (translated by J. Arnoldski)
Fort Russ
Wed, 01 Mar 2017 17:39 UTC
ukraine blockade railway
© AFPA blockade by nationalist Ukrainian lawmakers and veterans of the ongoing war in the east has caused almost all rail traffic in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to cease.
UPDATE: Part 2 added below

Starting at midnight, March 1st, the republics of Donbass introduced external management at Ukrainian enterprises. In the Donetsk People's Republic alone, more than 40 enterprises fall under the new rule. And we are dealing with rather large and, in rarer cases, mid-range facilities.

The question of transferring oligarchic property over to republican management is one of the most acute and important issues in the republics. Therefore, let us pay attention to the background of this matter.

Oligarchy is a phenomenon of the modern capitalist world. These are the owners of large fortunes whose influence is not limited to mere financial power. In accordance with Karl Marx's formula, oligarchs convert economic power into political power (although the emergence of oligarchy in the former USSR was the opposite: access to political power opened up the opportunity for enrichment). Following President Putin's rise to power in Russia, the oligarchs were subjected (albeit not completely) to the state. In Ukraine, the oligarchs proved stronger than the state. Their money organized the Euromaidan coup d'etat from the very beginning, after which the oligarch media-mogul Poroshenko became the head of state.

Comment: The blockade on the Donbass began in January. Hilariously, it has led to coal shortages in Western Ukraine, prompting "emergency measures" in the energy sector, including production halts in several industries. DPR/LPR announced on 27 Feb. that they would cease all coal deliveries if the blockade continued. Some plants in the Donbass have also shut down production as a result of the blockade. Under the new nationalization plan, employees will keep their jobs, but control will be passed to a new HQ controlled by DPR/LPR. Donbass residents are cheering the move, believing it will improve trade relations with Russia. RFE/RL adds:
Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko warned that Kyiv would add references to the seizures to its international lawsuits against Russia, saying that "Moscow rules the authorities" in the separatist-held areas and adding: "Russia will bear liability for this."
Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has requested permission for the police to break the blockade.

Don't miss Ruslan Ostashko's analysis either: Donbass blockade will spell the end of Poroshenko and Akhmetov

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Георгиевская ленточка

Time for Macedonia to trust Russia, not Trump

Andrew Korybko
Sputnik
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 19:19 UTC
Macedonian flag
© Boris Grdanoski/Associated PressMacedonian flag in front of the government building in Skopje, Macedonia
Despite the high hopes placed on his administration, Trump has so far done nothing to move away from Obama's Hybrid War on Macedonia, thus lending further credence to Russia's warning that foreign powers are plotting to annihilate the country's statehood.

The Republic of Macedonia is once again mired in a political crisis, the country's third in as many years. The author covered the first one in 2015 and its sequel the year after in two of his Sputnik articles, so the reader should check them out if they need a background briefing about the specifics. To be concise, the US has been experimenting with a new political technology in the country, relying on the strategic leaking of manipulated and illegally procured wiretaps on Macedonian politicians, journalists, and private citizens in order stoke Color Revolution unrest against the government with the aim of destabilizing it and thus offsetting Russia and China's Balkan megaprojects of the Balkan/Turkish Stream gas pipeline and Balkan Silk Road high-speed railway, respectively, which are planned to crucially transit through the landlocked country.
Turkish stream pipeline macedonia

Comment: Macedonians are well aware of Soros' meddling in their country and have begun to fight back.

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Light Sabers

Former CIA director: Russian Ambassador Kislyak is not a spy, he's a veteran diplomat


Sputnik
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 19:35 UTC
Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak
© YouTube/The Huffington PostRussian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak
Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak is not a "spy," former CIA Director John McLaughlin stated commenting on the media fuss over Attorney General Jeff Sessions' meeting with the Russian diplomat. The former intelligence chief warned against entering into a new Cold War with Russia.

Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak is by no means a spy, he is a veteran diplomat, former Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin highlighted while commenting on Attorney General Jeff Sessions' alleged meetings with the diplomat.

"I don't think [Kislyak] is a spy, literally. He is a veteran diplomat, I knew him when he was head of the American Desk in the Foreign Ministry," McLaughlin said answering the question whether Kislyak could have been engaged in what one could broadly be considered "espionage" activities.

McLaughlin noted that the Russian Ambassador is experienced at collecting information, adding that this is what diplomats usually do.
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War Whore

House Democrats whine that 'FBI not sharing all it knows on Russia & Trump'


RFE/RL
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 18:52 UTC
FBI Director James Comey
© Gary Cameron / ReutersFBI Director James Comey
U.S. Democrats are charging that FBI Director James Comey declined to divulge all he knew about the agency's investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election at a closed-door meeting with the House Intelligence Committee.

"At this point, we know less than a fraction of what the FBI knows," said Representative Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat, after Comey's three-hour briefing on March 2.

The committee, like the FBI, is investigating allegations of collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign last year.

Comment: The FBI has said they've found no evidence of Russia-Trump ties. The US House has found no evidence of it either. US Congressman Joe Wilson has come out and flatly stated, "I don't see Russia involvement in the election. That's made up." If there were really evidence that Russia had gotten Trump elected there'd be hell to pay. There isn't any. Get over it.

Check out: While mainstream media obsesses over Russia, Trump's FBI out catching pedophiles
Last week, veteran journalist and sex crime victims' advocate Liz Crokin published a sensational report, calculating that US authorities had arrested over 1,500 pedophiles in the month since Donald Trump took office as President. The mainstream media's reaction? Silence, and the same old questions about the Trump team's supposed ties with Russia.


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Chess

Senior military officials from NATO, Russia hold first top-level talks in 3 years


RFE/RL
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 18:52 UTC
Petr Pavl Russia NATO military
NATO Military Committee Chairman Petr Pavel spoke with the Russian military's chief of staff by telephone on March 3.
Senior military officials from Russia and NATO have held their first direct talks since the Western alliance cut military contacts with Russia three years ago over the Kremlin's interference in Ukraine.

Russia's Defense Ministry said NATO Military Committee Chairman Petr Pavel spoke with Russia's military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, by telephone on March 3 about the prospects for restarting cooperation, how to prevent accidental altercations between military forces, and other pressing security issues.

NATO headquarters in Brussels confirmed that the telephone conversation took place.

Comment: Further reading:

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Chess

Trump gives Poroshenko 'cold shoulder,' prioritizes relations with Russia over Kiev


Sputnik
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 18:51 UTC
Poroshenko
© AFP 2016/ THOMAS KIENZLE
The long-awaited meeting between Petro Poroshenko and Donald Trump, expected to take place late last month, never materialized. Instead, the leaders ended up holding telephone talks, details of which remained undisclosed. Ukrainian observers are concerned that Trump's cold shoulder indicates that Washington's patronage for Kiev is coming to an end.

On Thursday, Ukrainian news and analysis portal Apostrophe.ua published a worrying analysis, explaining that the long-awaited meeting between Presidents Poroshenko and Donald Trump, "announced for the end of February, never ended up taking place; instead, the heads of state held a telephone conversation, the details of which were not provided by the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that preparations for a meeting between the presidents are continuing, but have not named any specific dates."

Comment: Further reading: Donbass blockade will spell the end of Poroshenko and Akhmetov

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Propaganda

What is to be done? The presstitute media endangers us all

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 18:56 UTC
presstitutes lying media
© Free Thought Project
The question in the title is V.I. Lenin's question. His answer was to create a revolutionary "vanguard" to spread revolutionary ideas among the workers, the economic class that Karl Marx had declared to be the class rising to the ascendency of political power. Finally, democracy, frustrated by upper class interests in its earlier manifestations, would become reality. The workers would rule.

Given the presence of evil and human failing, it did not work out in that way. But Lenin's question remains a valid one. Americans whose economic life and prospects for their children have been destroyed by the offshoring of American manufacturing and tradable professional skills jobs, such as software engineering, answered the question by electing Donald Trump.

The Americans, dispossessed by the offshoring corporations, elected Trump, because Trump was the only American running for a political office who called attention to the problem and declared his intention to fix it.

By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade.
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People 2

Fake News: UK officials complain that 26,000 members left Labour Party since 2016


RT
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 18:51 UTC
Jeremy Corbyn supporters Labour Party
© Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP
Almost 26,000 people have left the Labour Party since summer 2016, it has emerged, as internal struggles between leader Jeremy Corbyn and his MPs continue.

More than three-quarters of those leaving the party joined less than two years ago, after the 2015 general election and Corbyn's first leadership victory.

A former chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) said the figures show the "tide is turning" on the socialist leader. However, some researchers believe Brexit is more to blame than Corbyn.

Comment: What no one has mentioned is the fact that, at one point in 2016, 60,000 people joined Corbyn's Labour in a single week. In two days more people registered to support Corbyn than the entire membership of the Tory Party. As Shadow Chancellor John McDonell has said, a 'soft coup' is underway against Corbyn:
"The plotters use every opportunity to chip away at Jeremy's standing to seek to demean him and undermine support for him in the Labour Party and among Labour supporters," the MP for Hayes and Harlington wrote.

"This constant barrage of negative briefings also crowds out any positive initiatives or narrative from Jeremy and his team. It also feeds and confirms in the public's mind that the Labour Party is split.

"The professional planning of interventions in which attacks to undermine Jeremy are framed evidence an exceptionally well resourced 'dark arts' operation of the old spin school."
Further reading:

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Eye 2

Messianic delusions? Holder foretells return of Obama - "He's coming, and he's ready to roll"

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 02 Mar 2017 17:45 UTC
obama eric holder
© Olivier Douliery/Getty ImagesFormer President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Barack Obama, after making the very difficult decision to proceed with Penguin Random House to publish his and Michelle's White House memoirs in a deal rumored to net him about $60 million, is, at least according to old pal Eric Holder, ready to take his place at the helm of the Democrats' Trump opposition efforts. Of course, this breaks with the tradition upheld by most former Presidents who have chosen to not publicly criticize their successors...but the rules don't really apply to Obama now do they?

According to Holder, Obama's triumphant return to politics will be focused on, among other things, fundraising (his specialty) and assisting the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) in its efforts to redraw congressional districts to give Democrats a leg up in the House of Representatives. Per Politico:
Barack Obama is getting closer to making his public reappearance in politics, his friend and former Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday.

Holder said he's been talking to the former president about ways — including fundraising and interacting with state legislators — that could help the new National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which Obama asked Holder to chair last year.

"It's coming. He's coming," Holder said, speaking to reporters at a briefing for the new group. "And he's ready to roll."

Throughout, Holder said, Obama "will be a more visible part of the effort."

Comment:

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Sherlock

Fake News? Trump's pursuit of leaks within administration creates unease among civil servants

Arshad Mohammed, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel
Reuters
Fri, 03 Mar 2017 18:19 UTC
spicer schiller
© REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstWhite House Director of Oval Office Operations Keith Schiller carries a red USA hat and a copy of Fortune magazine with President Trump on the cover as he and Communications Director Sean Spicer deplane from Air Force One yesterday.
President Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin used his first senior staff meeting last month to tell his new aides he would not tolerate leaks to the news media, sources familiar with the matter said.

Current and former officials said that in a departure from past practice, access to a classified computer system at the White House has been tightened by political appointees to prevent professional staffers from seeing memos being prepared for the new president.


Comment: Considering the barrage of anti-Trump stories in the media and coming from within the Establishment, one can't really blame Trump for compartmentalizing access to sensitive documents. He is smart enough to know that there are people close to the White House who do no have his best interests at heart, so it's only smart to limit access to memos and sensitive data.


And at the Department of Homeland Security, some officials told Reuters they fear a witch hunt is under way for the leaker of a draft intelligence report which found little evidence that citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries covered by Trump's now-suspended travel ban pose a threat to the United States.

Washington career civil servants say the clampdown appears designed to try to limit the flow of information inside and outside government and deter officials from talking to the media about topics that could result in negative stories.
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