"Their exact location is unknown for top secrecy reasons," a spokesman for the Donetsk militia said on Monday

A group of five or six NATO officers has been blocked in the town of Mariupol in the Donetsk region, a spokesman for the Donetsk militia said on Monday.

"Their exact location is unknown for top secrecy reasons. But they obviously cannot leave Mariupol as all junta commanders and special units have already left the city," the spokesman said.

ITAR-TASS has not confirmed this report from other sources yet.

Losses of Ukrainian army near Mariupol

The militia staff reports that units of Novorossiya's army have shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 jet and two Mi-8 helicopters on the outskirts of Mariupol. According to the Donetsk People's Republic, about 100 Ukrainian servicemen were wounded or killed.

In the fight, militiamen managed to capture two tanks, about six multiple rocket launcher systems, two armed personnel carriers, up to 14 guns and mortars, up to 24 automotive vehicles and two ammunition depots.

The United States sees Israel's announcement on Sunday of a land appropriation for possible settlement construction in the occupied West Bank as "counterproductive" to peace efforts and urges the Israeli government to reverse the decision, Reuters reported a State Department official as saying.

Israel laid claim to nearly a thousand acres (400 hectares) in the Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem, a move which an anti-settlement group termed the biggest appropriation in 30 years and a Palestinian official said would cause only more friction after the Gaza war.

"We have long made clear our opposition to continued settlement activity," the U.S. official said. "This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve and construction tender they issue is counterproductive to Israel's stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians."

"We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision," the official said in Washington.


Israel announced plans on Sunday to expropriate 400 hectares (988 acres) of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area in the south of the occupied West Bank, the military said, Agence France-Presse reported.

"On the instructions of the political echelon... 4,000 dunams at (the settlement of) Gevaot is declared as state land," the army said, adding that concerned parties have 45 days to appeal.


It said that the step stemmed from political decisions taken after the June killing of three Israeli teenagers snatched from a roadside in the same area, known to Israelis as Gush Etzion settlement bloc.


Israel has named three Palestinians from the southern West Bank city of Hebron as being behind the murders.

The Etzion settlements council welcomed Sunday's announcement and said it was the prelude to expansion of the current Gevaot settlement.

It "paves the way for the new city of Gevaot", a statement said.

Settlements watchdog Peace Now expressed alarm.

"As far as we know, this declaration is unprecedented in its scope since the 1980s and can dramatically change the reality in the Gush Etzion and the Bethlehem areas," it said.

Vladimir Putin today dramatically raised the stakes in the Ukraine conflict by calling for the first time for statehood to be considered for the restive east of the former Soviet state.

"We need to immediately begin substantive talks... on questions of the political organisation of society and statehood for southeastern Ukraine with the goal of protecting the lawful interests of the people who live there," Putin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies on a TV show broadcast in the far east of the country.

Russia has previously only called for greater rights under a decentralised federal system to be accorded to the eastern regions of Ukraine, where predominantly Russian-speakers live.


In the programme, taped on Friday, Putin did not directly address additional Western sanctions on Russia.

Putin however blamed the crisis in Ukraine on the West, accusing it of supporting a "coup" against pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych in February.

"They should have known that Russia cannot stand aside when people are being shot almost at point-blank," said Putin, adding that he did not have in mind "the Russian state but the Russian people."

Putin has denied that Moscow has sent regular troops to fight in Ukraine, but pro-Russian rebels have said that many Russian soldiers have volunteered while "on vacation".

Via Agence France-Presse

EU sanctions against Russia are unfair and unproductive, according to Thierry Mariani, member of the National Assembly of France.

"I, and many of the other participants of today's meeting, think that the sanctions imposed against Russia are unfair, unconstructive and unproductive," Mariani said during a meeting between Sergei Naryshkin, Russia's State Duma (lower house of parliament) Speaker, with French political and social activists in Paris Monday.

Over the past few months, the United States and the European Union introduced several rounds of targeted sanctions against the Russian economy, unjustifiably blaming Moscow for meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.

"Every time you come to Russia with a sword, from a sword you will perish."

© Press AssociationAlexander Zakharchenko

The Donetsk National Republic States The Facts

The former Russian provinces, which Soviet party leaders carelessly attached to Ukraine at a time when it seemed to make no difference as all were part of the Soviet Union, are now independent republics with their own governments. The West pretends that this isn't so, because Washington and its puppet capitals don't recognize the independence of formerly captive peoples. But the West's opinion no longer counts.

In the last couple of days the newly formed military units of the Donetsk National Republic have defeated and surrounded large portions of the remaining Ukrainian military. Russian President Putin asked the Donetsk Republic to allow the defeated Ukrainians to return home to their wives and mothers. The Donetsk Republic agreed to Putin's mercy request as long as the Ukrainians left their weapons behind. The Donetsk Republic is short on weapons as, contrary to Western lies, the Donetsk Republic is not supplied with weapons by Russia.

Washington's puppet government in Kiev declined the mercy extended to its troops and said they had to fight to the death. Shades of Hitler at Stalingrad. Western Ukraine has remained the repository of Nazism since 1945, and it is Western Ukraine with which Washington is allied against freedom and democracy.

Thanks to The Saker we are provided with a press conference with English subtitles that Alexander Zakharchenko, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk National Republic, held with media. Present are Russian and Western press.

You will be impressed with the ease with which Zakharchenko handles the ignorant and corrupt Western media representatives, and your sides will burst with laughter at his reply to the media question: "Are there regular Russian military units fighting on your side?"

The British and American journalists were the most stupid, as we already knew. You will die laughing at the response to the question, "why did you parade the prisoners."

This person Zakharchenko puts to shame every politician in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, all of the puppet politicians of the American Empire. If only the United States had people of the character and quality of Zakharchenko.

Now that Zakharchenko has revealed himself and made mincemeat of the stupid Western media, he will be demonized and misrepresented. So use this opportunity to see for yourself who has integrity and character. Hint: no one in political and media circles in the West.

You might have to put the video on full screen to read the subtitles.

Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro lashed out at the United States and Europe on Monday, accusing them of war-mongering and comparing the NATO military alliance's representatives to the Nazi SS.

In a tortuous column published in Cuban state media, the father of the island's communist revolution also attacked U.S. Sen. John McCain over United States policy in the Middle East, calling him "Israel's most unconditional ally."

"The world has seen no respite in recent years, particularly since the European Economic Community, under the strict and unconditional leadership of the United States, decided the time had come to settle scores with what was left of two great nations (Russia and China) that ... had carried out the heroic deed of putting an end to the imperialist colonial order imposed on the world by Europe and the United States," said the 88-year-old leader.

He accused the West of "cynicism" and said the trait had become "a symbol of imperialist policy."

He singled out McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, saying he had supported Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and "participated together with that service in the creation of the Islamic State, which today controls a considerable and vital portion of Iraq and reportedly one-third of Syria as well."

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has expressed Tehran's enthusiasm for the expansion of relations with Latin American countries, especially with Nicaragua.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran and Nicaragua have great potentials for cooperation in various fields," Zarif said in a meeting with his Nicaraguan counterpart, Samuel Santos Lopez, in Tehran on Saturday.

The top Iranian diplomat also highlighted the significance of taking effective steps to pave the ground for the development of ties between the two countries.

He further emphasized that Iran and Nicaragua can cooperate in technical, engineering and agricultural areas.

Here's a bright idea to try and change things: The next time you have to vote in any kind of parliamentary or congressional election, find out who came second last time, and vote for him or her. It may not change things all that much, but it could stir things up a bit and show the bribe-takers that we've got our eyes on them.

This video is an update of a video I made for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. It did not take a lot of updating, just changing some titles and a few voice-over sections, replacing the number 10 with the number 13, demonstrating that, despite the overwhelming conviction of so many people - experts and sincere researchers alike - that the official 9/11 story was, as we used to say in the Old Country: 'A load of old toffee' but the powers-that-be still refuse to even contemplate a new inquiry.

A senior Iranian lawmaker has slammed a fresh round of US sanctions against the Islamic Republic as contradictory to the interim nuclear deal between Iran and six powers, saying the new sanctions prove that Washington cannot be trusted.

"By imposing new sanctions against our country which is in flagrant violation of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1, the US once again showed that it is not trustworthy," chairman of Iran's Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi said in a meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Sunday.

Labor Day is a holiday that has outlived its time. Like Christmas, Labor Day has become a time-out period. As Christmas has become a shopping spree, Labor Day has become the last summer holiday.

The holiday originated in 1887 to celebrate the contribution made by American workers to the strength and prosperity of the United States. The first Monday in September was chosen by President Grover Cleveland to avoid a May date that would keep alive the memory of the previous year's Haymarket Massacre in which workers striking for an eight-hour day suffered casualties from the Chicago police.

As time passed union leadership became a career rather than a movement in behalf of a cause, but the labor movement in its initial years was reformist. It brought safer working conditions into industry and manufacturing. Unions served as a countervailing power and constrained the exploitative power of capital. An industrial or manufacturing job was a ladder of upward mobility that made the US an opportunity society and stabilized the socio-political system with a large middle class. A large and thriving industrial and manufacturing sector provided many white collar middle class jobs for managers, engineers, researchers and designers, and American universities flourished as did their graduates.

The labor unions provided the Democratic Party with a financial base in labor that served as a countervailing power to the Republican base in manufacturing and finance.