Okay, I decided to squeeze in one more post before taking time off for Holy Paskha, this is well worth it.Some of you have asked about China’s role in all this, in what the real interests of the USA are, how the EU is positioning itself and what Russia does or does not want. And, somehow, bogged down by the minutiae of the unfolding events I managed to never mention
The Guardian published the full text of the Geneva Statement. This is what eight hours of negotiations produced: The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens. All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-semitism. All illegal armed
Ok, first the necessary caveats:1) Kerry and Lavrov already had a deal on Syria, also made in Geneva, but then the USA reneged.2) The EU also had a deal on the Ukraine with Yanukovich, who was overthrown literally the next day.3) The USA, NATO and the EU have lied, cheated, mis-represented, twisted and simply betrayed pretty much every promise which they made to Russia ever since Russia freed itself from
Earlier today I posted the letter Putin sent to the heads of state of the 18 countries which purchase gas from Russia, but I did not have the time to write a commentary about it, so I am doing in now.In my opinion, Russia is responding the the imminent attack by the neo-Nazis in the eastern Ukraine and to the PACE decision to basically slap Russia in the face. What
All the signs are that the freaks in Kiev have decided to put down the demonstrations in Kharkov, Donetsk and Lugansk by force. YouTube is full of amateur footage showing all sorts of militarized units, APCs and even artillery pieces being moved towards these cities. Local people have tried to stop them, but without success. It appears that the attacking force will include loyal cops from other cities, regular military
Today I want to do something which I have not done in a long while: interview somebody by email and give that person the space to fully answer. For those interested, in the past I did that with Mizgin (Kurdistan), Roger Tucker (One Democratic State), Taimur (Indian Kashmir), Gilad Atzmon (Palestine), Joel Bainerman (Israel), Uri Avnery (Israel), Jonathan Cook (Palestine), Joel S. Hirschhorn (USA), Anticapitalista (Greece) and Scott Horton (USA).
I have decided to take some time off two articles which I am working on today to reassure many of you about some rumors which are being spread by the western corporate media. I will go this bullet-style. Here we go:1) “Russia has massed forces on the Ukrainian border and is about to invade“NATO and western media corporations are in a panic mode due to what they claim in a
First, thanks a lot for the very interesting comments you posted in response to my post about Russian-European relations. Since I did not want to put up with the (silly) length limitations in the comments section, I decided to reply to a few your comments in a separate post. Sorry I cannot reply to all of them, so I had to pick:Here we go:Anonymous wrote: actually europe ahs bene infiltrated
I think that it is time for me to directly address the issue of today’s Europe role in world affairs. In this blog I have often voiced very harsh criticisms of both “old Europe” and “new Europe” – to use Rumsfeld’s classification – but I have never addressed this issue head-on, and this is what I propose to do now.Let me begin by a little disclaimer and say that while
Considering the relative lull which seems to be taking place in the Ukraine, this might be a good time to look at the impact which the dramatic developments in the Ukraine have had upon the internal political scene in Russia and what that, in turn, could mean for the international (dis)order. In order to do that, I would like to begin by a short summary of a thesis which I
In a previous post entitled “Russia and Islam, part eight: working together, a basic “how-to”“, I have discussed in some details the basic principles which could be applied by both Christians and Muslims to jointly take a stand against the current Empire. I don’t want to repeat it all here, especially since in that article I was discussing this issue specifically in the Russian context. What I propose to do
There are pretty good signs that the shots which killed Aleksandr Muzychko might turn out to be the first ones of the upcoming civil war.So far, what happened was not a civil war, but a armed insurrection followed by a coup, a revolution for sure, but not a civil war. What is beginning to take place now is very different. Consider this:1) There are now four very different forces in
We feel that we won; Lebanon won; Palestine won; the Arab nation won, and every oppressed, aggrieved person in this world also won. Our victory is not the victory of a party. I repeat what I said in Bint Jbeil on 25 May 2000: It is not the victory of a party or a community; rather it is a victory for true Lebanon, the true Lebanese people, and every free
written specially for the Asia Times These are official results from the referendum in Crimea: 96.77% voted for Crimea to join Russia 02.51% voted for Crimea to remain a sovereign autonomous republic inside the Ukraine 00.72% of the votes were declared invalid 83.10% of the eligible voters participated in this referendum (thus:16.9% did not vote) As a reminder, this is the official ethnic makeup of Crimea (in 2001): 58.32% Russians
So this morning we have a “revelation”: EU officials are discussing the reports that the Maidan snipers were not sent by Yanukovich but that they were insurgents firing on both sides.Immense surprise everywhere!Well, a few “minor fringe proponents of conspiracy theories” did mention something like that, but for the “proper and rational people” (the folks who watch TV and read the corporate media) this is a big surprise.Might make you
The past few days have seen an amazing acceleration of developments which has created a totally new situation. In simple and plain language the following three momentous events have happened:1) In Kiev an armed insurrection overthrew the elected President and replaced him with a new revolutionary regime.2) Crimea completely broke-off from the rest of the Ukraine.3) An counter-revolutionary insurrection has begun in the eastern Ukraine.The situation in the eastern Ukraine
Русские долго запрягают, но быстро едут (“Russians take a lot of time to saddle up, but then they ride fast”) Russian adage Over the past few days the events in the Ukraine have seen a fantastic acceleration and many important events have simultaneously taken place. I will try to look at them one by one. In Kiev, the leaders of the insurgency have taken full control of the Parliament and
Dear friends, As, I promised, I am now going to reply to some of your comments concerning my recent post about the roots and nature of Ukrainian nationalism. First, I thought of replying to your comments one by one, and then I changed my mind. I think that there are some general and recurrent topics which I need to address because they are mentioned several times. That would save space
First, a short introductory sitrep: The least one could say is that over the past 2 days the events in the Ukraine moved fast, very, very fast. While I had intended to take 2 days off, I still kept an eye on the most recent development and jotted them down on my computer’s note pad. Here is what I wrote down (sorry for the shorthand): Lukin did not sign S&P
Looking at the amazing footage coming out of not only Kiev, but also from many other cities in the Ukraine, one can get the idea that what is taking place is absolute total chaos and that nobody controls it. This is a very mistaken impression and I think that this is a good time to look at who the actors of this conflict are and what they really want. Only
