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Russia: US strikes on Assad will plunge Mideast into chaos

Press TV – June 17, 2016

Russia has warned against a call by US State Department officials for strikes against the Syrian government, saying Moscow is opposed to a military solution.

The Kremlin said on Friday such a move would plunge the entire region into complete chaos.

Dozens of State Department officials have signed an internal document that calls for targeted military strikes against the Syrian government, according to the Wall Street Journal.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that the internal memo on Syria signed by more than 50 US diplomats is an “important statement” that he would discuss when he gets back to Washington.

“It’s an important statement and I respect the process, very, very much. I will … have a chance to meet with people when I get back,” Kerry told Reuters during a visit in Copenhagen.

The memo is sharply critical of US policy in Syria, calling for military strikes against the Assad government.

An unnamed US official familiar with the document said the internal cable may be an attempt to shape the foreign policy outlook of the next US administration.

“It is not a secret to us that there are political forces in the US who favor a military solution [to the Syrian crisis]. But this is not our method,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

The United States and its allies have been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh terrorists inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The attacks have largely failed to fulfill their declared aim of destroying Daesh but killed civilians and targeted the Syrian infrastructure in many cases.

Washington has consistently refused to join forces with Russia in Syria against Daesh ever since Moscow launched its campaign of airstrikes in September last year.

On Thursday, a senior US defense official accused Russia of carrying out airstrikes in southern Syria against US-backed forces.

The accusation came a day after Kerry said the US was losing patience with Russia over its support for the Syrian government.

“Russia needs to understand that our patience is not infinite. In fact it is very limited with whether or not al-Assad is going to be held accountable,” he said.

Responding to those remarks, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he believed the US might hope to use al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria to unseat President Assad’s government.

Lavrov said in St. Petersburg on Thursday that the reluctance of US-backed opposition groups to distance themselves from the Nusra Front has been a major reason behind continuing fighting.

The US could be “playing some kind of game here, and they may want to keep al-Nusra in some form and use it to topple the regime,” Lavrov said.

June 17, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: Looming Crisis Slipping Through the Cracks of Public Attention

By Andrei AKULOV | Strategic Culture Foundation | 15.06.2016

The missile defense capable USS Porter is in the Black Sea to trigger discussions on the state of European and global security. This month experts mark the 28th anniversary of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that came into force on June 1, 1988. Those were the days of great hopes and expectations.

Today Ukraine’s drama, the EU’s migrants’ crisis, China’s economic slowdown and the fight against the Islamic State group hit headlines while another crisis is looming in the background – the unraveling of nuclear arms control and the related problem of non-proliferation. The prospect of losing the legal regime for managing the instruments of devastation is very much real.

It is true that the two key treaties – the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty – are still in force. However, their future is not assured. The 2010 New START (also known as the Prague Treaty) was an important achievement in preventing the collapse of arms control. But it expires in 2020 without any prospects for a new agreement coming into force. There are no signs that the parties are planning to launch talks on the subject. The future of the INF is also in doubt. The Treaty is threatened by ballistic missile defense (BMD) deployment. Aegis Ashore uses the naval Mk-41 launching system, which is capable of firing long-range cruise missile. This is a blatant violation of the INF Treaty provisions.

The countries which host BMD sites inevitably become targets for Russia’s Iskander surface-to-surface missiles and aviation.

Actually, the United States launched the arms control erosion by withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to no longer accept any restrictions on its missile defense deployments. Washington still has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 20 years after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996.

Russia refuses any limitations on its sub-strategic nuclear arms while the US enjoys advantage in conventional long-range precision guided weapons, and NATO is implementing the program of stationing missile defense Aegis sites in Romania and Poland – in the vicinity of Russia’s borders. European security is weakened by the Russia-NATO stand-off. Nowadays, the plans to establish nuclear-weapons-free zones in Europe are, to large extent, forgotten. Measures that might include steps to prevent nuclear weapons being stationed outside the borders of the nuclear-weapon states are not on the Russia-NATO Council’s agenda. There is no accord between Russian and NATO on nuclear incidents prevention. Currently around 200 B61 bombs are deployed in underground vaults inside around 90 protective aircraft shelters at six bases in five NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey). About half of the munitions are earmarked for delivery by national aircraft of these non-nuclear states, although they all are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 that envisions certain obligations.

Article I of the treaty prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons from nuclear-weapons states to other countries. Its Article II requires non-nuclear weapons states not to receive nuclear weapons. The US and NATO breach a major international treaty.

Russia considers US forward-based tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe to be an addition to the US strategic arsenal that is capable of striking deep into Russian national territory. Moscow has, therefore, demanded that the United States withdraw these weapons (which amount to about 200 air-dropped gravity bombs in the process of being upgraded) from Europe as a precondition to any possible talks on the issue. The process is stalled.

In addition, developments in non-nuclear BMD systems and long-range, precision-guided offensive weapons, as well as their proliferation, have complicated nuclear arms control.

The United States is in violation of the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA). Russia and the US agreed to transparently dispose of weapons-grade plutonium, thereby preventing it from being reused for military purposes. The agreement specifies that the United States will dispose of its plutonium by burning it in light water reactors (Article III.2).

In 2016 the US Energy Department changed the plans in favor of “a cheaper, faster alternative”.

Changing the disposition method requires formally amending the agreement, which cannot be done without Russia’s consent.

Despite that, the US administration’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal calls for the termination of the MOX (mixed oxide) project.

The violation was one of the reasons the Russian President skipped the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, DC on March 31-April 1, 2016.

The seven nuclear-armed states besides Russia and the United States have refused to join the discussions on any limitations till Russia and the US get closer to their numerical levels. In fact, it implies another substantial reduction on top of cuts already undertaken by the “Big Two”. Global and regional powers with quite different points of view, ambitions, and political and military experiences from Russia and the United States are now important international players. Nuclear-arms limitations are no longer in the foreground of international security giving place to local conflicts, the fight against terrorism, and nuclear proliferation – the issue greatly exacerbated by the recent North Korean activities.

Nuclear nonproliferation is also in trouble. Nothing has been done in real terms. For instance, a conference on the establishment of weapons of mass destruction–free zone in the Middle East (agreed on at the 2010 Nuclear Summit) has never materialized. 2016 Washington Nuclear Summit ended without producing any tangible results with Russia skipping the event. Negotiations with North Korea have been in limbo for many years and there is no prospect for their revival. This is confirmed by the recent events.

The talks on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty have been deadlocked for many years with the US-Russian cooperation on the safety and security of nuclear sites and materials ended in 2014.

The 2015 Iran deal is the only silver lining, but it still has a long way to go to become a long-term, comprehensive process. All other negotiations on nuclear arms reduction and nonproliferation have come to a dead end. Russia and the United States still retain their leading roles in the nonproliferation regime, but they can use this advantage effectively only joining together. The history of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program provides a telling example.

Today the world is facing the most serious and comprehensive crisis in the fifty-year history of nuclear arms control with almost every channel of negotiation deadlocked and the entire system of existing arms control agreements in jeopardy. One can see the US taking one decision after another to undermine the arms control regime that has served as a pillar of international security for dozens of years. This crisis may quite possibly result in the total disintegration of the existing framework of treaties and regimes followed by probable resumption of the arms race with dire consequences for humanity. Further proliferation of nuclear weapons may lead to the deliberate or accidental use of nuclear weapons in local wars. Only political unity among the major global powers and alliances, coupled with urgent and effective action, can reverse this trend.

Inventiveness and an aggressive search for new approaches can adapt nuclear arms control to the new realities, including disentangling further strategic arms reductions from the present knot of problems, binding agreements on the capabilities of BMD systems, limitations on existing and emerging long-range, precision-guided conventional offensive weapons and reductions in substrategic nuclear arms. Cooperative relations among key global and regional powers and alliances could be adapted to the emerging new post–Cold War world order molded through patient negotiations launched upon a joint Russia-US initiative. Nuclear arms control – the central pillar of the process – should be restored and modernized.

Hopefully, the next President of the United States will realize that the problems can be resolved if the leaders of the great powers are willing to work them out, and if experts approach them creatively.

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia slaps Israel in the face

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By Said Gafurov | Pravda | June 10, 2016

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Moscow and his negotiations with President Putin, for the fourth time this year, has created the impression of failure. Russia and Israel have been developing active cooperation recently in the field of culture, trade and customs and education.

However, Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow does look like a failure from the point of view of foreign policy. In an official statement for the press, President Putin spoke about the “open” and “constructive” nature of the talks with the Israeli PM. In the diplomatic world, though, when negotiations are held in a friendly and even neutral fashion, they usually say that the talks were held “in a friendly atmosphere.” This is something that we have not heard from the Kremlin this time. In other words, there is no understanding between Russian and Israeli leaders.

The main purpose of Netanyahu’s visit to Russia was clearly focused on foreign policy issues, such as the regulation of the crisis in Syria and a possible solution to the Palestinian conflict. Israel sees clearly that the civil war in Syria is ending. Netanyahu’s visit coincided with a remarkable speech that Bashar al-Assad delivered at the opening session of the newly elected parliament. It is obvious that the question of the end of the war and national reconciliation in Syria is a matter of time. What happens afterwards?

The conflict in Syria has created an alliance between Russia, Iran, Syria, and units of Lebanese resistance. As for the latter, it is not only Hezbollah fighters, but also a large number of volunteers from Lebanese secular parties that struggle against Islamic State militants in Syria.

Netanyahu seems to be concerned about the prospect for the new, reunited Syria to appear near Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister is also concerned about the strong influence of Iran in the post-war Syria.

What does President Putin say to all this? Putin delivers a long speech, in which he talks about culture, economy, trade and economic relations, tourism and everything else. As for the Syrian problem, Putin said only two phrases: “We have paid great attention to international issues, and of course, we talked about the complicated situation in the Middle East region, including in Syria.” That’s all.

One shall assume that there is no understanding between Russia and Israel. Russia has ignored Netanyahu’s requirements, for example, to restrict supplies of weapons to Lebanon that Hezbollah fighters could get their hands on. Russia views Hezbollah as one of the most important political parties in Lebanon. Hezbollah is a member of the ruling coalition. Russia follows its principle to supply arms only to legitimate governments. Hezbollah is an important element of the legitimate government of Lebanon. Moscow sees Hezbollah as an essential element of structure of the Middle East.

In addition, Putin reaffirmed Russia’s position for a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and stressed that Russia was ready to act as a mediator. This came as another slap in the face of Israel, because it is the Palestinians who demand the Palestinian issue should be solved by the international community, while Israel insists on bilateral negotiations between Palestine and Israel.

June 14, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO to deploy troops to Romania as part of eastward expansion

Press TV – June 14, 2016

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) says it will send units to Romania as part of plans to expand its presence in Eastern Europe, a source of controversy with Russia.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the decision on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of the Western military alliance’s defense ministers in the Belgian capital, Brussels, on Tuesday.

Stoltenberg told reporters that NATO would take up an offer by Romania to deploy forces in the eastern European country, without elaborating on the number of troops.

The development comes a month after the alliance formally opened a missile shield base in Romania, prompting Russia to say that it will take counter-measures against what it denounced as a threat to its security.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the NATO chief noted that despite the build-up of troops, the military bloc avoids tensions with Russia.

“We convey a very strong message about that we don’t seek confrontation with Russia. We don’t want a new cold war and we will continue to strive for a more constructive and cooperative relationship with Russia,” he said.

Stoltenberg further emphasized that the alliance will formally approve the deployment of four “robust” multinational battalions in Poland as well as the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.

“We will take decisions on a tailored presence for the southeast region, with a land element built around a multinational framework brigade in Romania,” he said.

This unit will “organize and facilitate NATO activities in the region related to exercises and also assurance measures,” he added.

The four battalions, which would tour through Eastern Europe and conduct drills with national troops, are likely to number 2,500-3,000 troops combined with the small force designed to act as a tripwire, according to diplomatic sources.

NATO has stepped up its military build-up near Russia’s borders since it suspended all ties with Moscow in April 2014 after the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula re-integrated into the Russian Federation following a referendum.

Moscow has repeatedly repudiated NATO’s expansion near its borders, saying such a move poses a threat to both regional and international peace.

Last month, NATO formally invited Montenegro to become its 29th member, forcing the Kremlin to warn that the decision risked fueling geopolitical tensions across Europe.

June 14, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Nuland to Congress: We Spend $100 Mil a Year Trying to Destabilize Russia

By Ricky Twistdale | Russia Insider | June 9, 2016

On Tuesday [June 7, 2016], the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations scheduled a two-hour anti-Russian hate-fest. Lies, misinformation and jaw-dropping stupidity were on full display. The star witness of course, was Tricky Vicky Nuland.

These congressional committee meetings crack me up. In theory, they’re supposed to be interviewing witnesses to collect information. In reality it’s a platform for congressmen to make speeches satisfying the special interests who own them and then they read questions from prepared notes provided to them by “experts” or lobbyists (or maybe the witnesses themselves). Then they get the answers they want to hear from the witnesses. It is 100% theater.

Nuland’s opening statement was full of scare mongering about the supposed threat to peaceful civilization from Moscow. She did provide some telling facts. She said the US had already spent $600 million on “security assistance” to Ukraine – so on top of other billions in handouts from the IMF, most of which was stolen by oligarchs, that’s money going directly to killing kids in Donbass. (Warning, the foregoing link is very graphic. And there are many even worse images of Kiev’s terror victims I will not link to.)

Poroshenko was very clear how Kiev intends to win the war. They intend to win it by blockade and terror shelling of Donetsk. Just like Hitler planned to beat Leningrad. So they imagine.

Nuland also said the US had trained 17,000 Ukrainian troops. That’s training going directly to kill kids in Donbass. She said the US had “provided counter-artillery and counter mortar radars” and “over 3,000 secure radios” and “other equipment, to help Ukrainian troops successfully resist further advances.”

As if the “Ukrainian army” (if that’s what they call neo-Nazi private legions) and the assistance provided to them would be enough to stop the Russian army from actually taking over Ukraine, were Moscow so inclined.

No, Vicky, that’s equipment going directly to kill kids in Donbass. How’s that for “Russian propaganda?” How am I doing?

Are my fellow Americans satisfied with how their tax money is being spent?

But the United States is not stopping at simply supporting war and economic destruction in Ukraine. They want to spread the same kind of “freedom” to Russia.

Here’s where Lil’ Marco Rubio comes in. He’s a tough guy. He’d probably nuke the world just to prove he’s a man. (Well, Hillary will probably do it to prove she’s a man as well.)

Lil’ Marco asked Tricky Vicky if the sanctions had changed Putin’s “aggressive behavior.” She said yes, they stopped him from continuing his “invasion” of Ukraine beyond Crimea and Donbass. Then Rubio says he knows they’d hoped Crimea would bankrupt Russia, any sign that’s happening? Vicky says not yet, but Crimea’s really hurting them. Tough Lil’ Marco said good we ought to double up the sanctions. Vicky says they will if they need to, plus even if they lift the Russia sanctions, sanctions on Crimea will never be lifted until Crimea returns to Ukraine.Well Crimea is never returning to Ukraine. So in other words, Crimean sanctions will stay until hell freezes over.

So they were hoping fixing up Crimea would bankrupt Russia, but they expect us to believe Putin wanted all Ukraine? Yeah I’m sure he wanted that trillion dollar black hole.

Next comes in one Sen. Shaheen, who sounds like somebody’s clueless grandmother. She probably cannot find Russia on a map. She keeps glancing at her notes just to get through her opening statement. She has probably never even seen RT, though she condemns it on cue.

It was here that Vicky let us know the extent of US efforts to turn Russia into a smoldering wasteland wrecked by civil war and terror just like they did to Ukraine starting with Maidan. (But I’m sure all Vicky did was hand out pastries.)Nuland claims the US is spending $100 million a year producing Russian-language propaganda in the Baltic states and Ukraine, as well as Russia. They also operate secret training programs for Russian journalists. She also said they provide funding to organizations and programs inside Russia but wouldn’t give details.

Actually, they have access to far more than that, with the total budget of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs all official US propaganda directed abroad, being over $700 million. (US government agencies and departments routinely underestimate the amount they spend on programs, in an effort to win more funding.) Meanwhile, Nuland told a bald faced lie that the budget of Russia’s RT was $400 million. It is closer to $300 million. But it would be difficult to count all of Vicky’s and her companion witness’ lies in just this 2 hour time span.

Of all the times the term “Russian” or “Kremlin propaganda” is uttered by the Western apologists, they consistently fail to give any examples. I suppose what they really mean by “Kremlin propaganda” is facts given by people who dare to confront their own politically correct Owellian distortion machine. In the past decades, the United States and its allies have done plenty to propagandize against themselves, doing no good for any country and more often than not leaving conflict and destruction in every country they touch, both economic and physical.

Does Russia in the last 25 years have anything like a comparable record of international violence and expansionism? The plain facts speak for themselves, which does the job of “Kremlin propaganda” on its own without much effort.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Signal from Russian sub lurking near Sweden in 2014 ‘came from Swedish object’

RT | June 12, 2016

A sonar signature, which Swedish military claimed to be crucial evidence of a foreign submarine’s presence near Stockholm during the 2014 hunt, came from a “Swedish object,” the country’s defense minister has admitted.

Peter Hultqvist would not go into details about the source of the signal, but said the military reconsidered their assessment of its nature in September 2015, he told Sveriges Radio.

The hunt for a foreign submarine, presumed to be Russian by the Swedish media, was launched off Stockholm in October 2014. The media reported that an emergency hail on a frequency used by the Russian Navy prompted the hunt. An amateur photo of the supposed boat was widely circulated. Hultqvist took up office earlier the same month.

At the time of the search Swedish military reported having crucial evidence of the presence of a foreign submarine in the country’s waters. The perceived threat to national security was used to justify a multimillion-dollar boost to military spending.

In April 2015, the supposed intruder was revealed to have been a workboat by Swedish media.

Sweden is not the only nation where Russian submarines have been blamed for things they didn’t do. In April last year, a fishing vessel collided with an unidentified submarine off Scotland, with British media speculating that it must have been Russian. The Royal Navy admitted in September that the boat was actually theirs.

Western media blame Russia sometimes bizarrely for various incidents, including the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014 to the vandalizing of a Swedish TV mast last month.

READ MORE: ‘Oops, it was us’: Military concedes British sub, not Russian, damaged UK trawler in April

June 12, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Shocking UN Report Lists Crimes by the Ukrainian Authorities

By Arina TSUKANOVA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 11.06.2016

The 13th report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Ukraine between 16 November 2015 and 15 February 2016, when the Minsk Agreements were in force, has come as a shock to Kiev.

According to the UN, more than three million people live in the areas directly affected by the conflict. The exact number of people who have left Ukraine-controlled territory is still unknown, although rough estimates range from 800,000 to 1,000,000 people. The Ukrainian government has estimated that more than a million people have left southeast Ukraine for Russia, Belarus and Europe. This figure does not match that of the Russian federal migration service, however: in 2015, around four million Ukrainians crossed the border, with nearly 2.6 million settling in Russia. More than a million people have arrived from southeast Ukraine. Residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are permitted to live freely in Russia.

The discrepancy in the figures clearly shows that Ukraine is not interested in keeping track of its citizens, whether within the country or abroad. This means that one of the aims of the military campaign launched in the east of the country is to displace the population from the area of conflict, predominantly to Russia. Given that refugees from the republics to Ukraine are facing discrimination in access to public services, according to the UN report, the authorities in Kiev do not seem to want the residents of Donbass either.

The UN also states that those living close to the contact line (nearly 800,000 people) are particularly suffering, and the lives of these people are constantly at risk. The UN mission believes that the assistance being given to the residents of Donbass is insufficient, even given Russia’s humanitarian convoys, although the fact that it was Ukraine that shut down all the social programmes and introduced the ‘blockade’ unfortunately remained beyond the scope of the report.

The UN believes that the permit regime introduced by Ukraine and the disorder at checkpoints are negatively reinforcing the isolation of those living in the DPR and LPR. Queues of up to 300-400 cars waiting on either side of the checkpoints are observed on a regular basis and this recently ended in tragedy. Due to the fact that the Ukrainian checkpoint is not open at night, civilians who had been queuing in their cars overnight were fired at by the Ukrainian side using illegal-calibre weapons (122 mm), resulting in the deaths of five people, including a pregnant woman.

During the period covered in the report, the Ukrainian armed forces have advanced even further into populated areas and the numerous attacks on the residential areas of Horlivka, Shakhtarsk and Debaltseve are also mentioned in the report.

Since the Minsk ceasefire agreements entered into force (i.e. since 15 February 2015), there have been 843 civilian casualties – 235 killed (216 adults and 19 children) and 608 injured (554 adults and 44 children). At the same time, the UN mission notes that it is unable to attribute some of the victims to either side of the conflict. It also emphasises that the real number of those killed and injured could be higher than that given in the report.

The number of people missing is particularly shocking. The Ukrainian side has reported 741 persons missing, while the DPR has registered 420 missing persons. In addition, the UN mission has ascertained that approximately 1,000 bodies held in morgues in government-controlled territory have still not been identified.

And once again the numbers are crying out that the Ukrainian government does not believe people to be important. The number of persons that Kiev has declared missing is a third less than the number of unidentified bodies! And the numbers also ignore the mortal remains in areas where hostilies took place – search operations are virtually non-existent. As the UN report states, there is not even a dedicated mechanism in place to gather statements from the relatives of missing persons.

The UN mission has also not taken into account the number of unmarked graves in cemeteries. The overwhelming majority of missing persons should not be looked for in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, but among the thousands of bodies that have already been quietly buried or are still lying in morgues. It is possible that the official number of those who will never return has been hugely underestimated.

The efforts of the Ukrainian side aimed at searching for and identifying those killed and those missing are referred to in the UN report using the word «inaction».

Kiev cannot admit that to avoid responsibility, it is secretly carrying out a policy of ‘unidentified bodies’. It is also being suggested to relatives that missing persons are being held captive by DPR and LPR ‘separatists’.

The report concedes that some people recorded as missing may be alive, but are being held in secret places of detention either in the republics or in Ukrainian-controlled territory.

The UN mission has finally figured out that the secret prisons and torture in Ukraine are an established system that has become part of the state and its policies. Of the 1,925 criminal investigations launched into allegations of torture in 2015, 1,450 were closed.

The report has also provided yet more evidence that it is not a civil war. It is a war between those who seized power by means of a military coup and the people of Ukraine, a war that is hypocritically being referred to as an ‘anti-terrorist operation’.

As noted in the report, «throughout the country, OHCHR continued to receive allegations of enforced disappearances, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, and torture and ill-treatment of people accused by the Ukrainian authorities of ‘trespassing territorial integrity’, ‘terrorism’ or related offenses, or of individuals suspected of being members of, or affiliated with, the armed groups».

People are not just being tortured, but are also being executed without trial. In Sloviansk, for example, the basement of the local college is being used for this purpose. A basement used for torture and summary executions was also discovered by UN inspectors in Izium, Kharkiv district. In addition, «a network of unofficial places of detention, often located in the basement of regional SBU buildings, have been identified». The SBU also has such basements in Odessa and Kharkiv. In February 2016, between 20 to 30 people were detained in the basement of the Kharkiv regional SBU building, and the vast majority of prisoners were not arrested in accordance with legal procedures and were not charged.

The report also notes that the SBU obtains confessions of terrorism using torture, and those who sign the confessions are told that should they complain, then their families, including their children, will also be made to suffer. The Security Service of Ukraine refers to such methods as the use of «proportional» and «justified» force.

The 13th report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Ukraine appeared on 3 March 2016, but it is only now that the information bomb has exploded following an article in The Times, in which Ivan Simonovic, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, talks about the report and also about five secret SBU prisons that a delegation of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture was not allowed access to, resulting in the delegation cutting short its visit to Ukraine…

The 13th report also completely destroys the myth that there are thousands of prisoners in the DPR and LPR. There is no trace of the thousands – in February 2016, the SBU gave the UN mission a list of 136 people who are allegedly being detained in custody in the republics, but nothing is known about this for sure. The list provided by the DPR authorities, however, looks completely different. «Some 1,110 persons were detained by the Government of Ukraine, including 363 members of the armed groups. This includes 577 people arrested for ‘their political views’ and 170 civilians ‘who have nothing to do with the conflict’», says the UN report. The SBU has gone overboard by essentially creating a system of concentration camps. The UN report likens the actions of the SBU to the seizure of hostages.

It has been impossible to keep the scandal hushed up, but while this regime exists in Ukraine, investigations into its criminal activities will be carried out along the same lines as the investigations into the people burned alive in Odessa on 2 May 2014. Namely that the executioners will remain free or under house arrest while the victims are imprisoned. For years.

June 11, 2016 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

UK Illegally Harasses Russian Submarine Engaged in Lawful Passage of English Channel

By Craig Murray | June 9, 2016

Contrary to Article 44 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, to which the UK and Russia are both party, the UK has engaged in extensive illegal harassment of a Russian naval submarine engaged in fully lawful transit of the Dover Strait.

A Russian naval vessel en route between the Baltic and Black Seas is fully and specifically entitled under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Articles 37 and 38 to the right of passage through the strait. This is in addition to the general right of passage through the territorial sea at Article 17. The Russian navy was in full compliance with the provision at Article 20 that, while in territorial waters, the submarine must be on the surface and displaying its flag, and in compliance with Articles 29 to 32 on warships.

Not only does the Russian Navy have every right to sail through the Dover strait on passage, it has been exercising that right – along with many other navies – for over a hundred years. The decision of the British government now to employ military harassment and threat is not only illegal, it is a gross and entirely deliberate act of provocation designed to sour international relations and disturb the atmosphere of world peace.

The author of this article, Craig Murray, is a former Head of the Maritime Section of the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and former Alternate Head of the United Kingdom Delegation to the United Nations Preparatory Commission on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. He is a retired British Ambassador.

June 9, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

‘All China’s assets in the US might be annulled‘, warns ex-BoE chief, urging countries to diversify

RT | June 9, 2016

Washington may be forced to renege on its huge debt to Beijing under catastrophic circumstances, says the former head of the Bank of England Mervyn King. He suggests governments could mitigate risk by diversifying their assets.

“Who knows what the future holds, but China and other countries do not want to be in a situation where all their international assets are in effect dependent on the US,” said King, who was the Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013, in an article for Gold Investor magazine.

“Of course the US would not want to renege on its debts, but if some awful conflagration occurred, then all China’s assets in the US might be annulled,” said the former BoE chief, adding that China and other countries should diversify their portfolios, making them less dependent “on the goodwill of other countries.”

China is the biggest holder of US debt with $1.245 trillion, according to US Treasury data. Over the past 12 months Beijing has cut its Treasury securities 1.3 percent from $1.261 trillion seen last year.

According to the most recent data from March, global central banks sold off $17 billion in US Treasuries. Since the beginning of the year the sell-off has reached $123 billion, which is the quickest pace since 1978.

Russia has steadily shed US assets since the 2008 financial crisis, with holdings dropping from more than $200 billion in 2008 to $86 billion as of March this year.

In May, billionaire George Soros cut investment in US stocks by a third and acquired a $264 million stake in the world’s biggest bullion producer, Barrick Gold.

June 9, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US Refused to Discuss Missile Defense with Russia

By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 07.06.2016

The United States has refused Russian offers to discuss Washington’s missile defense program, said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov. He made this statement at the Shangri-La Dialogue 15th Asia Security Summit on June 5. “We have offered them cooperation many times and found ways we could solve the situation… But we did not manage to convince them to continue dialogue on this issue. As I understand it, now is not the best time for them to hold consultations,” Antonov stated.

The official emphasized that the US-backed project was creating problems for both Russia and China, complaining that Moscow had many times called on the United States to rethink its plans. “It is very dangerous when one country secures its own security at the expense of other countries’ security,” he added.

Mr Antonov has raised a burning issue that negatively affects the security agenda. Actually, Russia has put forward a number of proposals related to cooperation with the US in the field of missile defense making conditional the right of joint decision over the configuration and parameters of the system, as well as international legal guarantees that the system will not undermine Russia’s nuclear potential. It has also come up with the initiative on introduction of sectoral missile defense, in which the Russian armed forces would take responsibility for the defence of NATO’s eastern region.

All these proposals have been rejected.

The ballistic missile defense (BMD) is a step to a new arms race, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on May 13, vowing to adjust budget spending to neutralize “emerging threats” to Russia. “Until now, those taking such decisions have lived in calm, fairly well-off and in safety. Now, as these elements of ballistic missile defense are deployed, we are forced to think how to neutralize emerging threats to the Russian Federation,” he stated.

The President emphasized that Russia would not be drawn into an arms race, but would continue re-arming its army and navy and spend the approved funds in a way that would uphold the current strategic balance of forces.

The United States abandoned the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 2002 to greatly complicate further arms control talks. The document had been the cornerstone of the strategic weapon limitation process for the previous thirty years. The US has created a problem of BMD sites located in Romania (already operational) and Poland (to enter service in 2018) – all in the vicinity of Russian border. The United States is deploying BMD elements in Japan. The plans to deploy the THAAD in South Korea have been announced recently.

Despite Russian objections, Washington has refused to limit its BMD effort either by creating a joint system or by accepting legally binding commitments to demonstrate that the system will not be aimed at Russia. The BMD deployment is dashing the hopes for achieving progress in nuclear disarmament talks.

Russian and US views differ substantially on the issue of compliance with arms control and nuclear arms reduction agreements. The crisis of arms control is both multifaceted and comprehensive. It’s not the BMD only.

The US has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) almost two decades after negotiations concluded. For the foreseeable future, there is little prospect of the United States accepting new obligations.

It is highly unlikely that Russia and the United States would agree to further nuclear cuts below the ceilings agreed upon in the START-3 treaty.

Substrategic weapons are another serious problem with no prospect for a solution in the foreseeable future. There is a slight chance they would be included into the bilateral arms control agenda. Russia considers US forward-based tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe as an addition to the American strategic arsenal that is capable of striking deep into Russian territory. Moscow has, therefore, demanded that the United States withdraw these weapons (about 200 air-dropped gravity bombs in the process of being upgraded) from Europe as a precondition to any possible discussions on the issue. This an extremely complicated aspect of arms control kept out of nuclear security discourse.

Furthermore, the United States enjoys a lead in long-range offensive non-nuclear weapons.

New conventional long-range high-precision systems significantly complicate estimates of strategic balance and calculations of the sufficiency of deterrent forces. They will create even greater problems for arms control negotiations and could even jeopardize the INF Treaty and New START (START-3).

Add to it the expansion of NATO, the worldwide and regional destabilization, the buildup of military infrastructure around Russia, the implementation of the Prompt Global Strike concept and the militarization of outer space.

In late March, Washington made a decision to deploy an armored brigade in Europe starting from 2017 fiscal year adding to the forces deployed on rotational principle for increased number of exercises and storage of pre-positioned equipment for would-be reinforcements.

On June 5, first deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee Franz Klinzewitsch said that NATO prepares a base for a global strike against Russia by deploying troops on the former Soviet military bases in Europe. “They have many serious plans within the concept of the so-called global strike. NATO restores our old Soviet bases in Baltic, Romania, Poland, stations people there,” the lawmaker pointed out.

Two key agreements between Russia and the United States to limit offensive nuclear weapons – the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-3) and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty – are still in force, but their future is in doubt. For instance, the US has recently accused Russia of violating the INF.

The statements have so far failed to specify which exactly weapons system allegedly violates the treaty’s provisions.

At the same time, the deployment in Romania and Poland of Mk-41 Aegis Ashore launchers capable of firing ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) is an outright violation of the INF.

The United States has blatantly violated the uranium disposal deal – another major arms control agreement.

Virtually all negotiations on arms control have been stalled with existing treaties eroded. It was one of the reasons President Putin skipped the Washington Nuclear Summit in March.

The global prospects for the future are dim. Third countries refuse to join the process of nuclear disarmament without further progress on nuclear arms reductions by Russia and the US.

Since George Bush Jr. days, the United States has been taking one decision after another to undermine the arms control regime that has served as a pillar of international security for dozens of years. For the foreseeable future, there is little prospect of the US accepting new obligations. Its credibility as a reliable partner is shaken.

For over half a century since the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the international binding framework has limited the nuclear potentials. This period of history appears to be nearing its end. Nearly all negotiations on nuclear arms reduction have come to a stop. With the Cold War ended over a quarter of a century ago, the whole arms control process is on the verge of disintegration. The continuation of US missile defense efforts leads to the quagmire of uncontrolled arms race. The refusal of the US to discuss the BMD plans confirms this fact.

June 7, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Everyone’s Paying For America’s War on Russia, Including America

By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 06.06.2016

US sanctions aren’t just hurting everyone including the US, they are accomplishing nothing. The US State Department’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) notified readers of a diplomacy campaign by the United States aimed at “urging” Europe to maintain sanctions against Russia. While the US claims the necessity of these sanctions are self-evident and beneficial to the US and Europe, such campaigns would not be needed if that were truly the case.

The article titled, “U.S. Sends Envoy To Urge Europe To Maintain Russian Sanctions,” states:

The United States is dispatching an envoy to Paris and Berlin on June 7 and 8 to try to convince European allies “of the importance of maintaining sanctions pressure on Russia,” the U.S. Treasury said on June 3.

The sanctions, RFE/RL claims, are a result of Russia’s involvement in neighboring Ukraine’s downward spiral, which ironically enough, began not with Russian involvement but with that of America. Between 2013-2014 the United States, with its own senators traveling to Ukraine and taking the stage at US-backed protests in Kiev, quite literally propelled a violent Neo-Nazi putsch into power.

Since then, Ukraine has unraveled. Rather than taking responsibility for yet another failed US intervention, US policymakers have instead decided to shift the blame on Moscow. The ability to hold up US-EU sanctions against Russia as a means of legitimizing this shift of responsibility is key to the continued underpinning of Western support for the current regime in Kiev, and Washington’s continued belligerence toward Moscow.

US Sanctions are a Geopolitical Wrecking Ball

Like a geopolitical wrecking ball, US intervention in Ukraine first destabilized and destroyed Ukraine’s economy, before brushing into Russia and now with sanctions ongoing ever since, the effects have swung back to hit Europe and even the United States itself.

Ukraine since Soviet days has enjoyed several notable accomplishments in the field of heavy industry. The legendary Anatov aircraft company is headquartered in Ukraine and produces some of the largest heavy lift aircraft in the world.

The New York Times in 2014 would report in its article, “Aviation Giant Is Nearly Grounded in Ukraine,” that:

The crisis with Russia that erupted in February terminated Antonov’s most promising, albeit already troubled, joint venture: a short-takeoff, heavy-lift plane that the Russian military had sought for years.

Antonov was not alone. With the rupture, Ukraine, among the world’s top 10 arms exporters, lost the market that spurred the development of its military industry.

Economic and military experts said Antonov’s troubles epitomized the twin problems plaguing state-run companies in Ukraine, particularly the military sector, as it tries to slip Russia’s gravitational pull and hitch its fortunes to Europe.

Though the New York Times attempts to place the blame squarely on Russia, the reality is that Ukraine has an inescapable historical, cultural, technological and socioeconomic relationship with neighboring Russia, a relationship being artificially severed by a likewise artificial regime in Kiev.

The primary problem facing this US-European prodded shift is that the defense industry Ukraine was a part of, represented and benefited from mirroring that of the US and Europe. Attempting to integrate itself with the US and Europe is unlikely, and instead what will follow is the liquidation of Ukraine’s economic strength.

The New York Times notes that Ukraine also was a prolific weapons developer and manufacturer, among the top 10 in the world. Nations around the world sought Ukrainian systems, including armored personnel carriers and main battle tanks because of comparable characteristics to Russian and Chinese systems.

Again, however, these systems depended on the many ties that still exist between Ukraine and Russia, not to mention socioeconomic and political stability within Ukraine that now no longer exists. Having severed these ties for political rather than pragmatic reasons, Ukraine has crippled itself yet again. The most poignant example of this was the failure to deliver T-84 Oplot main battle tanks to the Southeast Asian nation of Thailand.

The order was placed before the 2013-2014 putsch in Kiev, along with the acquisition of Ukrainian BTR-3 armored personnel carriers. However, delays in deliver due to instability after 2013-2014 have caused the Thai government to shift to China’s VT-4 main battle tank instead.

It should be remembered that large acquisitions of weapon systems like aircraft and ground vehicles often create an entire ecosystem of spare parts, replacements, training, and even closer military cooperation. Ukraine has not only lost out on potentially lucrative weapon deals, but all the additional benefits included with them.

There was also Ukraine’s space industry whose biggest partner was Russia. With the partnership ended by Kiev and the ability of space agencies elsewhere around the world unable to fill the void because of the long-term nature of most space programs, Kiev’s decision has all but laid this industry to rest.

Bloomberg in its article, “Putin Is Knocking Ukraine’s Space Industry Out of Orbit,” implies that Russia has crippled Ukraine’s space industry. However, throughout the article, Bloomberg admits that Ukraine’s space program was mutually beneficial to both Kiev and Moscow, with its “knocking out” benefiting neither nation. The article admits:

The rest of Ukraine’s space industry hasn’t been so fortunate. Russia was its biggest customer, and sales have cratered. That’s partly Ukraine’s doing: In June, President Petro Poroshenko halted all military sales to Russia, including some dual-use missile and rocket technologies made by Ukrainian companies.

Bloomberg also admits:

By 2013, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister told the website Space News, the country was making about $600 million a year from commercial space ventures. But Russia still accounted for about 80 percent of sales at Yuzhmash, Vladimir Tkachenko, the company’s assistant general manager, told the BBC earlier this month. 

What is clear is that the US-European installed regime in Kiev has intentionally destroyed several prominent industrial centers of Ukraine’s economy, setting back, not benefiting Russia who had maintained strong ties with and depended on Ukrainian industry. What is also clear is that Ukraine and Russia weren’t the only interdependencies disrupted by Ukraine’s unraveling or the US-led sanctions leveled against Russia in its wake.

The Wrecking Ball Swings Back 

Historically Western Europe and Russia have maintained close economic ties both because of proximity and out of necessity. Interdependencies exist here not only in terms of aerospace technology, with Russia sending the entirety of all American and European astronauts into orbit aboard its Soyuz launch system, but also in terms of trade, defense and energy.

US-led sanctions and geopolitical maneuvers by Washington to breakup EU-Russian cooperation have been costly. Pipeline deals have been repeatedly disrupted, delayed or cancelled. A lucrative French-Russian deal involving the sale of Mistral Class ships to Moscow has cost the French government hundreds of millions of dollars.

Perhaps the most ironic structure to be threatened as this wrecking ball swings back West, is the US dependence on Russian RD-180 rocket engines used to launch, among other things, US Department of Defense satellites into orbit.

Even in the US, special interests are not united behind the notion of continued economic pressure on Russia. While those pushing for the continued sanctions against Russia claim the United States can find replacements, so far those replacements look particularly bleak, if not comical.

RFE/RL would report in its article, “Ukraine Proposes Working With U.S. To Replace Russian Rockets,” that:

Ukraine has proposed that Kyiv and the United States jointly develop and produce a rocket engine to replace Russian rocket engines currently used to launch U.S. military satellites.

The head of Ukraine’s Space Agency, Lyubomyr Sabadosh, said on May 31 that he proposed the plan to replace Russian RD-180 rocket engines, which the U.S. Congress has ordered to be phased out by 2019, on a visit to the United States last month.  

However, for Ukraine, who is busy liquidating some of its most important heavy industrial assets on behalf of Washington and Brussels, the prospect of it replacing rocket engines even American industry would be hard-pressed to develop on its own is unlikely.

US-Russian cooperation in space between not only NASA and Roscosmos, but also between American and Russian private industry in regards to the RD-180 rocket engines has been an enduring example of post-Cold War progress. It is ironic that the United States claims, by endangering this achievement, it is some how protecting international order, peace and stability.

In the end, it seems that those in the United States lobbying heavily to keep sanctions in place have more than just Moscow to worry about. They have a growing chorus of leaders in industry who may silently seek domination over Russian industry in the long-term, but failing that, needs cooperation with Russian industry in the short-term. It is clear that those behind the sanctions are unable to deliver on either.

June 6, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Flawed Logic: Swedish Writer Knocks Common Sense Into NATO Supporters

Sputnik | June 6, 2016

Over the past years, ordinary Swedes have been under immense pressure from high-ranking politicians and conventional media, who advocate scrapping the country’s trusted policy of non-alignment in favor of joining NATO. However, minority opinions still persist.

One of the stalwart opponents of joining NATO is the famous writer and journalist Jan Guillou, who last week wittily trounced his antagonists in a column for the tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet.

NATO supporters habitually try to scare everyone out of their wits with a sneak attack on Russia’s part, yet somehow fail to explain why Russia should endeavor such an attack, even if it is one of their trump cards, argued Guillou.

The Russian attack is to be expected “within a few years,” threatened the Swedish army chief Lieutenant General Brännström only half a year ago. Liberal pundits and their trusted military columnists applauded.

“I was not the only one to demand an explanation. What would Russia gain by attacking Sweden? Conquer more forest and iron ore? On the other hand, what would Russia lose by such an attack?” wrote Guillou.

According to Guillou, this question is much easier to answer: the aftermath would be ruined foreign trade and a de facto state of war between Russia and the EU.

“Not a single Liberal could explain why on earth Russia would commit such an economic and political suicide, yet they continued with their saber-rattling as vigorously as before: Sweden should join NATO to fence off the Russian attack that would inevitably ensue if it continued outside NATO,” Jan Guillou wrote.

Of late, Sweden’s military bosses have come up with an “updated” and more nuanced threat. Now, Putin is supposedly intending to limit himself with capturing “only” the strategic island of Gotland, which lies some 100 kilometers off mainland Sweden’s coast. This scenario is part of the following theory: at some point, Russia is inevitably bound to conquer one or several Baltic states (which according to Western think-tanks is manageable in only 60 hours).

A column in the tabloid newspaper Expressen, which is one of NATO’s most keen supporters in Sweden went even on to threaten the poor islanders with Russian nuclear arms. As usual, however, the author refrained from disclosing what joy Russia would get from nuking Gotland, which is quite typical of NATO agitators.

According to Guillou, the biggest problem with a feasible NATO membership is that Sweden would have to abandon its independent foreign policy and become a cog in the US military machine.

“For the question in all its simplicity is as follows: should Sweden cede its [independent] security policy to a Washington-led system through NATO membership?” Guillou asked rhetorically.

“Considering America’s dubious track record when it comes to foolish wars in recent years, it would be a dark perspective. What about future remakes of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria? <…> As if that were not enough, Sweden would also end up in the same military alliance with Turkey, led by a war-mad dictator, and states such as Hungary and Poland, which are moving away from democracy.”

These are real questions, which incidentally are avoided at all costs by pro-NATO debaters. Instead, they go on in circles with their increasingly stale rhetoric about Russia’s “aggression.” Sweden’s NATO campaign stinks, concluded Guillou.

Jan Guillou is a popular Swedish writer and journalist. His fame in Sweden is rooted in his best-selling detective series, as well as his time as an investigative reporter. Guillou is renowned for his consequent anti-US stance and was previously known for calling Washington “the greatest mass murderer of our time.”

June 6, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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