August 13, 2014

Fresh evidence of how the West lured Ukraine into its orbit ($663 Million)

Fresh evidence of how the West lured Ukraine into its orbit

The West is demonizing President Putin when what set this crisis in motion
were recklessly provocative moves to absorb Ukraine into the EU

Christopher Booker
The Telegraph

How odd it has been to read all those accounts of Europe sleepwalking into war in the summer of 1914, and how such madness must never happen again, against the background of the most misrepresented major story of 2014 – the gathering crisis between Russia and the West over Ukraine, as we watch developments in that very nasty civil war, with 20,000 Russian troops massing on the border.

For months the West has been demonising President Putin, with figures such as the Prince of Wales and Hillary Clinton comparing him with Hitler, oblivious to the fact that what set this crisis in motion were those recklessly provocative moves to absorb Ukraine into the EU.

There was never any way that this drive to suck the original cradle of Russian identity into the Brussels empire was not going to provoke Moscow to react – not least due to the prospect that its only warm-water ports, in Crimea, might soon be taken over by Nato.



Full Story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11023577/Fresh-evidence-of-how-the-West-lured-Ukraine-into-its-orbit.html

August 13, 2014

Telegraph (UK) - Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists

Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists
The Telegraph (UK)

Kiev throws paramilitaries – some openly neo-Nazi - into the front of the battle with rebels



Excerpts of a good read for those interested.

"
As Ukraine’s armed forces tighten the noose around pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, the western-backed government in Kiev is throwing militia groups – some openly neo-Nazi - into the front of the battle.

The Azov battalion has the most chilling reputation of all. Last week, it came to the fore as it mounted a bold attack on the rebel redoubt of Donetsk, striking deep into the suburbs of a city under siege. "

SNIP

But Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”, proclaimed in eastern Ukraine in March, should send a shiver down Europe’s spine. Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming.

The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.


The Azov battalion uses the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf''s Hook)
symbol on its banner (Tom Parfitt)

“Personally, I’m a Nazi,” said “Phantom”, a 23-year-old former lawyer at the ceremony wearing camouflage and holding a Kalashnikov. “I don’t hate any other nationalities but I believe each nation should have its own country.” He added: “We have one idea: to liberate our land from terrorists.”

Full story at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11025137/Ukraine-crisis-the-neo-Nazi-brigade-fighting-pro-Russian-separatists.html


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AZOV Battalion emblem

August 5, 2014

Antiwar Protests Spreading in Ukraine

Excellent read on the "Anti-War" movement building in Ukraine - Links to more information than you will find in the western press. There is significant anti-war momentum occurring there.

(Full Title)
Antiwar Protests Spreading in Ukraine as Government Wages All-Out War in the Southeast
and NATO Threatens Russia

TruthOut
Friday, 01 August 2014 11:24 By Roger Annis

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25322-antiwar-protests-spreading-in-ukraine-as-government-wages-all-out-war-in-the-southeast-and-nato-threatens-russia

A rising wave of antiwar and anti-conscription protest is taking place in cities and towns across western Ukraine. The protests are prompted by the announcement of Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko ten days ago that a "third" military mobilization is now required for the war that his governing regime began waging against the population of eastern Ukraine three months ago. Kyiv calls the war an "anti-terrorist operation."

The protests are paralleled by a rise in Ukraine army desertions and refusals of men and women to heed conscription orders.

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Video of Ukrainians burning Military Draft Cards

This video shows a group of people, mostly women, from Chernivtsi who gather to confront a local military recruitment officer. They are carrying their sons or husbands' conscription orders.

"Go fight your own war," they tell the conscription officer, who tells locals to "go to the Internet" if they want to find out why the new mobilization is happening. He is referring to the Kyiv regime's intensely propagandistic websites devoted to all things "ATO." But the protesters are having none of that. They gather dozens of blue-coloured conscription orders into a pile and burn them.


http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25322-antiwar-protests-spreading-in-ukraine-as-government-wages-all-out-war-in-the-southeast-and-nato-threatens-russia

August 2, 2014

"Immigration Reform" is good, but seriously inequitable

I posted this as a comment but since there seem to be people here who have the ear of party leaders:

I am for relief for undocumented immigrant families; but the executive needs to fix the other inequities and issues with immediate relatives of US citizens before overwhelming the system. Right now there are terrible inequities that do not get fixed because some groups, like citizens with spouses and children of other nationalities, do not have lobbying powers.

The immigration system is a terrible and tragic patchwork due to inequities in lobbying power. This has been seriously agitated by the addition of Homeland Security which is a terribly rigid institution and is not flexible when families are involved.

There are several hundred thousand mixed nationality citizen families who have to wait several years for their spouses and children. Even when the marriage may be 30 years long, they will be artificially and inequitably separated if they enter or return to the US because they have no lobby.

**The system now allows foreign laborers to bring their spouses to the country and the process is ** a month!

** Foreign labor gets super fast service - 6-8 weeks for the primary and a paid expedite option is available.

** Because of an executive change last year, undocumented immigrant spouses can now apply to be processed without having to separate and can remain in the country (which is a good thing). But because of the inequitus nature of the system they are placed in the same queue as other immediate families, actually causing the normal processed families to be apart **longer**. Those queues need to be seperate and families that are apart need to be processes first.

** It is impossible to bring in a spouse of a citizen or permanent resident (legally) without the long wait, but the US allows people who bypass the system and bring a fiancee over on a visitors visa to adjust their status and remain together without interruption.

All immediate family members should be processed equitably. They should all have an abbreviated visa that allows them into the country (as happens with work visas now) where processing is finalized. EQUITABLY!

But none of these problems are in the special interest lobbying for "immigration reform" It will just add to the mess created through legislation by lobby power, instead of truly reforming the system. In fact, the immigration lobby is asking that non-immediate family members (adult brothers/sisters/aunts uncles etc) be allowed into the same priority as immediate family. If the other issues are not fixed first that will entirely mess over many families who are trying to be united.