Crimea is ready to give up part of its cultural heritage in swap for the Scythian gold collection which is currently on view in Amsterdam.

Andrei Malgin, director of the Tavrida Central Museum, told Itar-Tass that ancient artifacts had been found during excavations at the Nogaichinsky Kurgan in steppe Crimea in the 1970s. The archeologist handed over his archaeological findings to Kiev. These exhibits from the Ukrainian Museum of Historical Valuables are also part of "Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea" exhibition in the Netherlands.

"These things are very beautiful. They date back to a period of late antiquity. They are also part of Crimean cultural heritage," Malgin said.

"But Crimea might give up its claim to these things if Kiev leaves what belongs to us in peace. Otherwise, I do not see how we can reach a compromise," Malkin stressed.

Earlier this week, the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam decided to leave the disputed "Scythian gold" collection in the Netherlands until a qualified judge passes a decision or the sides reach a kind of compromise.

The exhibits have been claimed both by Kiev and Crimea but the Allard Pierson Museum is still at a loss to where they should be returned.

Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin has likened Friday evening's discussion on the situation in Ukraine to what he described as a Kingdom of Curved Mirrors. He explained he got this impression because some SC members looked worried not so much about the humanitarian disaster in the east of the country as the Russian truck convoy that had delivered humanitarian aid to Lugansk.

"What was happening in the UN Security Council reminded me of a Kingdom of Curved Mirrors, because some members did not care at all civilians were dying in the east of Ukraine. Nor did they care about the humanitarian disaster there. They were mostly alarmed by Russia's humanitarian aid being delivered to people in the line of fire," the diplomat said.

Churkin explained that Russia was keeping in touch with the Ukrainian authorities and hoped that there would be no problems with the delivery of humanitarian aid to its destination.

"After that discussion the tensions in the Security Council over the issue eased somewhat," Churkin said.

He addressed the SC members with a fresh reminder that Russia had dispatched humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine only when it had official consent from that country's government.

"As far as reproaches about respect for sovereignty are concerned, I can say once again that we received official consent from them. We discussed that issue. If they deceived us, it is their problem. We just wish to give help to those who need it," Churkin said.

According to the Russian diplomat, during the just-held discussion he recalled that the Security Council last July voted for Resolution 2165, which authorized direct supplies of humanitarian assistance to Syria without the country's government.

It appears that the Russians got tired of waiting. I suggest that you all carefully parse the Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs I posted earlier today. This is an interesting document because besides an explanation of the Russian decision to move it, it is also, potentially, a legal defense of an unprecedented Russian decision: to overtly violate the Ukrainian sovereignty. Let me explain.

First, the case of Crimea was also a "special case". The Russian were legally present there and, in the Russian rationale, all the "Polite Armed Men in Green" did was to protect the local population to make it possible for the latter to freely express its will. Only after that will was expressed did Russia agree to formally re-incorporate Crimea into Russia. So from the legal Russian point of view, none of the Russian actions in Crimea included any form of violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. I know, most western analysts will not agree, but that is the official Russian stance. And official stances are important because they form the basis for a legal argument.

Second, the aid which Russia has been sending to Novorussia has been exclusively covert. Covert operations, no matter their magnitude, do not form the basis for a legal position. The official position of Moscow has been that not only was there absolutely no military aid to Novorussia, but even when Ukie artillery shells landed inside Russia did the Kremlin authorize any retaliation, again in (official) deference to the Ukrainian national sovereignty.

This time, however, there is no doubt at all that the Russians did deliberately and officially chose to ignore Kiev and move in. Now, in fact, in reality, this is clearly the logically, politically and morally right thing to do. But in legal terms, this clearly a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. From a legal point of view, the Ukies had the right to keep the Russian convoy at the border for another 10,000 years if they wanted and Russia had no legal right to simply move in. What apparently happened this morning is that the Ukie officials did not even bother showing up, so the Kremlin just said "forget it!" and ordered the trucks in.

Preamble: The following is a translation of an interview given by Colonel-General Vladimir Ruban to the "Ukrainskaya Pravda" newspaper. There is much that is of great interest, and the General undoubtedly deserves great respect for the work he is involved in. Nonetheless, his connection to the Ukrainian Army and government gives us reason to doubt his claims of torture being conducted by the Militia.

Original article here
Translated by Vera Van Horne / Edited by @GBabeuf

General Ruban on militants in eastern Ukraine: "There are people who were standing with us on Maidan."

For more than three months Colonel-General Vladimir Ruban has been engaged in freeing people who were taken captive in eastern Ukraine. Recently, he founded a specialised centre that anybody whose relatives were taken hostage can contact.

For many, Ruban has already become a legend. He is even the only Ukrainian professional negotiator who, they say, is admired by "Demon" - the Gorlovka DNR Militia commander, Igor Bezler. It was Ruban who managed to negotiate improved conditions of detention and, later, to rescue seventeen people from captivity, including soldiers from the 72nd and 25th brigades and several civilians, including Basil Budika, whom Bezler "shot" on camera in May.

General Ruban rarely smiles. He has the look of a man with nerves of steel and perfect composure. It is impossible to crack him. It seems as though in his head he calculates many steps ahead, and his every response - it is but the tip of an iceberg.

The correspondent of "Ukrainskaya Pravda" talked with the General about what happens to detainees in captivity, the ethics of ransom and who is fighting on the territory of eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainskaya Pravda: How many people have you liberated so far?

General Ruban: More than a hundred. We stopped counting after one hundred.

To make sanctions against Russia efficient, a Polish MEP said they need to be "preventive, prophylactic sanctions," rather than reactive. Ryszard Czarnecki represents one of the countries hardest hit in the "sanctions war" between Russia and the West.

"The Russian ruble should stop being a convertible currency, the ruble should be excluded from international financial turnover," RIA quotes Czarnecki speaking at Poland's parliament.

"To counter Russia's aggressive military actions, pre-emptive sanctions should be considered," Czarnecki added.

Cutting the Russian ruble out of the international financial markets would hit the country's economy hard, he said.

"When Visa and MasterCard refused to serve the customers of a Moscow bank, the effect was impressive."


Czarnecki also proposed to cut supplies of Russian energy, as well as control transit of Russian gas to Europe.

Poland is one of the countries hit the most by Russian countermeasures, with food exports of $1.5 billion in 2013. Together with the Netherlands and Germany, Poland was among Russia's top-three biggest food suppliers in the EU. Earlier this week Poland's Economic Ministry sent the European Commission a request to open an official complaint at the WTO to examine Russia's EU food embargo.

Ferguson, Missouri remained relatively calm for the second night in a row. With only isolated arrests Wednesday and Thursday nights, a drawdown of the National Guard troops assigned with keeping the peace began Friday.

"[A] sense of normalcy" returned to the area along West Florissant Avenue ‒ the epicenter of continued protests against the police ‒ on Thursday. "People strolled to stores and city buses were back on schedule," USA Today reported.

Local clergy and civic leaders worked to keep the events of the night orderly, urging protesters to remain peaceful and to return to their homes after dark, the Associated Press wrote. Demonstrations have occurred since the death of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson last Saturday.

"It was another good night,'' Missouri State Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson said at a 1 a.m. briefing. "We're heading toward a sense of peace for our community. Through 12:30 a.m., there were just seven arrests, including five for failing to disperse."

.@emilykassie got some great shots in #Ferguson last night. Very calm evening. pic.twitter.com/JqbB2cA224
- Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 22, 2014

You'll recall a few days ago I posted a tantalizing clue from Haaretz' Amir Oren which noted that thirty years ago Israel fabricated an alleged terror provocation which it used to launch a military attack (or assassination) of its own. While I haven't been able to isolate which historical event he's referring to, given Oren's track record and journalistic style, I had a strong hunch he was trying to tell his readers something specific about the Deif assassination.

My guess is that he was saying that Israel fabricated the rocket fire which it claimed violated the truce agreement. After it informed the world about Hamas' violation, it was emboldened to launch the attack on the al Dalou home, where Deif and his family were sheltering. That bombing, which used American-made GBU28 bunker buster bombs delivered by U.S.-made war planes, killed 12 civilians including Deif's wife and two children. It may've also killed Deif, though no one knows for sure.

This false flag operation was clumsily mounted and will easily be exposed. It will further erode what little credibility Israel has in the world community. You remember when Israel cloned passports of citizens of allied nations as part of an assassination plot against Mahmoud al-Mabouh? In doing so, it endangered them and violated the trust and sovereignty of friends (and leading to the expulsion of a number of Mossad station chiefs)? In terms of the effect this will have on Israel's already tarnished reputation, it's a similar exercise in chicanery.

Facebook has been given four weeks to respond to a class action, launched against it by an Austrian activist and supported by 60,000 users. The suit claims Facebook violated users' privacy, by cooperating with the NSA's PRISM program.

The class action initiated by Max Schrems, an Austrian lawyer, data privacy activist and founder of Europe vs. Facebook group has passed its first review in the Vienna Regional Court.

Facebook Ireland, which runs the social network's activities outside the US and Canada, has been given four weeks to respond to the action.

Vienna Court has reviewed our Class Action. @facebook ordered to respond within 4 weeks. http://t.co/UDcaMszwT4#EUDataP#PRISM#Datenschutz
- europe-v-facebook (@europevfacebook) August 21, 2014

"The order is very likely on the way to Facebook. The first step in the legal procedure is hereby taken," said a statement by Europe vs. Facebook on Thursday

The group has described the suit, joined by 25,000 users, as "the largest privacy class action in Europe" and specified that 35,000 more users have registered on www.fbclaim.com, expressing their will to join the action should it expand.

At least 469 children have been killed and over 3,000 injured in Gaza since the start of the Israeli offensive, a senior UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) official said, adding that more than 370,000 Palestinian kids require "immediate psychosocial first aid."

Nine children have died in Gaza violence since Wednesday, the chief of UNICEF's Gaza field office, Pernilla Ironside, said at a press conference on Thursday in New York.

"There isn't a single family in Gaza who hasn't experienced personally death, injury, the loss of their home, extensive damage, displacement," Ironside said.

And so the latest propaganda ploy against Russia comes to an abrupt, anti-climatic end. Sick and tired of Kiev's stalling games and Western media war lies, the enormous Russian aid convoy has just returned to Russia after successfully delivering their cargo of food and medical supplies to the besieged population of Lugansk, victims of an ethnic cleansing program whose real nature has been shamelessly twisted by Ukrainian and Western leaders, and the MSM presstitutes acting as government stenographers, calling the convoy's entry into Ukraine an "invasion". It's unclear whether or not Kiev gave its final approval. I'd like to think the Russians just said, "Hell with this, let's roll!"

I recommend reading the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release on their decision to just deliver the damn aid and be done with it. Predictably, the Western war-whore press has all but ignored this statement, preferring to parrot psychopathic fantasy and imply that it's in any way factual.

First there's this little gem from NATO sock puppet war lord-in-chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen:

... [NATO] had observed an alarming build-up of Russian ground and air forces in the vicinity of Ukraine.

"We have also seen transfers of large quantities of advanced weapons, including tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery to separatist groups in eastern Ukraine," Rasmussen said in a statement.

Rasmussen said Russia continued to escalate the crisis in eastern Ukraine and that this could lead to further isolation of Moscow.

If this is true, then please, for Fogh's sake, show us some evidence! The West - the U.S. in particular - has been making similar claims for months, none of them substantiated by anything remotely resembling proof. If such claims were true, the all seeing eye of U.S. intel would have the evidence and it would be easy to distribute. They could provide numerous high-quality satellite photos of the alleged military build-up, not to mention the "large quantities" of weapons entering Ukraine. But they haven't, ergo, there is no evidence, because it never happened. In contrast, when Russia makes claims, they provide real evidence, with satellite data, accurate time stamps, and other verifiable information, as it did in the weeks after the downing of MH17. They even pointed out that the U.S. had one of its satellites positioned to be able to observe what really happened to the flight. Where is that data?

Russia's response to Rasmussen's bullshit was glorious:

"We've stopped paying attention to Mr. Rasmussen's empty talk and his press secretary. There is no point commenting on them. There is no proof there except Twitter," official representative of Russia's Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov stated.

Who needs facts when there's "social media and common sense"?!