Tag Archives: protests

PSA: Ukrainian Freedom Marches, May 20, 2017

15 Monday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ukraine

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It’s been 3 years and over 10,000 people dead, 23,000 wounded and over 1.5 million displaced people in Donbas region. We all know that this bloody conflict is a covert Russian war against Ukraine, and its objective is to destabilize Ukraine and to prevent it from ever having a chance to be a part of Europe and exist independently from Russian influence.

But many Americans don’t realize that the war in Eastern Ukraine is far from being over.

This is why we will march and rally on May 20th to raise the awareness about an on going Russian aggression and to ask the US for support.

We demand that the Russian assisted militia immediately vacate the Donbas region and that Crimea be returned to Ukraine ASAP.

If these demands are not met, we insist on the American government sticking to its promise made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which is to provide the full and immediate defense of Ukraine by all means necessary, in order to restore territorial integrity of the Ukrainian nation. American Government needs to be tough on Russia.

Above: BackChannels edited (re-paragraphed) excerpt from the San Francisco promotion for the May 20, 2017 march.

Primary Sources

http://zvamy.org/ (Calendar Section)
&
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ukrainianfreedommarch/events/

Individual Pages

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/ukrainian-freedom-march-in-naples-fl/?instance_id=12776301

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/ukrainian-freedom-march-washington-dc-may-20th/?instance_id=12776296 – https://www.facebook.com/events/1772468566416946/ –

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/ukrainian-freedom-march-phoenix/?instance_id=12776291

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/may-20th-san-diego-ukrainian-rally-in-solidarity-with-dc/?instance_id=12776294

https://www.facebook.com/events/293951561048912/ (San Francisco)

“Hot Russian Aggression”

Field Documentary, RFE/RL, 2/7/2017

For democracy, for classical liberalism, for dignity and freedom, for rule of law (as opposed to the rule of thugs), fight back.  Attend or publicize the above-listed marches.

BackChannels finds its unbelievable how so active a war as that taking place in Ukraine — and brought to Ukraine by invading Russian forces — has been so off the headlines in major media.  To catch up with events, BackChannels has a portal page, “Ukraine Conflict Resources – Short List“.

Choose your Ukrainian conflict reporting or news outlet and get acquainted.

Russia has launched an unprecedented active measures / disinformation campaign across the web in association with its feudal aggression in Ukraine, and if you have been well informed, you may take measure of that yourself by having a look at the “alternative media” and “alternative news” outlets or the propaganda listings appearing to the right of the videos displayed here.  You will find plenty evidence of “reflection in the mirror” or what BackChannels refers to as the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” in Moscow / Moscow-Tehran’s portion of the “information warfare space”.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994, providing security assurances by its signatories relating to Belarus’s, Kazakhstan’s and Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.[1]

The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances

 

Russia has deployed as many as 10,000 troops in eastern Ukraine for more than a year and has actively sought to hide the deaths of its soldiers, according to a new report that provides a comprehensive assessment of the Kremlin’s invasion of its neighbor.

The report was published Thursday by the Interpreter, a daily online journal that translates Russian media and reports on Russian affairs, also detailed the Kremlin’s provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry and vehicles to separatists in Ukraine. Nearly 8,000 people have been killed in the Ukrainian conflict since April 2014.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/how-russia-invaded-ukraine/ – 9/18/2015.

As Ukraine marked Armed Forces Day today, Poroshenko said that more than 2,500 Ukrainian servicemen and 7,500 civilians had been killed since the outbreak of the war in the spring of 2014.

In an interview with Holos Ukrainy, the official journal of the Ukrainian parliament, the defense minister, Viktor Muzhenko, specified today that 3,064 members of the security forces had been killed in the east since the start of what the Ukrainian government calls the “anti-terrorism operation” (ATO) in April, 2014.

Of this number, Muzhenko said, 2,636 were soldiers in the Ukrainian armed forces (VSU), the others presumably being volunteer fighters or servicemen in the National Guard, police or State Border Service. 2,148 of the VSU casualties were combat losses.

http://www.interpretermag.com/day-1023/ – 12/6/2016.

Related from 2015:

http://www.interpretermag.com/an-invasion-by-any-other-name-the-kremlins-dirty-war-in-ukraine/

8 December 2016 – A new United Nations report out today has confirmed that Ukrainians living close to the “contact line” – the area between Government-controlled and armed group-controlled territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – not only suffer due to fighting near their homes but also face the threat of landmines and unexploded ordinance as well as have to contend with severe restrictions on movement.

According to the Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine launched today by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), between mid-August and mid-November, at least 32 civilians were killed in conflict-related incidents and another 132 injured. Between mid-April 2014 and 1 December this year, more than 2,000 civilians are estimated to have dined while an additional 298 were killed in the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17.

Conflict-related civilian injures are estimated between 6,000 and 7,000.

“It is of deep concern that Government forces and armed groups operating in civilian areas do not take all feasible precautions against the effects of fighting, resulting in damage to schools, kindergartens, and medical facilities,” noted the report.

It added that it was worrying that Ukrainian military forces and armed groups continued to be positioned in civilian homes and buildings in villages and towns adjacent to the contact line.

The report also raised concern that armed groups in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk people’s republic” and “Luhansk people’s republic” continue to deprive people of their fundamental rights as well as of effective mechanism for redress.

Hundreds of individuals also remain missing.

Excerpt – http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55750#.WRngwtQrJlY – 12/8/2016

Highlights

  • The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Crimea and eastern Ukraine is 1,590,056 as of 3 April 2017, according to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.
  • IOM assisted over 137,000 vulnerable IDPs and conflict affected people in 24 regions of Ukraine.
  • Lack of funds made 40% of vulnerable IDPs IOM assisted with cash in Ukraine refuse medical treatment, according to the post-distribution monitoring of IOM’s project in 13 regions of Ukraine.

http://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/iom-s-assistance-conflict-afflicted-people-ukraine-march-2017 – 3/31/2017

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Oh Troubles Keep Away from My Ecuador

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ecuador, International Development, Politics, South America

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“My Ecuador” is likely to remain virtual and experienced through Windows.

However, for my correspondent, Ecuador is home, and when he writes in relation to, ” . . . the soldiers try to occupy the strategic places, highways, bridges, airports, refineries, power generation stations, generating dams . . .” and says “we will close the office now and  . . . try to buy food in the supermarket, store, and black market . . . .” I’m inclined to believe him.

But he’s just one source.

The closest corroborations in the news:

Lee, Brianna.  “Ecuador’s Correa Withdraws Controversial Tax Bills After Days of Protests.”  International Business Times, June 16, 2015.

Morla, Rebeca.  “Down with Correa!  Ecuadorians Want Off the Socialist Train: Five Days of Street Protests, More to Come.”  The Canal: Blog of the Panama Post, June 15, 2015.

Scherffus, Liz.  “The opposition says they will continue protesting until the proposed inheritance tax is off the table.”  Telesur, June 17, 2015.

As has happened in other spaces in relation to the post-Soviet neo-feudalism, reliance on oil revenues and the tumble in wellhead rates has turned out a big kick in the seat of the pants.

It appears that what has brought Ecuadorans out into the streets en masse is not primal hunger and resentment of the capitalist yankee running dog pig — China’s deep into the state these days — but the fearsome will to bequeath hard-earned private gains to progeny without fear of plundering by the state!

According to my source, some military appears to have mobilized, but the arguments and resolution of economic issues to come may play behind the increasingly pale phantom of the bankrupt Soviet, the revanche neo-feudalism in place in Moscow today, and the teetering of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.  Clearly, the authoritarian experiments dressed up in socialist talk have failed their states.

The shame is the same: some affected states, Ecuador among them, are simply rich in cultural charm, labor, and natural resources but burdened by leadership that fails to grow the kind of internal economy that might make short work of living comfortably on the land while producing the craft-for-export industries certain to at least help fill in the shortfalls from the gross export of mineral wealth.

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Turkish Unrest – The Death of Berkin Elvan, Young Passerby, Spurs Anti-Government Protests

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Turkey

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Berkin Elvan, then 14, got caught up in street battles in Istanbul between police and protesters on June 16 while going to buy bread for his family. He slipped into a coma and became a rallying point for government opponents, who held regular vigils at the hospital where he lay in intensive care.

Death of Turkish boy hurt in protests rekindles unrest across country | Reuters

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. . . Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the main target of last year’s demonstrations, has so far declined to apologise for any of the protesters’ deaths. He has riled opponents, however, by praising the police response to what he and his allies depict as a foreign-backed coup attempt as “heroic”.

Protests erupt in Turkey after death of boy hurt in 2013 unrest – FT.com

Dictators fear making apologies, which perhaps would make them look wrong, or much worse, weak.

Related: AFP: Clashes erupt in Turkey after protest teen dies

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Between the Islamic Small Wars and its pack of malignant narcissists and renewed Russian imperialism driven by the vertical of the hour Putin and his coterie, I think we’re going to see a lot of breathtakingly callous violence perpetrated by the same and lied about in similar ways.

The recent revolution in Ukraine cannot be Yanukovych’s fault, except perhaps for being weak in the face of western-backed nationalist fascist aggression, or so he might say; ditto for whatever Russians may be thinking about Putin tonight while he most certainly intends to annex Crimea, regardless of the true fealty, or lack thereof, on the part of Crimean Ukrainians: and so it goes for Assad and Khamenei and too many others around the world.

Put it in common punk talk: “They wasn’t doin’ nothin’.”

Related: AFP: Clashes erupt in Turkey after protest teen dies; 40 Tragic Pictures From Turkey As Clashes Erupt After Death Of 15-Year-Old Berkin Elvan; Erdogan’s silence shows absence of moral compass – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 3/12/2014.

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Link

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ukraine-peace-deal-signed-movement-early-election-article-1.1622139

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ukraine-peace-deal-signed-movement-early-election-article-1.1622139

The newly emboldened Ukrainian parliament then voted to restore the 2004 constitution, which reduces the power of the president and gives them more control, and approved an amnesty for the demonstrators who defied Yanukovych.

Legislators also fired Yanukovych’s widely despised interior minister, Vitali Zakharchenko, who is being blamed for giving the order to shoot at protesters in Kiev.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ukraine-peace-deal-signed-movement-early-election-article-1.1622139#ixzz2tzQVXezh

Venezuela – Into Darkness

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics, Regions, South America, Venezuela

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Momento que policia de venezuela matan estudiante y modelo Génesis Carmona ! – YouTube – 2/19/2014.

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Once-defiant Venezuelan TV goes quiet amid opposition protests | Reuters – 2/19/2014.

Cameras Taken At Gunpoint In Venezuela – 2/20/2014.

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. . . since 2005, Venezuela has purchased more than $4 billion worth of arms from Russia.[1] In September 2008, Russia sent Tupolev Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela to carry out training flights.[2] In November 2008, both countries held a joint naval exercise in the Caribbean.[3] Following Chavez’s two visits to Moscow in July and September 2008, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin arrived in Venezuela to pave the way for a third meeting within five months between their two presidents.

Russia–Venezuela relations – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 2/20/2014.

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This, however, was a significant improvement over media coverage of the violence during the Feb.12 march (see David’s comments in the Financial Times).

That day when the student’s protests turned increasingly violent, private television stations stopped their live coverage of the incidents. Globovisión, the news channel that used to be considered the main pro-opposition media but is now owned by a business group said to be close to the government, had initially given ample – but not live – coverage to the protests. But as soon as violence erupted in the afternoon, they switched to a fashion program.

How are Venezuela’s media covering the protests? – CSMonitor.com – 2/19/2014

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From a correspondent within the awesome conversation (2/20/2014):

The government of Venezuela is very stronger, have many people that support them and the soldiers have many business in the government.

The media try to present that the government are on the brink of fall, but this is not true, only the soldiers can make a Coup State, and the soldiers give support to the government.

China is the first investor in Cuba, at the end, Venezuela is a poor country also, Venezuela can’t give support to Cuba, they send a single ship of oil to Cuba per week, nothing more, and Cuba give assistance to Venezuela with health aid, doctors and assistance to the poor people, at the end Cuba is a poor country also…

China have many investments in Cuba, they are install offshore oil platforms in Cuba in the offshore of Miami, the people can see the oil platforms of China from the coast of Miami.

China invest in Nicaragua and other countries from the Caribean Sea, they will never allow a Coup State in Venezuela, because this can damage their business with Venezuela government, and China have many influence over U.S. government to keep the peace in the region.

The military force in Venezuela have business with oil, and sell oil to China… the military force can make a Coup State only, but they give support to the government to make business with China…

Venezuela, what this means, the soldiers, send twenty oil ships per day with oil to China and U.S., to sell oil to China and U.S.

They are friends and make business together…

American influence / (Chinese+Russian Influence) : god = capital, patronage, return.

That above I would call the newest world order.

Where people would appear to want a political voice, a say in their fate, some guarantees about dignity, freedom, and human rights, The Money has no conscience, no moral code other than to drift where it pays to go or otherwise directly into piratical networks.

No wonder Putin did not want Khodorkovsky running Russia’s oil business.  And China?  China’s quietly going about its business with banking, manufacturing, and mining, and it too seems immune to criticism.

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(Reuters) – Venezuelan security forces and demonstrators faced off in streets blocked by burning barricades in several provincial cities on Thursday as protests escalated against President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.

Venezuela protests rumble as demonstrators, troops face off | Reuters – 2/20/2014.

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His wife, Lilian Tintori, placed a crucifix around his neck. He climbed down into a crowd gone wild with chants of ¡Sí, se puede! (Yes, we can!) and proceeded to turn himself over to the authorities . . . .

Leopoldo Lopez, the Venezuela Opposition’s New Hero – Businessweek – 2/20/2014.

Leopoldo Lopez, the Venezuela Opposition’s New Hero – Businessweek

Related: BBC News – Venezuelan opposition leader Lopez ‘to stay in custody’ – 2/20/2014.

Additional Reference

Genesis Carmona : The Two-Way : NPR – 2/20/2014.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIqG8jeCiZo – 2/20/2014.

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Maduro asked the minister of Communication and Information, Delcy Rodríguez to inform CNN that “an administrative process has begun to take them off the aire if they do not mend their ways.”

Related: Maduro: If CNN do not correct reports, they are out of Venezuela – BuenosAiresHerald.com – 2/20/2014.

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Ukraine – “We Want To Be Free From Dictatorship”

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics

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Fires burning on Independence Square, Kiev – YouTube – 2/19/2014.

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Я УКРАИНА I Am a Ukrainian HD – YouTube – 2/14/2014. 0:25:

We want to be free from dictatorship.  We want to be free from the politicians who work only for themselves, who are ready to shoot, to beat, to injure people just for saving their money, just for saving their houses, just for saving their power.

I want these people who are here, who have dignity, who are brave: I want them to lead a normal life.  We are civilized people but our government are barbarians.

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Deadly clashes between protesters and police in Kiev on Tuesday led to a fire-lit nighttime assault by Interior Ministry troops on the main protest encampment at Independence Square, in what may be a dramatic and irreversible turn in Ukraine’s months-long political crisis.

In violent turn, Ukraine fighting kills at least 25 – The Washington Post – 2/18-19/2014.

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Kiev Ukraine Protest 2014 LIVE Explosions | Protesters Clashes With Police | 14 People Dead – YouTube – 2/18/2014.

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EU foreign ministers have called an emergency meeting on Ukraine for Thursday.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said: “We have … made it clear that the EU will respond to any deterioration on the ground. We therefore expect that targeted measures against those responsible for violence and use of excessive force can be agreed by our member states as a matter of urgency.”

[Live updates] EU to discuss sanctions after Ukraine’s bloodiest day | euronews, – 2/18/2014.

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In the middle east: Putin-Assad-Khamenei.

In eastern Europe: hard to say.

As the late Barry Rubin has pointed out in regard to the middle east, the revolution goes with the military.  Mubarak had a good run, but come time to set up dynasty, Egypt’s military countenanced the revolution (and a year later rescued the latent democracy from a fascist Islamic organization that maintained the Mubarak-era torture chambers, jailed progressive journalists, altered the constitution to consolidate power in what may well have been another “president for life”.

No dice.

With Assad’s unforgivable assaults on Syrian noncombatant constituents in mind, this news unfolding from Ukraine may well signal the end of an age of dictatorship.  It may turn out a second fall of the Soviet Union, a post-Soviet challenge to the continuance of state oligarchies forged in the shadows of the Cold War.

One hopes that it is not also the start of a new era of autocratic repression, but with armed state organizations brought to the barricades, one never knows.  Who is in those military and paramilitary forces?  Are their senior and junior officers dissenting from the projection of state power and the arrangement of regional power?

The people have themselves: what else do they have?  Who else do they have on board with them?

As Nero fiddled, so I’ve heard, Putin as host of the most expensive winter games in history, has been in his glory in Sochi.

Kiev, Ukraine Protests Are Vladimir Putin’s Worst Nightmare | New Republic – 2/18/2014.

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Echoing Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Peskov told reporters that Russia saw the protests, during which deadly clashes erupted on Tuesday, as an attempted coup.

Putin, Ukraine’s Yanukovich spoke by telephone: Kremlin – Yahoo News – 2/19/2014.

“An attempted coup” seems the predictable spin.

We shall soon find out, I am sure, what Ukraine’s armed forces think about that, for protest in the streets is by itself a strong signal — ask Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan about that — but it is not a coup; it is, however, revolutionary.

Additional Reference

Washington Post: Ukraine rejects repression – 2/2/2014; Seizure of police stations in Lviv continues – 2/19/2014; Payatt: Yanukovych responsible for everything that happens in Ukraine – 2/19/2014; IM: Police probing 40 cases on mass riots in Ukraine – 2/19/2014; At least 25 reported dead, more than 1,000 injured in Feb. 18 clashes (VIDEO)

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Iran – Isfahan – Protests

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Iran, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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The protesters reportedly claimed the series defames the large and powerful Bakhtiari tribe. A Bakhtiari family in the series is depicted as corrupt, nouveau riche and monarchist.

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Iran – Esfehan.15.Feb.2014 Anti-regime protest in front of regime IRIB office in Esfehan city. – YouTube –  2/15/2014.

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IRIB –> Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting | includes: Press TV

I see no reportage of the video up top on either site, not that I’m looking too hard for that or expect that from a system invested in controlling constituent access to global information.

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If the world’s on fire, we can see it today, but no one can see it all at once.  I’ve missed protests in Venezuela, a now ongoing story in major media, and am not inclined to keep up daily with the tragedy dogging the Burmese Rohingya (Malaysia, which accepts members of the Muslim tribe, would do well to attend their defense and retrieval) or the Central African Republic (CAR), where Christian militia have been persecuting Muslims, although that conflict I might well bring on to these virtual pages.

Related: The Central African Republic: Sectarian savagery | The Economist – 2/15/2014.

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Updates to come on Isfahan if I can get them.

Updates

This episode well portrays the different workings of “western” and “eastern” minds.  The western mind wants the protests to be about “freedom of speech”; the eastern one, apparently, wants it to be about freedom from insult.

One can’t have both.

Iran state TV halts series after protests | Mid-East | Saudi Gazette – 2/17/2014.

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The protesters reportedly claimed the series defames the large and powerful Bakhtiari tribe. A Bakhtiari family in the series is depicted as corrupt, nouveau riche and monarchist.

Iran state TV halts series after protests | The Times of Israel – 2/16/2014.

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