OF THE
TIMES
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.


As usual with reports from the Western press, the deception can manifest itself just as much from what is omitted as from what is actually said. The Washington Post maintains that those who destroyed the statue were merely "anti-Russian protesters." In reality, it was a mob led by literal Neo-Nazis of the notorious Azov Battalion - fielded and directed by Kiev's Interior Ministry itself.Anti-Russian protesters in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, pulled down a massive statue of Vladimir Lenin late Sunday, a sign of hardening anger toward the Kremlin in an eastern Ukrainian area where sympathies are split between Kiev and Moscow.
The pro-European protests that swept Ukraine in the winter were accompanied by a wave of Lenin statues being pulled down, eliminating symbolic vestiges of the Soviet Union that had endured after its 1991 breakup. But few such statues were toppled in eastern Ukraine, which has long been a bastion of pro-Russian sentiment and where separatists have embarked on an insurgency that has cost thousands of lives.
On 28 September, at 14:30hrs, the SMM observed in Kharkiv a large demonstration of some 2,000 pro-Ukraine supporters gathering in front of the Opera house. The crowd, composed of men and women of different ages and including children, was led by members of the "Azov" volunteer battalion, as well as young men and women with masks. Some of the demonstrators marched towards Liberty Square, where Lenin's monument was located. There, the SMM observed a group of young men with masks trying to climb on top of Lenin's statue, while the crowd present on the square had increased to approximately 5,000 people. The demonstrators who had climbed up to the statue began using an electric cutting instrument to dismantle the base of the statue. Whilst not visible on the square, the SMM observed the police deploy and set up an outer perimeter cordon around the square and three buses of police behind the regional administration building. At 22:40hrs Lenin's Statue was pulled down by the demonstrators. As the SMM left the scene, it did not observe any further incident.

Comment: Lebanon's Daily Star adds more to the story:
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the blast that wounded two Israeli soldiers on Lebanon's southern border Tuesday, according to a statement released by the resistance group.
"At 2:22 pm Tuesday, the martyred Ali Hasan Haidar brigade of the Islamic Resistance set off an explosive device under an Israeli patrol in the Shebaa heights, which led to several casualties among the ranks of the occupying soldiers" read the statement.
The brigade responsible for setting off the explosive device near an Israeli tank was named after the 25-year-old Ali Hasan Haidar, a Hezbollah explosives expert, who was killed while trying to dismantle four Israeli devices planted on Hezbollah's telecommunications network in Adloun, south Lebanon last month.
The Israeli army confirmed the incident, saying that two soldiers had been wounded in the blast.
"Initial reports indicate that the explosion was caused by an explosive device that was planted" to attack Israeli soldiers, Israel's army tweeted.
Within minutes of Hezbollah claiming responsibility for the blast, the Israeli Army tweeted that it had fired artillery at two Hezbollah posts along the border. However, an Al-Manar reporter said that no Hezbollah posts are situated in the area.
Security sources told The Daily Star that Israel had launched at least 15 explosives in retaliation near the Shebaa hills, at a rate of two per minute. The attacks are just 200 meters from Lebanese residential areas along the border.
A senior Israeli army source told The Jerusalem Post that "the incident hasn't ended yet from our standpoint."
Several reports cited a second blast that came within minutes of the first explosion, however, security sources denied such reports.
The blast comes just two days after Israeli soldiers fired at a Lebanese Army post and wounded one soldier in the same area.
The Army and UNIFIL have beefed up security measures as a result of Sunday's assault.
A UNIFIL source told The Daily Star that there were two scenarios being examined: one, the bomb was planted by Hezbollah in response to Israel firing at the Lebanese Army patrol Sunday; or two, that Israel had gone to the site to inspect a suspected bomb, setting it off in the process.
Israeli troops routinely violate the internationally recognized Blue Line around the Al-Sendaneh area to kidnap shepherds and conduct other operations.