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

© Press Association
Alexander 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.

Human Rights Watch and London's Foreign Press Association have called for the release of Russian photo journalist Andrey Stenin, and information on his whereabouts. Stenin has been missing in eastern Ukraine for almost a month.

HRW in particular has urged the Ukrainian authorities to disclose the information on Stenin's current location, Rachel Denber, the organization's Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division, told Latvian radio Baltkom.

"The journalists' rights in Ukraine are breached both by self-defense forces and by Ukrainian military. Ukrainian authorities detained many Russian journalists. Unfortunately, I don't have any new information regarding Andrey Stenin. We're urging the Ukrainian authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Stenin," Denber said.

Meanwhile, London's Foreign Press Association called on the release of Rossiya Segodnya news agency's photographer.

"The Foreign Press Association in London shares the concerns expressed by international media organizations about the whereabouts and safety of the Russian photographer Andrei Stenin," the organization in charge of the accreditation of foreign journalists in the UK said in a statement.

The 100^th anniversary of the beginning of World War I seems like an ideal opportunity to spread a message of peace and economic cooperation; sadly, 2014 has so far been a year of new and renewed conflict far more than one of reconciliation.

By now, talk of the horrors of war is nothing new. Everyone knows about the total destruction war brings; in fact, we've known for millennia. As Lew Rockwell points out, "just about everyone makes the perfunctory nod to the tragedy of war, that war is a last resort only, and that everyone sincerely regrets having to go to war" - but war continues all the same. Even classical military strategists like Sun Tzu believed war should only be used only as a last resort, and argued that military campaigns could bankrupt states and ultimately, destroy them. Art of War actually states that "no country has ever profited from protracted warfare," and cautions generals to "fight under Heaven with the paramount aim of 'preservation.'" Yet as far back as we have historical records, these sorts of ideas have fallen on deaf ears among governments and military organizations alike.

Economics offers many insights into war making and why it persists, but the most fundamental explanation is an institutional one. It's tragically simple: warnings about the horrors of war go unheeded because the power to make war - as well as "justify" it in the eyes of those forced to fight and finance it - lies in the hands of the state and its business and intellectual allies. States are monopolists of organized force, and as such decide when and how to use their power on a grand scale, especially when they wish to confront other monopolists.

Bolivia now categorizes Israel as a "terrorist state" after its assault on Gaza.

Israelis wanting to visit Bolivia will now have to request a visa, effective from August 30, said an official source from the Migration Office.

In July President Evo Morales announced "the firm decision to revoke the visa agreement with Israel of August 17, 1972, signed during the Bolivian dictatorship and that allowed Israeli citizens to enter Bolivia freely without even an entry visa."

Between 10,000 and 12,000 Israeli tourists visit Bolivia each year, according to the Migration Office.

The measure changes Israel's category from number "one" to number "three", "mean[ing], in other words, that we are declaring [Israel] a terrorist state," added Morales.

The Andean country has recognized the Palestinian state and it suspended diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 because of a military assault on the Gaza strip.

Morales also presented a claim last month to the High Commissioner of Human Rights in the United Nations of "crimes against humanity."

Memorial Day provides as good an opportunity as any to reflect on the horrendous and irreversible costs of war. For most people - and rightly so - the clearest costs are those in terms of human life, which is shattered both physically and psychologically. As John Denson writes, "In looking at the costs of war we must always keep in mind the reality experienced by soldiers in actual combat. The tallies of the dead and wounded soldiers cannot carry the full meaning of the terror of actually experiencing war... [and] the very real horror and violence known by those on the front lines who actually do the fighting." The destruction of life, civilian and soldier, is usually the goal and always the result of warfare in any age.

Yet in addition to the human costs, which are themselves staggering, there are others as well. Denson further explains:

In the war-torn [21st] century, we rarely hear that one of the main costs of war is a long-term loss of liberty to winners and losers alike. There are the obvious and direct costs of the number of dead and wounded soldiers, but rarely do we hear about the lifetime struggles of combat veterans to live with their nightmares and injuries. Nor do we hear much about the long-term hidden costs of inflation, debts, and taxes. Other inevitable long-term costs of war which are not immediately obvious are damages caused to our culture, to our morality, and to civilization in general.

As writers like Bastiat and Hazlitt emphasized, economists must be careful to examine all costs, not just the most obvious ones. When we do that, we begin to understand the scale of the destruction that war inflicts on human societies. This is true even for the "winners"; no matter which side is deemed the champion, all victories are pyrrhic victories. As Sun Tzu stated many centuries ago, "No country has ever profited from protracted warfare." Mises was even blunter: "War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings."