A bill submitted by an MP from President Poroshenko's party in the Ukrainian parliament seeks to criminalize public speech that reject the government's narrative on the civil war, which it describes as a Russian military invasion.

The controversial bill amends the Ukrainian criminal code to make "public denial or justification of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014-2015" a felony.

The 'crime' would carry a penalty ranging from a heavy fine and up to a five-year jail term for repeat offences or convicts who held public office.

If the bill is signed into law, it would be the latest move to attack civil freedoms by Ukraine's post-coup government defending its security policies from criticism.


Last week a Ukrainian court ordered the two-month detention of a journalist from western Ukraine who called for a boycott of the ongoing military draft. Ruslan Kotsaba stated that he would rather spend two to five years in prison for refusing to serve in the military than shoot at Ukrainians in what he described as a 'fratricidal war'. Prosecutors charged him with high treason, a crime carrying a 15-year term in Ukraine.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is considering amping up its regulation of online political speech—an idea that should be rejected from the get-go. Back in 2006, the FEC adopted a limited approach to regulating the Internet. Some FEC commissioners feel that its approach has grown outdated. But increased regulation of the Internet would threaten both free speech and privacy.

We have the opportunity to nip any new Internet regulations in the bud by convincing the FEC to maintain its commitment to protecting individuals' online speech. The FEC is accepting comments on whether or not to develop new Internet rules. EFF is submitting comments later this week urging the FEC to leave the current Internet rules in place. But the more comments from the public the better. Submit comments telling the FEC not to amp up its Internet regulations here.

The last time the FEC indicated that it was thinking about adopting regulations that would adversely impact the online community was back in 2005. But after intense criticism from First Amendment proponents—including EFF—the FEC, in 2006, adopted Internet regulations [pdf] limited to (a) paid advertisements and (b) political campaigns, political parties, and political action committees (PACs) that post communications online. The FEC left free and low-cost political commentary exempt from regulation. This was a win for bloggers and other online speakers, as we outline in our Legal Guide for Bloggers.

Now, that victory is under threat. FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel wants to re-examine [pdf] the FEC's approach to online political speech. Her statement comes after the Commission deadlocked 3-to-3 [pdf] on whether to investigate a non-profit that posted two campaign videos on YouTube without including disclaimers or disclosing production costs. Although the FEC has not yet proposed new rules, it appears that Ravel supports overhauling the regulations around online speech. This could have a huge impact on free and low-cost online political speech, especially if new regulations place complicated and burdensome record-keeping and disclosure requirements on bloggers, YouTube posters, or other online speakers, including those who post anonymously.

Washington's potential willingness to arm the Ukrainian military has elicited an unusually frank reaction from former Italian PM Mario Monti, who warned that Europe must not be viewed merely as "tool" of US global interests.

Recently speaking on private Italian broadcaster LA7, Monti warned that there was a definite risk of the conflict in Ukraine spilling over.

"For now it's a limited war, but be careful, you [advocates of arming Ukraine] are creating among Europeans a climate of mistrust and mutual misunderstanding that could take us too far," he said.

When asked how he felt about Washington's recent proposal that it could send defensive lethal arms to the Ukrainian military, including anti-tank and anti-mortar systems, Monti said he believed such a move would prove "intolerable" to Russia.

"I believe that the United States does not always realize that Europe has its problems, and cannot be seen only as a tool of the global interests of the United States," he said.

Monti also noted how the West had to make a choice in its decision to break with Russia, noting that it might be forced to pay a high cost while losing an ally "in containing terrorism."

Long viewed as a technocratic leader and Brussels insider, Monti, who took over the reins from Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, has been a perennial voice of moderation in Europe.

A new bipartisan bill engineered by AIPAC was introduced in Congress yesterday that ties the rejection of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel to future U.S. trade agreements with the European Union. H.R.825, The Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act (pdf) was sponsored by Congressmen Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) and the Israel lobby has been behind the scenes pushing it for months.

A press release issued from Congressman Roskam's website implies the legislation intends to leverage U.S. trade to protect Israel's economic security:

This bipartisan bill would counter the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and strengthen the U.S.-Israel economic relationship. Over the past several years, a growing contingency of countries across the globe have sought to isolate and delegitimize Israel through BDS. This bill leverages ongoing trade negotiations to discourage prospective U.S. trade partners from engaging in economic discrimination against Israel...."The U.S-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act will ensure that American free trade partners never engage in this harmful and illegitimate political protest against Israel, while also protecting U.S. companies from foreign lawsuits targeting their associations with Israel."

Israeli news reports and several American Jewish publications have reported the proposed legislation although it has yet to be picked up by any mainstream U.S. news publication.

A glimpse of hope has appeared for peace in Ukraine after a 13-point memorandum was signed Thursday in Minsk.

The deal was brokered by the leaders of France, Germany and Russia, who joined their Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday for marathon overnight negotiations.

The deal was signed by the so-called "contact group," which includes the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, a representative of the OSCE, Ukraine's former President Viktor Kuchma and the Russian ambassador to Ukraine.

Here is a breakdown of the deal:

1. A comprehensive ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. Comes into force at 00.00 (Kiev time) on February 15.
2. A pullout of heavy weapons. The parties agreed to a compromise disengagement line. Kiev is to pull artillery and other hardware from the current frontline while the rebels would do it from the frontline as it was in September, before they gained ground in a January counter-offensive. The OSCE-monitored safety zone would be 50 km to 150 km wide for weapons, depending on their range. The pullout is to be completed by March 1.

Following the humiliation of tonight's much anticipated Eurogroup meeting in which for the first time ever, not only did Greece punk Germany's stern finance minister, but the ensuing disarray was so profound the panicked European finance ministers couldn't even find a quorum consensus to produce even the tersest of official statements, there was some hope that the second round of negotiations currently taking place in Minsk to find a solution to the Ukraine civil war would at least partially redeem Europe's faltering negotiating reputation.

Alas, as of this moment, that does not appear to be the case, and as Reuters reports citing a Kiev presidential aide, that Minsk talks on Ukraine crisis could last six more hours. "We've got another 5-6 hours of work. At least. But we should not leave here without an agreement on an unconditional ceasefire. There's a battle of nerves underway," aide Valeriy Chaly said in a Facebook post.

Well, if it is indeed a "battle of nerves", something tells who the victor will be, considering all his peers are just a little more preoccupied with the potential collapse of their artificial monetary and political union.
Yet, just like the previous Minsk "agreement", even if by some miracle there is a solution this time around, the probability peace will be maintained is slim to none.

Are we on the verge of a major worldwide economic downturn? Well, if recent warnings from prominent bankers all over the world are to be believed, that may be precisely what we are facing in the months ahead. As you will read about below, the big banks are warning that the price of oil could soon drop as low as 20 dollars a barrel, that a Greek exit from the eurozone could push the EUR/USD down to 0.90, and that the global economy could shrink by more than 2 trillion dollars in 2015. Most of the time, very few people ever actually read the things that the big banks write for their clients. But in recent months, a lot of these bankers are issuing such ominous warnings that you would think that they have started to write for The Economic Collapse Blog. Of course we have seen this happen before. Just before the financial crisis of 2008, a lot of people at the big banks started to get spooked, and now we are beginning to see an atmosphere of fear spread on Wall Street once again. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, but an increasing number of experts are starting to agree that it won't be good.

Let's start with oil. Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen a nice rally for the price of oil. It has bounced back into the low 50s, which is still a catastrophically low level, but it has many hoping for a rebound to a range that will be healthy for the global economy.

Unfortunately, many of the experts at the big banks are now anticipating that the exact opposite will happen instead. For example, Citibank says that we could see the price of oil go as low as 20 dollars this year...

Russia is in a dilemma. How can it work through a peaceful settlement over the Ukraine conflict - and avoid a wider, more terrible war - when it is having to communicate with imbeciles and vassals? We are referring to the American and European leaders, respectively.

The problem of trying to have a conversation with imbeciles is that they are simply incapable of understanding anything outside of their obtuse reality. They suffer from cognitive dissonance and are proud of it. In fact, the more cognitively dysfunctional, the more the imbecile is celebrated as being strong. Imbeciles cannot be enlightened; their ignorant and boorish way of looking at the world is impervious to any different, even more correct perspective. Indeed, they have a visceral aversion to correction, which only retrenches their imbecility all the more.

The problem in dealing with vassals is that they are powerless to change course - even if they have a residual ability to think independently and to recognise an alternative perspective as being more correct, or at least reasonable.

Thus we have the dilemma facing Russia in its dealings with Washington and its European allies over the Ukraine conflict.

I'm 80 years old. I was never scared throughout the Cold War years. I'm very scared now." That is what Stephen Lendman, a Research Associate for the Centre for Research on Globalization told Sputnik in an exclusive interview regarding recent developments related to the military conflict in Ukraine.

As the Normandy Four are set to meet in Minsk on Wednesday to discuss possible ways out of the deteriorating military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Stephen Lendman forecasts that the US won't drop its idea of waging a full-size war in the region.

Washington under the Democrats or Republicans wants war, not peace, he said. "In the post-9/11 era alone, not a single day of peace has followed. Multiple US direct and proxy wars rage. US Special Forces (trained killers) operate covertly and overtly in over 130 countries disruptively."

'Ignore What Germany and France Say Publicly; Follow What They Do'

He says that "Merkel and Hollande (Germany and France) are bedrock US-dominated NATO members." "Ignore what they say publicly; follow what they do," he advised. "Throughout the Ukrainian crisis, they haven't gone their own way against Washington...nor has Britain's David Cameron."

"I'm sure Merkel and Hollande tried to get Putin to largely bend to Washington's will; in other words, [they] do nothing to stop its chokehold on Ukraine, including NATO forces encroaching on Russia's borders."

America maintains an empire of bases in over 150 countries, he added, noting that Russia and China are increasingly surrounded by US bases, which he called "so-called defensive missiles for an offense target: their heartlands."

Washington wants all sovereign independent governments eliminated, Lendman stated. "Replaced by pro-Western stooge ones. America's ultimate aim is unchallenged global dominance; it's willing to wage wars to achieve its objectives."

President Barack Obama will submit a proposal to Congress on Wednesday seeking a new, three-year Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State that allows for the limited use of ground troops, according to Reuters.


All of the details of the AUMF are not finalized, according to administration officials, but some were shared with reporters. The new AUMF would limit military operations to three years but wouldn't put any geographic limitation on the battlefield. Instead, the authorization would enable military action against the Islamic State and associated forces.


The proposal will also seek the use of limited ground troops in situations such as the search-and-rescue of US soldiers or intelligence operations, but would prohibit the use of ground troops in "enduring offensive ground operations."

The White House has indicated it is ready to work with Congress to get the authorization passed.