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Russia – Crimea – Ukraine – BBC – “Ukraine crisis: A guide to Russia’s vision of Crimea”

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Russia – Crimea – Ukraine – BBC – “Ukraine crisis: A guide to Russia’s vision of Crimea”

There may be younger ethnic Russian Crimeans who wanted to stay in Ukraine, having never known any other country, he accepts. But he believes the “overwhelming majority” wanted reunification with Russia.

For him, Ukraine is a “wicked stepmother” who promised Crimean Russians a better life after independence in 1992, then “deceived” them. In all those 22 years, he says, he “never felt Ukrainian”.

The news seems full of reflection about Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia and how political life patches states together.  What seems to me ugly beneath the surface of this interest are two themes: to what extent may or should nationalist ethnic and racial interests drive the definition of a state?  The question is asked knowing well that all states have a majority population representing affiliation with an ethnic or religious body.  The other question is whether human ideals and virtues can continue to inform the politics of powerful states when the same have been raided or shaped to serve military or monetary elites, who then operate the levers of the same with their own ambitions and appetites uppermost. a question that may apply as much in Crimea and Russia today as it may have and should have long ago in Syria.

FNS – Ukraine – Get Ready

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Fast News Share, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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NATO calls on Russia to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine – YouTube

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Note: undated references are current within 24 hours.

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PEREVALNE, Ukraine (AP) — Warning that it was “on the brink of disaster,” Ukraine put its military on high alert Sunday and appealed for international help to avoid what it feared was the possibility of a wider invasion by Russia.

Outrage over Russia’s military moves mounted in world capitals, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calling on President Vladimir Putin to pull back from “an incredible act of aggression.”

Associated Press

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“This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in English. Yatsenuik heads a pro-Western government that took power when the country’s Russia-backed president, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted last week.

Ukraine mobilizes after Putin’s ‘declaration of war’ | Reuters

Related: Ukraine mobilizes troops after Russia’s ‘declaration of war’ – CNN.com

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Of potentially even greater concern are eastern swathes of the country, where most of the ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language. Those areas saw violent protests on Saturday, with pro-Moscow demonstrators hoisting flags at government buildings and calling for Russia to defend them.

Ukraine mobilizes for war, calls up reserves

Related (2/28/2014): Crimean crisis: Russia holds most of the power against Ukraine

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Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a press conference that Russia should pull back its forces and refrain from interfering elsewhere in Ukraine, according to Reuters. NATO is urging the two countries to seek a peaceful resolution through dialogue.

Secretary of State John Kerry — who is heading to Kiev on March 4 to meet with representatives of Ukraine’s new government — has called Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine “an incredible act of aggression” and said Putin has made “a stunning, willful” choice to invade another country.

Putin defends Russia’s response to Ukraine crisis as gunmen surround military bases | Fox News

Related: Secretary of State John Kerry vows visit to Kiev as Russian forces surround Ukraine military base in Crimea – NY Daily News: “A second administration official indicated that the U.S. was not weighing military action to counter Russia’s advances, saying the Obama administration’s efforts were focused on political, economic and diplomatic options. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the situation and insisted on anonymity.”

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Ukraine, as a whole, is going to move fast.

The Bear regards the old system of buffers as its own, but it has a remarkable failure going in Syria.  That President Vladimir Putin pumped $52 billion into the Winter Olympics at Sochi while pledging $10 million for humanitarian relief in Syria has not gone unnoticed — nor have election shenanigans, the Night Wolves, allegations about “mafia state” and “fragile empire” — and all will reflect poorly on his sense of responsibility to Russians and to others.

However, Ukraine is also a borderland naturally spanning a cultural divide between Europe and Eurasia, between the politics of the now open democracies and their common currency and shared values and a stalwart attempting to build some kind of new Slavic society out of the 19th Century manners of aristocracy, now an energy-fueled oligarchy committed not only to its survival but the survival of Bashar al-Assad and Ayatollah Khamenei, a veritable arc of despotic displays of power.

While Syria has become a battleground squeezing out Syrians as casualties and refugees between despots, Ukraine’s democratic revolutionary opposition to despotism has its feet and spirit planted against the “vertical of power” in Moscow.

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As Russian forces seize key objects in Crimea, their objective is not just to create chaos in Ukraine but also to protect kleptocratic rule in Russia itself.

Russia and Ukraine under Yanukovych shared a single form of government – rule by a criminal oligarchy. This is why the anti-criminal revolution that overthrew Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych is a precedent that is perfectly applicable to Putin’s Russia. It is also the reason why, from the Russian regime’s point of view, the Ukrainian revolution must be stopped at all costs.

Ukraine’s Revolutionary Lesson for Russia – The Daily Beast

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Perhaps the last time the Russian intelligentsia watched the internal struggle in another country this intently was in 1968 during the Prague Spring, when they hoped the Czechs would succeed in building what they called “socialism with a human face”. They also believed it would hold out the promise of something better for life in the Soviet Union. In August 1968, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, quashing the Prague Spring. In Moscow, seven people came out to protest against the invasion; they were arrested and the modern dissident movement was born.

Most Russians believe the Crimea is theirs – Putin has acted on his belief | Masha Gessen | Comment is free | The Observer – 2/1/2014.

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“Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine,” Palin wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. Palin was resoundingly mocked by comedians like Tina Fey and eggheads for saying in 2008 that Alaska’s proximity to Russia forced her to deal with foreign policy issues just like George W. Bush said thatTexas’s proximity to Mexico compelled him to deal with Mexico when he was governor of Texas.

Sarah Palin on Ukraine: I Told You So – 2/28/2014.

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On Russian propaganda: StopFake | Fighting untruthful information regarding the events in Ukraine

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Zoom Zoom Zuma! Hail the Presence of Another African “Aristocommicrat”

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Africa, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, South Africa, Zimbabwe

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Zuma is an economic leftist, who has described himself as a socialist.[32] He has received support from trade unions and from the South African Communist Party as well as the Women’s League and the Youth League of the ANC.[32] According to The Guardian and The New York Times, Zuma supports redistribution of wealth and has allied himself with socialists and communists that seek to redistribute wealth.[32][33] However, The Guardian (UK) has also reported that Zuma has tried “to reassure foreign investors their interests will be protected.”

Jacob Zuma – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 12/9/2013.

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It is a nation racked by poverty, where 13 million people survive on less than £1 a day, and two million have no access to a toilet.

Yet as his people struggle in squalor, South African president Jacob Zuma has sparked outrage by spending £17.5 million to upgrade his rural family home.

Lavish works – which include the construction of 31 new houses, an underground bunker accessed by lifts and a helipad – will cost almost as much as the £19 million British taxpayers send to South Africa in annual aid.

UK gives £19million aid to South Africa – its president spends £17.5million on his palace | Mail Online – 11/24/2012

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When Jacob Zuma was facing corruption charges while still deputy president of the country, he scaled the length and breadth of the country to tell all and sundry that he wanted his day in court. The implication, was that he was a victim of a political conspiracy. When his bluff was called, and moves were made to satisfy his urge to grace the country’s courts with his morally upright presence, he did everything in the book to ensure that he didn’t appear in court. It was at that time that we first heard of the existence of the so-called spy tapes which would prove that the corruption case against him was politically motivated and manipulated.

After some nifty footwork by his legal team, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped the charges against Zuma. The public was assured that excerpts from these supposed spy tapes were then in the possession of the NPA. This cleared the path for Zuma to sing his way to the office of the president without having to answer to the charges of corruption. Now, Zuma is not only fighting attempts to have the tapes released to the DA, he is now on record as having said that he has never listened to the tapes, and therefore was not aware what the tapes contained. Fell me down with a feather already! If Zuma, the supposed victim of a political conspiracy who used these tapes as his weapon against the NPA, has not heard the contents of the tapes on what basis did he engage his lawyers to work on the so-called excerpts from the tapes?

A new trademark for the rainbow nation – hypocrisy | eNCA – 9/11/2013.

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As regards criticism, much less examination by an independent court, our beloved and charming malignant narcissists enjoy (by dealing it unto themselves) a free pass.

They will do the investigations, the scrutinizing, the nitpicking, the moralizing, and the talking — oh my, how Qaddafi use to talk — but grant them immunity.

Or else!

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These former communist cum autocratic aristocrats — coin: aristocommicrats — flow down from the big mamma of sweet talking while thieving states: Mother Russia in her Soviet phase: to work goes the worker; to the gulag the dissenting intelligentsia; and to the palatial dacha on the Black Sea go the ruling party elite . . . not unlike China’s elites, come to think of it, purchasing mansions in Melbourne.  On that:

A new global breed of private investors has emerged as competitors to institutional investors for prime real estate priced at US$500 million and above.

The trend is being felt in Australia, where ultra-high net worth individuals (defined as those with a personal wealth of over $30 million) or family groups are successfully outbidding institutional investors for property.

Property provides rich pickings for Asia’s elite | Business Spectator – 12/4/2013.

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A cousin of Robert Mugabe accumulated assets worth an estimated 180 million ($360 million), according to a divorce case in Zimbabwe that has thrown a spotlight on the vast wealth acquired by the regime’s inner circle.

Details of Phillip Chiyangwa’s assets were placed before the Harare high court by his wife, Elizabeth, who is seeking 85 per cent of her husband’s assets and maintenance of 53,000 a month for 10 years.

‘God’s Gift’ on the block in divorce – World – NZ Herald News – 12/6/2013.

Mugabe’s regime has been systematically nationalizing enterprises and redistributing them to his supporters. The more nationalization and redistribution Mugabe’s regime does, the more Zimbabwe’s economy disintegrates.

Blog: Mugabe Regime Demands More Socialism – 9/10/2011.

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Ah, family!

May we imagine that Jacob Zuma is today no Nelson Mandela?

“They Only Care About Power, Not People”

All of this became painfully obvious in August last year when militarized police forces violently cracked down on a wildcat miners’ strike in the platinum town of Marikana. In the ensuing bloodbath, the most serious bout of state violence since the Sharpville massacre of 1960 and the end of apartheid in 1994, 34 workers were killed after being peppered with machine gun fire at close range. Needless to say, the Marikana massacre brought back painful memories of police brutality under white minoritarian rule. This time, however, the policemen and politicians responsible for the massacre were mostly black and represented the same party that had once led the struggle against racial oppression: the ruling ANC of President Jacob Zuma and the iconic freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. The Marikana massacre was the most powerful expression yet that little had changed below the surface. The violence of the state simply reasserted itself anew under the ANC.

Jacob Zuma | Notes toward an International Libertarian Eco-Socialism – 12/8/2013.

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South Africa’s press have defied warnings from the country’s president and printed pictures of his lavish home revamped with some $18 million of taxpayers money.

The media had been warned not to use the images of Jacob Zuma’s private rural home — complete with swimming pool, helipad and even a soccer field — claiming it would contravene the country’s security laws, South African press reported.

South Africa press defies warnings: Shows photos of President Jacob Zuma’s $18M mansion – NY Daily News – 11/24/2013.

Anyone want to see the house?

This might work: https://www.google.com/search?q=Jacob+Zuma’s+mansion&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS523US523&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=x-WlUqvLJIS7kQeLk4DQBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=1084

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Gaza – No Justice – A Glimpse Into Kleptocracy

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Middle East, Politics

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Ironically, throughout all of the alleged Israeli siege on Gaza, Israel has consistently been providing Gazans water and power supplies, which Israel threatened to cut in 2011 if Palestinian Authority pursued reunification with Hamas — a threat which Israel never carried out.

Moreover, numbers speak for themselves: in March 2012, the same month when 300 Hamas rockets were fired from Gaza at Israeli towns, 3,653 truckloads of goods were delivered from Israel to Gaza and 1,375 Gazan patients and companions entered or passed through Israel for medical treatments, followed by another 1,364 in April, 2012.

In August 2012, the Hamas prime minister’s brother in law was allowed to enter Israel for treatment in an Israeli hospital.

Who Is Really Besieging Gaza? :: Gatestone Institute – Mudar Zahran – 11/15/2012.

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“there are 1,200 millionaires in Gaza since Hamas took power… these people took advantage of the tunnels and the commerce of fuel to Gaza and took advantage of the people in Gaza.”

Gaza Strip full of corrupt millionaires, says Palestinian official – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 11/16/2013.

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WAFA reported that the wealth came from controlling the smuggling of good through the tunnels with Egypt, including “alcohol and drugs,” describing Hamas leaders as “Gaza’s drug lords”.

In addition, the prominent Egyptian newspaper, al-Mesryoon, quoted Egyptian writer and academic Abdul Munim Saeed as saying that Hamas was the main importer and exporter of drugs into Gaza.

The Jewish Press » » Hamas’ Drug Lords – 4/22/2013.

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A campaign against drugs was launched by Gaza’s interior ministry last month targeting tramadol tablets which are widely used by youth in the Sector.

Tramadol is a drug prescribed by doctors as a pain killer; however it is widely misused by drug addicts as a replacement drug. Opium, marijuana and various other kinds of drugs are in short supply in Gaza as a result of the strict anti-drug campaigns carried out by the ministry of interior.

Gaza government fights ‘tramadol’ smuggling – 7/8/2013.

The quotations having to do with narcotics proceeds and trafficking in Gaza rather seem to contradict one another but are not necessarily irreconcilable: the soul of corruption and crime resides in the opaque qualities of a governance that enables some to many to engage in illicit activities without consequence to themselves.  In such atmospheres, tightening laws and initiating crackdowns may as well serve to remove one’s own competitors or enemies from the market, which is not to say that’s what’s happening, but who is to know — and how would they know it?  Independent accounting and audit would see unknown to governments — this is not about Hamas only — that rely too heavily on their own opacity, privacy, and security in doing what they do.

Results nonetheless come out in one form or another of cash input and output comparisons, and if cash seems in short supply where in fact it has been signaled as abundant, than one knows it has been disappearing down into very dark and bottomless pockets.

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The tunnels that move goods into the Strip from Egypt have been linchpins of the economy, employing 12,000 to 15,000 and supplying as much as 75 percent of the products sold in the markets, according to Sameer Abumdallala, head of the economics department at Al Azhar University in Gaza. Now the smugglers say their importance is waning: Access to Israeli goods is improving, and the Gazan government has begun regulating the tunnels, sapping profits.

Twilight of Gaza’s Smuggling Tunnel Millionaires – Businessweek – 1/31/2013.

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Palestine – Gaza City.

Septemper 4, 2013

palestinian man who lost his right foot (disabled)he has 10 children in Gaza City ( Alzayton area) suffers poverty and the family lives in just two rooms.

Five of the children they don’t going to school because of the bad economic situation in the family. — family also thay don’t have an sewerage network

Gerechtigkeit für Gaza – justicia para Gaza – justice pour Gaza – justice for Gaza: Ezz Al Zanoon – brilliant photographer from Gaza – 9/4/2013.

Whose constituents are they?

Readers who click on the above link will arrive at an almost too beautiful picture of an equally ugly circumstance made more so by the point of this post: enormous sums have channeled through the Gaza Strip, but evidence of fair and responsible distribution through local governance has been weak and, in fact, both Israeli and Palestinian presses seem to have turned up stories indicating interests opposite accountable and responsive area-wide governance.

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Dictatorships and the “malignant narcissists” who manipulate and thieve from their areas of control often offer sweet words to their constituents but their wallets and their forces tend to serve mostly themselves.  For such, ideologies and religions would seem to serve mostly as cloaks and shields inscribed with the con artist’s favorite invocation: “Trust me.”

Addendum 12/5/2013

The streets of some Gaza neighborhoods are completely flooded with raw sewage, so that pedestrians have no way to go but through the muck. The Hamas government has been sinking Gaza into a quagmire of violence, blackouts, water shortages and now: a cholera epidemic waiting to happen.

The Jewish Press » » Israel Warns EU of Emerging Gaza Humanitarian Disaster – 12/3/2013.

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In the past few years, the war-torn Gaza Strip relied on Egyptian fuel at 3.5 Israeli shekels (one dollar) per litre. Then in July, Egypt closed down all supply tunnels to Gaza in an attempt to crush the Hamas Islamic movement for being an ally to overthrown Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (2012-2013). The municipality says that fuel coming through Israel is heavily taxed, forcing them to pay double, at 7.0 Israeli shekels per litre.

Gaza Returns to Donkey Days – Sabbah Report – 12/5/2013.

1. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sets out to establish a family dynasty in the last years of his tenure;

2. Egypt, en masse, decides to not let Mubarak get away with that, and he’s ousted from power;

3. The only political player on the block turns out the Muslim Brotherhood, which handily, ruthlessly, takes care of its competition, ascends to power, and sets about the business of consolidating everything, starting with the army, quickly advancing to the constitution, its way;

3b. Hamas, itself a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, cheers for the arrival of its new buddy;

4. Civil war breaks out in Syria, partially, initially, aligning Shiite against Sunni Islam, and Hamas, knowing what it’s really about (read the charter), knows what it’s about, which alienates the puppet master in Iran;

5. Meanwhile, in Egypt, President Morsi turns out so ham handed, venal, and on his economy just plain absent or stupid — you decide — Egyptian about half or three-quarters en masse demand his ouster and return to the comfort of the arms of the army;

6. Uh oh for Hamas — Egyptian, Israeli, and United States diplomatic and military interests discover common cause in heading off the fascist Brotherhood (while mouthing away for more genuine democratic process, one way or the other) — and it’s Hamas — the Hamas government and governance — that can no longer sustain an inscrutable presence in the lives of Gaza’s constituents;

6a. Hamas successfully stifles the launch of protests in its streets by way of pre-event arrests and detentions and the usual methods amounting to intimidation — and no one shows up: the by-Hamas-silenced continue suffering (related on this blog: “Hamas – Tamarod – 11/11 [You’re Going to Need a Cup of Coffee“]).

7. Israel, watching this meltdown in governance, the wholesale shirking of responsibility for basic services — keep in mind Gaza’s millionaires, their number, their sources of income, their comforts — alerts the European Union as regards the strips vulnerability to other human catastrophe, including the creation of conditions for cholera.

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A STRING of regional developments over the past two years has left the Islamist Hamas government in Gaza in dire straits and opened up new opportunities for Israel and Palestinian moderates.

In backing the Sunni rebels in the Syrian civil war, Hamas forfeited its special ties with its biggest arms supplier, Iran; the military ouster of its Muslim Brotherhood allies in Cairo put serious strains on its relations with Egypt; and a change of leadership in Qatar left a big question mark over the extent of financial aid from the oil-rich Gulf state it can continue to count on.

ICT – Commentaries > Hamas in disarray – 11/26/2013.

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“I can’t emphasise enough that Israel’s security in this negotiation (with Iran) is at the top of our agenda,” Kerry said at a joint news conference in Jerusalem.

“The United States will do everything in our power to make certain that Iran’s nuclear programme of weaponisation possibilities is terminated.”

Kerry stressed the two men had spent “a very significant amount of time” discussing the peace talks with the Palestinians.

“Israel’s security is fundamental to those negotiations,” he said.

Israel security key in talks on peace, Iran: Kerry – Yahoo!7 – 12/5/2013.

Hate may for a while drive the heart but it consumes it too and all it envelopes.

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The charter states that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,[1] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.[2][3] The charter also states that Hamas is humanistic, and tolerant of other religions as long as they do not block Hamas’s efforts.[4] The Charter adds that “renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion” of Islam.[5]

Hamas Covenant – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 12/5/2013.

Any who care to look ahead to how that story ends may well look beyond Gaza, Hamas, and Israel: a figure approaching 130,000 have died in neighboring Syria’s civil war, which effort to depose a dictators has been skewered by the forces of “Islamic Jihad” that would have it a war for Islam rather than for democracy, human rights, and inclusion in power; beside that figure stands the displacement of one-third of Syria’s population before the war.

I’ve seen no figure describing the suffering and trauma visited on Syrian innocents and noncombatants, but then I believe no such figure can ever exist.

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