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Sanctions ‘sharp knife’ to business in Europe and America – Medvedev

RT | May 20, 2014

Economic sanctions against Russia will only bring the world closer to another Cold War, which is counterproductive and most of all hurts business in Europe and America, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

“Let’s be honest, the sanctions are a sharp knife; European business and American business don’t need them either. The only ones who want sanctions are politicians,” the Prime Minister said in the interview aired May 20.

“Basically we are slowly but surely approaching a second Cold War that nobody needs,” Medvedev said, as he says Russia prefers not to politicize trade and economic sanctions.

The Prime Minister said the degeneration of US-Russia relations were reminiscent of Soviet times during the Cuban missile crisis of Afghanistan war. The US launched sanctions against Russian politicians, which only further exacerbated diplomatic relations.

“You know to put it simply no one is happy about sanctions since they are always a sign of tense relations. We do not support sanctions. Moreover, you may have noticed that we have not commented on them a great deal or responded to them harshly, although we probably could cause some unpleasantness with the countries that are imposing those sanctions, but it’s bad for international economic relations, relations with Europe and the United States. It’s just bad,” Medvedev said.

The US and the EU have tightened sanctions against Russia, but Moscow maintains they are an outdated practice that will only backfire and hurt business and industry on all sides.

“The sanctions have not had a significant effect on us. That doesn’t mean that we are happy about them. Again, sanctions are a dead-end, and, in fact, everyone understands this – everyone, including businesses in Europe and America,” said Medvedev.

The US expanded its sanctions on April 28, which were shortly followed by a copy-paste EU version. All together, the sanctions target dozens of Russian politicians deemed critical in reuniting Crimea with Russia, 6 businessmen believed to be close to Putin’s inner circle, 3 banks and 17 companies.

Retaliatory sanctions

Moscow doesn’t rule out a set of counter sanctions to protect the Russian economy.

“Of course, there is a plan of action depending on how the situation will develop,” Medvedev said.

Retaliatory measures would be reciprocal and similar to those of the West.

“If we talk of a worst case scenario, despite the fact that we object to any sanctions, our package of retaliatory measures not only includes the measures towards a gradual improvement of the situation in our economy, but also measures that might target certain states,” the Prime Minister said.

Medvedev, who himself was responsible for the so-called reset between the US and Russia, said that he was disappointed in President Obama’s politics and that he could have acted with more political finesse.

“Once a new administration comes to power in the United States and a new president takes office after Obama, these sanctions will be forgotten. In the end, nobody stands to win,” Medvedev said.

In the same interview Prime Minister Medvedev discussed the landmark gas deal due to be signed on Tuesday by Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller and his CNPC counterpart Zhou Jiping in Shanghai.

May 20, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama ignores campaign promise as FCC targets net neutrality

RT | May 16, 2014

United States President Barack Obama’s commitment to net neutrality is being questioned after the Federal Communications Commission officials appointed on his watch voted Thursday to advance a plan believed by many to be a blow to the open internet.

This week’s three-two decision by the FCC to consider proposed rules regarding net neutrality isn’t the final nail in the coffin of the open internet. Rather, the five-person panel agreed Thursday morning to open up for comments a proposal drafted by Chairman Thomas Wheeler that would set rules in place meant to address a federal appeals court’s decision earlier this year that paved the way for the possibility of paid prioritization with regards to how Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, deliver web content to customers.

As the panel weighs Wheeler’s plan, the public now has 120 days to offer their own critique before another vote is held. In the meantime, though, Pres. Obama is likely to draw fire from critics on his own in light of previous statements he made pledging to preserve and protect the open internet.

“Barack Obama was crystal clear during the 2008 campaign about his commitment to ensuring equal treatment of all online content over American broadband lines,” Haley Sweetland Edwards wrote for TIME on Friday. “But on Thursday, the president made no public statement when three Democrats he appointed to the FCC voted to move forward with a plan to allow broadband carriers to provide an exclusive ‘fast lane’ to commercial companies that pay extra fees to get their content transmitted online.”

Instead, Edwards acknowledged, White House press secretary Jay Carney offered a brief statement reiterating the president’s promise.

Obama, Carney wrote, “has made clear since he was a candidate that he strongly supports net neutrality and an open Internet. As he has said, the Internet’s incredible equality – of data, content and access to the consumer – is what has powered extraordinary economic growth and made it possible for once-tiny sites like eBay or Amazon to compete with brick and mortar behemoths”

Indeed, in 2010 the president’s chief technology officer wrote on the White House’s blog that “President Obama is strongly committed to net neutrality in order to keep an open Internet that fosters investment, innovation, consumer choice and free speech.”

Years before that on the campaign trail, then-Senator Obama said his hypothetical FCC appointments would defend the notion of a “level playing field for whoever has the best idea.”

“As president, I am going to make sure that that is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward,” he said.

With Friday’s vote, however, the FCC is well on track to implement rules that, while not necessarily encouraging the paid prioritization of web traffic, is expected to allow ISPs and other major players tied to the infrastructure of the internet to cut deals with content producers that, prior to January’s appellate decision, were illegal.

“Following the court of appeals decision earlier this year, there are no legally enforceable rules ensuring internet openness,” Julie Veach, chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau, acknowledged at Thursday’s hearing.

In Response, Wheeler said his plan offers “enforceable rules to protect and promote the open internet,” while denying allegations that it authorizes paid prioritization.

“The consideration that we are beginning today is not about whether the internet must be open, but about how and when we will have rules in place to assure an open internet,” he said.

Nevertheless, two of his co-commissioners dissented from his proposal at Thursday’s hearing, and suggested that perhaps the FCC is moving too swiftly to respond to January’s ruling.

As the panel moves forward, however, the president’s campaign trail promise could come under attack. Although all five members of the panel were appointed by his office, the three Democratic members of the president’s own political party, including Wheeler, approved the chairman’s proposed rules. Dissenting were Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly, both Republicans.

“The FCC is an independent agency, and we will carefully review their proposal,” Carney told reporters on Thursday. “The FCC’s efforts were dealt a real challenge by the Court of Appeals in January, but Chairman Wheeler has said his goal is to preserve an open Internet, and we are pleased to see that he is keeping all options on the table. We will be watching closely as the process moves forward in hopes that the final rule stays true to the spirit of net neutrality.”

But comments from some have suggested that a statement delivered by the White House press secretary might not be enough to reassure fears about the future of the internet. Marvin Ammori, a technology-policy consultant, told the Washington Post this week that Silicon Valley is “very frustrated,” and that the tech community largely threw its weight behind Obama, and not his Democratic challenger, when he vied for the party’s bid ahead of the 2008 elections.

“We’re surprised by his silence, given every indication that the rule being proposed would allow the kind of pay-for-prioritization practices Obama spoke against in the past,” Timothy Karr, a senior director of strategy for the Washington-based media and technology public interest group Free Press, said to the Washington Examiner of the president.

Meanwhile, a petition on the White House website posted after the January ruling by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has garnered the electronic signature of over 105,000 people asking the president to restore net neutrality.

May 16, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

US ‘anti-Russian’ missile shield may threaten nuke reduction, officials warn

RT | May 6, 2014

Moscow believes that the US has intensified its effort to create a Europe-based anti-missile shield and is increasingly certain that it is targeting Russia. If the situation deteriorates, US-Russia nuclear reduction agreements may be at risk.

Russian concerns over the ABM shield, which the US is building in Eastern Europe, claiming that it is meant to stop ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran, were voiced Tuesday by both the military and diplomats.

“Unfortunately, I have to state that our partners from NATO have effectively rejected any expert dialogue on the anti-ballistic missile defense issue and substitute it with political slogans,” said Sergey Koshelyev, the head of the Defense Ministry’s department for international military cooperation.

“This situation and the latest statements from the alliance leadership only make us more certain that the ABM system is an anti-Russian capability, which will only grow stronger in time,” he said.

The assertion was echoed by statements from the Foreign Ministry. Russian Deputy FM Sergey Ryabkov said that in Moscow “we feel the symptoms of the work on various segments of the AMD system being intensified… And those symptoms are more frequent that they used to be.”

“This proves our initial concerns that the system in its final form is designed to block not only limited threats, as it was claimed. To a much degree it will be formed, designed and built to try and devalue the Russian strategic nuclear deterrence,” he told RIA Novosti in an interview.

Ryabkov warned that such developments may affect the New START treaty between the US and Russia on nuclear weapons disarmament.

“Fundamental for this treaty is the link between strategic offensive and defensive weapons. So the development of the AMD may in the end affect negatively the prospects of preserving of the treaty,” he said, adding that so far the treaty is strictly observed by both sides and that Moscow has all reasons to believe that its reduction goals will be fulfilled by the 2018 deadline.

The warning comes days after the US rejected the latest Russian proposition on defusing the conflict of the anti-missile system. Russia insists that US should take legally binding obligations not to use the European AMD system to undermine Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

The rejection was expected, especially considering that the US downgraded most lines of cooperation with Russia, except for those beneficial to America, as part of its response to the Ukrainian crisis.

Meanwhile the European AMD system made a new step in mid-April after the US Navy decided to deploy the second generation of the Standard Missile-3 Block IB missile, interceptor projectiles that are part of the antimissile shield.

“The SM-3 Block IB’s completion of initial operational testing last year set the stage for a rapid deployment to theater,” said Taylor W. Lawrence, president of Raytheon Missile Systems, the producer of the interceptor missile. “The SM-3’s highly successful test performance gives combatant commanders around the world the confidence they need to counter the growing ballistic missile threat.”

The Obama administration scrapped the Bush-era plans for European AMD and replaced it in 2009 with the so-called Phased Adaptive Approach. While initially viewed as a positive sign of possible compromise, in practice the move resulted in US is continuing to develop the system and stonewalling Russia’s objections.

May 6, 2014 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dozens of FBI, CIA agents in Kiev ‘assisting Ukraine security’

RT | May 4, 2014

Numerous US agents are helping the coup-appointed government in Ukraine to “fight organized crime” in the south east of the country, the German newspaper Bild revealed.

According to the daily, the CIA and FBI are advising the government in Kiev on how to deal with the ‘fight against organized crime’ and stop the violence in the country’s restive eastern regions.

The group also helps to investigate alleged financial crimes and is trying to trace the money, which was reportedly taken abroad during Viktor Yanokovich’s presidency, the newspaper said.

The head of the CIA, John Brennan, visited Kiev in mid-April and met with the acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and first Vice-President Vitaly Yarema to discuss a safer way to transfer US information to Ukraine.

Jen Psaki, spokeswomen for the United States Department of State, said that there was nothing to read into Brennan’s visit to Kiev, and that the head of the CIA did not offer support to the coup-appointed government in the country to help them conduct tactical operations within Ukraine.

However, following the visit the toppled President Viktor Yanukovich linked the CIA chief’s appearance in Kiev to the first stage of the new government’s crackdown in Slavyansk.

Brennan “sanctioned the use of weapons and provoked bloodshed,” Yanukovich said.

Bild’s reports comes as US President Barack Obama rules out that Washington will interfere in the situation in Ukraine.

“You’ve also seen suggestions or implications that somehow Americans are responsible for meddling inside Ukraine. I have to say that our only interest is for Ukraine to be able to make its own decisions. And the last thing we want is disorder and chaos in the center of Europe,” he said speaking in the White House after meeting the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, just two days ago.

May 4, 2014 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

US-run ‘Cuban Twitter’ categorized ‘political tendencies’ of users – report

RT | May 1, 2014

Contractors working for the United States who ran the so-called ‘Cuban Twitter’ social media project categorized user responses to overtly political messages for “receptiveness” and “political tendencies,” among other details, according to a new report.

The US State Department’s Agency for the International Development (USAID) employed contractors to foster political unrest – while avoiding Cuba’s internet restrictions – through the subscription-based text-messaging service ZunZuneo, AP reported earlier this month.

Documents obtained by AP said ZunZuneo was designed to start with fairly benign messaging. Once it was more widespread among the Cuban population, it would introduce political content that would attempt to inspire Cubans to “renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.”

Despite the State Department’s assertions that the program was not used to influence political leanings, AP reported Wednesday that cell phone users were categorized in databases as being “pro-revolution,” “apolitical,” or “anti-revolutionary.”

One young contractor working on the project was Paula Cambronero, whose first job out of college was working on how Cubans interacted with ZunZuneo messages carefully – and quietly – sent from Spanish phone numbers. The contractor asked Cambronero to communicate with staff over encrypted channels, and emails were sent from a domain name “not publicly linked” to the contractor.

Her employer – not named by AP – told her that she would be dealing with a “considerable amount of sensitive information that must be safeguarded to protect critical operations of the Project.” USAID even established a dummy company in the Cayman Islands to cover any money trail associated with ZunZuneo.

Cambronero’s responsibility was to build a database of unsuspecting Cuban cell phone users that responded to ZunZuneo messages, using classifications like gender, age, location, “receptiveness,” and “political tendencies.” She would analyze how users reacted to overtly political messages written by a hired Cuban satirist that poked at the nation’s leaders.

Cambronero did not respond to AP’s request for comment. The State Department had no comment to AP on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, USAID spokesman Matthew Herrick told AP that the agency had reviewed the project and offered congressional investigators the selection of messages sent to Cubans.

Herrick claimed the 249 different messages focused on sports, technology, world news, and trivia, and that the messages “were consistent with the objective of creating a platform for Cubans to speak freely among themselves.”

The political messages crafted by the satirist were sent “under a grant that pre-dated the ZunZuneo project,” Herrick said.

Yet documents reviewed by AP show that USAID considered the grant a “test phase” of the network that would become ZunZuneo.

Overall, Cambronero collected more than 700 responses to text messages, analyzing them by two variables: the level of interest in the received messages and the political content of a response.

She found that 68 percent of responses exhibited mild interest in the ZunZuneo texts. Many responses – 210 total – wanted to know who was sending the anonymous message.

“Explain your point better because I don’t understand and remember that if you haven’t done anything you shouldn’t fear anything, at least tell me your name if you’re not a coward,” said one respondent.

Others asked for help in obtaining birth certificates of Spanish ancestors, a prerequisite for acquiring a Spanish passport to leave Cuba.

Only 59 responses were analyzed for political content. Cambronero found 10 that did have “political character,” AP reported, “of which two were counter-revolutionary.”

In her notes, Cambronero recommended that “messages with a humorous connotation should not contain a strong political tendency, so as not to create animosity in the recipients.”

Upon the ZunZuneo revelations, the Obama administration quickly came under attack and promptly denounced allegations that it covertly plotted to disrupt Cuban politics.

Condemnation of the program continues to emerge. In Costa Rica, where ZunZuneo was reportedly developed by American officials, the nation’s foreign minister Enrique Castillo said last week that not only does he think it was “inappropriate” for the US to use his country to conduct the project, but that he previously warned officials not to involve his Central American country in the endeavor due to fears it would strain Costa Rica’s own relationship with Cuba.

“I think it’s inappropriate to use an embassy in Costa Rica for this type of operation that harms a third country,” Castillo told the AP. “We’re not filing a complaint. The point is that embassies accredited in Costa Rica don’t have to submit their plans or programs for the Costa Rican government’s approval.”

Costa Rica’s minister of communications, Carlos Roverssi, said Wednesday that it will fall on the country’s recently elected government to deal with the matter from here on out.

“It seems to me that the issue is now public and the next government should follow up on the issue, without a doubt,” he said.

The US State Department has begun a review of the program, saying it would be “troubling” if ZunZuneo involved political messaging.

May 1, 2014 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Trans-Atlantic global leadership at stake in Ukraine – Kerry

“NATO, the planet’s strongest alliance… can absolutely take advantage of the opportunities that are presented by crisis”

RT | April 30, 2014

NATO must return to its original goal of fending off Russia, seizing the chance presented by the Ukrainian crisis to sever Europe from Moscow and move it closer to America, the US secretary of state said. Or else the bloc’s global leadership may be lost.

John Kerry delivered the confrontational call in a speech to the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, DC. He said the stand-off in Ukraine had resulted from a “uniquely personally-driven set of choices” and is “a wake-up call” for NATO. He added that now the military bloc must turn the page on two decades of focusing on expeditionary operations and take a stand against “Putin’s Russia.”

“After two decades of focusing primarily on our expeditionary missions, the crisis in Ukraine now call us back to the work that this alliance was originally created to perform,” Kerry told the audience.

NATO’s original purpose was to oppose the Communist Soviet Union, giving the West the military backbone to the ideologically-driven stand-off with the East. Kerry described it as “to defend alliance territory and advance trans-Atlantic security.”

“Today, Putin’s Russia is playing by a different set of rules,” the secretary stated. “Through its occupation of Crimea and its subsequent destabilization of eastern Ukraine, Russia seeks to change the security landscape of Eastern and Central Europe.”

“Together we have to push back against those who try to change sovereign border by force. Together we have to support those who simply want to live as we do,” he added.

Kerry didn’t mention NATO’s own operations against Yugoslavia, which helped change sovereign borders in Europe. But he said NATO must not allow that the situation continue to develop as it is, because Russia is challenging the position NATO members have held since the end of the Cold War.

“Our entire model of global leadership is at stake. If we stand together, if we draw strength from the example of the past and refuse to be complacent in the present, then I am confident that NATO, the planet’s strongest alliance, can meet the challenges, can absolutely take advantage of the opportunities that are presented by crisis,” he stressed.

Kerry suggested three points on how trans-Atlantic partners can preserve their leadership and contain Russia. He said all NATO members must comply with the alliance’s benchmark of 2 percent GDP defense spending, which is not observed by many European members of the alliance, including European economic powerhouse Germany.

“Clearly, not all allies are going to meet the NATO benchmark of 2 percent of GDP overnight or even next year,” Kerry said. “But it’s time for allies, who are below that level to make credible commitments to increase their spending on defense over the next five years.”

NATO members must also help Europe reduce its dependence on Russian energy and develop economic ties with America by speeding down the pipeline the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement, Kerry said.

The agreement would certainly give more access to European markets to some US corporations, as it would require freeing up European regulations on things like fracking, GMOs, copyright and finance.

Kerry’s policy remarks are in line with those made recently by some other members of the US political establishment. For example Senator John McCain, one of the most vocal critics of Russia, went on the same lines of presenting Russia’s stance on Ukraine a personal choice by President Vladimir Putin and calling for more defense spending in Europe in his speech at Vilnius University, Lithuania, on Wednesday last week.

“Considering what President Putin is doing right now in Ukraine, it is more important than ever for every NATO ally to spend at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense,” McCain said. “I’m pleased that Lithuania has pledged and is planning to do this, and the sooner you follow through on that commitment the better.”

The US and Russia have been trading accusations of meddling with Ukrainian crisis lately. Washington says Moscow is sowing dissent in eastern Ukraine, fanning up anti-government protests there. Russia says the US sponsored the February coup in Kiev, which brought into power the current Ukrainian central authorities and has been playing a dominant role in defining the policies of the new government.

April 30, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama rolls out new sanctions on Russia, Moscow says it won’t hurt

RT | April 28, 2014

New round of Western sanction against Russia will target seven individuals and 17 companies. They are meant to affect Moscow’s stance over the ongoing Ukrainian crisis.

The individuals listed by the US Department of Treasury on Monday include Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, chair of the parliamentary commission on Foreign Affairs, Aleksey Pushkov, chief of presidential office, Vyacheslav Volodin, and Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft oil company.

The list of sanctioned companies, which Washington believes to be “linked to Putin’s inner circle,” includes several banks, construction and transport companies.

The Volga Group, an investment vehicle that manages assets on behalf of the businessman, Gennady Timchenko, and SMP Bank, whose main shareholders were affected by the previous set of US sanctions, are among those to face restrictive measures.

Oil and gas engineering company, Stroytransgaz, and one of Russia’s biggest rail transporters of oil, Transoil, are also among the companies affected by the sanctions.

The US Department of Commerce has introduced additional restrictions on 13 of those companies by imposing a license requirement with a presumption of denial for the export, re-export or other foreign transfer of US-originating items to the companies.

Later in the day, Washington announced a tightened policy to deny export license applications for any high-technology items that could contribute to Russia’s military capabilities.

But the US may move even further and impose sanctions against specific branches of the Russian economy if Moscow begins a military operation in Ukraine, Jay Carney, White House spokesman, said.

The announcement of a new round of US sanctions against Russia is “revolting” as they go against the way civilized states should communicate, Sergey Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said.

“We will respond, although it is not our choice,” Ryabkov is cited as saying by Itar-Tass news agency. “But we can’t leave this situation without reaction, without practical reaction, without reaction by means of our own decisions. US behavior in the field is becoming provocative.”

According to the deputy FM, the American decision stems from a “distorted and groundless” assumption on the state of affairs in Ukraine.

Obama said the US and its allies would keep broader sanctions “in reserve” in the event of further escalation on the ground in Ukraine. He admitted that he was uncertain whether the latest round of measures would be effective.

“The goal is not to go after Mr. Putin personally; the goal is to change his calculus, to encourage him to walk the walk, not just talk the talk” on diplomacy to resolve the crisis, Obama said in Manila during a trip to Asia.

As the US pushes for more sanctions against Russia, EU members have preliminarily agreed to also impose asset freezes and visa bans on 15 more people. The names of those to be added to the list will not be made public until they are published in the EU’s Official Journal on Tuesday, Reuters reported citing an unnamed diplomat source. However, Many Europeans are opposed anti-Russian sanctions, which would target the economy as opposed to individuals close to the Russian leadership, since economic sanctions would hurt European economies as well as that of Russia. The US, being economically tied with Russia to a much lesser degree than Europe, says it would not impose economic sanctions unilaterally.

“I would be very surprised if all European countries found a common position on economic sanctions,” Thierry Mariani, a member of the French National Assembly, told RT. “When one country says ‘we don’t speak about finance’… and some other country says ‘we don’t speak about energy,’ then we don’t speak about anything. That’s why we arrive unfortunately [at] personal sanctions, which are completely nonsense.”

The Russian leadership has thus far brushed off the threat of sanctions as ineffectual, arguing they might in fact buoy the Russian economy in the long term.

“Over reliance can lead to a loss of sovereignty,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a media forum in St Petersburg on Thursday.

Western-led sanctions have several advantages for Russia, Putin said.

Putin said the threat of real economic sanctions is already bolstering domestic businesses, bringing more offshore funds back to Russia, and giving policymakers the push they need to establish a domestic payment system.

His comments echo sentiments made by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev last week, who similarly argued that further sanctions would only make Russia stronger.

“Thanks to Western sanctions, Russia has been given the incentive to reduce its dependence on outside and instead regional economies are being more self-sufficient,” Medvedev said April 22.

Medvedev said any restrictions on Russian goods to the EU or US would serve to redirect Russian exports to Asian markets, which are more robust.

April 28, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian planes have not entered Ukrainian airspace – Moscow

RT | April 26, 2014

Russian military aircraft have not breached any state borders, including those of Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry has said. Ukraine’s acting defense minister has also retracted claims by Kiev that Russian jets “violated Ukrainian airspace seven times.”

“Russia’s means of objective airspace situation control did not record any violations of air boundaries of the states adjacent to Russia, including those of Ukraine,” Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Saturday.

Pentagon officials quoted by US media Friday claimed that “Russian fighter jets flew into Ukrainian airspace a handful of times over the last 24 hours,” calling it “a continued provocation.” The officials were not named.

“The unfounded claims of Pentagon officials on the alleged ‘breaching of airspace of Ukraine by Russian fighter jets’ appears to have been based on rumors and speculation,” a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told Itar-Tass on Saturday.

“Those media allegations are populist in nature, they contain no information on the time and place of the incident, as well as no data on altitude, speed and the direction of aircraft, as well as no other objective parameters,” the spokesman said.

The US sources must have “dreamed it all up,” or “a little bird told them that,” the spokesman added.

The Defense Ministry spokesman called on Pentagon officials to stop “spreading unverified ‘facts’ through the media,” saying that “it does not at all help de-escalate the situation in Ukraine.”

Instead, the US Defense Department should “use the many years’ experience of cooperation on information interchange” with the Russian side.

The Ukrainian coup-imposed acting defense minister, Mikhail Koval, on Saturday told journalists that no violations of state borders by the Russian aircraft or troops have been recorded.

“Four [Russian] transport airplanes Il-76 were flying along our state border but they did not cross the borderline,” Koval was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine.

The “peak of activity” of the Russian Armed Forces conducting military exercises near the Ukrainian border was recorded on April 24-25, he said. The closest that the Russian troops came to the Ukrainian border was 2-3 kilometers, Koval said.

According to the Ukrainian official, the Russian drills were meant to discourage Kiev from continuing with the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” in three southeastern regions of Ukraine. However, he added, the military operation continues “although its pace is not high.”

Koval’s statements made during the Saturday briefing apparently contradicted the allegations earlier waged by the Kiev government against Russia.

“Russian military aircraft today at night crossed and violated Ukrainian airspace seven times. The only reason is to provoke Ukraine… and to accuse Ukraine of waging war against Russia,” the coup-imposed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk claimed during his visit to the Italian capital Rome. Yatseniuk, who had previously made similar unfounded allegations of “Russian tanks in Crimea” and “nuclear weapons in Iran,” chose to voice the claims in English.

April 26, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Russian agents captured in Ukraine? Show them!’ – Lavrov

RT | April 25, 2014

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed as “not serious” reports of Russian agents captured in Ukraine. He accused US politicians of distorting facts and wrongfully interpreting the Geneva agreement on de-escalation.

Lavrov lashed out at western politicians while speaking at a young diplomats’ forum in Moscow. The minister accused his counterparts in the EU and the US of making unsubstantiated statements.

“Kerry has many times mentioned that Ukrainian intelligence captured Russian agents,” Lavrov said. “So, show them to the people, have them on TV. Kerry says they don’t want to disclose the identities of those people who are engaged in the captures. This is not serious.”

While the west is accusing Russia of not following through on the Geneva agreement, Lavrov believes the attitude stems from misinterpretation of the de-escalation agreement.

“Representatives of the US State Department, Victoria Nuland in particular, claim that in Geneva we agreed upon ‘separatists’ leaving the occupied buildings,” Lavrov said. “This is a lie, this could not have been written, because we were promoting the approach that ensures the simultaneity of processes and equal responsibilities of the sides when it comes to vacating illegally occupied buildings and disarming illegal groups.”

Lavrov said that Russia would not allow the distortion of the text of the Geneva agreement. He also questioned assertions made by John Kerry a day earlier concerning Kiev’s full compliance with the Geneva agreement. Kerry said authorities in the Ukrainian capital were “removing the barricades in the Maidan and cleaning up the square.”

“Instead of tires, they are now setting up concrete blocks there,” Lavrov said. “No one is going to clear the place.”

Lavrov complained that his western counterparts were not abandoning the language of slogans, even in one-on-one telephone conversations.

“If you think that when John Kerry, William Hague or Laurent Fabius call me, they speak differently in those personal contacts and say something you don’t know from their public speeches, you are mistaken,” Lavrov said, adding that he was still making attempts to have a real constructive dialogue with the officials he mentioned.

All kinds of sanctions against Russia are a sign of Western states having “got lost in their own game,” he said.

“The West generally wants – and the whole thing started with that – to capture Ukraine, with the intention being solely based on geopolitical ambition, not on the interests of the Ukrainian people.”

When the West realized it couldn’t get it its own way, it grew frustrated, Lavrov said. The frustration has been revealed in the “hard efforts on the sanctions trackway.”

April 25, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Letter to Jews’, Kerry cited, appears to be fake

RT | April 18, 2014

A letter urging the Jews of Donetsk to get registered, which the US Secretary of State cited in Geneva, is a fake says a man whose signature appears on the communication.

Following the four-side meeting on the Ukrainian crisis in Geneva on Wednesday, John Kerry lashed out at a letter that was allegedly sent to Jewish citizens in Ukraine’s eastern town of Donetsk, asking them to register and report all their property, or be stripped of citizenship and face expulsion.

“In year 2014, after all of the miles traveled in all the journey of history, this is not just intolerable, it’s grotesque… beyond unacceptable,” he stated.

Images of the letter have been circulating online.

The letter was stamped and signed by Denis Pushilin, who was identified on it as the “People’s Governor.”

However, Pushilin denied he had anything to do with the letter, claiming it was a fake.

“There are similar letters not only addressed to Jews, but also to businessmen, foreign students, people of certain other occupations,” he told RT. “This is actually a fake, and not a good one. There’s a sign “People’s Governor”. First of all, no one calls me by that title, no one elected me. Secondly, the stamp is the former mayor’s. Everything’s photoshopped.”

Although the letter’s authenticity is questionable, the fact that it was mentioned by a top US official has quickly sent the “Letter to Jews” story viral. It struck a very sensitive chord with audiences worldwide and cast a grave shadow over anti-government protesters in Donetsk.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian MP who has visited the turbulent region, Boris Kolesnikov of the Party of Regions, has urged that information coming from Ukraine should be double-checked.

He believes that Ukrainian law enforcement agencies aren’t being totally honest when they describe the people participating in the protests and claim there are Russian servicemen among them.

Kolesnikov specifically referred to a video which earlier appeared online. In it a man in a military uniform told police officers, who switched sides in the city of Gorlovka and joined protesters, that he was Russian lieutenant-colonel from Simpheropol, Crimea. The man was later identified by Gorlovka residents as the former director of a local cemetery.

“Officially, I’ve only seen one Russian serviceman,” Kolesnikov said. “The next day he appeared to be the ex-director of the Gorlovka cemetery, fired 2 years ago for selling 38 fences, stealing a monument and extorting money from old women for new graves. There are Interior Ministry and intelligence services in the country, which should give us truthful information.”

He added it was quite obvious that the protesters in Donetsk did not represent any danger to civilians and called for negotiations with the activists. These talks would explain Kiev’s position and that the government is ready to make amendments to the constitution.

The US appears to be relying on information from Kiev, while ignoring alternative points of view. And so it seems that a top US official picked up and railed about a letter of questionable authenticity.

Earlier in April, spokesperson for the US Department of State, Jen Psaki, said that protest events in eastern Ukraine “appeared to be a carefully orchestrated campaign with Russian support.”

She was then asked if the department was only relying on Kiev in its assessment of the situation, or was using some independent sources.

“Well, of course we remain very closely in touch with the Ukrainian Government, and that’s who we work closely with, and of course, they are on the ground, so their information is often very relevant and current,” was the reply.

April 18, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Oligarchy, not democracy: Americans have ‘near-zero’ input on policy – report

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RT | April 15, 2014

The first-ever scientific study that analyzes whether the US is a democracy, rather than an oligarchy, found the majority of the American public has a “minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy” compared to the wealthy.

The study, due out in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, sets out to answer elusive questions about who really rules in the United States. The researchers measured key variables for 1,779 policy issues within a single statistical model in an unprecedented attempt “to test these contrasting theoretical predictions” – i.e. whether the US sets policy democratically or the process is dominated by economic elites, or some combination of both.

“Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts,” the researchers from Princeton University and Northwestern University wrote.

While “Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association,” the authors say the data implicate “the nearly total failure of ‘median voter’ and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

The authors of “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” say that even as their model tilts heavily toward indications that the US is, in fact, run by the most wealthy and powerful, it actually doesn’t go far enough in describing the stranglehold connected elites have on the policymaking process.

“Our measure of the preferences of wealthy or elite Americans – though useful, and the best we could generate for a large set of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary citizens or the alignments of engaged interest groups,” the researcher said.

“Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater.”

They add that the “failure of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy is all the more striking because it goes against the likely effects of the limitations of our data. The preferences of ordinary citizens were measured more directly than our other independent variables, yet they are estimated to have the least effect.”

Despite the inexact nature of the data, the authors say with confidence that “the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.”

“We believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened,” they concluded.

April 17, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

NATO’s Russian troop build-up satellite images ‘show 2013 drills’

RT | April 10, 2014

The satellite images released by NATO that allegedly show a current build-up of Russian troops near Ukrainian border were taken in August 2013 amid military drills, a source in the General Staff of the Russian Army has said.

NATO’s top military commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, on Wednesday claimed that there is evidence of what he says are 40,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, tweeting a link to satellite images.

The images, some of them colored and some black and white, appear to show multiple Russian tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and a “special forces brigade” with locations and dates added to them. The dates marked range from March 22 to March 27, 2014. Another image not available on the original webpage but used by some Western media has “April 2, 2014” stamped on it.

Upon looking at the photos, a senior official at the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has confirmed to RIA Novosti the troops shown are indeed Russian ones and that they were photographed in the south of Russia.

There is one problem, though: the images were taken some eight months before the stated date, the source said.

“These shots, which were distributed by NATO, show Russian Armed Forces units of the Southern Military District, which in the summer of last year were taking part in various drills, including near the Ukrainian border,” the General Staff official told RIA Novosti.

Large military drills held in the south of Russia last year included Combat Commonwealth 2013 – a joint air defense exercise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Back then, Ukrainian troops participated in the international drills.

NATO on Thursday continued ramping up allegations of possible “Russian invasion” into Ukraine, with NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen claiming that 40,000 Russian troops are still amassed on the Ukrainian border “not training but ready for combat.”

Rasmussen’s “message to Russia” was then “to stop blaming others for your own actions, to stop massing your troops, to stop escalating this crisis and start engaging in a genuine dialogue.”

Meanwhile, General Breedlove on Wednesday said that US troops may soon be deployed to Europe to “reassure” the NATO allies – a notion, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called a flagrant breach of the bloc’s international obligations.

The Ukrainian coup-imposed government has also stepped up its rhetoric on Russia’s military presence, even claiming there is “military activity on behalf of the Russian Federation… on the territory of Ukraine” in an invitation to the Netherlands via OSCE network.

Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich on Thursday responded to the allegations by stressing that “on the territory of Ukraine, there is no military activity conducted by Russia.”

“This has been confirmed by the group of inspectors from Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria and Sweden, who were in Ukraine from March 20 to April 2 and visited Kharkov, Donetsk, Mariupol, Nikolaev and Odessa regions,” Lukashevich stated.

Suggesting the territory mentioned in the diplomatic note might have been that of the Crimean Republic, the spokesman said the related activity there has to do with transferring of the ships and military hardware to Ukraine, as well as with the “inventorying of the military installations.” As soon as this process is finished, the international inspectors are welcome to the territory of the peninsula – provided they send a request to Moscow, not to Kiev, he stressed.

April 12, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

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