Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Ukraine Bans Human Rights Watchdog Book

By Alexander Dyukov | International Information Group on Crimes against the Person | August 12, 2015

The report ‘Massive Human Rights Violations during the Civil Conflict in Ukraine 2013-2014′ is included in the list of books banned by Ukraine for import into the country. The Russian-language book and report is the annual report of the International Information Group on Crimes against the Person (IGCP). The principle author of the report and the coordinator of the ICGP is Alexandr Dyukov, who lives in Russia.

The list of 38 banned books was prepared and issued by the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine. It was published on the official page of the Customs Service of Ukraine on Facebook on August 7. “We present a list of books banned from importing to Ukraine in order to prevent informational war attacks and misinformation, the spread of anti-humanism, fascism, xenophobia and separatism, encroachment on the territorial integrity and the state system stipulated by the Constitution of Ukraine,” says the report of the Customs Service of Ukraine.

Massive Human Rights Violations during the Civil Conflict in Ukraine 2013-2014 was published at the end of June 2015. The book presents facts concerning crimes against the person and violations of civil rights and freedoms committed during the civil conflict in Ukraine. It contains summarized information about violations of the international norms of human rights by state authorities, non-state organisations and armed groups in Ukraine. At the same time, the publication lists violations of human and civil rights committed by all parties of the conflict.

“Our final report shows that large-scale human rights violations acquired a systematic character long ago,” says Alexandr Dyukov. “All parties of the conflict neglect human rights. Within the so-called anti-terror operation, the Ukrainian military regularly commit crimes which are, in fact, war crimes, such as murders, tortures, abductions and unselective attacks on civilians and infrastructure.

“These crimes have a systematic character with a certain involvement of the state authorities, thus they can be qualified both as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The information revealed in our publication gives a clear confirmation of this.”

Mr. Dyukov is not surprised with the ban of the book in Ukraine. “Let me remind you that in May, the Ukrainian Parliament officially announced the refusal of Ukraine to fulfil the undertaken international duties to protect human rights,” says Alexandr Dyukov. “After all, it’s a logical decision. Violations of basic human rights in modern Ukraine are not only daily life routine but also an element of the state structure. Consequently, collecting and spreading information about these violations is a seditious and anti-state act. However, we hope that due to the new ban, more people will learn about our book. Fortunately, there are no borders in the Internet.”

At the moment, the IGCP team is working on the English version of its report. The Russian-language version can be read and downloaded here. It is 344 pages long.

The International Information Group on Crimes against the Person (IGCP) was established in February 2014 as an international civil initiative. The group aims at collecting information about political and other crimes against the person committed in Ukraine since February 22, 2014, as well as informing people in Ukraine, the European Union and the Russian Federation about them.

IGCP is coordinated by Alexandr Dyukov, a Russian historian and head of the Historical Memory Foundation.

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

MH17 investigators to RT: No proof east Ukraine fragments from ‘Russian’ Buk missile

RT | August 11, 2015

Investigators probing the downing of MH17 flight told RT that they cannot confirm that fragments found in eastern Ukraine are from a Buk missile system, refuting media reports that the parts belong to a Russian surface-to-air complex.

On Tuesday, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) released a statement saying that it is investigating “several parts, possibly originating from a Buk surface-air-missile system.”

Following the release of the report, numerous media reports indicated that it was a “Russian” or “Russian-made” missile system – something JIT spokesman Wim de Bruin rejected to RT, stressing that “it’s too early to draw any conclusion at this moment.”

He described the whole procedure as a “forensic investigation to establish whether these parts… were parts of a Buk [missile] system or not” and added that it is difficult to set the deadlines for the final report to be presented.

The one thing the JIT is absolutely sure about, de Bruin said, is that “those parts were found in eastern Ukraine.”

JIT said in its statement that “at present the conclusion cannot be drawn that there is a causal connection between the discovered parts and the crash of flight MH17.”

The fragments “possibly” originating from a Buk surface-air-missile system were discovered during a recovery mission in eastern Ukraine and are in possession of the investigators.

Dutch prosecutors say that the parts found at the site “are of particular interest to the criminal investigation as they can possibly provide more information about who was involved in the crash of MH17.”

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was brought down over war-torn eastern Ukraine July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.

August 11, 2015 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Bans Dozens of Russian Books

Sputnik – 11.08.2015

Goskomteleradio, the State Committee of Television and Radio of Ukraine, has issued a ban on 38 books by Russian authors, prohibiting their import onto Ukrainian territory, the press service of the agency has declared.

Goskomteleradio deputy head Bogdan Chervak did his best to explain the decision, stating that it was “dictated by the need to prevent the Russian Federation from using methods of information warfare and disinformation against the citizens of Ukraine to spread the ideologies of hate, fascism, xenophobia and separatism.”

The list of banned books includes several works by Donetsk-born science fiction writer Fedor Berzin, as well as Tom Clancy-style works of fiction predicting the Ukrainian civil war by Ukrainian-born author Gleb Bobrov and by Georgi Savitskiy.

The ban also targets books in the areas of political science and social science by conservative Russian publicist Alexander Dugin, radical political dissident Eduard Limonov, Russian academic and presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev, and renowned Russian economist Valentin Katasonov. Most of the banned books are related in one way or another to Ukraine; many of them were published over the past two years in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis.

Goskomteleradio warned that the list of banned Russian books is likely to be expanded, saying that it would cite Article 28 of Ukraine’s Publishing Act, which prohibits the distribution of published works which can be used to threaten Ukraine’s independence, change the constitutional order by force, or violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state.

The agency launched its initiative early last month, referring to the country’s State Fiscal Service with a request to include Russian books in the list of goods prohibited from import onto Ukrainian territory from Russia.

Authorities did not clarify what would happen to those who violated the ban on the import of the banned literature, but noted that the books themselves would be confiscated and destroyed.

Russian authors and social scientists have begun reacting to the ban. Russian pop historian Nikolai Starikov, whose book “Ukraine: Chaos and Revolution: The Weapon of the Dollar” made the list of banned books, argued that Kiev’s move is an attempt to hide some basic truths. Starikov emphasized that his book had “neither hate, nor a call to separatism, nor fascist ideas –[in other words] none of the things listed by Ukrainian authorities,” adding that by banning his work, Ukrainian authorities were trying to hide a simple truth, that “Ukraine has witnessed an unconstitutional seizure of power… [and] come under the external control of the US.”

Popular Russian radio journalist Sergei Dorenko, one of whose books also made the list, noted that “in the age of the internet, it’s simply funny for the Ukrainians to try and ban something.” Dorenko referred to the fact that since the appearance of the internet in countries like Ukraine and Russia, books have often been made available on the internet, for free, even before being published and released in bookstores. With the appearance of e-readers and tablets, the trend has become so pervasive that many authors, especially academics, have deliberately released their works online, for free, in order to get a wider readership. In such a situation, it’s questionable how much effect, if any, a ban on physical copies of books will actually have.

The latest ban on Russian media is part of a growing trend. Over the past year, Ukraine has created and diligently expanded its list of banned Russian media, prohibiting nearly 400 Russian films and television series, issuing a blacklist for Russian artists said to be ‘threatening Ukraine’s national security’, and banning the broadcast of over a dozen Russian television channels on Ukrainian territory for their alleged contravention of Ukrainian legislation. With the prevalence of internet and satellite television technology, experts doubt the practical effectiveness of Kiev’s initiatives.

August 11, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Chernobyl exclusion zone on fire again

RT | August 9, 2015

As many as 32 hectares of new wildfires have been registered in the exclusion zone close to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, report Ukraine’s emergency services report. Firefighters are battling new fires that have flared up in the Kiev region.

The fires started in three locations close to the villages of Zamostye and Kovshilovka in the Ivankovsky area. As of 7am on Sunday, the fires have been reportedly localized, with firefighters continuing to extinguish burning dry grass and forest cover.

The last wildfire in Chernobyl’s forest preserve area started on June 29 and was eventually estimated at 130 hectares of burning dry grass, cane and peat in multiple locations. It took a fortnight to put all the fires out.

Forest fires in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone began in April this year. The head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine Nikolay Chechetkin said that up to 70 percent of all the wildfires in Chernobyl exclusion zone are due to arson.

Experts warned that radioactive nuclides absorbed by the foliage around Chernobyl nuclear power plant from the soil contaminated as a result of the 1986 disaster can easily be released into the air and have a cumulative negative effect on the health of those who breathe in particles.

While firefighters were dealing with wildfires near Chernobyl from April through to July, the Kiev authorities gave assurances that there was no radiation threat. Territory engulfed by fires in the exclusion zone had reached 400 hectares by the beginning of May.

However, locals recalling the 1986 catastrophe fear that just as then officials are concealing the truth.

If the trees, which have been absorbing radioactivity for almost 30 years, are on fire, then radioactive elements “may spread with wind over long distances,” Yury Bandazhevsky, a scientist working on the sanitary consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, said in May.

August 9, 2015 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power | , | Leave a comment

The Great Ukrainian Wall: Profanity the West Paid For

Sputnik – 07.08.2015

The ongoing construction by Ukraine of a separation wall on its border with Russia is sheer profanity, the head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee said on Thursday.

“The impenetrable wall [Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk is building to “defend Europe against Russia” has always been a profanation and the West agreed to finance this ditch,” Alexei Pushkov wrote on his Twitter account.

The Ukrainian government had earlier approved a major new program to isolate the country from Russia by constructing an enormous barrier, equipped with anti-tank ditches and remote- controlled weapons stations.

The plan includes a project initially called ‘The Wall’ or ‘European bulwark’.

It’s estimated to be worth 4 billion hryvnias (about $200 million) and involves the construction of a barbed-wire fence with 17-meter high steelwork turrets.

There will also be four-meter wide, two-meter deep antitank ditches, a lateral route and a drag road, remote combat modules, fortified sectors, observation posts, CCTV cameras, communication towers and alarm systems.

Meanwhile, Kiev remains in negotiations over USD 19 billion in external debt, and is demanding that its creditors write off 40 percent of the principal value as well as freeze interest payments for 4-5 years.

Ukraine’s creditors have offered to write off 5 percent of Ukraine’s debt, according to Reuters, although this offer was rejected.

August 7, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

OSCE Shamed for Not Reporting Kiev’s Atrocities in Donbass

Sputnik – 06.08.2015

Hundreds of people gathered outside the OSCE office in Donetsk, demanding unbiased monitoring of the humanitarian situation in the region.

1021833304“Your silence is killing children”, read one of the many posters held by the protesters.

Several OSCE representatives came out to meet the protesters but refrained from making any comments.

“If only the OSCE had monitored the situation more objectively, we would have had peace here a long time ago… The OSCE monitors are telling us nothing, saying only that they will make protocols, nothing else,” Donetsk News Agency quoted one of the protesters as saying.

Another protester, from the nearby town of Gorlovka, shamed the monitors for keeping mum while the Ukrainian military was reducing his town to rubble.

The demonstrators then left, leaving behind a collection of dolls, teddy bears and other children’s toys, which they had smeared with red paint to symbolize the blood of children in the Donbass region who had been killed by Ukrainian troops.

August 6, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Lavrov: Russia Being Kept Out of the Loop in MH17 Downing

Sputnik – 05.08.2015

KUALA LUMPUR – Russia is not receiving full information on the technical investigations into the Malaysian Airlines downing over eastern Ukraine, unlike other countries that are participating in them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

“The Russian participants aren’t getting all the information that is disseminated among other participants in the group,” Lavrov told journalists in the Malaysian capital.

In response to whether MH17 was shot down using a Russian missile, Lavrov said it would “be very easy to collect the pieces [of the missile] and analyze them in order to determine where this particular missile was produced and which army is supplied with it.”

The international investigation into the downing of the MH17 flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 is not independent or comprehensive, Sergei Lavrov said.

“Unfortunately the investigation which was started was not independent, was not comprehensive, and was not truly international. Instead of acting under the authority of the International Civil Aviation organization, which is the rule under the Chicago Convention, Ukraine, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands signed bilateral agreements between themselves, the substance of which was never made fully known,” Lavrov said in an interview with Singapore’s Channel News Asia.

Lavrov said it was “very strange” that Malaysia was invited to participate in the investigations five months after the actual crash in July 2014.

“It is really very strange that Malaysia was invited to join only in December 2014,” Lavrov said.

Russia’s top diplomat also questioned why the United States and Ukraine have so far not published their information, including satellite images and voice recordings between the air traffic controllers and the pilots.

“The Americans said that they did have images from the satellite, but never submitted them… the same is true for the Ukrainians who were asked to provide record[ings] of air controllers,” Lavrov said.

He said that Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority is involved in the technical investigations of the downed passenger plane, but is not receiving the full picture of the circumstances behind it.

“A representative of the Russian Civil Aviation organization is participating in these procedures [technical investigation], but the information we receive through this representative is not complete, we are being given less than those who have started this investigation,” Lavrov added.

August 5, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Time for the western media to send real journalists to Russia & Ukraine

By Bryan MacDonald | RT | August 3, 2015

The media’s use of young, inexperienced freelancers in Ukraine has long been a disaster waiting to happen. Last weekend’s obviously fabricated “dirty bomb” nonsense is further proof.

I’ve said it dozens of times. I’ll now repeat it. The western media needs to send qualified, experienced journalists to cover Russia and Ukraine. Especially at this particular moment, when civil war rages in the latter and the former is experiencing significant economic and foreign policy challenges.

The practice of using unskilled, amateur hacks in the region, no matter how noble their intentions, is unfair to readers and viewers. It’s also unjust to the wannabe journalists themselves. As non-staff members (many don’t even have contracts) they lack the usual protections afforded to media professionals on foreign postings. Many working in Eastern Ukraine have only rudimentary Russian-language skills and are unable to afford competent translators and security.

Newsdesks back home will always demand coverage be tailored to certain tastes. However, staff status supplies a safety blanket that empowers them to resist some of the more ludicrous suggestions – particularly those that may endanger them. Freelancers and short-term contract workers don’t have such luxuries. The former are usually paid by the article or appearance, which forces them to desperately hustle to be published. It sometimes encourages them to make up or exaggerate stories.

Decline in standards

Since Ukraine’s Maidan protests kicked off over a year and a half ago now, the western media has dipped in and out of events. Around the time of the 2014 Kiev coup and later following the MH17 disaster, most credible outlets did send competent reporters from their headquarters.

During these periods, coverage improved immeasurably. Sadly, the rest of the time they’ve used local stringers or inexperienced hacks who emerged from the Moscow and Kiev expat press. The standard of these publications is, frankly, laughable. Indeed, they’d compare most unfavorably to many local freesheet rags in the British Isles, let alone paid-for newspapers.

There are exceptions, notably the BBC, which, to be fair, has humongous resources. Indeed, the Beeb even sent their renowned foreign correspondent Fergal Keane to Donbass for an extended period. Nevertheless, the rest of the UK and American media has left the A-team at home. Instead, we are treated to the best efforts of low-paid beat hacks, many of whom are learning on the job.

Veterans of the late Soviet period and the Yeltsin years, a time when giants of journalism walked Moscow’s streets are, privately, aghast. Following a recent RT op-ed when I questioned the quality of contemporary reportage, I was amazed by how many former Moscow correspondents contacted me.

“Newspapers have no money for translators and drivers and the like. There’s a very small pool of people who can speak Russian and write reasonably well in English,” mused one former British great. An American legend observed: “They are now using the type of guys (sic) we used to use for illness and holiday cover to actually run the bureau. It’s mind-bogglingly silly. Russia is a delicate posting.”

The menace of unreality

Indeed it is. Yet, right now, Ukraine is even more sensitive. An inaccurate report from the country’s eastern war zone could cost lives or raise tensions. Or both. In February, a hoax report in the Washington Free Beacon encouraged US senators to urge the White House to act swiftly to counter a “Russian invasion” of Ukraine. There was a problem. The photographic evidence was years old and predated the Ukraine crisis. It later emerged that the photos had been supplied to Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma by a Ukrainian “delegation” to the US capital.

A US senator from an earlier age, Hiram Warren Johnson, is credited as first observing that “the first casualty when war comes is truth.” During the Ukrainian civil war, Johnson’s theory has been proven countless times, by both sides. Far too often, the western media accepts Ukrainian misinformation as genuine. From estimates of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers inside the country to, obviously inaccurate, death toll numbers. The Russian press is equally guilty of parroting hyperbolic statements from the rebel side. An infamous example was the allegation that a 10-year-old child had been crucified in Slavyansk last year.

While the various reports of Russian “invasions” can be laughed off, like this hilarious Daily Beast propaganda effort, sometimes the deliberate manipulation of facts is far more sinister. Incidentally, as an example of media negligence on Russia, the Daily Beast employs a “Russia expert” who has never lived in the country and can’t speak the language. Do the outlet’s management even countenance how insulting this is to their readers?

This weekend, in the pages of The Times of London and Newsweek, we saw exactly what happens when media concerns use greenhorn stringers in sensitive situations. Instead of sending an experienced staffer to Ukraine, both have recently collaborated with Maxim Tucker. Tucker, a former Amnesty International activist, who doesn’t hide his pro-Maidan credentials, published the same story in both. The Times version was headlined, “Ukraine rebels ‘building dirty bomb’ with Russian scientists.” Meanwhile, Newsweek went for “Ukraine Says Pro-Russia Rebels Are Building a Dirty Bomb.”

Incendiary stuff. If true, it could feasibly ignite a major diplomatic, perhaps even military, stand-off. Luckily, the story is fiction. This is blindingly obvious to anyone with even a minute comprehension of the region. Newsweek and The Times have embarrassed themselves. At the same time, Tucker has exposed himself as being seriously out his depth. Even his hack-pack colleagues are distancing themselves from this nonsense. Tucker, either knowingly or unwittingly, has fallen hook, line and sinker for Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) disinformation. Unsophisticated misinformation at that. In fact, typically Soviet in its execution, going for the big lie.

Allow me to explain why Tucker’s two, almost identical, pieces are total rubbish. Tucker himself, along with most western hacks in Ukraine, asserts that Russia is backing the east Ukrainian rebels. If this were true, why would the rebels need to “research” dirty bombs? Russia, currently uniquely, can send people into space – such a device would be child’s play to its scientists. Or is Tucker contradicting himself and now alleging that Russia is not arming the insurgents?

There are a few more blatantly obvious holes in the supposition. Tucker writes: “The SBU said it was not clear from those conversations whether the specialists were employees of the Russian state or private individuals. The transcripts of these conversations could not be provided.” Why could the transcripts not be provided? It’s abundantly clear that Tucker’s sole source is the SBU, an organization not noted for fealty to the truth.

Social media war

“The dossier includes three documents, written in Russian, that appear to be military orders from DPR leaders to subordinate commanders at the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry for Emergency Situations, and the Donetsk chemical factory. They were allegedly downloaded with hundreds of others when SBU agents took control of a rebel email address in the first week of July.”

Is Tucker seriously saying that the rebels discussed bombs by email? Why not VKontakte (Russia’s version of Facebook) or Twitter? In fact, if they were that stupid, perhaps they posted a few postcards on the topic too?

Tucker also claims: “The OSCE is believed to have raised the issue with the Kremlin at talks in Minsk on July 21, and is expected to bring in its own specialist to examine the bunker at the plant.” He doesn’t say who believes the OSCE has done this.

However, the biggest sign this article is a piece of low-grade fiction is contained in what Tucker omits. He fails to explain how the SBU believes the rebels would deliver the “bomb.” The Ukrainian rebels have no air force. Hence, the only feasible route would be by truck. If so, how would the vehicle bypass Ukraine’s line of control?

I am sure that Tucker is aware that in 2010 the US paid for the installation of Radiation Portal Monitors at all Ukrainian border posts to prevent the smuggling of radioactive material. As a result, the only places the rebels could use a “dirty bomb” are either inside Donbass or inside Russia. Unless their leadership has completely lost its marbles, this would make no sense.

Newsweek and The Times are among dozens of respectable media outlets who need to send proper, qualified journalists to Russia and Ukraine. Cutting corners insults their readers. Journalism is a serious craft. It mustn’t be left to amateurs, no matter how well intentioned their efforts.

~

Bryan MacDonald is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and teacher. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer. Bryan also worked in Los Angeles. He has also frequently appeared on RTE and Newstalk in Ireland as well as RT. Bryan is particularly interested in social equality, European geopolitics, sport and languages. He has lived in Berlin, Russia and the USA.

August 4, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media | , , | Leave a comment

60 Minutes Provides Platform for US Military to Hype Imaginary China and Russia Threat

By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | August 2, 2015

The CBS news program 60 Minutes on Sunday aired an extended segment titled “The Battle Above” that relayed the concerns of various US military personnel that China and Russia could pose a threat to the vast system of American satellites that are used for military purposes and for commercial use by banks, telecommunications companies, farmers and others.

“Top military and intelligence leaders are now worried those satellites are vulnerable to attack. They say China, in particular, has been actively testing anti-satellite weapons that could, in effect, knock out America’s eyes and ears,” said correspondent David Martin.

Gen. John Hyten, head of the 38,000-person Space Command unit of the US Air Force, tells all his troops that there is a “contested environment” in space with multiple countries not allied with the U.S. possessing capabilities that could potentially threaten American satellites. “It’s a competition that I wish wasn’t occurring, but it is. And if we’re threatened in space, we have the right to self-defense, and we’ll make sure we can execute that right,” Hyten says.

While the Pentagon admits spending $10 billion per year on space, 60 Minutes reports that when you add in other indirect costs the actual total reaches $25 billion. And Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James says the Pentagon plans to spend an additional $5 billion over the next 5 years on protecting its satellites.

Hyten describes the ambitions and activities of foreign actors in space as essentially an existential threat not just to the U.S. military but to the American economy. This is a useful narrative for an agency that is seeking billions of dollars to extend its current dominance.

Without a discernible threat, it would be difficult to justify such outlandish expenditures as the X-37B space plane. The plane is able to return to earth after voyaging for 20 months into space, allowing anything included in the payload to be later retrieved. The purpose of the plane is as yet undisclosed. But Hyten’s response when asked if it will one day be used as a weapons system – that he can’t answer – is revealing.

The military officials interviewed by 60 Minutes frame the issue as one in which the U.S. is acting purely in self-defense and within international law. Martin mentions that there is a 1967 U.N. treaty that calls for the peaceful use of space, but says in practice it does not resolve much. When he asks if this means it’s every country for himself, Lee James says, “Pretty much.”

60 Minutes makes much of anti-satellite weapons tests that China conducted in 2007, nearly a decade ago. China’s foreign ministry told the news program that it has not conducted any tests since and is “committed to the peaceful use of outer space.”

Are China’s declarations just empty rhetoric to conceal their true ambitions? And what threat do Russia and other countries like North Korea actually pose?

60 Minutes fails to mention that the United Nations has actively been dealing with the threat of weapons in space, and it is the United States itself – not China or Russia – that has been most forceful in rejecting limits on weapons programs and an arms race in space.

In its most recent session, the UN General Assembly passed two resolutions directly related to the use of weapons in space – one of which the U.S. government outright opposed and the other which it abstained from voting on.

UNGA resolution 69/31, “Prevention of an arms race in outer space” passed by a margin of 178-0 with 2 abstentions (the United States and Israel). The resolution affirmed that “the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be for peaceful purposes and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries” and recalled that all States must “observe the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations regarding the use or threat of use of force in their international relations, including in their space activities.”

The General Assembly also passed resolution 69/32, “No first placement of weapons in outer space,” passed by a margin of 126-4 with 26 abstentions. China, Russia, North Korea and Iran all voted in favor of this measure, while the United States, Israel and US allies Georgia and Ukraine were the only nations voting against it.

The resolution “urges an early start of substantive work based on the updated draft treaty on the prevention of the placement of weapons in outer space and of the threat or use of force against outer space” that was submitted at the Conference on Disarmament. The draft treaty was submitted by two states: China and Russia.

In their story, 60 Minutes serves the role of Pentagon PR mouthpiece, allowing US military officials to hype the threat of China and Russia by presenting a narrative based on little more than their own paranoia.

If they wanted to realistically assess the threat of an arms race in space and determine who is responsible, 60 Minutes would have examined the extensive actions and voting record of the United States, China, Russia, and other states in the diplomatic arena to deal with such a threat. This would demonstrate emphatically that the United States has stood virtually alone in the world in opposing peaceful cooperation and de-escalation of military action in space. But apparently 60 Minutes finds it easier to simply take the Pentagon’s arguments and analysis at face value.

The DoD’s scare tactics of creating an imaginary threat – in the form Washington’s familiar punching bags China and Russia – allow them to frame their space program as an imperative reaction to legitimate national security threats, rather than as a superfluous, aggressive expansion of their unchallenged hegemony that extends not just around the globe, but thousands of miles into the reaches of outer space.

August 3, 2015 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Creditors offer Ukraine 5% debt write-down – media

RT | July 31, 2015

After months of stalemate, Ukraine’s international private bondholders have proposed a 5 percent debt relief for Kiev as concerns over the country’s economy grow. Last month Ukraine asked the creditors for a 40-percent cut.

The proposal was made this week by Ukraine’s largest creditor Franklin Templeton Investments which holds about $8.9 billion in bonds, the Wall Street Journal cited two people close to the negotiations Thursday. It was agreed by other members from the committee of the country’s major bondholders.

“As long-term investors in Ukraine, the committee has led efforts to ensure a rapid, mutually acceptable and sustainable debt restructuring, while also retaining the country’s vital access to capital markets,” one person said.

Ukraine recently indicated it is ready to agree to a less severe ‘haircut’ than it has previously asked for, according to the second person familiar with the talks. The country had asked for a 40 percent haircut worth about $15 billion.

“The creditors have bitten the bullet,” Jakob Christensen, an analyst at Exotix Partners in London told Bloomberg. “It’s give and take from here, so a compromise is probably the most realistic. I don’t think the IMF and the government will be satisfied with a small principal haircut. They will need more like 25 percent.”

Kiev has been trying to persuade foreign private creditors to make concessions as the country has to meet the conditions for the next $2.5 billion tranche of the IMF’s $17.5 billion loan. The fund will release money only if it’s satisfied with the economy, budget and monetary reforms in the country. The IMF board of directors is holding a meeting to discuss the issue on July 31.

The country’s GDP is expected to shrink 9 percent this year, with annual inflation expected to jump to 46 percent, the IMF warned. The debt will hit 95 percent of GDP this year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

Ukraine avoided a technical default earlier this month by making a $120million coupon payment on its Eurobonds. The next key bond payment of $500 million is due in September.

Payments on foreign debt should amount to $257 million this month. $98 million will be payments on official loans of $159 million from international financial institutions.

READ MORE:

Ukraine pays $120mn debt, avoids technical default – finance ministry

IMF aid package pushes Ukraine gas prices up 280%

August 1, 2015 Posted by | Economics | | Leave a comment

Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | July 30, 2015

The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”

If you read the Post’s editorial on Wednesday and a companion op-ed by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and “power mad” in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty.

The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” – and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED.

The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’

“The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts. …

“The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.”

But there are several salient facts that the Post’s editors surely know but don’t want you to know. The first is that NED is a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1983 to do what the Central Intelligence Agency previously had done in financing organizations inside target countries to advance U.S. policy interests and, if needed, help in “regime change.”

The secret hand behind NED’s creation was CIA Director William J. Casey who worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey – from the CIA – and Raymond – from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council – focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.

But Casey recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III – as Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment.”

NED Is Born

The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money — within NED — for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured. But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.

This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill. The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented, not fully recognizing the significance of the demand.

The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head the National Endowment for Democracy, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy. Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president.

Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC. For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.”

Currently, Gershman’s NED dispenses more than $100 million a year in U.S. government funds to various NGOs, media outlets and activists around the world. The NED also has found itself in the middle of political destabilization campaigns against governments that have gotten on the wrong side of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, prior to the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing an anti-Russian regime in Kiev, NED was funding scores of projects.

A second point left out of the Post’s editorial was the fact that Gershman took a personal hand in the Ukraine crisis and recognized it as an interim step toward regime change in Moscow. On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and explained how pulling it into the Western camp could contribute to the ultimate defeat of Russian President Putin.

“Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, NED is a U.S. government-financed entity that has set its sights on ousting Russia’s current government.

A third point that the Post ignored is that the Russian law requiring outside-funded political organizations to register as “foreign agents” was modeled on a U.S. law, the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In other words, the U.S. government also requires individuals and entities working for foreign interests and seeking to influence U.S. policies to disclose those relationships with the U.S. Justice Department or face prison.

If the Post’s editors had included any or all of these three relevant factors, you would have come away with a more balanced understanding of why Russia is acting as it is. You might still object but at least you would be aware of the full story. By concealing all three points, the Post’s editors were tricking you and other readers into accepting a propagandistic viewpoint – that the Russian actions were crazy and that Putin was, according to the Post’s headline, “power mad.”

Gershman’s Op-Ed

But you might think that Gershman would at least acknowledge some of these points in his Post op-ed, surely admitting that NED is financed by the U.S. government. But Gershman didn’t. He simply portrayed Russia’s actions as despicable and desperate.

“Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy on Tuesday was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding:

“This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.”

The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the op-ed.

So would an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. How many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?

Not surprisingly, Gershman couldn’t find the space to include any balance in his op-ed – and the Post’s editors didn’t insist on any.

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

July 31, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Armed US Soldiers Arrested in Vienna Airport on Their Way to Ukraine

Sputnik – 30.07.2015

The soldiers carried assault rifles in their luggage, but had no approval, Kurier reported.

A few days ago, a group of American soldiers caused a security alert at Vienna’s Schwechat airport. The men were stopped while trying to travel with army weapons to Ukraine without any necessary permits, the newspaper wrote.

The Austrian police had to intervene and remove the weapons. An investigation into the case was launched.

The nine US soldiers were on their way from Washington to Ukraine, where they were to be deployed.

“However, since there were problems with their connecting flight after a stopover in Schwechat, they had to rebook their flight and, therefore, leave the transit area,” Colonel Michael Bauer, Defense Ministry spokesman said.

M16 assault rifles and pistols were discovered in the luggage of the American soldiers at a security checkpoint. The incident caused huge shock, because the weapons were not declared and registered and, thus, carried illegally.

The soldiers had not obtained the required transit approval by Austria. In special cases, the stay or transit of foreign military forces may be officially allowed after completing the application procedure, but the US soldiers did not send any required requests.

The attempt by the American embassy to obtain the approval after the incident was rejected for legal reasons. Instead of going to Ukraine, the soldiers had to fly back home to Washington and were allowed to take the weapons with them, the newspaper reported.

July 30, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »