tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73641742399542437732024-03-05T10:09:46.685-08:00Otherjones.comThis blog is about The Big Picture - information and insights about what goes on in the world outside our borders - and what it means for Americans. Unless otherwise specified, all photos from Deena Stryker archive.Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.comBlogger844125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-68144576882749480692022-05-07T09:48:00.001-07:002022-05-07T09:49:39.784-07:00A Different Take on Abortion<p> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;">I</span><span style="color: #08080e; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;">n all historical periods, early abortion has been practiced with relative equanimity, while the killing of babies in the womb by marauding soldiers evokes horror.</span><span style="color: #08080e; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="color: #0c0c18; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;"> Although i</span><span style="color: #08080e; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;">ncest and rape have long justified abortion, less weight is granted to the future mother’s ability to meet an infant’s needs. </span><span style="color: #0b0b0b; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;">Fifty years after </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px;">Roe v. Wade, abortion is once again being threatened, and there is a lack of clarity on how to defend it. </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The means through which a fetus develops into a viable human flow neither from the will of God, nor fate, but from the phenomenon of self-organization. As biologist Stuart Kauffman tells us: “Life is a natural expression of a universe that is not in equilibrium, evolving toward a regime that is poised between order and chaos.” In everyday language, t<span style="color: #141332;">he casual </span><span style="color: #0c0c18;">mating of two individuals can set in train a process, which if not interrupted within a few months,</span><span style="color: #08080e;"> leads to the development of a human able to survive outside the womb after about six months. </span></p>
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<p style="color: #04040a; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Although </span><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">a woman has the same authority over the body through which she exists </span><span style="color: #0b0b15;">as over her beliefs, under</span><span style="color: #0b0b17;"> our dualistic heritage, in which right and wrong are absolutes, kinetic rights are subjected</span><span style="color: #141332;"> governmental authority. </span><span style="color: #0b0b17;">For the</span> rare cases in which a woman’s life is in greater danger from abortion than from a delivery, or in which it is discovered that the fetus would not be viable outside the womb, pregnancies may legally be interrupted. The same option should be available to women who realize, s<span style="color: #08080e;">ix months into a pregnancy, that they will be unable to meet the needs of</span><span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> the child once born. Yet, as if in punishment for her rejection of motherhood, </span>she is made to<span style="color: #0d0d0d;"> carry a fetus to term for adoption. </span></p>
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<p style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The United States needs to separate abortion from religion, as the rest of the developed world does, defining it as a political issue, for which ethnical solutions must be found.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #04040a;">The same is true of </span><span style="color: #0d0d0d;">t</span>he debate over capital punishment, which transforms freedom to think, which is absolute, into freedom to act, which is not. Although we are free to judge an individual, we are not entitled to extend opinion, or even certainty into an act that terminates life, without falling into the same category as a drunken driver or a virus.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; text-align: justify;">In <i>Human Rights as Idolatry and Politics, </i>Michael Ignatieff properly notes that human rights are indispensable to protect individuals against unjust laws and orders. All people are entitled to justice, even though they may be dishonest, cowardly, or not necessarily deserving of our solicitude.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 3px; text-align: justify;">This brings us back to Kauffman, who, like many contemporary scientists sees a need for sacredness: “I hold the hope that the new sciences of complexity may help us find anew our place in the universe, that through this new science, we may recover our sense of worth, our sense of the sacred…. "life—complex, whole, emergent—is a natural outgrowth of the world in which we live.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: justify;">Kaufman reminds me of the monk Giordano Bruno, killed at the stake for questioning sixteenth century wisdom with these words:</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 11px 18px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> "</span></i>Everything that makes diversity of kinds, species, differences, properties, everything which depends on generation, corruption, alienation and change is not being or existence, but is a condition and circumstance of being or existence…."</p>Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-58099024279954891522019-01-01T18:45:00.003-08:002019-01-01T18:45:54.033-08:00New Year, New ResolutionsI'm publishing three important articles following this notice: A 2020 election wish list, Christmas in Russia, by a friend from St. Petersberg, and an interview with Russian Foreign Minister, sergei Lavrov. I hope you will read them.<br />
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I'm not sure whether I will to continue posting on Otherjones, since it is disruptive on thought processes to have to wait until my articles are published on New Eastern Outlook. <br />
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Another disincentive is the lack of feedback. I would encourage readers to post comments, to which I will infallibly respond.<br />
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In any case, this site will remain as an archive, and my latest book, 'Tracking the Hegemon' a collection of my blogs from various sites starting in 2006, will soon appear via Createspace.<br />
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May 2019 not witness the nuclear holocaust Washington policy-makers believe the US could survive.<br />
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<br />Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-13119640371832117692019-01-01T18:31:00.003-08:002019-01-01T18:31:38.614-08:00Interview with Sergei Lavov, Russia's Foreign Minister, reposted from The Vineyard of the Saker<div class="post-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lavrov’s interview with Radio Komsomolskaya Pravd</span><span style="font-size: 32px;">a</span></h1>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/3448023?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw&_101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw_languageId=en_GB" style="background-color: rgba(240, 240, 230, 0.701961); border-bottom-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c424e; padding: 0px 3px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s;">December 17, 2018</a></strong><br />
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(SERGEI LAVROV is one of the most respected Foreign Ministers, having been by Vladimir Putin's side since 2004, previously Russia's UN ambassador <span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;">from </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;">1994 to 2004. He is known for his perfect courtesy, joined to an open, no-nonesense approach to diplomacy and a dry sense of humor.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWMM3Jc5t_Z-ue7hdXSsYWZwaJ0NbZvy_J0u-1LnqM1G8mn31ka8RlxKGm2zaoj701MdMMkG-5iAC6scyHhEHfSPsRYB2BxdAc1p6KHYqlRwdM61b0b3Jj7k_i4-KAtyZI2MM-h_sBx5nR/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWMM3Jc5t_Z-ue7hdXSsYWZwaJ0NbZvy_J0u-1LnqM1G8mn31ka8RlxKGm2zaoj701MdMMkG-5iAC6scyHhEHfSPsRYB2BxdAc1p6KHYqlRwdM61b0b3Jj7k_i4-KAtyZI2MM-h_sBx5nR/s400/Unknown.jpeg" /></a> </span></div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;">Question:</strong><span style="text-align: justify;"> Mr Lavrov, we met with you in the same format one and a half year ago.</span></div>
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We began by stating that the foreign policy situation surrounding Russia at the time was growing alarming. But you assured us that there would be no war because the Russian leaders were absolutely against it. Our partners, as you said, were certainly not interested in it either. Now, one and a half year later, we can see no improvements. On the contrary, things are growing increasingly alarming. Some of our listeners even feel scared. Others compare the current situation with the late 1930s. One of the readers even asks: “Please be honest and say what we should expect? Will we be attacked?”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> There are comparisons that go farther back into history. Both in this country and elsewhere, there are figures who predict that a situation will arise resembling that on the eve of World War I. They are referring to the pent-up antagonisms existing in Europe, including, by the way, in the Balkans. But it is my strong, firm conviction that the politicians in the key countries cannot allow a big war to happen. The public opinion and the nations themselves will not let them. I hope that the parliaments in each Western country will also display maximal responsibility.</div>
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But I absolutely agree that tensions are being fomented in an unprecedented way. We see international agreements collapsing. Not so long ago, the United States unilaterally disrupted the ABM Treaty. We had to adopt measures that would prevent this extremely negative event from undermining strategic stability. Next in line is the INF Treaty, which Washington believes to be outmoded, while accusing us of violating it. In so doing, they are hinting in no uncertain terms that they would like to extend the restriction identical to that assumed by the USSR and the United States to China and a number of other countries, including North Korea and Iran.</div>
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We are categorically against this initiative. We are in favour of keeping the INF Treaty. The entire international community has repeatedly recognised it as a cornerstone of international security and strategic stability. Today at the UN, we will make a second attempt to submit a General Assembly resolution in support of preserving this Treaty.</div>
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Apart from that, we have presented the US with our concerns regarding how it implements this Treaty. These concerns are based on concrete facts and developments in the military technical sphere, specifically the deployment of a US military base in Romania and deployment plans for Poland. We hear statements by our US colleagues that the only way to save the Treaty is to destroy the 9M729 missile, which Russia has allegedly developed with a range exceeding the limit imposed by the Treaty. In response, Minister of Defence Sergey Shoigu, following similar steps at the expert level, has officially suggested that he and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis meet and start a professional discussion. The US did not even reply or at least formally acknowledge the receipt of the invitation. Possibly, if they had done this, they would have had to explain why they are evading a professional discussion and continue to act in the notorious “highly likely” style, as though wishing to say that what remains for us is to repent because we are allegedly to blame for everything.</div>
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While we are on this subject, I would like to say this. I have no doubt that US President Donald Trump was sincere when he said during his election campaign that he wanted good relations with the Russian Federation. Regrettably, the consequences of Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton have caused a tsunami in US domestic political life, primarily because the so-called system elites have felt uncomfortable. They saw the current developments as something that was putting power within reach of ordinary voters. Since then, no one has ever corroborated with facts the repeated charges of Russian meddling in the US elections, hacker attacks on the Democratic Party and other US agencies, etc.</div>
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Let me note that this Russophobia, as we are convinced, is to a decisive degree linked to the internal political infighting [in the US]. The United States, no matter who would advocate good relations with Russia, sees us as a rival as it does China. It is not accidental that for the lack of facts proving our “sins” against US democracy, the Russophobic campaign has brought no results whatsoever.</div>
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In recent days, the US propagandists have pitched in at China. In their view, China is already the “chief hacker” undermining the mainstay of US society. It is regrettable that the interests of the international community, global strategic stability and international security are being sacrificed for the sake of domestic political squabbles. But we will always be ready for dialogue. Even under these circumstances, we never refuse to take part in a professional discussion in areas where our partners are prepared to consider the existing threats and problems in an equal and honest manner.</div>
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After a long break, yet another round of talks on fighting terrorism has been held. Our security services are in contact on a number of other issues, including Syrian settlement, the North Korean nuclear problem and Afghanistan. We maintain regular enough contacts, even though we are not always on the same page.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> They write, with such friends, who needs enemies?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> We have this proverb in Russian.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question</strong>: When we mentioned the growing tension in the world, we actually meant Ukraine. The Kerch Strait incident is going too far. We also had in mind Donbass, where almost every day they are expecting an attack. Why do we compare poorly to Ukraine, according to the opinion of the world community?</div>
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Ukraine has assumed a clear ideological position: Russia confronts us, so we fight Russia, defending ourselves, and so on. We – Russia – are declared the enemy. Soon our church, our priests may become great martyrs, because we do not know what will happen to them. Some get imprisoned, and criminal cases are brought against them. Then, there might be a religious war, we have already gone this far. With the situation so aggravated, we still hold a sluggish, relaxed position, when Ukraine has openly declared us an enemy, and introduced martial law. Why don’t we declare Ukraine a Nazi regime? We have a lot of evidence: the new law on the Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army recognising Hitler’s rabble as heroes. This has already been proven. Why do we not explicitly declare that Nazism is a rabid dog one doesn’t talk to, but shoots? This would give us a moral trump card in the global community. This would not be a conflict with Ukraine, which has declared us an enemy and has already declared martial law, but a fight against the Nazi regime. The Ukrainian people are not our enemy. The enemy is the Nazi regime. Why not declare it directly?</div>
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We are putting our diplomats who remain there at risk (our readers write about this). Why not withdraw the Embassy from that country?</div>
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Many people ask us when Russia will recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> We are not at war with the Ukrainian regime, which has all the features of the Nazi and neo-Nazi. The Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine who live in Donbass are fighting it.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Then maybe we should break off the relations with them? How can we have a relationship with the Nazi regime?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> We have relations with the Ukrainian state. The Ukrainian state is much more important for us than the regime that came to power thanks to the West betraying all norms of international law and international behaviour.</div>
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The Ukrainian people have nothing to do with it. The overwhelming majority, I am sure, wants peace in the country, wants to get rid of this shameful regime and return to normal relations with the Russian Federation. For that, the internal problems of Ukraine will have to be resolved, of course. They are much wider, and much deeper than just the DPR and the LPR. As a reminder, it all happened because the West has committed criminal connivance, I should say. Back in February 2014, the European Union, through the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland, and France, guaranteed an agreement between Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition. The next morning, the opposition destroyed that agreement. Neither France, nor Germany, nor Poland, nor the United States, which did not sign the document, but actively supported it, lifted a finger. They did not even apologise to those who had hoped that the agreement would lead to a peaceful settlement.</div>
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Three days later, Dmitry Yarosh who led all the military operations on the Maidan, publicly stated (it was his official statement and is still available) that “Russians should not be in Crimea, because they will never glorify Stepan Bandera or Roman Shukhevych and will never think in Ukrainian.” Therefore, he said, Russians in Crimea “must either be destroyed or expelled.” After that, unrest began among the Crimean people. When Yarosh later tried to organise an attack on the Supreme Council, it erupted in a protest, which led to a referendum and eventually to the decision to return Crimea to the Russian Federation.</div>
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Now we are obliged to fulfill the Minsk Agreements.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>They collapsed long ago. You spoke about this 18 months ago. Nobody remembers that now, except Donbass.</div>
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If you come to the village of Zaitsevo, where every household has buried someone, and if you mention the Minsk Agreements, I don’t know what they will do to you. They honour them, and the fact that they are being killed on a daily basis – is that Minsk Agreements as well?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I believe that there is no alternative to the Minsk Agreements, and I also said that back in 2016. The UN Charter has also been violated many times, and it has also malfunctioned on many occasions. But we must not give in to panic. Are you suggesting that we recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Yes, of course.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>And then what?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>After that, we would defend our territory, recognised by us, and we would help our fraternal peoples.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Do you want to lose the rest of Ukraine? Do you want to leave it at the mercy of the Nazis?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>As I see it, we should go to war against the Nazi regime because they declared martial law against us, they have called us enemies, and they attack our ships.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>We will not go to war against Ukraine, I can promise you that.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>What should be done about the church?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>You suggest recognising the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and declaring war (I don’t know how you imagine that Russia would attack Ukraine). That would just amount to a nervous breakdown and weakness. If we want to preserve Ukraine as a normal, adequate and neutral country, we must ensure that people living in Ukraine have a comfortable life. I disagree with your position if you want the rest of Ukraine to celebrate the creation of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as the birthdays of Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera, rather than May 9, as their national holidays. The Minsk Agreements formalise the principle of Ukraine’s decentralisation and the use of the Russian language where Russian-speaking people want to speak it. Today, this regime is moving to wreck its own constitution, which guarantees the rights of the Russian language, as well as its international obligations; but this does not mean that we must abandon all Ukrainians who are governed by this regime to their own devices.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Why don’t we officially recognise it as a Nazi regime, and why don’t we say that we will not have any dealings with it because it is impossible to have dealings with Hitler?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>This is an appealing position. Somewhere in the village of Zaitsevo people will probably rejoice for a week if we now sever all relations with this regime. And what will happen next? After that, you will need to explain why progressive and civilised humankind lost Ukraine.</div>
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We want to keep it. Today, we have the right under international law to demand this from Ukraine and, most importantly, from the West, which now controls Ukraine.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> What do you think of the OSCE’s work in that region? Its representatives are coming here while in fact working against us, spying against the Donbass defenders and communicating their information to Kiev. After the OSCE visits a town or a village, they become subject to strikes. It is a known fact. The OSCE is never on our side.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> First of all, it is not true that the OSCE brings shells to their targets. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) is indeed under very serious pressure – mainly from pro-Western Ukrainians; but the mission is also susceptible to our influence and is gradually making steps in the right direction, although it takes a while to be pushed first. I will give you an example. We have been asking the SMM to stop writing such things in their reports as “this week, so many strikes took place, so many civilian facilities were destroyed, there were so many civilian casualties”, but to specify from which side of the contact line [the strikes came], which victims and what kind of destruction. A year ago, with great difficulty, we managed to get the OSCE to write its first report on this matter which said that the eastern side of the contact line – where the self-defence forces are living and defending themselves – account for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties and destruction in the civilian sector.</div>
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Ukraine tried hard to stop this report, to stop it from being published. But it failed. The OSCE eventually did what it was supposed to do and the required statistics became publicly available.</div>
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We have one more concern regarding our Western partners (who, I believe, discredited themselves in this Ukrainian story starting in February 2014, when they failed to compel the opposition to fulfil the agreement with the government). This, in fact, has to do with the media. You, for example, go to Donbass. Our television crews are working at the contact line 24/7 to show the frontline from the perspective of the self-defence forces. When our Western partners claim that the self-defence forces are to blame for all the clashes and attacks, that they provoke them, we show them our journalists’ work, which is always available on air and is broadcast repeatedly on the news. We ask them: if they are so sure that the Ukrainian government is acting in the right way and they want to show the truth to international audiences, then why are there no Western journalists working on the western side of the contact line the same hours as our journalists? There were a couple of cases when, I think, BBC reporters travelled there for a few days and, by the way, filmed a rather objective report (perhaps this is why this practice was stopped).</div>
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They can’t wait for us to break off the relationship with Ukraine and withdraw from the Minsk Agreements. Just like after the coup of February 21, 2014, they will wash their hands of them and say, “so it died” – meaning they are not bound by anything. It will be a huge mistake.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>If President of Ukraine Petr Poroshenko now sends troops to Donbass or warships to break through the Kerch Strait, what will we do?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I am sure that there will be provocations. The day before yesterday we heard Petr Poroshenko speak at a show called Unification Council for Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Actually, he has never stuck to the diplomatic language before, but this time he crossed all lines imaginable and unimaginable. I have never heard such rudeness from a leader who considers himself a politician. He seemed to actually lose control a few times. Apparently, something is happening to him. But this is not my problem.</div>
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Commenting on the martial law he wanted to introduce for 60 days, then 30, first across the country, then only in Russian-speaking areas, where he has a very low popularity rating (it is low enough everywhere, but there he is not popular at all, and does not even enjoy minimum understanding), Poroshenko said they would not extend martial law unless there are armed provocations along the contact line in Donbass or, as he put it, “on the administrative border” with Crimea.</div>
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The 30-day martial law expires on December 25. We have information (official Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has mentioned this more than once) that Ukraine has concentrated around 12,000 troops and a large amount of equipment on the contact line. American, British and, apparently, other instructors are actively helping them. An American drone regularly patrols the area. We have reported this. According to additional information that we tend to believe, in the last ten days of December, President Poroshenko is planning an armed provocation on the border with the Russian Federation – Crimea.</div>
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He will get a response. He won’t find it funny, I can assure you.</div>
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This is our country, our border, and we will not allow him to try in any way to defend “his interests” as he sees them and violate those rights that the Crimeans have defended in full accordance with international law. Moreover, according to our information, he is discussing this provocation on the border with Crimea with his Western curators and “trustees.”</div>
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According to our data, which seem credible, he is advised to maintain low-intensity hostilities to support the ongoing outcry in the propaganda space about “Russians attacking Ukraine” and “Russians need to be further sanctioned,” but in no case should military operations be allowed to reach a phase to elicit a full-blown response. Nasty, petty provocation. Our respective services take all necessary measures to prevent such excesses from happening.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>I would like to talk about Russian-US relations again. Mr Poroshenko is behaving boorishly, but I think he is emulating US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who made unacceptable comments about the Russian Government after our bombers arrived in Venezuela, telling us how we must spend public funds.</div>
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As for President Donald Trump, he doesn’t seem to know his own mind. You said he was really willing to meet with President Vladimir Putin. He said when boarding the plane for the G20 summit that he was looking forward to a face-to-face with President Putin. But when he disembarked in Argentina several hours later, he said he had called off the meeting. He did an about-face, as the saying goes. Maybe they really don’t want to conduct a constructive dialogue with us?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>They are extremely pragmatic people. They want to talk when this can benefit them, especially now that the business mentality is taking a hold in US foreign policy.</div>
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This is a very short-sighted position, because it can help you get something today but will undermine your long-term positions and harm your strategic interests. The Americans live in two-year cycles. Every two years they need to show everyone that they are tough guys who can do what others can’t, and that everyone else is soft.</div>
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Look at the unilateral sanctions that have been imposed not only on Russia or China but also on some of the US allies. The United States continues to threaten others with sanctions and imposes new sanctions simply for violating a US law that prohibits trade with Iran. There are no such laws in France or Germany. But when their companies engage in business that is perfectly legal from the viewpoint of their own legislation or international law, they are forced to pay billions of dollars in a deal that would allow them to work in the United States. This is racketeering.</div>
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There are also sanctions that concern settlements in US dollars. In the near future before the next elections, these sanctions may benefit US companies, weaken their rivals and increase employment in the United States, but in the long run they will undermine trust in the dollar. This will harm the fundamental interests of the US because many countries are thinking of reducing their dependence on the dollar.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Do the Americans see this danger?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Analysts possibly do. But politicians think in the moment, they want to win the election, and they don’t care what happens afterwards.</div>
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As for Mr Pompeo, it’s a long time since we met. I think he is no longer involved with US policy towards Russia. But both of us understand that we need to meet and to talk.</div>
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As of now, US foreign policy has been clearly delegated to John Bolton. He has come to Russia several times. He has met with President Putin and his counterpart, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. I have held rather lengthy talks with Mr Bolton. There is a kind of dialogue.</div>
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We have not met for a long time at the level of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US Department of State. The last time was in New York in September, when the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council held a traditional meeting. But it was not a bilateral meeting. Our deputies and department directors hold meetings, although the Americans often pull stunts and cancel meetings with barely a day’s notice. But as I said, we don’t hold on to grudges.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Why?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Because a grudge is a heavy burden to carry.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Well, a grudge is, indeed, a heavy burden to carry. For example, what is Russia doing in the Council of Europe, where it has no right to vote? Why does such a sovereign state as Russia submit to the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? Why don’t we withdraw completely from such organisations, where we don’t play any role at all? We can use this money to build schools. What are we doing there? And how much do we pay to the European Court of Human Rights?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>We don’t pay anything to the European Court of Human Rights. We pay for its decisions. Do you know what percentage of our payments to the ECHR has to do with Russian courts’ decisions on payments to our citizens that the Russian Treasury violates and withholds the payments?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>In that case we must get back to our own problems. Why are we running to foreigners for help?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>As you probably know, we are now facing a situation that we are actively discussing: the future of Russia’s Council of Europe membership is in question. There is no doubt that our decision to join this organisation was sincere and met the country’s interests. You should discuss this matter with judges, representatives of the Supreme and Constitutional courts and the Ministry of Justice. A huge set of laws that make life easier for Russian citizens and protect their life and rights was passed during our cooperation with the Council of Europe and as a result of our perception of the practices that could be applied to Russian legislation. Russian citizens are forced to apply to the European Court of Human Rights after a Russian court has ruled that the state must pay them. If the state has failed to pay a citizen in compliance with a Russian court’s ruling, do you think that therefore he or she does not deserve this payment?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Of course, they deserve them. But instead of taking the case to a foreign court, we need to sort things out at home. What is your opinion of this?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>In some cases, we were unable to rectify the situation without the ECHR. I will tell you more: Russia is now by no means the main client of the European Court of Human Rights.</div>
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We make an overwhelming majority of payments under Russian courts’ decisions. Please keep that in mind.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Are we going to leave the Council of Europe?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>To show that we don’t care?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>If they don’t take us seriously, yes, we should show them that we don’t care.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>No, we shouldn’t do that. Instead we should have a sense of dignity.</div>
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Speaking of the Council of Europe, we have no right to vote only at the Parliamentary Assembly, which would be an unimportant body if it weren’t for its function to elect judges, the Commissioner for Human Rights and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.</div>
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No one has deprived us of any rights at the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is a regulatory, rather than consultative, body.</div>
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Today, we are trying to convince the Council of Europe that this situation cannot last indefinitely, and that, under the Council of Europe Statute, all member countries have equal rights at all its bodies. The incumbent Secretary General’s legal findings state that the PACE decision runs counter to the Council of Europe Statute and should therefore be modified.</div>
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We have repeatedly explained to our colleagues that there can be no halfway decisions here. They tried to assuage our concerns by proposing to reinstate our right to elect officials, including judges, the Secretary General and the Commissioner for Human Rights, but to withhold all other rights for the time being. We emphatically rejected this offer.</div>
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The moment of truth will come in June, when the new Council of Europe Secretary General will be elected. If we don’t take part in this election, it would send a message that the Council of Europe is losing its importance for us as an organisation that does not respect the principle of equality.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>You mentioned dignity. As I see it, our dignity is being trampled in various situations.</div>
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Poland has destroyed many monuments to Soviet soldiers. Actually, 600,000 of our boys were killed there. Why doesn’t Russia give an appropriate response in line with diplomatic traditions?</div>
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Do you want to hit our monuments? In that case, we will send bulldozers to Katyn, and we will demolish your monuments if you touch ours.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Are you serious?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Absolutely. Why can they wreck our monuments?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I wish you were not serious. I was hoping this is a joke.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Unfortunately, my colleague is voicing a common opinion that is expressed by our audiences. What can you say on this score?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I believe this position has nothing to do with Orthodox Christianity or Christianity in general.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Are they acting like Christians?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Of course, not.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>So, where is our symmetrical diplomatic response? You do something nasty to us, and we will reciprocate. Where is our dignity?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Our dignity tells us that we must be above all this, and that we must never descend to the level of these neo-Nazis.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> We are always above that. We were above it in the Skripal case too.</div>
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But what about the Skripals? Where is our consul? Where is Yulia Skripal? Local lawyers ask me why our consuls are not suing to see Yulia Skripal – dead or alive. After all, she is a Russian citizen. The West operates only through courts. The state should sue and demand access to Yulia Skripal. All conventions are on our side. Why are we being so sluggish?</div>
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Why don’t we sue, when British Prime Minister Theresa May accuses our President of having committed murder? We could hire Swiss lawyers and sue. Could it be that there are things we don’t know and an action of this sort is being pursued?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> If you followed our Ministry’s reports, including the information delivered by the ministry spokesperson at her briefings, you would have a somewhat different picture of what is happening.</div>
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We have been acting in full conformity with international law, because English law is of no help in this case. There is the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which makes it mandatory for the British government to grant us access to a Russian citizen. Sergey Skripal is an arguable case because he has dual citizenship, but Yulia Skripal is only a Russian citizen.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> But we can apply to the British court, can’t we? Lawyers in the UK explained this to me. And Swiss layers also said we could apply to the British court for the Russian citizen to be delivered to us or at least in order to arrange her meeting with a Russian consul.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> No court will help us. There is an international obligation, the Vienna Convention, which is absolutely irrevocable. And we will demand that it is obeyed.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> What stage are the talks at now?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> I am not yet through with the courts. Let me remind you how we tried to deal with the Litvinenko case, when [Litvinenko] was also allegedly poisoned.</div>
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The court did not want to prove anything. The court just made the investigation secret and conducted it in a format that banned the demonstration of security service documents.</div>
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In this instance, when we demanded information on the Skripals that was linked, among other things, to the British exploiting the Skripal theme at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, we got an official reply to the effect that this issue was related to British security. For this reason, it is not subject to any disclosure or London’s meaningful reply.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> But international law has precedence over their law, hasn’t it? Does the Vienna Convention have precedence?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Yes it does.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Can’t we achieve anything through the courts?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: We will continue to press for a meeting with our citizen.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> But isn’t it their minister who said that Russia should “shut up and go away?”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> He (the <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic;">UK Defence Secretary. – Ed.)</span> is a man whose oversized amour propre is superimposed upon an inferiority complex. I saw his colleague too, and it is very sad that the UK assigns foreign ministers of this sort to handle foreign policy.</div>
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He contacted me when five ministers of foreign affairs of the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council were meeting in New York. The five of us were just sitting around a table. After that he went out and started saying that he had challenged me on 12 counts and accused me of everything.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> What did you say to him in response?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I didn’t say anything: you can’t talk with people like that.</div>
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As for the Skripal case, I can assure you that we will not drop this issue. I am absolutely convinced that we must demand answers, just like with the Malaysian Boeing. And the longer our partners delay with a response, the more out of line they will look.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>But we have been sued by the relatives of those who have died in the Boeing crash.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Yes, they have sued us. There is one thing we need to understand. They say that we have done it to the Skripals and that we must say whether it was done on orders from President Putin or whether he had lost control over the secret services which did this without his consent. Nobody else had a clear reason [to poison the Skripals], so it is highly likely that Russia is responsible, they say.</div>
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This is baby talk, not a serious investigation.</div>
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We put concrete questions to them: Where is Yulia Skripal? Why has her cousin been denied a visa which we requested officially many times? Unfortunately, you can’t sue for a visa.</div>
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We ask similar questions about the Malaysian Boeing. Why haven’t they included in their investigation the material that has been provided by Almaz-Antey, the producer of the Buk systems? Why haven’t the Ukrainians provided their radar data, unlike Russia, or the transcript of what their air controllers said? Why haven’t the Americans provided their satellite information? No answer. But we will continue to ask these questions and we will keep reminding everyone that a day will come when these shameful intrigues will end.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Maybe we should not remind but demand? There are already jokes about your recommendations on social media. Can I tell one of them?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Yes, certainly. I have read many things about myself.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Sergey Lavrov enters a room for talks with Mike Pompeo, opens his briefcase and takes out a jar of fat chance, a dead donkey’s ears and a heap of fig leaves. He lights a cigarette and politely says “Hello” to Mike Pompeo.</div>
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Maybe this is how we should talk with them, not “express concern” or “draw their attention” to problems?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>The meeting I had in this joke was not with Pompeo but with Taro Kono.</div>
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Really, do you want us to use four-letter words in international discourse, so that we will all be in the same league? No, I think that if Jupiter is angry, it means he is wrong.</div>
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I have read your reports from hot spots, and I respect you for what you are doing. We have criticised our Western colleagues for not sending their journalists to Donbass to report the truth. There are few Western journalists in Syria as well. When somebody wants to drive you mad and you resort to foul language in response, I would caution against this, even if we are not full of grace ourselves. We must not exceed the bounds of decency even if we ourselves set the boundaries.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Is it true that the Foreign Ministry cellars are stocked with coffers of your great patience?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>We have no cellars.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>I have worked in Armenia and Georgia. The situation there is dramatic.</div>
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I am shocked that we have let go of the situation in Georgia. The Americans are building a deep-water port in Anaklia, a stone’s throw from Sochi. Initially, they planned to deploy their nuclear submarines there, which would be extremely dangerous for us. A NATO base is under construction near Tbilisi. They have signed an official declaration to this effect. And there are three bio laboratories in Georgia.</div>
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The Americans are training nine motorised battalions. When I asked who these battalions would be used against, the answer was, “Against our enemies, against Russia.”</div>
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President Elect Salome Zurabishvili said at her inauguration that she would do her utmost to fight the Russian occupation.</div>
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The situation is very serious, considering that the Americans have failed to build a naval base in Crimea. But now they will build it on our doorstep, on Abkhazia’s border with Georgia. Yet we remain silent.</div>
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The Georgians who are on our side – 40 per cent of people in Georgia are for rapprochement and 80 per cent for dialogue with Russia – say that we are feeding them.</div>
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Their shops are stocked with Russian goods. There were 1.6 million [Russian] tourists.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> I know this.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> They ask why we keep silent, why we don’t say to them that either they shut down the bases, which are a direct threat to our security, or we close the border to their goods.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Where did you find these highway advisers?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Why do we sell Georgian wines? They are making money through us, and at the same time they are fighting against our “occupation.”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> You surely know that Ukrainians earn millions of roubles in Russia.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> We must respond to this. Why do we remain the whipping boys?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> We don’t say that we know all the answers. How can we respond? Close the border? Sever all ties?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> The Georgians themselves have proposed closing the border and suspending trade and money transfers until the construction of a base on Russia’s doorstep is stopped. They complain that we don’t have a policy towards Georgia, that we are glad that Mikheil Saakashvili is no longer in Georgia. But we forget that there are very many other anti-Russia forces working there.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Just imagine how it would be if we severed the relations which we have been developing in recent years.</div>
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First we launched chartered flights. Now we have scheduled flights, and their number has increased to include Tbilisi, Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Kutaisi. The planes are filled with tourists. Our trade is on the upswing. I believe Russia has become Georgia’s largest trade partner. Our civil societies hold regular events. People are meeting, talking and trying to understand which point in our relations we have reached.</div>
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Imagine that we stop all this simply to please your friends, who feel hurt. We stop all this, but they complete the base anyway and train the battalions, and the bio laboratory continues working. Who will stand to gain from this?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Should there be some response from our side? What should we do?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> I would like to ask you, do you think that we need to respond just to establish our importance or what?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> We do need to show our importance.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> And that’s all?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> No, that’s not all. There are levers of economic pressure, similar to military ones. If Georgia lives at our expense, it will howl when it has nothing to eat.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I assure you, they will find a way to live. I would like to look at this from a different angle. Are you proposing to choke Georgia? What for? You say 40 percent of the population supports contacts with Russia. Break these contacts, and it will be 2 percent.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> But we will need to explain why we are doing this. We can say: it threatens our security.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Once again. The most serious threat here is the biological laboratories. I am confident that they will not go anywhere with their battalions. They understand that we have allied relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and we will not allow anyone to attack our allies. There are bio labs not only in Georgia, but also in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. It will be useless to talk about it with Ukraine. We are talking about it with Georgia through the relevant organisations, the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons. Similarly, we are talking with Kazakhstan and Armenia. Georgians have already invited diplomats to their bio lab to look around. We thanked them because it was a large group of diplomats and we noted that we would be more interested in sending professionals who understand what is being done in this bio lab better than diplomats. We need to know how big a threat these experiments pose to the Russian Federation and neighbouring countries.</div>
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On principle, I am categorically against a foreign policy that amounts to breaking off relations every time someone does us wrong. Otherwise we would have to break off relations with America and Britain. Do you by any chance have friends there who offer you advice?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> America clearly responds with sanctions. We do not impose sanctions. Introduce sanctions against Georgia. Armenia is our strategic ally. Why did we allow the building of three US bio labs there in 2016? We have the best friendship in the Eurasian Economic Union.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>With Armenia, we are completing the work on a document that will guarantee the non-presence of the foreign military in these biological labs and full transparency.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> And Kazakhstan?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> The same.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Will they remove these labs? Or make sure there are no foreign nationals?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> You are not listening to me. I have just told you that an agreement is being prepared that will guarantee that there will be no foreign military in the bio labs and everything that is done there will be transparent, with guarantees, without any threats or risks.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Consider this example: When you come to Armenia, you find 19 Russian diplomats and 2,500 American workers there – an impressive ratio, of course. I do not understand how we can have only 19 diplomats in such a strategically important country. Political strategists in Armenia say: “Russia really uses clumsy force against the former Soviet republics. It never works with the opposition, so for Russia, Nikol Pashinyan came as a huge surprise. Russia never works with the civil society, but only with people in power who are hated in society and whose ratings, according to your Russian officers, are below zero. What is it, the blindness of your diplomacy? I do not know; it is unexplainable. There are normal people in the opposition with whom you could be cooperating.”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Who writes all this to you?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Political observers with whom I spoke in Armenia.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> This “your diplomacy” – have Armenians written this?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Yes, Armenians. Why isn’t Russian diplomacy working with the opposition? Remember the last time we argued about soft power? There are 5,000 US NGOs that are canvassing young people who then grow up pro-America and anti-Russia, but there are no Russian NGOs or media there. We have already spoken about this many times.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> So what is your bottom line? As I understand it, the options are either to send 3,000 diplomats and create 5,000 NGOs there, or to break off diplomatic relations.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>This is where I think soft power is the best option.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: Why?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> At least the people’s attitude to Russia was good; now it has grown worse. It will continue deteriorating. The youth is growing up.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> We are treated well in Georgia. And you propose breaking off relations.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> What ideas are being fed to young people? They are raised on the idea that Russia is bad. They are now arguing who was the first to attack.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Where – in Georgia?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> I just watched a talk show where they are proving to children that it was Russia who attacked Georgia ten years ago. And the children are listening.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> There is a report prepared for the EU by a group of experts led by Heidi Tagliavini, which clearly blames Saakashvili for starting the war. Nobody in the EU has contested this conclusion. Now they say that our response was unacceptable. This is sheer hypocrisy.</div>
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As for soft power, I fully agree on this. There are two or three times fewer Russian diplomats in Armenia or any other CIS country than American ones. Our diplomatic staff numbers 2,500 together with rotation personnel.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> The Americans have the largest staff in Bagdad and second largest in Armenia.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> They have their own criteria for their work. And we have our traditions and financial limitations, because their non-governmental team working in the former Soviet republics costs big money. In most cases, these NGOs are financed by the Agency for International Development of the US State Department, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), which is affiliated with the Democratic Party, or other similar organisations. George Soros is very active there, just as in many other parts of our space and beyond. Of course, they have the advantage in numbers. We cannot respond in kind; we cannot create the same number of puppet organisations. Very many of them have a provocative negative agenda.</div>
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I agree that we must work with all political forces, which we are doing. We are working with everyone not only in the South Caucasus but also in other post-Soviet republics. We are working with registered opposition groups. We don’t work with nonregistered or underground groups. I believe that this is correct. We have maintained ties with various parliamentary groups, including the nine MPs who represented Nikol Pashinyan’s party when Serzh Sargsyan was president of Armenia.</div>
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It is another matter that we have probably acquired immunity against revolutions, because everything the West is doing in the post-Soviet space is preparing revolutions. This may be our problem, but we definitely cannot be blamed for this. We have survived several revolutions, which claimed a great number of lives and destroyed cities and villages. We don’t want to see a repetition of this, and we don’t wish it on others.</div>
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Therefore, the conclusion is simple: we must work with society and people, promote projects of interest to them in culture, language, sport, education and people-to-people interaction. I believe we can report certain positive results in this sphere. But we must not stop now. You can’t have enough of such events. We have established interregional forums, days of culture and educational exchanges with nearly all CSTO countries. We are opening branches of our universities there. I have recently visited Azerbaijan where MGIMO University is opening a branch. It is a very popular form of cooperation.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Yet the most influential instrument is mass media. But Margarita Simonyan cannot work for all of us. We need our own local media outlets that will look to you in their work. Very many people would like to work in this way. But they simply don’t have the money.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Exactly.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Do you mean that we don’t have the money for this?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> The Foreign Ministry doesn’t.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Why cannot we ask our oligarchs? They could be made responsible for certain areas.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Those of our people who have big money buy media outlets, including in Russia. If they do the same abroad, we would not complain.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> The Americans do this. They have more money.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> But they don’t buy on behalf of the state.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> They set up a state fund to finance such projects.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Why not lease the Kuril Islands? The sovereignty would be ours either way. Hong Kong was once leased on these terms. China leased a village and got a major modern city.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> There is such a thing as <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic;">zugzwang</span> in chess, when any move leads to a worse position. We have not had this peace treaty, so why do we need this “piece of paper?” We have diplomatic and economic relations, but no military relations. Nor will there be any in the future. Why do we need a peace treaty with Japan, if we consider the Kuril issue on this basis?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>We are interested in having good relations with Japan.</div>
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The situation is very simple. We are people obeying international law. In 1956, the USSR signed an agreement with Japan, the so-called 1956 Declaration. When the USSR was dissolved, the Russian Federation was recognised not just as the legal successor state (all constituent republics except the Baltic states became legal successors) but the USSR’s only continuing state. This is the legal status under which we assumed all the obligations as well as all the assets of the USSR. This was one of the grounds for signing, within the CIS, a treaty on the “zero option” for properties abroad. We assumed all of the USSR’s debt obligations as all the properties were transferred to us (something that is happening today). This is why, when President Vladimir Putin was elected and this issue came up for the first time during his presidency in some situation (I think it was a meeting with then prime minister, Yoshiro Mori) he said that as the successor to the USSR we assumed the 1956 Declaration and were prepared to sign a peace treaty based on that.</div>
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In Singapore, we agreed to declare that we had come to terms on revisiting negotiations on signing a peace treaty based on the 1956 Declaration. In this regard, it is very important to understand what this document is all about and basically what situation has taken shape around it. It says: You shall sign a peace treaty. After that, the USSR – as a goodwill gesture and with regard for the interests of the neighbourly Japanese people, not as a move to return [the islands] – will be prepared to transfer the Habomai Ridge and Shikotan Island. President Putin has repeatedly explained, including at his news conference in Singapore and later in Buenos Aires, that this was not a directly applicable obligation of the USSR that had transferred to Russia and that the parties would have to discuss how, to whom, when, and in what form to transfer [whatever there is to transfer].</div>
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This was in 1956. After that were the events of 1960, when Japan and the US signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, under which the Americans could deploy their military bases practically wherever they wanted, in any part of Japanese territory. Under the same treaty, the US is creating the Asian segment of its antimissile defence system and deploying antimissile launchers that can be used to fire Tomahawk missiles.</div>
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Japan has withdrawn from the Declaration of its own free will. Of course, the USSR responded to the signing of the US-Japan security treaty. Therefore, when we say “based on the Declaration,” we cannot ignore the fact that the events of 1960 have taken place since then, which, from the point of view of a US military presence on the Japanese islands, are increasingly of a very serious nature as a threat to our security. We have explained all of this to our Japanese colleagues at talks with foreign ministry and security council representatives. We are waiting for a response. For us, this is a problem of direct practical importance.</div>
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But, most importantly, when we say “based on the 1956 Declaration,” this expresses Japan’s unconditional recognition of the results of World War II. So far, our Japanese colleagues are not ready for this, and they are sending all sorts of signals to the effect that this will not work out. This is a serious issue.</div>
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Recently, my Japanese counterpart went on record as saying that he apologised to the Japanese media for having avoided answering the question about the upcoming talks, on several occasions. He stated that he was unwilling to discuss the subject because Japan’s position was unchanged but, if he said this he would provoke his Russian colleagues to state their point of view. Consider that it was not he who provoked us. It is just that we were never ashamed of our position. If Japan’s position is unchanged then we are in the same position we have always been in. This is basically a refusal to recognise the results of World War II, while recognising the results of World War II is an inalienable first step in any talks, let alone any legal negotiations.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Should we perhaps leave this matter to the judgment of future generations and place it on record as is?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> We do not refuse to talk, but I have outlined the terms and the framework, within which these talks will proceed.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> May I ask you a few private questions that are often asked by our readers – in the blitz mode?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Go ahead.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> You are one of the most popular and best-known politicians in our country. How do you feel in that capacity?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey</strong> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lavrov:</strong> I have never thought about it. It is a pleasure for me to communicate with people when I go somewhere, whether on a working mission or not. I talk to young people. It is interesting to listen to questions and comments. If my work meets with a positive response, I am pleased for our Ministry.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> As you know, the former Soviet Foreign Minister Alexei Gromyko was dubbed in the West as nothing other than “Mr No”. Andrei Kozyrev must have been a “Mr Yes”. How would you describe your own image in similar terms? Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov is “Mr what?”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Whatever, but certainly not “Mr Yesman.”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> In your interviews, you nearly always refer to our foes as partners. Why?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Sometimes, I fail to express irony through intonation.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> In one of your interviews, you said that you respect Vladimir Vysotsky’s work. What words from his songs would you use to describe the current international situation?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey</strong> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lavrov (laughing):</strong> “Lukomorye exists no more…” and so on and so forth.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Your opponents were talking such nonsense lately. What self-composure you have. Is it hard to deal with a negotiating partner if you feel that he or she has a grudge against you?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> I have grown used to it.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> What helps you remain so calm and coolheaded?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Maybe life has hardened me over the past years. In New York, I had a good schooling in terms of responding to all sorts of crisis situations at the UN Security Council. Someone would dash in and say that something had erupted, broken out and it was necessary to urgently adopt a resolution, when we wanted to work the matter through and take no abrupt steps.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Were there episodes during your service as minister, when things grew very alarming and even frightening?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey</strong> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lavrov:</strong> Probably not, considering that I was already accustomed to crisis situations in my work prior to my appointment to this post. Maybe, that experience helps.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Do you feel like putting work aside</div>
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And sailing down the river with a guitar,</div>
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Making a campfire at sunset</div>
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And talking of peace and love?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Yes, certainly. Moreover, I even do that.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> What is the largest fish that you caught during your river trips? Where did it happen and how much did it weigh?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey</strong> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lavrov:</strong> I do not remember, because, actually, I am not really a fishing sort. When we go canoeing down the river Katun, two of our group members handle the fishing and I break camp and watch the campfire.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Suppose you had a time machine, who of our country’s rulers of the past years or even centuries would you like to talk to and what essential question would you ask that person?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Among our fellow countrymen – Alexander Gorchakov. Much has been written about him and all his diplomatic achievements are well known. I would ask him exactly the same thing that you asked me – about his self-composure that enabled him to return Crimea.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> Who of the US presidents of the past would you like to talk to and what would you ask him?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov:</strong> Maybe, Harry Truman. After Franklin Roosevelt’s policy, he made a sharp turn towards the “cold war”. It would be interesting to understand why. Though, as a matter of fact, it looks like everyone understands everything. The USSR was a real ally of Britain and the United States in the war, but maybe a situational ally, after all, though that situation was about the life or death of the whole of humanity. Almost. And it was a genuine alliance. Nevertheless, they never fully considered us to be one of theirs, and back then they already saw a threat.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question:</strong> If you had the opportunity to turn back the clock and influence some event in our country or elsewhere, what would you change?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey</strong> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lavrov:</strong> First, I have no opportunity to turn back the clock. Second, I do not want to. Third, we all know that history has no “ifs”. Whatever God does is for the best. There are many proverbs, for example, “it does not hurt to dream.”</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Will the Eurasian Economic Union survive as an entity, considering our problems with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakhstan?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>It will survive. In any event, we have common interests. In the five years of its existence or even less (there used to be a Customs Union, followed by the Eurasian Economic Union), we are making great strides forward, as compared with the deadlines that allowed Europe to achieve the same level of integration.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>It was easier for us.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Nevertheless, economic ties were disrupted considerably after the breakup of the Soviet Union.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko says that he is planning to leave the Eurasian Economic Union.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Just like other countries’ leaders, we judge the policies of other countries by their deeds, rather than words. When US President Donald Trump conducts talks, he also makes all kinds of statements.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Is this blackmail?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>It is preparations for talks, if you like. I cannot say that US President Donald Trump is blackmailing anyone, although he exerts tough pressure.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>What would be the first thing you saved if the Foreign Ministry building caught fire?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>God forbid. We don’t need any self-fulfilling prophecies, and we have a good fire safety system.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>What do you eat to improve your mood?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I prefer tasty food.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Could you be more specific? All of us like tasty food.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>Sauerkraut shchi and borsch. I like soups very much.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>How do you relax? And what is your favourite music? How do you manage to stay in shape all the time? Perhaps you like rap music?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov: </strong>I am not into rap music. I like bard singers, including Vladimir Vysotsky, Bulat Okudzhava, Yury Vizbor and Oleg Mityayev. And I love the outdoors.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question</strong>: If on New Year’s Eve you found a magic lantern that could grant any personal wish, what would it be?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: A personal wish? I don’t know. Never thought about it. I am not used to making wishes. I am more of a realist than a dreamer.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question</strong>: So when the Kremlin chimes welcome the New Year in, you never make a wish?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: No. On my rafting team, we have this principle – never drink to anything in advance. We do not celebrate what is to come, but celebrate what happened. If it’s someone’s birthday, we raise a glass of champagne. But we never toast what is still to come. It is even considered wrong.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question</strong>: Figuratively speaking, if we take Russia’s foreign policy in recent years, was there anything you would toast with a glass of champagne with your colleagues?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: I am not assessing the work of my Ministry now. One of our most significant projects in recent years was the chemical disarmament agreement in Syria, which helped us avoid an act of American aggression. This agreement was documented in a UN Security Council resolution, but, unfortunately, after that, the OPCW, whose job was to physically remove and destroy toxic substances from Syria, suffered a hostile takeover from the inside.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question: </strong>Do you mean following the Skripal case?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: No, this was not following the Skripal case. It primarily had to do with Syria. It was a separate story. Some of our western partners are now trying to replace international law with a “rules-based order.” But what they mean is not any universally agreed rules, but those they consider convenient for themselves. Western media are already openly writing about it. In particular, the British newspaper The Times wrote that the departure from international law is leading to a very unstable system, where relationships will be determined by the balance of power, brute force or economic and financial pressure such as blackmail, and bilateral agreements. This is roughly what the Americans are trying to do now, breaking the multilateral structures, including the World Trade Organisation, and moving from relations with the EU to resolving all problems bilaterally. Therefore, the agreement on chemical disarmament in Syria was indeed a serious achievement. Now, under various far-fetched pretexts, the Americans and their closest allies are trying to claim that not everything has been destroyed. Although international organisations, namely the OPCW, in the presence of observers, including those from the United States, verified the destruction of all chemical facilities and substances in Syria. Such are our partners.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question</strong>: Do we still have any influence in that organisation?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: Yes.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Question</strong>: Do you remember the most unusual New Year gift you received or gave?</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sergey Lavrov</strong>: My “hard drive” does not store such things. They have been erased from memory. These days I am more busy thinking about work than about the New Year.</div>
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I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the listeners and readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. All the best to you, good health and good luck.</div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-1039194608822997392019-01-01T18:16:00.001-08:002019-01-01T18:16:38.894-08:00Christmas in RussiaA friend from St Petersburg sent me this description of Christmas in Russia, in answer to questions posed by friends of his daughter, who is spending a year in Atlanta:<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>-Do Russians celebrate Christmas, and if so, what are some things they do during their holiday celebrations?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Russians widely celebrate New Year Eve which is on night from 12/31 onto 01/01. Due to 70 years of Communist ideology in the USSR, in Russian civil society an atheism was cultivated. And the New Year Holiday was presented as more important than X-mas. So even now only let’s say 40% of population celebrate X-mas. Moreover only 10% really go to the Church this day. The most people just have a family meeting near the table, without presenting souvenirs to each other and congratulations. X-mas party is more like a just family party on some unimportant local holiday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So may say that Russians have a New Year Eve as an analogue of Western X-mas and let me tell you more and in detail how we, Russians, celebrate this Holiday: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">this night the whole country (99%) does not sleep till 2-4 am, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">people count 12 bell beats of Kremlin Red Square Big Clock, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">all people exchange souvenirs and presents under “X-mas Tree (really New-Year Tree)”, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">drink Champaign, etc. They are doing a lot what people in the USA are doing in X-mas, 12/25.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Another point you need to know</b> is that Russians if celebrate X-mas BUT NOT 12/25. You might know that various nations have different types of calendar. For instance, if in the USA now it is 2018 year, but Muslims considered it is 1435, Jewish Orthodox people consider it is 5778. Russian Church orthodox clergymen consider 2018 year but they have a calendar which is 13 days late. It means that when the whole World lives let’s say in 20 of February, on Russian Church Calendar is only February, 7. It is very long story why it happened in 1582 AC, just believe my explanations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Below there is a typical Russian postcard dedicated to Russian X-mas.<img alt="pastedGraphic_4.png" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/b7ef113c-14cf-43b3-b686-7a9a4701a56a" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">… and people in national costumes sing folk songs in the street on the next day of X-mas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><span style="background-color: #21ffff; font-kerning: none;"><b>-How do Russians say "Merry Christmas" in their language?</b></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">They say </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">СЧАСТЛИВОГО РОЖДЕСТВА {sounds like schastlivogo rozhdestva}</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> what means </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">HAPPY CHRISTMAS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>-Is there a Russian equivalent of the American Santa Claus? Or is there some other Christmas character(s)?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Russians have 2 main characters in New Year (as I told you before, we can consider Russian New Year Eve as Western X-mas). We have: DED MOROZ (Grandfather Frost) and his grand-daughter – SNEGUROCHKA (Snow Maiden)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They do not drive elms, they move on Russian national three-horse sleigh and bring children presents in a big sack.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For small children (3-6 years old) some parents may order special artists who play roles of Ded Moroz and Snegurochka. (The cost is around $50-100 per visit, depending on date, the closer to 12/31 the more expensive). By tradition, a kid should stand up on a chair or a stool and tell a short poem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But in the most families a Father plays role of Ded Moroz. He dresses in a red costume, ties a beard made of cotton, takes a stick like a pikestaff and speaks with his kid with a special bass voice. The typical question usually is: “Did you behave well this year, little boy/girls? Did you obey Mom and Dad?” All kids, of course, reply “Yes” on both questions and receive gifts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Usually Russian kids believe in existence of Ded Moroz and that he brings presents personally or puts them under tree till 8 years old.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>-What is the weather like in Russia at Christmas time?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Russia is very big and there are a lot of climate types on its territory. But if we talk about historical heard of Russia (say 500 km around Moscow) and Siberia then we say:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Moscow – used to be minus 10 Celsius (15F), now sometimes because of global warming it might be even around 0C (30F) </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Siberia – used to be -25C (-15F) but now it might be also around -10C (15F).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">It is snowy, mild snowflake slowly are falling down… Something like that:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>-What are the gift-giving traditions at Christmastime in Russia?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I suppose the tradition is very similar to American one: children in advance write letter to:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kids ask for new bicycle, X-box, a doll, a smart-phone, LEGO construction set, etc, etc, etc. Kids are waiting Ded Moroz puts presents under X-mas/New-Year Tree. But despite their big attention to the Tree, presents appear right in a moment when they go out to toilet or after being sent to a kitchen to help Mom to bring a cake. A miracle always happens when they are absent these 3-5 minutes…</span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-14076064579903243152019-01-01T18:08:00.000-08:002019-01-01T18:11:32.524-08:00Beto or Bernie?What better way to end five months of silence on this site (But not on NEO!) than to mention that in February, 2007, I wrote <a href="http://www.otherjones.com/2007/02/obama-breath-of-fresh-air-hillary-draft.html" style="text-decoration: underline;">http://www.otherjones.com/2007/02/obama-breath-of-fresh-air-hillary-draft.html</a> that Obama would win the 2008 election for which he had just declared, before framing the even earlier start to 2020?<br />
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The promises that America's only Black President made were hardly realized during his two terms, but progressives have a leg up this time, due primarily to one monumental change: thanks to Bernie Sanders, whom the Democratic Party prevented from being the candidate in 2016, socialism is no longer a dirty word in the United States. The condemnation now is a pursed-lip "too far left", and Republicans admit that Dems had make room for a clutch of young, progressive candidates, starting with a girl from Brooklyn named Alexandria Ocasio Cortes, who defeated a long-time incumbent in the primaries and went on to sweep her district. Scarcely arrived in Washington, she posted a video of the little-known corridors of power for her voters, assured Nancy Pelosi of her support for the speakership and submitted a bill outlining a green/slash jobs program backed by live supporters.<br />
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AOC's feat coincided with the appearance in a Texas Senate race of another maverick, Beto O'Rourke (whose handle became a household name when he lost to a well-known former republican, presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Rarely, if ever, has defeat lifted a candidate -- expecially a newcomer who isn't afraid to use his paddle-like hands. It seems that each presidential election year the media begins its campaign earlier than the last, thus even before Christmas, the first polls have appeared. They immediately placed two septagenarian politicians, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, in the thirties, while Beto soon caught up, prompting a new poll question: "Would you prefer a total newcomer?"<br />
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Is it the two men's visible difference from the pack -- Obama's color and Beto's height -- that attracted early activists? I'm inclined to believe it's the ring of truth that emanates from both: no matter how many politicians parade across the television screen on any given day -- or perhaps because of their great number -- audiences unerringly recognize the rare person who appears to mean what he says. Here again, Obama and Beto coincide: Obama sided with the establishment while talking the people's talk, while Beto appears more left than a member of the House's New Democrat Coalition, that aligns with business, can be. That is why Bernie's followers have declared war on the man whose appeal is more visual than substantive.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> T</span></span>he Democratic Party will do everything it can to prevent Bernie from being its candidate, as it did in 2016, altough lacking a presumed establishment front runner. As when it backed a Hillary who talked the progressive talk while walking the liberal walk, it could conceivably get behind Beto, who evokes the Obama of the campaign trail while siding with those he favored. It will do whatever it takes to limit the possibility that socialism actually comes to America follwing the coming Trump debacle, however this time it may not succeed, as I recently suggested in New Eastern Outlook <u><a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/08/16/after-100-years-socialism-comes-to-america/">https://journal-neo.org/2018/08/16/after-100-years-socialism-comes-to-america/</a>,</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
As for the first to announce, Senator Elizabeth Warren of consumer protection fame, I understand why Bernie passed on her as VP in 2016. This time, he should not hesitate to choose his acolyte, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a young woman from Brooklyn who defeated an incumbent in the primaries backed by the Demoractic Socialists of America whose grass roots campaign sent her to Congress. Upon arrival, she deftly assured Nancy Pelosi of her support while making it clear, in the presence of supporters, that she expected her to back her proposal for a Green New Deal. AOC, as she is already being called (as MBS fades from favor and RBG continues to inspire movie-makers) is much moore likely to draw 'Me too' support than the brittle Warren who includes her husband holding the leash of the family dog in her early pitches.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TpVD4IgHgAgHmRVn6w9-gro_uotFd1pPSicgTvPSvl-V-q0EQLfXtjwCryK-JfkvPla6K_1z_8E9cGvQJJZrU_M_FdC3FdamY-1WbG4Iito8P0myPtueX88u0h37YOUuQYW6Ez5gaDs2/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TpVD4IgHgAgHmRVn6w9-gro_uotFd1pPSicgTvPSvl-V-q0EQLfXtjwCryK-JfkvPla6K_1z_8E9cGvQJJZrU_M_FdC3FdamY-1WbG4Iito8P0myPtueX88u0h37YOUuQYW6Ez5gaDs2/s200/images.jpeg" width="200" /></a><br />
Finally, I would encourage Bernie to name the members of his future cabinet, to include newcomers from the growing socialist community.<br />
<br />Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-37376575492341828562018-07-22T09:04:00.004-07:002018-07-22T09:04:56.620-07:00Otherjones Changes FocusSince my articles are freely available at New Eastern Outlook (journal.neo.org), henceforth I will be mainly reposting articles and videos from sources that get no exposure in the US media, mainly from Russia, China and other international players. <br />
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Below is a televised discussion about the Russian economy, which I don't think has a paralell in the US. Comments are welcome, I respond to all.<br />
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D9XmesaY8c8Y&source=gmail&ust=1532361722207000&usg=AFQjCNF9dZy5CIn_PcUlBCNzsGj7sAFrsQ" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmesaY8c8Y" id="m_5276740269868826438LPlnk512190" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?<wbr></wbr>v=9XmesaY8c8Y</a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy34vroLx6JYtcNb-X2VgRz1Eu28M6I360N6k4d1iQ7BDcES6OE7e1RH3imROCeRHG3JhRxAZLmPM5RVawA8qzSFNye7JzXjtWWoaENBhURenBxD6igWaE8b2-ZdVMdfILWSlOyUSBtMND/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy34vroLx6JYtcNb-X2VgRz1Eu28M6I360N6k4d1iQ7BDcES6OE7e1RH3imROCeRHG3JhRxAZLmPM5RVawA8qzSFNye7JzXjtWWoaENBhURenBxD6igWaE8b2-ZdVMdfILWSlOyUSBtMND/s320/unnamed.jpg" width="320" /></a>Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-48401889068054334702018-07-21T10:21:00.003-07:002018-07-21T10:21:42.914-07:00Cooperation versus Competition, or Left versus RightSince the time of the French Revolution, the left-right divide has focused mainly on attitudes toward equity within nation-states and since the Russian revolution it has included competition between capitalism and socialism on the world stage. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the West, which touts competition, was confident it had eliminated the notion that nations, like kindergartners, should cooperate to the benefit of all.<br />
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For almost a decade, our man in Moscow, the tippler Boris Yeltsin, solidified that conviction, as the majority lost much of their safety nets while a few in the new Russia got richer, as competition was anointed as the highest good by oligarchs like David Browder, who thought they could even get away with not paying taxes to the new Russian State.<br />
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Strongman Vladimir Putin started to change all that the minute he stepped into Yeltsin's wornout shoes: the oligarchs could keep their ill-gained wealth (they bought up the individual shares that had been distributed to financially unsavvy Russian citizens to gain control of the country's major assets) as long as they kept their noses out of the new president's plan to make his country a good place to live for everyone. <br />
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Somehow, the US found that attitude offensive. Under President Clinton (who tore up Yugoslavia) it adopted a new Security Doctrine: no country should even <i>dream</i> of challenging US world hegemony, and Russia, with its vast mineral wealth, was in a position to do just that <span style="color: #006d21; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">https://</span><span style="color: #006d21; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 700 !important;">en.wikipedia.org</span><span style="color: #006d21; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">/wiki/</span><span style="color: #006d21; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 700 !important;">Wolfowitz_Doctrine. (</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This document is worth reading in its entirety, not least because it describes the steps the US should take to ensure the fidelity of allies.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the time Vladiimir Putin had been voted in as President of the Russian Federation twice (in 2000 and 2004), it was becoming clear that the United States was not adhering to the promises made to Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that if the Soviet Union agreed to the reunification of Germany, NATO would not advance beyond that new country's eastern border. At the yearly Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin denounced NATO's <i>drang nach Osten, </i>which for Russians represents a repeat of previous invasions by Germany through the Eastern European corridor. To no avail. NATO has continued its march right up to Russia's border, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. And in 2014, with an eye to eventually enrolling Russia's neighbor, Ukraine, in the Western alliance, we (according to videod bragging by Victoria Nuland, Clinton's secretary for Eastern European Affairs, to the Washington Press Club in December 2013), spent five billion dollars supporting 'pro-democracy' groups, efforts which, in Febrary 2014 culminated in 'The Maidan', weeks-long demonstrations backed by armed Neo-Nazi militias ressuscitated from World War II that forced the pro-Russian president to flee. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since then, the West has claimed that it was Russia that infringed on the post World War II rules, which stipulated that the agreed-upon boundaries of Europe were inviolate (never mind Yugoslavia), by backing the Russian speaking Donbas region that refuses to recognize the coup-installed Kiev government, and organizing a referendum in Crimea. Never mind that at the end of World War II, Crimea <i>was part of the Soviet Union</i> until it was gifted to Ukraine by Khruschev in 1954! And never mind that Russia is entitled to defend its warm water naval base in Sebastopol, which was created by Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century, to prevent NATO from adding a Black Sea fleet to the tanks lining Russia's land border with Europe!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The US's determination to maintain its hegemony over the world is closely linked to its devotion to competition over cooperation, and represents the twenty-first century front-line of the perrenial left-right divide: The world is one big community and Russia, together with its close ally China and a number of other large countries, believes that cooperation is the best way to ensure a fair distribution of wealth across borders.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unremarked by the US media, as the G7 was under way, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that groups like-minded nations, was holding its 18th annual summit in Shanghai. The organization was founded in 2001 by </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: "Segoe UI", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and now also includes India and Pakistan. Iran, Aghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">are observers, and t</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">he position of Dialogue Partner was created in 2008 for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Negal, adding Turkey in 2009.</span><br />
<span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px;">And while President Trump was lashing out at the G7, in Shanghai, the other authoritarian leader he claims to be friends with, China's Xi Jin Ping, was discussing cooperation at an </span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">organization that covers</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> three-fifths of the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Eurasia">Eurasian continent</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> and nearly half of the human population.</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span>Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-20735936684580797962018-07-20T08:20:00.004-07:002018-07-20T08:38:49.302-07:00How Russians Debate Foreign Policy <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLltFClZdBd4R9O_wp5bDmdY94pOVEIde9sfKw3HP-CKev9O4qLwxKw2uFAXEq15FRLPscyJbERxrlyYRAVPq9AxjgBPGTZYd08r4SvuWaZooTlYZGsvTA_v65LdkZUEs_PJp9m1euzIlT/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLltFClZdBd4R9O_wp5bDmdY94pOVEIde9sfKw3HP-CKev9O4qLwxKw2uFAXEq15FRLPscyJbERxrlyYRAVPq9AxjgBPGTZYd08r4SvuWaZooTlYZGsvTA_v65LdkZUEs_PJp9m1euzIlT/s400/images.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Russian street fashions' from Google images</td></tr>
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I'm so tired of hearing only one opinion about Russia and Vladimir Putin, over and over, on every channel, lilke so many broken records, that I asked a Moscow friend if the same thing was happening there. His answer was: "Vat a kvestchun!"<br />
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Here is the link to a popular Russian television program with English captions that he sent me.<br />
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<u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmesaY8c8Y&authuser=0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmesaY8c8Y&authuser=0</a></u><br />
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Comments welcome!<br />
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P.S. Further on the subject of misperceptions, see this:<br />
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<u><a href="http://russiafeed.com/while-the-western-media-establishment-thinks-russia-is-still-communist/?mc_cid=e056ca116a&mc_eid=8f18f6cdd4">http://russiafeed.com/while-the-western-media-establishment-thinks-russia-is-still-communist/?mc_cid=e056ca116a&mc_eid=8f18f6cdd4</a></u>Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-42875035153324181112018-07-19T12:59:00.002-07:002018-07-19T13:01:05.052-07:00Have You Ever Heard of 'The Wolfowitz Doctrine'?If you are wondering why, almost two uyears after the 2016 election, Washington and its media are frothing at the mouth over 'Russian intervention in our democratic process', you will find the answer by Googling 'The Wolfowitz Doctrine' <a href="https://www.blogger.com/(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine)">(<u>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine)</u></a>. As I detailed in my book <i>Russia's Americans, </i> it has represented official American security policy since the late nineties. During the presidency of George Bush it was referred to as 'the Bush doctrine', which was carried over to the Obama president. President Trump issued his own security doctrine, however it is only a slightly attenuated version of its predecessor, which makes clear what the current hysteria is all about.<br />
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In plain language, the 1992 document described as <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years, </i>which has never been superseded, states:</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Wolfowitz</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">And further:</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There can be no challenge to U.S.'s world leadership.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. In non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. </span><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">We must maintain the means to deter potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">.”IS</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE WITNESSING FAKE HYSTERIA?</span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-5862617973254357682018-07-03T11:38:00.002-07:002018-07-04T06:19:08.380-07:00Living in the TruthPosted on NEO Juune 30, 2018
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The reunification of Europe was still three decades away when, in 1963, the playwright Vaclav Havel presented his first works in Prague’s Theater of the Absurd, ushering in the transformation of the historically staid Czech culture into a whimsical one that contributed to the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe.<br />
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The man who was to initiate Charter 77, criticizing the Communist government for failing to implement human rights provisions of a number of documents it had signed, including the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia, the Final Act of the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Basket III of the Helsinki Accords), and 1966 United Nations covenants on political, civil, economic, and cultural rights, was ultimately voted the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993-2003.<br />
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Vaclav’ Havel’s movement was associated with the notion of ‘living in truth’, which implied ceasing to cooperate with official Communist claims of democracy. At a time when American intellectuals increasingly disregard facts that are part of the public record, historian Timothy Snyder publishes a pocket-sized book titled On Tyranny, in which (after saluting the great philosopher Hannah Arendt, who wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism) he urges Americans, among other things, to support the mainstream media, realizing that “some of what is on the internet is there to harm you”. He further advises his readers to “make eye contract and small talk as a way of breaking down social barriers”, “contribute to good causes”, “be a patriot” and “be calm when the unthinkable arrives”.<br />
Snyder, who specialized in Eastern Europe, began his crusade for ‘the truth’ by drawing western attention to Vaclav Havel’s philosophy back in the eighties. For Havel, ‘living in truth meant keeping a sacred space for what you can prove to be true and for truth-tellers, and Snyder runs with the notion that self-deception enables tyrannies to spread. And yet, with his string of goody-two-shoes recommendations, he implicitly protects media intellectuals such as Fareed Zakaria, who have access to a much larger, and even less educated public.<br />
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In his latest weekly program, MSNBC’s authority on truth reported on the Scandinavian countries’ recent decisions to beef up their military and instruct their citizens in how to behave in the event of war with Russia.<br />
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WITHOUT ONCE MENTIONING the presence of thousands of NATO troops on Russia’s borders with Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, Zakaria wants Americans to know that even the historically neutral Scandinavia countries are taking a stand against ‘Russian aggression’. Here is a map from my book <i>Russia’s Americans</i> that shows the location of US bases most significant for Russia. from among its thousands around the world.<br />
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This stark reality is kept from the American people, although it accounts for Vladimir Putin’s decision to ‘stand Russia’s ground’ on its side of the border. That decision, reflecting the first duty of any responsible leader, is presented by the Western media as ‘Russia poised to overrun Europe’.
Vaclav’ Havel’s principal of ‘Living in Truth’, espoused by Cold War activists across Eastern Europe proved so inspiring that in 2018, intellectuals still invoke it to justify positions that are the exact opposite of those Havel espoused, as the drumbeat of war continues uninterrupted from the time the world was divided between socialists and capitalists.<br />
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It has become clear to at least a few of us that although it’s no longer ideology that’s at stake, it’s still ‘Russia’, a country whose open plains were invaded from the East, the South and the West. To accuse Russia’s leader (who has been in office only two years longer than the Turkish President just re-elected for the third time in a process of dubious legitimacy) of seeking to ‘recreate the Russian Empire’ is a curious way of describing repeated US-led efforts to gnaw at Russia’s European borders. In 2008, the US backed Georgia’s separatist neighbors, and when that effort fizzled, the US State Department openly funded democratic forces in Ukraine, but allowed them to be subsumed by Neo-Nazi militias. When these militias attacked its countrymen living there, Russia defended them and was promptly accused of invading its neighbor, as when it permitted those living in Crimea to hold a referendum on reunification.<br />
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Although the Crimea referendum relies for its legitimacy on the 1996 Kosovo referendum organized by NATO to formalize that region’s independence from Serbia, the US accuses Russia of modifying the post World War II borders agreed upon in Yalta by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, while, advising Russia to ‘get used to’ seeing US warships off the coast of its main warm water naval base in the Black Sea….<br />
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It took Vaclav Havel, the Polish historian Adam Michnik and the trade union boss Lech Walesa, who would become Poland’s first post-communist president, two decades to reclaim their countries’ respective realities (together with the Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians). Those of us who compose today’s American opposition are powerless to end our government’s selective use of information, as well as its physical abuse of the world outside our borders, whether in post-United Fruit Central America, the rape that drives Africans into Europe, or attempts to persuade Pacific nations that the China Sea is not Beijing’s Mare Nostrum.<br />
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Our voices can scarcely be heard, as the personal space reserved for truth closes in around us.<br />
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P.S. July 3, 2108:<br />
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It seems that the publication of Timothy Snyder’s pocket-sized book was the start of something. (‘Tyranny’, by the way, was a much-used word during the American (and French) revolutions, and thus has a more solemn ring to it than the words ‘dictatorship’ or ‘oligarchy’ or ‘authoritarianism’, commonly used today to express the same notion of injustice.)<br />
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In the last few weeks, there has been a concerted campaign by the US media to promote itself. This must mean that the readership of progressive websites is reaching an alarming rate. On July 2, the New York Times ran an add on the internet stating that <i>The Truth Demands our Attention </i>(sic).Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-35025746175369260532018-06-27T07:02:00.000-07:002018-06-27T07:19:53.548-07:00New Leaf!I keep having to play catch-up with this blog. Now that I've not writing any more books, I'm going to concentrate more on near-daily observations of the big picture, after they are posted on NEO.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsNCFEn2PWoVMIb0PFkgp_38LXTrI7iwjJR8qfHOmmW1uR9bEBoQtrOlUTjVdahGQsqCPbWxZ11Dp2UJLqz_7XyVjbgTldrwPSJ-dkb50Nhb8731eZi3iigMUUn_unx-YMSiyycMjmq7CT/s1600/fete+des+inde%25CC%2581pendances.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsNCFEn2PWoVMIb0PFkgp_38LXTrI7iwjJR8qfHOmmW1uR9bEBoQtrOlUTjVdahGQsqCPbWxZ11Dp2UJLqz_7XyVjbgTldrwPSJ-dkb50Nhb8731eZi3iigMUUn_unx-YMSiyycMjmq7CT/s320/fete+des+inde%25CC%2581pendances.jpg" width="228" /></a>Today, I'm taking the liberty of reposting a short but fundamental analysis of the reasons for the migration crisis that is affecting both Europe and the US, by the internationally known known foreign policy analyst, James Petras.<br />
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It is illustrated by this beautiful French poster disseminated by Giuseppe Zambon, an Italian left-wing publisher located in Frankfurt Germany, who for years has been ensuring that contributions by a wide range of observers reach a wider audience through his mailing list. (His email address is zambon@zambon.net, the company is Zambon Verlag.)<br />
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As for the poster, it illustrates Zambon's years' long backing of the Palestinian cause via the importation of Palestinian olive oil which is made available to his readership. This is but one example of how much more intimately European progressives are involved in the Palestinian struggle than those of us in the US, for obvious geographic reasons.<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Immigration: Western Wars and Imperial Exploitation Uproot Millions</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>James Petras</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Introduction</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Immigration” has become the dominant issue dividing Europe and the US, yet the most important matter which is driving millions to emigrate is overlooked - wars. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In this paper we will discuss the reasons behind the massification of immigration, focusing on several issues, namely (1) imperial wars (2) multi-national corporate expansion (3) the decline of the anti-war movements in the US and Western Europe (4) the weakness of the trade union and solidarity movements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We will proceed by identifying the major countries affected by US and EU wars leading to massive immigration, and then turn to the western powers forcing refugees to ‘follow’ the flows of profits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Imperial Wars and Mass Immigration</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US invasions and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq uprooted several million people, destroying their lives, families, livelihood, housing and communities and undermining there security.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As a result, most victims faced the choice of resistance or flight. Millions chose to flee to the West since the NATO countries would not bomb their residence in the US or Europe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Others who fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East or Latin America were persecuted, or resided in countries too poor to offer them employment or opportunities for a livelihood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Some Afghans fled to Pakistan or the Middle East but discovered that these regions were also subject to armed attacks from the West.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Iraqis were devastated by the western sanctions, invasion and occupation and fled to Europe and to a lesser degree the US , the Gulf states and Iran.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Libya prior to the US-EU invasion was a ‘receiver’ country accepting and employing millions of Africans, providing them with citizenship and a decent livelihood. After the US-EU air and sea attack and arming and financing of terrorist gangs, hundreds of thousands of Sub-Sahara immigrants were forced to flee to Europe. Most crossed the Mediterranean Sea to the west via Italy, Spain , and headed toward the affluent European countries which had savaged their lives in Libya.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US-EU financed and armed client terrorist armies which assault the Syrian government and forced millions of Syrians to flee across the border to Lebanon,Turkey and beyond to Europe, causing the so-called ‘immigration crises’ and the rise of rightwing anti-immigrant parties. This led to divisions within the established social democratic and conservative parties,as sectors of the working class turned anti-immigrant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Europe is reaping the consequences of its alliance with US militarized imperialism whereby the US uproots millions of people and the EU spends billions of euros to cover the cost of immigrants fleeing the western wars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Most of the immigrants’ welfare payments fall far short of the losses incurred in their homeland. Their jobs homes, schools, and civic associations in the EU and US are far less valuable and accommodating then what they possessed in their original communities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Economic Imperialism and Immigration: Latin America</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>US wars, military intervention and economic exploitation has forced millions of Latin Americans to immigrate to the US.. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras engaged in popular struggle for socio-economic justice and political democracy between 1960 – 2000. On the verge of victory over the landed oligarchs and multinational corporations, Washington blocked popular insurgents by spending billions of dollars, arming, training, advising the military and paramilitary forces. Land reform was aborted; trade unionists were forced into exile and thousands of peasants fled the marauding terror campaigns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US-backed oligarchic regimes forced millions of displaced and uprooted pr unemployed and landless workers to flee to the US .</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>US supported coups and dictators resulted in 50,000 in Nicaragua, 80,000 in El Salvador and 200,000 in Guatemala. President Obama and Hillary Clinton supported a military coup in Honduras which overthrew Liberal President Zelaya--- which led to the killing and wounding of thousands of peasant activists and human rights workers, and the return of death squads ,resulting in a new wave of immigrants to the US.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US promoted free trade agreement (NAFTA) drove hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers into bankruptcy and into low wage maquiladoras; others were recruited by drug cartels; but the largest group was forced to immigrate across the Rio Grande.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US ‘Plan Colombia’ launched by President Clinton established seven US military bases in Colombia and provided 1 billion dollars in military aid between 2001 – 2010. Plan Colombia doubled the size of the military,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US backed President Alvaro Uribe,resulting in the assassination of over 200,000 peasants, trade union activists and human rights workers by Uribe directed narco-death squad.Over two million farmers fled the countryside and immigrated to the cities or across the border.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>US business secured hundreds of thousands of Latin American low wages, agricultural and factory workers almost all without health insurance or benefits – though they paid taxes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Immigration doubled profits, undermined collective bargains and lowered US wages. Unscrupulous US ‘entrepreneurs’ recruited immigrants into drugs, prostitution, the arms trade and money laundering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Politicians exploited the immigration issue for political gain – blaming the immigrants for the decline of working class living standards distracting attention from the real source : wars, invasions, death squads and economic pillage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Conclusion</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Having destroyed the lives of working people overseas and overthrown progressive leaders like Libyan President Gadhafi and Honduran President Zelaya, millions were forced to become immigrants.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Colombia ,Mexico witnessed the flight of millions of immigrants -- all victims of US and EU wars. Washington and Brussels blamed the victims and accused the immigrants of illegality and criminal conduct .</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The West debates expulsion, arrest and jail instead of reparations for crimes against humanity and violations of international law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To restrain immigration the first step is to end imperial wars, withdraw troops, and to cease financing paramilitary and client terrorists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Secondly, the West should establish a long term multi-billion-dollar fund for reconstruction and recovery of the economies, markets and infrastructure they bombed</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The demise of the peace movement allowed the US and EU to launch and prolong serial wars which led to massive immigration – the so-called refugee crises and the flight to Europe. <b>There is a direct connection between the conversion of the liberal and social democrats to war -parties and the forced flight of immigrants to the EU</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The decline of the trade unions and worse, their loss of militancy has led to the loss of solidarity with people living in the midst of imperial wars. Many workers in the imperialist countries have directed their ire to those ‘below’ – the immigrants, - rather than to the imperialists who directed the wars which created the immigration problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Immigration, war , the demise of the peace and workers movements and left parties has led to the rise of the militarists, and neo-liberals who have taken power throughout the West. Their anti-immigrant politics, however, has provoked new contradictions within regimes, between business elites and among popular movements in the EU and the US. The elite and popular struggles can go in at least two directions – toward fascism or radical social democracy.</span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-18850479109580545812018-06-07T09:20:00.001-07:002018-06-07T09:20:15.306-07:00Donald Trump: An Unstoppable Force Meets an Unmovable Object<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28.4px;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Posted on NEO on June 6, 2018 </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stormy Daniels<br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Never in America’s two hundred years plus history has the country been seen as heading toward a constitutional crisis of comparable gravity. The Constitution is evoked to justify a myriad of actions on the part of the three branches of government, and public servants, hand on the bible, pledge to defend ‘it’ rather than ‘the country’. Although several high-level government officials have been impeached during the country’s two hundred plus year history, with Presidents Nixon and Clinton standing out as the most egregious, nothing comparable to the present situation has occured, leaving the most prestigious legal authorities splitting hairs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The notion of fealty to the constitution has repeatedly led to disputes over free speech (cited in the First Amendment), and the possession of firearms (the subject of the Second Amendment), however recently it has inspired the creation of political formations devoted to ‘taking the country back’ to the time of its drafting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Under America’s complicated system of ‘checks and balances’ between the three ‘co-equal branches of government’ questions of interpretation often arise. However the case of Donald Trump is unprecedented, in that his punishable offenses include both business dealings and possible ‘collusion’ with ‘foreign powers’. (An iron-clad US rule is that presidential candidates may not accept anything of value from foreigners, especially foreign governments!) However, as the investigation headed by the Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller enters its second year, Trump’s personal life has been harnessed by a brilliant California lawyer who believes his case on behalf of a sex worker can prevent the president from finishing his term because it involves illicitly arranged payments. There are days when Stormy Daniels, as she is known, relegates ‘Russiagate’ to the back burner, to the chagrin of those determined to make war with Moscow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As the year-long investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign lurches from one rocky shoal to another, daily revelations require the media to repeat old facts, such as the indictments of thirteen private Russian citizens and three Russian companies. Since the US cannot compel them to appear in US courts, and the Russian government requires more hard facts than it has received to agree to extradite them, the law’s only recourse is to intercept them when they land at American airports and harass them with questions, providing mini-headlines that allow the media to constantly rehash the entire story, even though surveys show that ‘Russiagate’ is low on voters’ list of priorities, behind health care, jobs, and trade.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As pundits argue over whether the Constitution allows a ‘sitting president’ to be indicted by the justice system; whether he can fire the special counsel who is investigating him; whether he can be compelled to testify and finally, if convicted in a court of law, whether he can actually pardon himself, Trump voters talk about taking the country back to the time when the Constitution was drafted,<i> </i>instead of finding a way to extricate itself from the situation it has enabled.</span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-19652664164467371122018-06-02T06:35:00.003-07:002018-06-02T06:41:58.822-07:00Russiagate: Manipulating Globalization<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(60, 61, 61); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #3c3d3d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pulished on New Eastern Outlook on June 1, 2018</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Forget election tampering; forget Hillary’s emails and the role a recluse in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London may have played. Realize that the ‘attack on our democracy’ was all about playing for high stakes on the international game board.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The US cannot be sanctioned for playing world policeman, and its president can simply be impeached for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ instead of being sent to jail for ‘white collar crimes’. Either way, realizing that the US is unlikely to soon become the cooperative political player called for in the UN charter, Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa have begun designing a new world order that takes UN principles literally: instead of an eleven-member Security Council, five of which can veto resolutions, the BRICS are constructing a multi-polar world in which the most influential countries in each region cooperate to ensure the peace and development of the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Russiagate has revealed the ease with which globalization’s rules can be exploited, overshadowing the world’s real political and economic problems. And as long as audiences — especially in the US — are obsessed with the pursuit of political ‘crimes’, war crimes will continue unabated. I’m not saying that this situation was created deliberately, however it is impossible to deny that it has pushed the Iran Nuclear Treaty into a background where National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo can ensure that it is never revived, making way for eventual ‘regime change’ in Teheran, and making it less likely that North Korea’s young leader will give up the weapons that forced the US to talk to him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These and other nefarious plans, such as fomenting color revolutions in Russia’s near abroad (one recently came to fruition in tiny Armenia), can be all the more easily pursued that the public associates international money laundering and bank fraud with ‘Russian oligarchs close to Putin.” Americans have never been told that when he came to power in 2000 on the back of state pilfering under ‘our man in the Kremlin’ Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin made a deal with those who had become ‘oligarchs’ via those privatizations: “You will be free to continue your games as long as you leave politics up to me.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Vladimir Putin has kept his part of the bargain, bringing Russia up to speed economically and militarily, but here’s the thing: while it is the largest country in the world, with eleven time zones, its population is relatively small, as is the ruling coterie. Inevitably, the oligarchs’ business may bring them in proximity to the Kremlin, making it easy for the US to link Putin with their criminal activities. A comparison of the Russian population’s standard of living then and now, as well as the country’s defense capabilities compared with eighteen years ago should make clear that Vladimir Putin has been fulfilling his promises to the Russian people, who recently returned him to power for the fourth time. (After being asked to take over the leadership of the country by an ailing Yeltsin in 1999, he was elected for the first time in 2000.) But while it is the largest country in the world, with eleven time zones, its population is relatively small, as is the number of movers and shakers in Moscow. Inevitably, the oligarchs may move in proximity to the Kremlin, making it easy for the US to link Putin with their criminal activities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All those Russian names that are (with difficulty) coming out of the mouths of English-only American anchors have nothing to do with the war in Syria or the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, let alone the impending reunification of the Koreas after 65 years of a barbed-wire truce. They have to do with bank fraud and money laundering, which were once the realm of gangsters. What the Muller investigation has revealed is an international ‘crime syndicate’ whose claim to fame is its association with the President of the United States (and suggestions that is associated with the President of Russia).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But rather than being a strongman who uses his power for personal enrichment, such as for example Panama’s President Noriega, Putin’s relations with shady oligarchs are probably more like those of the Kennedy brothers, Jack and Robert, with Meyer Lansky and his cohorts based in pre-Castro Havana. (When, fifty years later, I read about the mob’s ‘interest’ in the Cuban revolution, I realized with a shudder that they were lurking in Havana when I arrived there a week after the Kennedy assassination.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3c3d3d; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">Russiagate shows how far the US has regressed since the days of Camelot. </span><span style="color: #3c3d3d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">On the day I submitted this article to NEO, the US media played and replayed a tape of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen threatening a journalist who was gathering information for an article about his client in the tone and using the language of a typical mobster.....</span><br />
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<span lang="en-US"><span id="ctrlcopy" style="color: transparent; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;"><br /><a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/06/01/russiagate-manipulating-globalization/" style="color: rgb(213, 24, 24) !important; text-decoration: none;">https://journal-neo.org/2018/06/01/russiagate-manipulating-globalization/</a></span></span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-68068327934141711832018-05-28T16:22:00.003-07:002018-07-03T14:40:06.797-07:00The Annual international Economic Forum in St Petersburg, Russia<h1 class="page-header" style="border-bottom-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #404040; font-family: oswald; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: small;">I'm publishing Doctorow's review, because it brilliantly captures the reality of waning US influence, illustrating the Russian President's totally different appraoch to human relations from White House inmates: open-ended discussions of crucial issues among friends, which include thousands of political and business figures from around the globe. Even the had of the IMF, Christine La Garde is present!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: small;">This event, as well as the yearly Valdai Discussion Group, constitutes President Vladimir Putin's answers to the Davos Forum and the Bilderburg Conference. Unlike these US-backed gatherings, the Russia-led events are available for public scrutiny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); color: #404040;">I watched the panel discussion that included Vladimir Puitn, French President Emanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, China's Vice President </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Wang Quishan and the General Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. From the pictures, I did indeed get the impression that there were literally thousands of attendants. Unfortunately, translations and original languages neutered each other so it was very difficult to follow. What I got was mainly the positive body and facial language of the participants as well the attention of the audience. Participation in thisyearly conference is in the thousands of dollars, therefore it is not accessible to the public.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: small;">The theme of this year's conference was 'Building a Trust Economy' and that title was reflected in the dialogue between the leading and other countries, which seemed to constantly underline the fact that tomorrow's world was being created without the US. The difference between the familiar attitude of representatives of American power and those on-stage in St Petersburg was stark: these people all treated each other with egalitarian familiarity, President Putin, the convenor and host, relaxed in his chair. As related by Doctorow, the current between Putin and Macron, often took the form of banter between two generations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: small;">The following report, published by the on-line journal Russia Insider, whose editor in chief, Charles Bausman, is an American, is worth reading in its entirely, although it is very long. It opens a window onto the world outside America's borders, with all its subtleties and revelations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Putin's Big Economic Conference Is a Very Big Deal This Year, by Gilbert Doctorow</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This year’s 22nd edition of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum was the largest ever, numbering 17,000 guests by the last tally. Among them were corporate CEOs and chairmen of the world’s largest companies, the top leaders of less famous multinational corporations, as well as of medium and small enterprises.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They came within national business delegations from around the globe led by senior government officials. There were sector and national round tables at which they met with their Russian counterparts. There were grand signing ceremonies for some of the 500 contracts and agreements concluded at the Forum, which had a combined value of 2.365 trillion rubles, or about 30 billion euros.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A revealing moment where Macron says that France is sovereign, and Putin explains quite convincingly that neither France, nor Germany, nor Japan, truly is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But diverse as the activities of the Forum may have been, none of the Forum venues, none of the Forum participants were as important to the success of the event as the four leaders who joined President Vladimir Putin on stage to address the Plenary Session Friday afternoon: President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, Chinese Vice President Wang Quishan and IMF General Director Christine Lagarde.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we shift our consideration from protocol rankings to political bellwethers, there is no question that the man to watch from his arrival in St Petersburg on Thursday, 24 May through his departure on Friday evening the 25th was Emmanuel Macron. The close working relationship with Russia of the leaders of China and of Japan has developed incrementally over the past couple of decades, in the first case, and over the past several years in the second case. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">France, by contrast, had since the ascent of Francois Hollande to the presidency in 2012 experienced ever more frosty if not conflictual relations with Russia, while it fell wholly in step with every policy position coming out of Washington. This alignment has continued under Emmanuel Macron straight up to French participation in the US-led military strike on Syria 13-14 April over alleged use of chemical weapons by the armed forces of Bashir Assad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Therefore, in this essay, I will begin with a close examination of what Macron said in his two major addresses and what he may have achieved in negotiations with Vladimir Putin. We will then consider what the other featured guest of the Forum, Shinzo Abe, said, which contrasts sharply with Macron’s positions.case, and over the past several years in the second case. </span></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">A TV News Report about Macron's visit from Russia's most influential journalist, Dmitry Kiselyov</em></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">France, by contrast, had since the ascent of Francois Hollande to the presidency in 2012 experienced ever more frosty if not conflictual relations with Russia, while it fell wholly in step with every policy position coming out of Washington. This alignment has continued under Emmanuel Macron straight up to French participation in the US-led military strike on Syria 13-14 April over alleged use of chemical weapons by the armed forces of Bashir Assad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Therefore, in this essay, I will begin with a close examination of what Macron said in his two major addresses and what he may have achieved in negotiations with Vladimir Putin. We will then consider what the other featured guest of the Forum, Shinzo Abe, said, which contrasts sharply with Macron’s positions.case, and over the past several years in the second case. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The principal source materials for this analysis were the live, complete and uncommented broadcasts of events within the Forum and on the sidelines by the Russian state television channel <i>Vesti-Rossiya 1.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Emmanuel Macron presents a “sovereign” France with an “independent foreign policy”</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Emmanuel Macron’s statements both at the press conference in the Constantine Palace on the 24th following his tête-à-tête talks with Vladimir Putin and at the Plenary Session of the Forum on the 25th oblige me to revise and refine my two previous appreciations of who he is and what he can achieve dating from the days immediately following his election a year ago and from his speech to the joint session of Congress in the USA a month or so ago. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To be specific, it now appears that Macron is delivering a strong, not the weak France on the international stage that I had supposed. It further appears that whatever assistance he may have received in his electoral campaign from the US intelligence services, and however much he has justified their wager on him as a committed globalist and as a person unlikely to relax sanctions on Russia anytime soon, he is a more complex personality, with greater ambition and greater determination to write his own roadmaps than they assumed. This affects his relations with Vladimir Putin in ways no one in Washington could foresee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Every edition of the Forum has a theme or leitmotiv that is supposed to guide the addresses of the keynote speakers and the agendas of the round tables and working groups. This year the theme was “Building an Economy of Trust.” Of all Plenary Session speakers, apart from Vladimir Putin, who was after all the host and surely the author of the leitmotiv, Macron was the most focused on this topic, which he chose to approach from an unusual angle but one highly relevant to the thinking of his hosts: that the precondition for “trust” between nations building a shared global economy is national self-confidence and the assertion of national sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We will explore this in a moment. But first I consider it important to go back a year to the days immediately after his assuming office as president when Emmanuel Macron invited Vladimir Putin to their first summit meeting. What Macron said then bears directly on what he has said these past few days in St Petersburg.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The pretext or rationale for inviting Putin to Versailles in May 2017 was to jointly commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of the visit to Paris by Peter the Great. In his speech at the joint press conference held in Versailles, Macron exhibited thinking processes which are evidently deep-set since they recur in his major addresses, such as before the joint session of Congress a month ago and during his speech at the press conference in the Constantine Palace, Petersburg on Thursday: namely a highly intellectual approach that searches out affinities with the country he is dealing with in their historical interconnections and shared cultural experiences going back centuries.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">As he said on 29 May 2017:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">“Dialogue between France and Russia has never ceased since [1717] – a dialogue between our intellectuals, between our cultures sowed the roots of relationship that has endured to this day.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white;">At the end of the day, the Putin-Macron meeting a year ago may not have done much to improve trade relations or to resolve international conflicts including in Syria and Ukraine, but it did result in the launch what is now called the “Trianon Dialogue” which has as its mission to bring together thinkers, intellectuals, young people in exchanges that are expected to foster greater mutual understanding between French and Russian civil society. Though from his own short speech at Versailles, Putin was clearly more interested in trade figures, he went along with Macron’s initiative and invited him to a return visit, specifically to Moscow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Who may have influenced the change in venue to St Petersburg is not clear. But both sides had much to gain. For Vladimir Putin, bringing Macron into the annual St Petersburg Economic Forum would be a great catch, raising by far the international visibility and interest of the event. And Macron could be delighted with the opportunity to indulge his passion for history by meeting Vladimir Putin for their private talks ahead of the Forum at the Constantine Palace originally built for Peter in the suburbs of the Northern Capital, replete with extensive gardens laid out in the French manner of Versailles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Russians needed no prompting to provide an historical setting worthy of their meeting quite apart from the Forum. They arranged a gala performance of the ballet <i>Raymonda</i> in the Mariinsky Theater on Thursday evening, 24 May to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great French-Russian choreographer Marius Petipa. The Marseilles-born Petipa was the author of the principal classical ballets that established the renown of the Russian imperial theaters in the last decade of the 19th century and are performed worldwide to this day. In another overlay of symbolism, the selected ballet just happens to deal with the uneasy relations of Christian (French and Hungarian) West and Saracen East played out at the level of their respective nobility.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The first of Emmanuel Macron’s two addresses during his visit to St Petersburg was at a press conference presenting the results of the private meetings of two presidents. It was delayed by two hours, given that their meeting lasted twice as long as planned and ended in key understandings on Syria and Iran that I will describe in a moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In fact the event resembled more an appearance before the joint session of Congress than a normal press conference. It was long on speeches and short on question time for journalists. And the audience consisted heavily of Russian ministers and leading members of the two houses of the Russian legislature. This is because in parallel with the meeting of presidents there were meetings of officials from the two governments discussing in particular the progress and future development of the Trianon Dialogues, with its people-to-people component.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Vladimir Putin’s introductory speech was relatively short. He said that they had discussed at length global issues, then he moved quickly to the issues that are close to his heart and to the Forum the next day: the economic relations between France and Russia, their bilateral trade and investment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Putin characterized the talks as “business like” and held in “an atmosphere of openness.” In diplomatic code, this means that there were real differences in views on many points. Nonetheless, they reached agreement on coordination of efforts in Syria and over saving the Iran nuclear deal. Progress was made in a wholly new area: working together to regulate cyber space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Emmanuel Macron may have been a Rothschild banker before moving into government but his speech at the Constantine Palace, on the day before an <i>economic</i> forum, was focused not on business and economics but on France’s international status as a world power with an identity quite apart from its membership in the European Union.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In effect, Macron’s programmatic statement was a well-considered response to Vladimir Putin’s insistence over the years that Russia is one of the very few genuinely sovereign nations in the world, whereas others, including the member states of the European Union are vassals of the United States with whom one cannot successfully negotiate anything of primary importance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Macron said loudly and clearly that as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council France has the authority and the obligation to exercise its sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy. And in a very clever association with the leitmotiv of the Economic Forum, he explained that trust between nations necessary to build the global economy is possible only when nations are self-confident and assert their sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One other quote from his speech on that day is also worth repeating: “History is greater than us.” In the given context, the modesty implied by that statement is misleading. As we shall see, Macron uses history as a cloak of personal grandeur; he envisions himself as an historic personage, an agent of History, following in the footsteps of none other than Charles De Gaulle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Macron’s interest in history does not mean that his reading is fastidious. In his speech to the U.S. Congress, he said that the United States and France fought World War I to defeat imperialism, which is utter nonsense. At the Versailles speech a year ago, he spoke of Peter the Great’s visit as a start of French-Russian relations. Putin, who must have known what was coming, reminded him that French-Russian relations could be traced back to the 11th century, when the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev and Prince of Novgorod gave his daughter Anne to the French king Henry I, so that the French royal line of Valois carried Russian genes for centuries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the end of the day, the Putin-Macron meeting a year ago may not have done much to improve trade relations or to resolve international conflicts including in Syria and Ukraine, but it did result in the launch what is now called the “Trianon Dialogue” which has as its mission to bring together thinkers, intellectuals, young people in exchanges that are expected to foster greater mutual understanding between French and Russian civil society. Though from his own short speech at Versailles, Putin was clearly more interested in trade figures, he went along with Macron’s initiative and invited him to a return visit, specifically to Moscow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Who may have influenced the change in venue to St Petersburg is not clear. But both sides had much to gain. For Vladimir Putin, bringing Macron into the annual St Petersburg Economic Forum would be a great catch, raising by far the international visibility and interest of the event. And Macron could be delighted with the opportunity to indulge his passion for history by meeting Vladimir Putin for their private talks ahead of the Forum at the Constantine Palace originally built for Peter in the suburbs of the Northern Capital, replete with extensive gardens laid out in the French manner of Versailles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Russians needed no prompting to provide an historical setting worthy of their meeting quite apart from the Forum. They arranged a gala performance of the ballet <i>Raymonda</i> in the Mariinsky Theater on Thursday evening, 24 May to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great French-Russian choreographer Marius Petipa. The Marseilles-born Petipa was the author of the principal classical ballets that established the renown of the Russian imperial theaters in the last decade of the 19th century and are performed worldwide to this day. In another overlay of symbolism, the selected ballet just happens to deal with the uneasy relations of Christian (French and Hungarian) West and Saracen East played out at the level of their respective nobility.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The first of Emmanuel Macron’s two addresses during his visit to St Petersburg was at a press conference presenting the results of the private meetings of two presidents. It was delayed by two hours, given that their meeting lasted twice as long as planned and ended in key understandings on Syria and Iran that I will describe in a moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In fact the event resembled more an appearance before the joint session of Congress than a normal press conference. It was long on speeches and short on question time for journalists. And the audience consisted heavily of Russian ministers and leading members of the two houses of the Russian legislature. This is because in parallel with the meeting of presidents there were meetings of officials from the two governments discussing in particular the progress and future development of the Trianon Dialogues, with its people-to-people component.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Vladimir Putin’s introductory speech was relatively short. He said that they had discussed at length global issues, then he moved quickly to the issues that are close to his heart and to the Forum the next day: the economic relations between France and Russia, their bilateral trade and investment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Putin characterized the talks as “business like” and held in “an atmosphere of openness.” In diplomatic code, this means that there were real differences in views on many points. Nonetheless, they reached agreement on coordination of efforts in Syria and over saving the Iran nuclear deal. Progress was made in a wholly new area: working together to regulate cyber space.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Emmanuel Macron may have been a Rothschild banker before moving into government but his speech at the Constantine Palace, on the day before an <i>economic</i> forum, was focused not on business and economics but on France’s international status as a world power with an identity quite apart from its membership in the European Union.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In effect, Macron’s programmatic statement was a well-considered response to Vladimir Putin’s insistence over the years that Russia is one of the very few genuinely sovereign nations in the world, whereas others, including the member states of the European Union are vassals of the United States with whom one cannot successfully negotiate anything of primary importance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Macron said loudly and clearly that as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council France has the authority and the obligation to exercise its sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy. And in a very clever association with the leitmotiv of the Economic Forum, he explained that trust between nations necessary to build the global economy is possible only when nations are self-confident and assert their sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Direct quotation here is worth the time:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“France and Russia occupy a special place in relations as permanent members of the UN Security Council. We are obliged to defend grand multilateralism. We are obliged to maintain a permanent and independent dialogue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“As President Putin knows, the foreign policy of France under my direction is completely independent…We make our decision by ourselves and for ourselves. We believe in Europe to multiply the force…We take into account the interests of our partners. And our dialogue with Russia is an element of this independence…We speak to everyone. We do this frankly and directly, and this is the mark of our trustworthiness. …We must defend our collective security, defend our values everywhere, and must respect the sovereignty of the people….I respect the enhanced role which Russia assumes in its regional environment and in the world, in particular in the Middle, which entails heightened responsibility…..I hope Russia understands that France is its credible European partner, now and in the future. Our talks have been held in this sense.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These curious but valid formulations were meant to catch the attention of his hosts, which they surely did. But they also constituted a major claim by Macron addressed over the heads of those in the hall to the home audience in the European Union. Macron was unmistakably setting out his claim to take over the mantle of leadership of foreign policy in the EU that has been held unchallenged by Germany for the last six years due to the weak and witless government of François Hollande. Germany is <i>not</i> a member of the Security Council. Germany is essentially an occupied country given the large presence of US bases on its territory. And Angela Merkel would never say that Germany has a foreign policy of its own. For Merkel, only the EU can have a foreign policy, which she quietly manages from behind the scenes through her minions, the likes of Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In fact, Macron’s vision of French leadership also has a military component, where, again, his country puts Germany to shame, raising questions about who should truly call the shots on European foreign policy. This came out on the second day of his visit during the Plenary Session, when Vladimir Putin playfully took up a remark by Macron that Europe has obligations to the United States in return for its securing the defense. Said Putin, teasingly: “Emmanuel, don’t worry, we are ready to help you with security.” Macron was taken aback by the Russian’s wit, but found his response: “We, France, have our own army to look after our security.” Germany, as we all know, does not have an army worthy of the name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Otherwise, Macron’s speech included a large section devoted to historical patterns and continuities binding France and Russia together. It is more than curious that Macron chose to highlight the fact that when his predecessor Charles Charles De Gaulle decided to visit Russia in June 1966 he chose St Petersburg (Leningrad at the time) because of the city’s heroic resistance in the great siege of World War II. Macron announced that he would be visiting the Piskarevo cemetery where more than a million unidentified victims of the siege are buried to lay a wreath of remembrance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mention of his following in the footsteps of De Gaulle during this speech in Petersburg aligns perfectly with his mentioning one month ago in Washington De Gaulle’s address to the joint session of Congress in 1967, an honor that had been granted to no other French head of state in the intervening 51 years. It is remarkable that Macron, who started his government career as a Socialist and served under Hollande, has chosen De Gaulle, the iconic figure of the French Center Right, to be his avatar. The common denominator is surely national sovereignty, which De Gaulle went very far to promote.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Otherwise, Macron’s talk on continuities relied heavily on mutual cultural influences between Russia and France. Russian schoolchildren grow up with <i>The Three Musketeers</i>, he said. French schoolchildren grow up with <i>Peter and the Wolf</i>. But he went well beyond these commonplaces. He noted that French tourists traveling by boat down the Volga are known to ask where is the building that Dumas, the author of <i>The Three Musketeers,</i> stayed in during his sojourn in Russia. And the bottom line of all these evocations of common cultural traditions was Macron’s overriding point that the countries are both <i>European</i>. Indeed, Macron’s explanation to journalists of his mission to Russia in separate interviews on the sidelines was to ensure that the country did not turn in upon itself or abandon Europe for its friends in Asia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To anyone with a good knowledge of Vladimir Putin, that is a wholly artificial risk. But so be it, it reads well in Paris or Brussels. In any case, one of the concrete results of the discussions in the Constantine Palace was an initiative to drop all visa requirements for young people of both countries below age 18 who wish to visit the other country. If implemented, this will be a very important step forward in normalizing relations and preparing the grounds for mutual understanding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For a Rothschild banker and for a participant in an <i>Economic Forum</i>, Macron’s preparation of remarks on the economy and trade relations was far weaker than his historical and cultural research. He was pleased to remind the audience that France is the largest foreign employer in the Russian Federation, which may well be a function of its particular activity in service industries including retailing (Auchan, Decathlon, Castorama), hospitality (Novotel) and banking (Société Générale-Rosbank) which employ large work forces as opposed to manufacturing industry. He boasted that notwithstanding the difficult times, meaning sanctions which France has supported and enforced, the 500 French companies active in Russia have stayed in place. He avoided entirely the question of trade turnover, which is only a fraction of that between Germany and Russia. He claimed that France is the second largest foreign investor in Russia, but here he was later corrected by Putin, who noted that first place is held by China, after which comes Germany. Putin went on to say that French investment has to be weighed in context: all French companies together have invested 15 billion euros while one Finnish company alone, Fortum, has invested 6 billion euros.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Despite all of the independence that Macron insisted is enjoyed by French foreign policy, in the key issue for his hosts of sanctions, the French President laid down the hard EU line: that no progress on sanctions is possible before progress is made on implementing the Minsk Accords on the Donbass. However, on other international issues where his hands are not bound by EU policy, Macron obviously showed flexibility and a keen interest in arriving at understandings with Putin. The following points of agreement which he laid out are worthy of note</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20.6px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Macron re-stated the commitment of the 3 European signatories of the nuclear accord to remain in the Agreement, despite the withdrawal of the United States. Here their interests coincide with Russia’s. Macron made reference to the decision the week before at the European Summit in Sofia to activate mechanisms that will protect the Agreement and also European companies from extraterritorial application of the American law on sanctions. In answer to questions from reporters on both days of his visit, Macron explained that compensation against losses imposed the US applied only to companies which are not quoted on US exchanges or otherwise heavily invested in US operations which might be shut down. That would entail unacceptable expenses for the European taxpayers. Accordingly such very large companies will decide for themselves on how to respond to US sanctions while small and medium sized companies could be protected. It remains to be seen whether this approach will be sufficient to ensure that Iran continues to benefit commercially from the Agreement in a way that justifies its continued participation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Macron noted that he and Vladimir Putin discussed the other issues surrounding Iran that Trump had raised to justify US withdrawal: namely Iran’s regional activities, its nuclear course after 2025 and its ballistic missile program. He said he has introduced these questions directly to Iranian prime minister Rouhani and assumes they are discussable on condition that all sides continue to observe the nuclear deal as concluded in 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is potential importance to the agreement Macron reached with Putin to put in place a coordination mechanism to arrive at a common agenda for the two current formats on a political solution in Syria with the objective of arriving at convergence. These are the Astana format overseen by Russia, Turkey and Iran, and the so-called “Small Group” initiated by the French and including the UK, Germany, Jordan, the United States and Saudi Arabia. The two groups both claim to seek an outcome that preserves the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria while not imposing solutions from the outside with respect to the future role of Bashar Assad. The main difference in approaches would appear to be which Syrians will participate in the political solution. The Astana process embraces only the Syrian forces and movements on the ground in the country today. The “Small Group” promotes also the Syrian population that has fled abroad. It will be an enormous challenge to finesse these differences, but better to start now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Macron also used the opportunity to announce the start of French participation in humanitarian assistance for Syria. So far, the number he put out, 50 million euros, is just a drop in the bucket of the tens if not hundreds of billions needed to restore Syria to its situation before the civil war. But it is noteworthy that France’s funding of NGOs for humanitarian work will also include those operating on territory under the control of Damascus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">During the questioning on the first day of his visit, Emmanuel Macron confirmed that he would be acting on the wishes of his French intellectual supporters and meet representatives of Russian civil society working for human rights. Indeed, on that same day he met with the director of the iconic human rights organization Memorial. But he spent more time with the widow of the great dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom he invited to the gala ballet performance that evening. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The selection of Natalya for the purpose of talking with society is particularly significant because dissident that he had been before his exile and critical of modern Russia as he had become upon his return to his homeland, Solzhenitsyn was ultimately a sincere admirer of Vladimir Putin. The Russian president has met several times with Natalya Solzhenitsyn in recent years to discuss the use of her husband’s writings in Russian secondary schools among other issues. If this is what constitutes staying in touch with the Russian people as distinct from the Russian government, then Macron is performing it with sensitivity and realism, meaning that he is getting good advice, better than ever came the way of Barack Obama or of his ambassador Michael McFaul.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of the four guest speakers at the Forum’s Plenary Session on Friday, Emmanuel Macron’s was by far the longest. There were no new directions in his speech compared to his address to the press conference on Thursday. He emphasized repeatedly his keen interest in maintaining an ongoing dialogue with Vladimir Putin and with Russia even if their respective positions were in contradiction. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He invoked once again the historic bonds between the countries in the cultural sphere. And he made an interesting detour into literature, specifically into Tolstoy’s <i>War and Peace</i>, with references to the meeting and exchanges of views between one of the novel’s main characters, Pierre Bezukhov, a complex personality who is widely taken to be a stand-in for Tolstoy himself, and the peasant Platon Karataev, a figure who makes a brief appearance and is the spokesman for Russian folk wisdom. Macron’s attraction to their philosophical dialogues is indicative of how strongly his own studies in philosophy in college shaped his intellectual interests to this day, as a complement to his work in finance and in government. One can be sure that none of this escaped the attention of his hosts, all the more so that Macron can keep straight the characters and the titles of Russian novels, unlike the Russophobe British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, for example. In this regard, Macron fits into the intellectual world of Vladimir Putin and Russian elites far better than he does in the casino culture world of Donald Trump.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Shinzo Abe: Japan’s regression to US vassal spoils chances for the much-desired peace treaty</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Whereas Macron and France emerge from his visit to the Forum with potentially important progress in cooperation with Russia on two of the most important international security issues of the day, the timidity and lack of imagination which Shinzo Abe exhibited at the Forum and in his follow-on visit to the Kremlin for talks on Saturday render utterly unrealizable his hopes to reach a peace treaty with Russia more than 70 years after the end of WWII.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All of this was so precisely because Abe, unlike Macron, has gone backwards rather than forward and is pursuing a foreign policy heavily dependent on the United States. Macron was pushed to evoke French national interest and to oppose the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal because of the security risks failure of the Agreement poses to France and Europe. At the same time he had to scramble to find solutions to the likely threat of US sanctions against French and European companies which may persist in trading with Iran after the imposition of the US embargo. And his thinking was further defined by the trade war on Europe that Trump has threatened to unleash with imposition of tariffs on aluminum and steel, pending a fundamental review of terms of trade between the EU and the USA more favorable to the latter. As Macron’s Minister of Foreign Affairs had said with undiplomatic clarity, Europe refused to negotiate trade terms when being held hostage over steel tariffs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile, the crisis over the growing nuclear and missile delivery systems of North Korea has driven Abe in the opposite direction: straight into the waiting arms of the US administration as he pleads for more, not less protection from US weapons systems and personnel against a perceived threat from Pyongyang.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In his speeches to the Forum and at the press conference following his talks with Putin in Moscow, Prime Minister Abe noted that this is his 21st meeting with Putin and that the issue of a peace treaty remains high on the agenda. However, his determination to arrive at a peace treaty by first conditioning Japanese and Russian publics to the benefits from their joint cooperation through concrete deeds has not gone beyond his 8 identified areas of cooperation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These projects to raise Russian labor productivity, improve health care and so extend the average life expectancy, all have relatively low budgets and low visibility. The additional joint cooperation over humanitarian measures facilitating visits of Japanese citizens to the Kuriles to visit the graves of their ancestors and projects to jointly improve housekeeping on the islands, including better waste disposal – are all still smaller, one might say insignificant steps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In answer to a question from a Russian CEO already in business cooperation with Japanese partners on when Japan will raise the funding of an investment fund from its present one billion dollar level to something more in keeping with real demand, Abe made clear that absent a peace treaty he has no intention to allocate large sums of money to Russian projects. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the end of last year, as the project to build the Crimean Bridge was entering its final phase, there was considerable speculation in the Russian media that early in the new year 2018 an announcement would be made that the redoubtable bridge-building team assembled by Putin’s business ally Arkady Rotenberg for the Crimean Bridge would next be given a contract for rail bridge to connect Sakhalin Island with the mainland in the West and that agreement would be reached with Tokyo on an additional rail bridge connecting Sakhalin with the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the East. This vast project, it was said, could alter logistics of Japanese trade with Western Europe in a dramatic manner. It could capture the imagination of the Russian and Japanese peoples for a generation. In short, it could prepare the way for the hoped for peace treaty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">However, Shinzo Abe made no suggestion during his latest visit to Russia that his government is giving any thought to such a major joint infrastructure project with Russia, one which surely would not be welcomed by his American friends since it would work against the sea power that the US considers its own ace at the card table.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Shinzo Abe’s ambition for a peace treaty to be concluded with Russia during the time in power of his generation is entirely empty so long as he is unable to say what Emmanuel Macron said at the Forum: that he heads a sovereign country which has its own independent foreign policy.</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There are many observers who shrug their shoulders and cannot comprehend why Russia, the world’s largest nation by far, with more than 10% of the world’s land mass, is unwilling to hand over four small islands to Japan which it took over under the terms of an agreement among the WWII Allies to bring Russia into the war in the Pacific in its final phase. However, it is not land greed or even concern over losing sovereignty over the related mineral rights for hydrocarbons on the bottom of the sea surrounding those islands. </span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For Russia, the sticking point is the security consideration of allowing these territories with their important location in the sea lanes giving the Russian navy access to the wider Pacific coming under possible control of the United States occupation forces in Japan. For Russia, Abe is an undependable partner precisely because he is not a sovereign party but subject to decisions taken in Washington.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Japanese government’s reticence to invest in trade facilitation with Russia has results. As Vladimir Putin noted, bilateral Russian-Japanese trade falls far short of its potential. In the last year it came to just 15 billion dollars, and already fell behind Russian-South Korean trade figures, while Russian-German trade stood at 50 billion and Russian-Chinese trade reached 80 billion.</span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-82219112606856405942018-05-27T09:45:00.000-07:002018-05-27T09:45:10.062-07:00The Jerusalem Bonus and Other Revelations <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28.4px;">
Published on NEO on May 25th 2018</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, Donald Trump appears to have achieved something his predecessors never foresaw: condemnation by the MSM of Israel’s murderous apartheid policies, with popular sentiment appearing to follow. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYnDIoaZXVO-1KZJXtQo8omvct9bbvi5yxhkp05C1Nvj1qy3oqEFaIBVOpZ5IlpSI5xxco8W3p8tpW6GgKWUZDeGuTeulemNaY6ekbUZ2IQCFKgNXPQUl8X0MNBu-e5Fwkj8CbfGD_mSmY/s1600/images-9.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYnDIoaZXVO-1KZJXtQo8omvct9bbvi5yxhkp05C1Nvj1qy3oqEFaIBVOpZ5IlpSI5xxco8W3p8tpW6GgKWUZDeGuTeulemNaY6ekbUZ2IQCFKgNXPQUl8X0MNBu-e5Fwkj8CbfGD_mSmY/s400/images-9.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">To be sure, there are still ‘experts’ who appear to accept the Israeli claim that Hamas is responsible for encouraging its people to get themselves killed by charging the Israeli border. (’David’s’ response to ‘Goliath’’s tear-gas charged drones is to lob lit candles tied to balloons over the border, allowing Israel to claim it is not shooting peaceful demonstrators but only those ‘attacking’ it….)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Shortly before the first Intifada, in the mid-eighties, I visited Israel from my home in Paris, and wondered why the government had not from the start offered to share its wide-ranging expertise with its neighbors, in order to dispose them favorably toward the Jewish state that had been parachuted into an all-Arab region. It was not until the recent US Embassy ceremony in West Jerusalem that Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested that Israel was prepared to do just that — <i>if</i> the Palestinians would renounce their claim to East Jerusalem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A week after the Embassy move, as France 24 debated the situation with various European observers, the highly professional anchor could not hide his astonishment when a German journalist, his expression similar to that reserved for a civilian mass murderer, declared that the Gaza shootings had finally shattered Germany’s unconditional support for Israel. Another participant in the debate revealed a gap between the attitude of Arab leaders and their respective streets, as well as the fact that in the West, Islamic terrorism had had he effect of downgrading the Palestinian plight. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On May 20th, Tom Friedman, a popularizer of sociology who invariably pushes my buttons, admitted on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that ‘Israel does bad stuff’. Friedman noted that younger American Jews no longer share the iron-clad pro-Israeli stance of their parents: as participants in liberation movements, from Black Lives Matter to LBGT rights (and a women’s rights campaign down-graded by the ‘Me-Too’ Movement), younger American Jews realize that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is far more more reprehensible than Western social movements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In a rare show of daring, Zakaria brought in longtime Palestinian spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi, but her claim that Gazans are not being manipulated by Hamas did not convince Friedman, who criticized Trump merely for not hinting to the Palestinians that another US Embassy could see the day in East Jerusalem. Meanwhile, in its striving for legitimacy in the eyes of a largely hostile world, Israel, never missing a beat, joined Sunni Saudi Arabia’s campaign against Shia Iran, while cozying up to Iran’s ally Vladimir Putin for extra insurance, (Americans being largely ignorant of the Russian President’s efforts to bring opponents around the world to the negotiating table.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Notwithstanding this unanticipated change of attitudes toward Israel, the American MSM spent more time on a remark at a White House meeting, than on the Middle East. A young staffer’s remark that the president needn’t worry about Senator John McCain’s opinions because he was “going to die soon”, was interpreted as an insult to a national hero rather than a clear-eyed statement of fact. The woman who made the remark was pressured to telephone McCain’s family to apologize and assure them that she would do so publicly. The fact that she did not follow through on that promise gave the fourth estate yet another occasion to call attention to Trump’s lack of decorum, which gets far more attention than his use of military force.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally, and most alarmingly, new revelations by the Mueller investigation show that not only Russia, but the UAE and Saudi Arabia, (whose agents include the American Erik Prince, owner of a militia for hire), met with Donald Trump Jr., offering to support the Trump campaign in return for expected favors. The existence of an international mafia that appears to involve governments of right and left suggests that the successful impeachment of the American president — now timidly evoked — would not affect the international political and economic landscape in any meaningful way.</span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-87633417701582834232018-05-27T09:31:00.000-07:002018-05-27T09:31:14.108-07:00Russia as Refuge<div lang="en-US" style="caret-color: rgb(60, 61, 61); color: #3c3d3d; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="en-US">Posted on NEO as </span><span style="color: #14397f; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">Vladimir Putin and the Islamization of Europe</span></div>
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<span id="ctrlcopy" style="color: transparent; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/19/vladimir-putin-and-the-islamization-of-europe/" style="color: #14397f; text-decoration: none;">https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/19/vladimir-putin-and-the-islamization-of-europe/</a></span></span></h1>
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<span lang="en-US">Today I got the answer to a question that had intrigued me ever since the start of the European refugee crisis spawned by US wars in the Third World: what position would Russia take vis a vis these mainly Muslims populations seeking new homes when Europe became overcrowded? President Putin’s conviction that </span><span lang="pt-PT">multiculturalism</span><span lang="en-US"> doesn’t work suggests that notwithstanding his equally strong commitment to equity and humanitarian relief, he would not open Russia’s vast territory to these refugees, even though Russia is a multi-national country that includes 15% of Muslims.</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US">Today </span><span lang="en-US">Russia Insider</span><span lang="en-US"> posted a <a href="https://russia-insider.com/en/family-hounded-out-germany-liberal-extremists-settles-russia/ri22580?ct=ct" style="color: rgb(213, 24, 24) !important; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">story</a> </span><span lang="en-US">about a German-Russian family that fled harassment in Germany and was welcomed in Russia. (Down through the ages, Germans have settled in Russia, and their descendants refer to themselves as Russian Germans.) This warm, fuzzy human interest story suggests that Vladimir Putin’s Russia will be a refugee destination for Europeans displaced by Islamization.</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US">I’ve often stated my conviction that nothing will be able to prevent Europe from being <a href="https://www.otherjones.com/2012/04/islam-vs-crusaders-old-and-new.html;http://www.otherjones.com/search?q=ISlamization+of+Europe" style="color: rgb(213, 24, 24) !important; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Islamized</a>.</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US">As this process continues relentlessly, Europe’s original Caucasian inhabitants may head to Russia and the vast Caucasian Heartland, an idea may not be as far-fetched as it sounds: In his March 1 speech, President Putin announced that free land would be offered to immigrants, and that the Russian state would make it easier for foreigners to become citizens.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Steve Hague, Life in Russia blog</td></tr>
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<span lang="en-US">It is noteworthy that most of Russia’s Muslim neighbors do not feel that they have to migrate in order to have a decent life. Russia has helped them modernize, even building new mosques for their growing populations. (As for those who do migrate, d</span><span lang="en-US">uring my brief visit to St Petersburg last year, at sunset, a taxi driver drove his vehicle onto an out-of-the-way sidewalk, apologized, and kneeled there on his prayer mat for about ten minutes. </span><span lang="en-US">There are mosques in all the major Russian cities, and in 2015 the 1904 Moscow Cathedral Mosque was renovated to accommodate up to ten thousand worshippers.)<span id="ctrlcopy" style="color: transparent; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;"><br /><a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/19/vladimir-putin-and-the-islamization-of-europe/" style="color: rgb(213, 24, 24) !important; text-decoration: none;">https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/19/vladimir-putin-and-the-islamization-of-europe/</a></span></span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-87938390163285567972018-05-18T10:01:00.000-07:002018-05-18T10:02:43.665-07:00Russia Slaps US, Europe with Counter-Sanctions<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm reposting this article by Paul Goncharoff, an American businessman who has lived and worked in Russia for decades, first published by Russiafeed.com.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The good book tells us “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Then it follows that Washington and its co-sanctioning colleagues among EU and NATO countries must surely be purer than freshly fallen virgin snow, and free to pelt </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Russia with all the stones they wish, including the first one.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">One of Russia's Latest Electric Locomotives</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the beginning, the west’s trade punishments took the form of travel bans and asset freezes, then they were strengthened to restrict borrowing and access to U.S. technology (for Russian government-controlled companies) and made it very difficult if not impossible for some of Russia’s businesses to trade with the United States. Given the current western political climate some Russian companies fully expect to be hit with still more rounds of sanctions. In the words of one Moscow CEO who commented on Washington’s position, “When poorly thought through ideas becomes standardized, the inertia of bad policies persists and keeps growing with a mind of its own”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This past January saw the U.S. Treasury Department naming several Russian businesspersons in a so-called “oligarchs’ list”. It would seem that any Russian who makes it onto the Forbes list is an “Oligarch”, deeply steeped in the miasma of imputed corruption, and not just a successful businessperson with achievements in a challenging environment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Since then Washington has called for additional sanctions, probably just to keep in practice with this fashionable “diplomatic tool” that is all the rage these past several political seasons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Back then President Putin had some comments; “It is, of course, an unfriendly act. It will complicate the difficult situation Russian-American relations are already in, and of course harm international relations as a whole.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He went on to say it was “stupid” to lump Russia together with North Korea and Iran, while at the same time asking Moscow to help broker a peace deal on the Korean peninsula, or help destroy ISIS. Nonetheless, he said he wanted to improve ties with the United States and would refrain from any immediate retaliation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He concluded by saying; “I will not hide it, we are ready to take retaliatory steps, serious ones, which would have reduced our relations to zero, but for now, we will refrain from these steps. But we will carefully watch how the situation develops.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The situation and pressures have only ratcheted up with increased tempo since this winter. M<b>ay 17th</b> the Russian Parliament (State Duma) <b>adopted in its second reading</b> a draft law on counter-sanctions to those imposed by the US and other foreign states “that commit unfriendly acts against the Russian Federation”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The third reading</b> of the draft law on counter-sanctions will take place next week and its subsequent final adoption is <b>expected on May 22</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the current proposed bill, six points have been selected which have allowed influence by the United States and other foreign states in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation. Measures are being considered on how best to address these areas of activity:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Stop or suspend international cooperation with unfriendly foreign states, as well as organizations directly or indirectly under the jurisdiction or influence of unfriendly countries.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Impose a ban or <b>restrict the import</b> of products or raw materials by organizations that are under the direct or indirect jurisdiction of unfriendly foreign states.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Impose a ban or <b>restrict the export</b> of products or raw materials by organizations that are under the direct or indirect jurisdiction of unfriendly foreign states.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Prohibit or restrict organizations under the direct or indirect jurisdiction of unfriendly foreign states to participate in state public procurements.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Prohibit or restrict organizations under the direct or indirect jurisdiction of unfriendly foreign states to participate in privatization.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The president of the Russian Federation has the right to take “other measures” as he sees fit.</span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One of the sticking points was if an entity’s “foreign participation” were directly or indirectly more than 25% controlled by American or other unfriendly foreign interests then they would be banned from international cooperation, participation in privatization and public procurement. By the time this second reading took place this point was eased back to read simply “directly or indirectly controlled” by unfriendly countries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So here we are, descending from “good business partners” to “unfriendly countries”, what is the endgame, who wins? And what? The only immediate beneficiaries of this tit for tat sanctioning and then counter-sanctioning are the international law firms in the relevant capital cities billing clients to unravel this escalating hairball.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These new counter-sanctions ideas are <b>mild</b> when compared to those already arrayed against Russia. It looks like diplomatic and political “restraint” accurately describe Russia’s position even now after the many successive sanctioning regimes imposed against them. The question remains, for how long will forbearance, responsible diplomacy and restraint last? With Russia patience is not an endless quality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It might be worth everyone’s time and effort to dial back a bit, take a breath, and reassess calmly outside of the newsy political noise. Have sanctions produced positive effects for Europe? For Washington? Perhaps Washington, London and Brussels should try presenting Russia a “Reset” button again instead of throwing stones. This time the reset button should be correctly labelled, and not spell “overload” yet again in Russian…. the line between tragedy and farce is often a thin one.</span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-88695551188929901042018-05-16T16:02:00.001-07:002018-05-16T16:02:28.242-07:00Good Versus Bad Authoritarians<div lang="en-US" style="caret-color: rgb(60, 61, 61); color: #3c3d3d; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="en-US">Published on NEO on May 5th</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US">Here are large excerpts from a recent </span><span lang="en-US">Time</span><span lang="en-US"> magazine article about a new-comer to the world stage. As you read it, compare it to the way the Russian President, Vladimir Putin is treated by the US and its media:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhix4qY9H5S2GxJmilLDFJd-vVutV84-5iFx-NwqNJXpysuVG6Tai3A_MOgAXs2HSgYQrrDj7cNBQWldSoLBGUlHH3qYvfuvz02tYfUlXko18InJo3JyULhFppXYeGx-IeqOSHY4gf8kyFd/s1600/images-8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhix4qY9H5S2GxJmilLDFJd-vVutV84-5iFx-NwqNJXpysuVG6Tai3A_MOgAXs2HSgYQrrDj7cNBQWldSoLBGUlHH3qYvfuvz02tYfUlXko18InJo3JyULhFppXYeGx-IeqOSHY4gf8kyFd/s400/images-8.jpeg" /></a><em>“<span lang="en-US">What Bin Salman is proposing is potentially destabilizing. He has sent dozens of nonviolent clerics and Islamic intellectuals to prison, leading current and former U.S. officials to question whether his talk of reform masks a crackdown on dissent,”</span> <span lang="en-US">although </span>“<span lang="en-US">More people today probably feel better about their country, particularly young people,</span>” <span lang="en-US">according to a former top White House official, who adds:</span> “<span lang="en-US">But people have suffered, and the political repression has not lightened up. This is not a democratic reform.</span>”</em></div>
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<span lang="en-US">If applied to Russia, these would words would make front-page head-lines, but </span><span lang="en-US">Time</span><span lang="en-US"> has no opinion on the matter: “If it works, Bin Salman’s putative revolution could transform one of world</span>’<span lang="en-US">s most retrograde auto-</span><span lang="es-ES">cracie</span><span lang="en-US">s into a force for global progress. He is an ambitious young man willing to act aggressively and decisively to consolidate power, according</span> <span lang="en-US">to a former U.S. ambassador under President George H.W. Bush. [But] the rashness of much of what he has been doing—</span>it’<span lang="en-US">s pretty radical stuff—it does make him vulnerable….’</span>”<span lang="en-US"> (Not “this is unacceptable”, but it could be dangerous FOR HIM!)</span></div>
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<em>“<span lang="en-US">In the U.S., Bin Salman has found some important supporters, including President Donald Trump… but is this a savvy transaction by a young guy who knows his country has to change, but who intends to maintain strict and authoritarian control at home, or will it alter the American conception of his country,” i.e., condemn it as an authoritarian regime.</span> <span lang="en-US">“One former State Department official mused</span> <span lang="en-US">‘We prayed for a leader like this, but beware of wishing something you don</span>’<span lang="en-US">t really want.’</span>”</em></div>
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<span lang="en-US">(<strong>Translation</strong>: The US worries if forward-looking leaders become ‘too’ authoritarian’, but would not dream of ceasing cooperation if they are ‘on our side’.)</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US">When</span> <span lang="en-US">Bin Salman’s father goes, the throne will skip an entire generation — hundreds of middle-aged princes — including his cousin cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, who was removed as crown prince</span> <span lang="en-US">last June, replacing him with Salman, “who is quietly but ruthlessly consolidating power in the kind of bold strokes that would have left Niccol</span><span lang="it-IT">ò </span><span lang="en-US">Machiavelli feeling bashful.” B</span>et<span lang="en-US">ting everything on him, “the king </span>ma<span lang="en-US">de</span> <span lang="en-US">him Defense Minister in charge of what was then the world</span>’<span lang="en-US">s third largest military budget, after the U.S. and China’ and what did he do? He promptly launched a war against neighboring Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries. He was also named head of the behemoth state oil company, chief of economic development and deputy crown prince, which should enable him to fund his ambitious modernization projects. But that was not enough: Five months later, Salman</span><span lang="fr-FR"> imprison</span><span lang="en-US">ed dozens of princes, aides and businessmen in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, </span><span lang="it-IT">accus</span><span lang="en-US">ing them</span> <span lang="en-US">of</span><span lang="fr-FR">corruption</span><span lang="en-US">. </span><span lang="en-US">Dispensing with</span> <span lang="en-US">legality (one aide, who died in custody, showed signs of physical abuse), Salman claims to have recovered</span> <span lang="en-US">100 </span>billion<span lang="en-US"> dollars from his hostages.</span> <span lang="en-US">As the</span> <span lang="en-US">New York Times</span><span lang="en-US"> reported, in the understatement of the year: </span></div>
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<em>“<span lang="en-US">He was far more powerful than people assumed, and the opposition was far weaker ……..” “According to one Western ambassador: ‘Whether shakedown or rough justice, the Ritz episode eliminated Salman’s chief political rivals and cemented his power in a bloodless coup d</span><span lang="fr-FR">’é</span>tat<span lang="en-US"> of the old system, rattling investor faith in the country</span>’<span lang="en-US">s stability. Power that had been distributed very widely under a checks-and-balances arrangement has been compressed and concentrated into the hands of one man.’ “Salman also fits into the</span><span lang="it-IT"> global trend</span><span lang="en-US"> toward authoritarianism, </span>tak<span lang="en-US">ing even greater control of the media, and, according to a UN panel ‘</span><span lang="es-ES">arbitrarily</span><span lang="en-US">’</span><span lang="fr-FR"> imprison</span><span lang="en-US">ing 60 activists, journalists, academics and clerics since September. (Not very different from what the much maligned Turkish leader gets up to, it seems, but Erdogan is no longer really on our side, so together with the Europeans, we come down hard on him.) “Salman admits that he has no plans to dilute his power in the coming 50 years that he might rule. ‘What we should focus on is the end, not the means. If the means are taking us to that end, that good end, and everyone agrees on it, it will be good.’</span> <span lang="en-US">Salman says he ultimately wants freedom of speech, improved employment, economic growth, security and stability for his country. And he says his absolutist approach is a better means to get it than the chaos that followed the Arab Spring elsewhere in the region.”</span></em></div>
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<span lang="en-US">Similarly, the White House is happy to provide</span> intel<span lang="en-US">ligence, midair refueling and billions of dollars of munitions for what the U.N. calls </span>“<span lang="en-US">the worst man-made humanitarian disaster of our time,</span>”<span lang="en-US"> while Salman</span> <span lang="en-US">contemplates</span> sending<span lang="en-US"> ground troops into Yemen, his priority being that the war remain painless for his people</span>. “<span lang="en-US">We want to be assured that whatever happens, the people shouldn</span>’<span lang="en-US">t feel it,</span>” <span lang="en-US">he says. The economy shouldn</span>’<span lang="en-US">t be harmed or even feel it. So we are trying to be sure that we are far away from whatever escalation happens.</span>”</div>
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<span lang="en-US">Shortly after receiving Trump in Riyadh last May, Salman</span><span lang="sv-SE"> blockad</span><span lang="en-US">ed</span> <span lang="en-US">Qatar</span>. <span lang="en-US">In November, after Lebanon’s Prime Minister announced his resignation, he ordered him to Riyadh and kept him for more than two weeks.</span> <span lang="en-US">It was not the US, but French President Macron, who made it clear that this was unacceptable before the unofficial prisoner was allowed to returned home and recant his resignation.</span></div>
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<em>“<span lang="en-US">The one policy that progressives can welcome is Salman’s softening of Saudi attitudes</span> toward<span lang="en-US"> Israel while remaining firm on the question of Palestinian rights. ‘We have a common enemy (Iran), and it seems that we have a lot of potential areas for</span><span lang="it-IT"> economic</span><span lang="en-US"> cooperation’</span>, <span lang="en-US">he told </span>T<span lang="en-US">ime</span>.<span lang="en-US"> Voicing the opinion of the young and progressive worldwide, he says: ‘We cannot have relations with Israel before solving the peace issue with the Palestinians because both of them they have the right to live and coexist, and when that happens, the next day we</span>’<span lang="en-US">ll have good and normal relation with Israel and it will be in the best for everyone.’</span>”</em></div>
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<span lang="en-US">Now, placed alongside this portrait of the world’s latest ‘authoritarian’, (were it not for the oil, he would be properly referred to as a dictator), the ‘sins’ of Russian President Vladimir Putin are holding referenda and defending separatism in regions of a neighboring country ruled by Nazis. As depicted by </span><span lang="en-US">Time</span><span lang="en-US"> magazine, the US has no problem either with the arbitrary arrest, detention and shakedowns of citizens, or aggression against a vulnerable neighbor. “Might makes right” as long as it is perpetrated by a neo-liberal who defends Wall Street-run globalization. </span><span lang="en-US">Time</span><span lang="en-US"> has no problem with Salman’s thuggish approach to government, laying it all out there. But when it comes to Vladimir Putin, who rescued his country from looters, retained and improved socialist protections for his people, while helping sovereign leaders resolve disputes through negotiations, the label ‘authoritarian’ is too mild:</span> <span lang="en-US">he is ‘a former KGB officer’ and a thug </span><span lang="it-IT">straddling</span><span lang="en-US"> an ill-gotten pile of wealth.<span id="ctrlcopy" style="color: transparent; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;"><br /><a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/05/good-versus-bad-authoritarians/" style="color: rgb(213, 24, 24) !important; text-decoration: none;">https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/05/good-versus-bad-authoritarians/</a></span></span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-76102186545683335312018-05-16T15:39:00.000-07:002018-05-16T15:39:07.328-07:00Angels Dancing on a Pin<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28.4px;">
Posted on NEO on May 10th</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3PVyu-DkR_mjsKgx3y6EDjr6pllbSVAlTYXHsaRjbIn1a4PigFyBw86UXEtCOPRFSvPtUH8Y2_ZYNtQqE2JCMwHRt-nlxbloWxhmc4sWzbWEtMGGGe7KI7aqAHXwVsZfyVqSpvg0I9B2m/s1600/images-7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3PVyu-DkR_mjsKgx3y6EDjr6pllbSVAlTYXHsaRjbIn1a4PigFyBw86UXEtCOPRFSvPtUH8Y2_ZYNtQqE2JCMwHRt-nlxbloWxhmc4sWzbWEtMGGGe7KI7aqAHXwVsZfyVqSpvg0I9B2m/s400/images-7.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">Twenty-four/seven reporting on the Mueller investigation is beginning to look like nothing so much as the medieval scholasticism summed up in the question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As each new member of the cast of characters has his or her ‘day in the limelight’ while dreading his or her possible ‘day in court’, every sliver of information is presented as ‘breaking news’ — a headline usually reserved for earth-shattering events such as an invasion or an earthquake. Events that outside observers might consider vital are so completely absent from American ‘news’ that one is forced to wonder whether editorial decisions are politically motivated, or whether, more worryingly, the press has ended up believing its own version of reality, that excludes foreign peoples and places. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The notion that the United States is ‘the indispensable nation’ implies that Americans must everywhere intervene to make the world safe for ‘democracy’. And since the media spends ever less time informing the public about that world, they are oblivious to the fact that, with NGO help, their government engineers so-called ‘popular uprisings’ that eventually end up ‘requiring’ US intervention, which are viewed as aggressions by those on the receiving end<i>.</i> Currently, one such uprising is taking place in the tiny nation of Armenia, which borders on Iran, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and which, like the latter two, is a former Soviet Republic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The US intervened twice in Georgia since the turn of the century, creating one of the most unstable governments in Russia’s near abroad (so unstable that its US educated president, Mikhail Sakashvili, was given the boot. (He went to nearby Ukraine, where he twice tried to overthrow the US-installed government backed by fascist militias). The US plan is to bring both countries into NATO, the better to get in the face of the Russian government. As happened in these nations, George Soros’s <i>Open Society</i> leads a parade of seemingly innocuous NGO’s devoted to the spread of American-style ‘democracy’ in Armenia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That democracy currently relies on angels dancing on the head of a pin. The idea that Donald Trump could be impeached has made its way from Hillary voters’ minds, to those of pundits and politicians of both parties — who show off their detailed knowledge of the 1974 Watergate player who forced Richard Nixon to resign, and Bill Clinton’s ordeal with a nineties special prosecutor over an affair with a White House intern. (He was impeached but not convicted.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Trump assures journalists that he would love to sit down with Robert Mueller, who is investigating him for collusion with Russia, while his lawyers oppose it, knowing that the president would probably perjure himself within five minutes. As if recognizing this, in a recent speech the President hinted that he could be impeached, warning darkly that this would create a lot of unhappy people, many of whom, one assumes, would be gun owners. (I tried to find this sentence on the web, but it had apparently been scrubbed.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the other hand, the fact that ‘born again’ Christians still support Trump, notwithstanding his egregious disregard for morality, may be less of a miracle than a way of ensuring that in 2020, he could be succeeded by Vice President Mike Pence, one of their own. Pence is pro-family and church and rigidly against abortion. His point of reference is the Old Bible which features ‘Armageddon’ in the Holy Land, i.e., Israel, followed by ‘The Rapture’, in which Christ’s followers are whisked off to heaven as the earth implodes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The 2013 film <i>Elysium </i>portrays the horrific (secular) life of those left behind when the wealthy create a perfect world on another planet. By 2020, the feckless state of the Democratic Party guarantees that almost anything could happen unless dancing angels intervene. </span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-45514006478043046832018-05-16T15:28:00.000-07:002018-05-16T15:28:05.270-07:00Eastward From the Koreas<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28.4px;">
Published on May 14th by NEO, updated May 15th</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Certainly kudos go to President Trump for ending a sixty-four year old standoff with North Korea, but let’s not pretend that he was in charge of the process. When news anchors mention that a deal would bring an end to the Korean War, they are referring to a formal treaty that would end an increasingly dangerous situation created by the US sixty-four years ago — and now modified by North Korea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">All the drip drip in the world — Mike Pence meets Kim, Kim and his wife spend a day with South Korea’s presidential couple (US reports confined to the ballet between the two leaders on the dividing line), Trump surrogates bring up the possibility of a Nobel Peace Prize, announcement of the location (Singapore which, under authoritarian leadership, has become an Asian Tiger), Korea releases three American prisoners, Trump announces the June 12th date — none of this can change the fact that the credit goes to Kim Jong Un. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No American journalist has acknowledged the fact that while appearing to behave like an adolescent, North Korea’s leader was diligently building up his nuclear arsenal and missile-delivery capability to the point where bombs could reach the US mainland (never mind Japan and South Korea). That is when the US suddenly ‘decided’ that the time had come to end the division of the Korean peninsula. (France 24 is forgiven for recycling a report on South Koreans queuing up for North Korea’s signature cold noodle dish, since, unlike the US media, it also covered the day-long visit between the two leaders and their spouses, including the formers’ joyful expressions and body thumping. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While the US continues to fret over weapons, for both Koreas, this play is all about getting back together, a move which the US has until now prevented. Younger Americans will not be brought up to speed on the history of the Korean War, fought according to the then prevalent ‘domino theory’, to prevent Chinese Communism from spreading to its neighbor. The press will not mention that, having fought the war to a standstill, the US refused to allow a formal treaty, opting for half a loaf: a capitalist south with a 25,000 strong ‘defensive’ force. Although the US has long since made up with Communist China, which now touts ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’, a reunited Korea would still not be in the offing had Kim not stuck to his all or nothing stakes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Between now and the fateful meeting, American academic and political pundits will continue to express doubt that North Korea will actually dismantle its nuclear program, evoking past unkept promises without referring to Washington’s own failures to deliver on aid, and never acknowledging that the US was faced with a choice between being nuked and coming to the table. The North’s operable words are ‘working toward denuclearization’, while the US gives the impressions that it expects denuclearization to happen overnight. In a bizarre demonstration of logic, even normally level-headed progressive Representative Barbara Lee declared that Trump’s abandonment of the Iran Agreement was ‘proof’ that Kim would not follow through on denuclearization! Instead of recognizing that Kim has seamlessly switched from outrageous rhetoric to traditional diplomatic protocol by releasing three American prisoners in advance of the summit, pundits continue to spout the rhetoric of the previous phase, signaling their own lack of intellectual flexibility.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFV6Wm3ubZMsWA676acX7GgTvUHN6-bKRYdP19g30vuLx_CQjqbAxvWn5vs86T983Ru8_AYFSoMW54jMzMuBkJkVSyDlQqR7Qp7lwPgABDTglvMu93NVdrBEqFALk2pmy2lMZxb8kzNkZM/s1600/Unknown-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFV6Wm3ubZMsWA676acX7GgTvUHN6-bKRYdP19g30vuLx_CQjqbAxvWn5vs86T983Ru8_AYFSoMW54jMzMuBkJkVSyDlQqR7Qp7lwPgABDTglvMu93NVdrBEqFALk2pmy2lMZxb8kzNkZM/s400/Unknown-3.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">Indeed, the US appears so clueless that it didn’t think it had to reciprocate Kim’s gestures. Kim’s hint that he expects the US to reciprocate his having initiated the dismantling of his nuclear program by cancelling its latest military drills with South Korea is seen instead as a first sign that there can be no deal. It never crosses an American military or political leader's mind that it should have to make a goodwill gesture toward any other country, least of all one which has supposedly pulled the plug on previous deals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">Donald Trump’s simultaneous abandonment of the nuclear treaty with Iran that is recognized by all experts as working, may have been intended to show that the US still calls the shots, but it also gives Kim a reason to wonder how tight his own deal with the US will be.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">However, having given Israel a green light to attack Iranian positions supporting pro-Shia President Assad in Syria, moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and declared that he will punish Europeans who do business with Iran, “Trump will create the greatest division between Europe and the U.S. since the Iraq War,” in the words of Robin Wright: </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-destroys-the-iran-dealand-a-lot-more?mbid=nl_Daily%2520050918&CNDID=50461342&spMailingID=13475791&spUserID=MjA3NzYwNDgyMjE3S0&spJobID=1400829189&spReportId=MTQwMDgyOTE4OQS2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 153); color: #000099;">https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-destroys-the-iran-dealand-a-lot-more?mbid=nl_Daily%20050918&CNDID=50461342&spMailingID=13475791&spUserID=MjA3NzYwNDgyMjE3S0&spJobID=1400829189&spReportId=MTQwMDgyOTE4OQS2</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">Coming on top of the 2008 financial crisis and the avalanche of third world refugees fleeing US wars, the prospect of economic sanctions have only reinforced the conviction of Angela Merkel and Emanuel Macron, the US’s closest European allies, that the old continent must be free to choose its friends.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the other hand, Donald Trump may hope that a European turn toward Moscow will limit the ability of the American deep state to prevent his own rapprochement with Vladimir Putin. </span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-11327502727960046152018-05-07T10:15:00.002-07:002018-05-07T10:18:59.164-07:00Vladimir Putin Inaugurated for Fourth Term<div class="read__top is-top_media" style="background-color: #fefefe; border: none; caret-color: rgb(2, 12, 34); color: #020c22; font-family: "ITCFranklinGothicW10-Bk 862339", arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 75px 0px 45px;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">Following US efforts to condemn Vladimir Putin's 70%+ election win for a fourth presidential term, Americans will look in vain for anything related to his inauguration in the US media. I apologize for being unable to force my blog template to allow me to modify the spacing on this report, which reveals the 'former KGB agent's' evil designs. (This text was downloaded from the highly dangerous website <i>President of Russia.....)</i></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: 32px;">Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as President of Russia</span></h1>
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Vladimir Putin has been inaugurated as President of Russia in a ceremony that took place at the Grand Kremlin Palace. </div>
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<div class="slide cycle-slide cycle-sentinel" data-cycle-desc="Before Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." style="bottom: 0px; height: 419.3333435058594px; left: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: static; top: 0px; visibility: hidden; width: 680px; z-index: 63;">
<div class="slider__block" data-text="Before Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." style="height: 419.3333435058594px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; visibility: hidden; width: 680px;">
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<div class="slide starting-slide cycle-slide cycle-slide-active" data-cycle-desc="Vladimir Putin takes the oath to the people of Russia." style="bottom: 0px; height: 419.3333435058594px; left: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 680px; z-index: 100;">
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Vladimir Putin takes the oath to the people of Russia.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index1" rel="1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>The ceremony opened as the National Flag, the President’s Standard, the Russian Constitution and the President’s Badge were brought into St Andrew’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index2" rel="2" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>According to Article 82 of the Russian Constitution, Vladimir Putin took the oath to the people of Russia in the presence of Federation Council members, members of the State Duma and judges of the Russian Constitutional Court. Constitutional Court President <a class="person_tag read__tag" href="http://en.kremlin.ru/catalog/persons/170/events" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(147, 206, 191); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #020c22; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 1.4s cubic-bezier(0.23, 1, 0.32, 1);">Valery Zorkin</a> announced Vladimir Putin the new President of the Russian Federation.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index3" rel="3" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Afterwards, Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, reviewed the Presidential Regiment on Cathedral Square to mark his inauguration. The Presidential Regiment marks its 82<sup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">nd</sup> anniversary today.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index4" rel="4" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>After the inauguration ceremony, President of Russia Vladimir Putin briefly met with representatives of public youth associations and volunteer organisations.</div>
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Later, Patriarch <a class="person_tag read__tag" href="http://en.kremlin.ru/catalog/persons/445/events" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(147, 206, 191); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #020c22; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 1.4s cubic-bezier(0.23, 1, 0.32, 1);">Kirill</a> of Moscow and All Russia served a thanksgiving service at the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "itcfranklingothicw10-md 862399" , "arial" , sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="masha_index masha_index6" rel="6" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Speech at the inauguration ceremony as President of Russia</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "itcfranklingothicw10-md 862399" , "arial" , sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="masha_index masha_index7" rel="7" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Vladimir Putin</span>: Citizens of Russia, ladies and gentlemen, friends,</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index8" rel="8" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>I salute all the citizens of our great nation and compatriots living abroad, all those who are watching the broadcast of this ceremony and all those present here today, in the historic halls of the Kremlin and on the ancient Cathedral Square.</div>
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<figure class="media__pic" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="background-color: #e2e3e4; background-image: url(http://en.kremlin.ru/static/img/svg/logo_slider.svg); background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 64px 65px; clear: both; cursor: default; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." class="image" src="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big/TPc1CDbukATvZGii1qeof2ImNSMKTSuB.jpg" height="580" itemprop="contentUrl" srcset="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big2x/tDOgY5Lfx8dkNMA0zVTgNdO4noxiGfAP.jpg 2x" style="background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(152, 37, 44) 0%, rgba(152, 37, 44, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(270deg, rgb(203, 180, 133) 0%, rgba(203, 180, 133, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(0deg, rgb(12, 20, 93) 0%, rgba(12, 20, 93, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(rgb(74, 117, 167) 0%, rgba(74, 117, 167, 0) 100%); display: block; height: auto; margin: auto; padding: 0px; width: 680px;" width="940" /></figure><span class="media__title player__title" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; max-width: 680px; overflow: hidden; padding: 16px 0px 13px;"></span></div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index9" rel="9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>As I am about to take office as the President of Russia, I am keenly aware of the immense responsibility towards each and every one of you, and towards our entire multi-ethnic nation. I am aware of my responsibility towards Russia, a country of magnificent victories and accomplishments, towards the history of the Russian state that goes back centuries and towards our ancestors. Their courage, relentless work, undefeatable unity, and the way they sanctified their homeland are eternal examples of their dedication to their Fatherland.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index10" rel="10" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>I believe that it is my duty and the meaning of my entire life to do everything for Russia, its present and future, to ensure that it is peaceful and prosperous, to preserve and perpetuate our great people, and bring prosperity to every household in Russia. Let me assure you that just as before I will devote my life and my work to serving the people and our Fatherland. This is my outmost aspiration.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index11" rel="11" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>I would like to thank the citizens of Russia for their unity, for believing that together we can change many things for the better. Let me extend my gratitude to you one more time. Thank you for the sincere support I received from the citizens of Russia at the presidential election. I view this support as a huge political asset and a reliable moral backing. This support is a sign of faith and a sign of hope that Russia will continue to build up its strength while its people will live better. This support is also essential for asserting our positions on the international stage and for taking resolute action for promoting far-reaching, positive change within the country.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index12" rel="12" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Russia must be a modern and vibrant country ready to take up the challenges of time and respond to them with all its energy in order to consistently build up its leadership in areas where our positions have been traditionally strong. At the same time, we need to work with confidence and diligence and to harness all our willpower in areas where we have yet to achieve the results we aspire to, where a lot has yet to be done.</div>
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<figure class="media__pic" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="background-color: #e2e3e4; background-image: url(http://en.kremlin.ru/static/img/svg/logo_slider.svg); background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 64px 65px; clear: both; cursor: default; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." class="image" src="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big/RLMJTQv7U2E9COS8lBWB6vEUiZwrCzxA.jpg" height="580" itemprop="contentUrl" srcset="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big2x/zUAvVxrT13T1tSECJ9lEmqEINvAvE9GL.jpg 2x" style="background-image: linear-gradient(270deg, rgb(251, 224, 165) 0%, rgba(251, 224, 165, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(54, 33, 25) 0%, rgba(54, 33, 25, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(rgb(184, 128, 101) 0%, rgba(184, 128, 101, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(0deg, rgb(74, 135, 230) 0%, rgba(74, 135, 230, 0) 100%); display: block; height: auto; margin: auto; padding: 0px; width: 680px;" width="940" /></figure><span class="media__title player__title" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; max-width: 680px; overflow: hidden; padding: 16px 0px 13px;"></span></div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index13" rel="13" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>The way forward is never easy. It is always a challenging journey. But there is only one thing history never forgives: indifference and inconsistency, slackness and complacency, which rings especially true today, at this turning point in history, as the entire world is undergoing rapid change.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index14" rel="14" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>The objectives we face and the decisions we will be called upon to take are without exaggeration historic in their scale. They will determine the future of our Fatherland for decades to come. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us that will require the entire Russian society to come together. Every one of us, all responsible political forces and civil society movements, united by the fact that they sincerely care for Russia, must be proactive in these efforts.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index15" rel="15" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>We need breakthroughs in all areas of life. I strongly believe that only a free society that is open to all new and cutting-edge advances, while rejecting injustice, ignorance, crass conservatism and bureaucratic red tape, is callable of achieving these breakthroughs. We must cast aside everything that constrains people, prevents them from fully unleashing their potential and their talents, becoming a barrier for the development of the entire nation.</div>
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<figure class="media__pic" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="background-color: #e2e3e4; background-image: url(http://en.kremlin.ru/static/img/svg/logo_slider.svg); background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 64px 65px; clear: both; cursor: default; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." class="image" src="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big/lwgmoHw3foreHpSl3NPgInL9M9OQFrk2.jpg" height="580" itemprop="contentUrl" srcset="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big2x/BAF1EYAQSqxSOTyDeZQer9WMG9vPcAAS.jpg 2x" style="background-image: linear-gradient(0deg, rgb(210, 205, 219) 0%, rgba(210, 205, 219, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(270deg, rgb(237, 200, 120) 0%, rgba(237, 200, 120, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(195, 161, 160) 0%, rgba(195, 161, 160, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(rgb(217, 169, 75) 0%, rgba(217, 169, 75, 0) 100%); display: block; height: auto; margin: auto; padding: 0px; width: 680px;" width="940" /></figure><span class="media__title player__title" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; max-width: 680px; overflow: hidden; padding: 16px 0px 13px;"></span></div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index16" rel="16" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Friends, this year we will be marking the 25<sup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">th</sup> anniversary of the Russian Constitution. It stresses the unconditional primacy and priority of the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens. It is the harmony between free individuals, responsible civil society and a strong, active and democratic state that creates a solid foundation for the development of Russia.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index17" rel="17" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>We have coped with the most difficult economic and social problems. We have realised that, while changing with the world, we should not break away from our own roots, our own history and multinational culture. We have understood that all our beauty and strength are in our distinctness and unity. We have learned to uphold our interests and revived pride in our homeland and our traditional values. Experience shows that today, too, we must cherish what has been achieved and, based on this to move only forward.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index18" rel="18" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Of course, we should keep pace with the global changes and organise our breakthrough development agenda so that no obstacles or circumstances could prevent us from determining our future on our own and only on our own and from implementing our boldest plans and dreams. But at the same time, we are open to dialogue. Along with our partners, we will actively promote our integration projects and build up business, humanitarian, cultural and scientific ties.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index19" rel="19" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>We are in favour of equitable and mutually beneficial cooperation with all states in the interests of peace and stability on our planet. </div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index20" rel="20" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Russia is a strong, active and influential participant in international life; the country’s security and defence capability are reliably assured. We will continue to pay the necessary, close attention to these issues. </div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index21" rel="21" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>But now, we must use all the opportunities available to us primarily to address the most vital domestic development objectives, to achieve an economic and technological breakthrough, and to enhance competitiveness in the spheres that determine the future. A new quality of life, wellbeing, security and health are what constitutes our main goals and the focus of our policies. Our reference point is Russia for the people, a country of opportunities for self-fulfilment for each person. </div>
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<figure class="media__pic" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="background-color: #e2e3e4; background-image: url(http://en.kremlin.ru/static/img/svg/logo_slider.svg); background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 64px 65px; clear: both; cursor: default; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." class="image" src="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big/VbmQENGJ4AGAo37L60LIygMJwXcxOZEx.jpg" height="580" itemprop="contentUrl" srcset="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big2x/834dmjU0AoFkxdur3jEw6EcKcoxo7SFc.jpg 2x" style="background-image: linear-gradient(270deg, rgb(238, 198, 135) 0%, rgba(238, 198, 135, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(0deg, rgb(90, 128, 251) 0%, rgba(90, 128, 251, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(34, 48, 60) 0%, rgba(34, 48, 60, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(rgb(161, 84, 102) 0%, rgba(161, 84, 102, 0) 100%); display: block; height: auto; margin: auto; padding: 0px; width: 680px;" width="940" /></figure><span class="media__title player__title" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; max-width: 680px; overflow: hidden; padding: 16px 0px 13px;"></span></div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index22" rel="22" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>I strongly believe that everyday challenges people face and demands they have are directly linked to the goals we have as a nation. In fact, this is the only way to put in place the needed conditions for promoting creativity and development, and creating an atmosphere of shared responsibility, support and trust in society, which is essential.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index23" rel="23" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Every person must understand that only our proactive engagement in the country’s affairs can add new momentum to renewal. No one will do it for us, since all of us, the citizens of Russia, are the main force of change.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index24" rel="24" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>The more people in all walks of life, professions and authority realise the importance of the role they must play in improving how we live, the more effective and rapid will our progress be.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index25" rel="25" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>State and municipal authorities have a special responsibility. People have every right to expect matters that cause them concern to be resolved without delay, to have their proposals, observations and demands treated with due attention, so that such things as reputation, honour, generosity and openness become a norm of life for the officials at all levels of government.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index26" rel="26" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>We must give more freedom to entrepreneurs and researchers, to creative and active people who care, and to all who want to reinvent the world. For me, this is a guarantee of continuity in our strategy and efforts to promote steady development in Russia. I look forward to novel ideas and approaches, to the audacity of young people and their ability to lead the change.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index27" rel="27" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>I hope that young people will remain true to the values of truth and justice that guided the older generation, and that the knowledge, experience and wisdom of the preceding generations will be relevant for today’s young.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index28" rel="28" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>By having all people who care for their country and its future work together we will definitely deliver on our objectives and achieve breakthroughs in research and technology. Together, we can bring to fruition large-scale initiatives to upgrade and improve cities and villages and develop regions across Russia. We will be proactive in conducting a modern social policy that caters to the needs of every individual and every Russian household, improves the quality of education and healthcare. We will pay special attention to supporting the traditional family values, motherhood and childhood, so that more and more wanted and healthy babies are born in Russia who go on to become smart and talented people. It will be they, our children, who will take up our efforts to develop the country, and achieve even greater success than their parents, while respecting the history of our Fatherland.</div>
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<figure class="media__pic" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="background-color: #e2e3e4; background-image: url(http://en.kremlin.ru/static/img/svg/logo_slider.svg); background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 64px 65px; clear: both; cursor: default; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony." class="image" src="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big/w3Cm5N4AJXIooxG9oMGiSGYqZALm0yic.jpg" height="580" itemprop="contentUrl" srcset="http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/photos/big2x/Y1Hq4e1czWAaKTn9zPIb9AfLTt4PuzSU.jpg 2x" style="background-image: linear-gradient(270deg, rgb(254, 210, 124) 0%, rgba(254, 210, 124, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(60, 52, 46) 0%, rgba(60, 52, 46, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(0deg, rgb(109, 157, 255) 0%, rgba(109, 157, 255, 0) 100%), linear-gradient(rgb(178, 144, 62) 0%, rgba(178, 144, 62, 0) 100%); display: block; height: auto; margin: auto; padding: 0px; width: 680px;" width="940" /></figure><span class="media__title player__title" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; display: block; font-size: 13px; height: auto; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; max-width: 680px; overflow: hidden; padding: 16px 0px 13px;"></span></div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index29" rel="29" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Friends,</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index30" rel="30" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>As head of state I will do everything to build up Russia’s might, prosperity and glory, and to live up to the expectations and hopes of the country’s citizens.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index31" rel="31" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>We know that in the 1990s and early 2000s, apart from the far-reaching and necessary historical changes, our homeland and its people went through harsh challenges. Much, though far from all has been restored. Not all the wounds of the past have been healed yet, not all challenges have been overcome. There are new complex tasks ahead of us, and we will have to work hard to deliver on them. We have to act without delay.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index32" rel="32" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>That said, we remember all too well that throughout its history, which reaches back centuries, Russia faced a number of dark periods and challenges, and rose like a phoenix from the ashes every time, achieving heights that seemed unattainable to others. Those challenges served as a stepping stone for Russia, setting the stage for the next major breakthrough.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index33" rel="33" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>I am confident that we will achieve a breakthrough this time as well, since we are a powerful team that can deliver on any tasks, even the most daunting ones. Let the love for the Fatherland and all the best there is in people inspire each and every one of us to improve ourselves in order to succeed as individuals and for the benefit of our families, and to work hard for the benefit of our homeland.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index34" rel="34" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>There is no doubt that we will succeed! This is what I believe. I will do everything in my power to achieve this.</div>
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<span class="masha_index masha_index35" rel="35" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>Thank you.</div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-82525998467695825532018-05-04T08:12:00.000-07:002018-05-04T08:24:41.671-07:00The Koreas<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28.4px;">
<a href="about:invalid#zClosurez" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">Certainly kudos go to President Trump for ending a sixty-four year old standoff, but let’s not pretend that Rocket Man played no part. When news anchors mention that a deal would bring an end to the Korean War, they are not merely talking about a formal end, they are referring to a really dangerous situation that was modified, not by the US, but by North Korea.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3b8HGE3tcHnwFvA2jVa458B8AzP9n2lGK8CN-OL_4okJhDWsX7vD445hsCFh5K_VMhhqqtiqxi731Aul1RY-Y_PmAoITrH53LV8KfDRoI8gVWz8pQk9e_lpfywkStNOvWCsB_GWOurTAm/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3b8HGE3tcHnwFvA2jVa458B8AzP9n2lGK8CN-OL_4okJhDWsX7vD445hsCFh5K_VMhhqqtiqxi731Aul1RY-Y_PmAoITrH53LV8KfDRoI8gVWz8pQk9e_lpfywkStNOvWCsB_GWOurTAm/s320/maxresdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">The US is not in the habit of recognizing any merit with respect to any other country, and this has certainly been the case with the North Korean leader.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">The way things look right now, only a Trumpian-style blunder is likely to put a spanner in the denuclearization of the peninsula, so it’s time to give credit where it is due: Kim Jong Un gradually built up his nuclear and missile-delivery capacity to the point where the US had no choice but to ‘come to the table’ — ‘bearing gifts’. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The agreement being hammered out with Kim could have happened sixty-four years ago, putting a formal end to the war, but the US preferred a divided Korea, in keeping with the then prevalent ‘domino theory’. The war was fought to a standstill in order to prevent China’s new Communist regime from spreading to its neighbor, and half a loaf was better than none. ‘Peace’ was not permitted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As the US looks on, the leaders of the two Koreas have met, not just to reciprocally step over the demarcation line between the two regimes, but also to enjoy a banquet with their spouses and a meeting invovling top figures from both sides. Americans did not see this on their television,s but the rest of he world did. (I followed the events on France 24...) Even merely seeing evidence of these meetings made clear that they did not take place thanks to a suddenly benevolent Uncle Sam. As soon as they realized that President Trump was determined to avoid a nuclear catastrophe on American soil, North and South Korea were free to meet and implement agreements that had obviously been waiting in their drawers, as Kim pursued his nuclear campaign. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Only when it became clear to Washington that the ‘little dictator’ could actually nuke a US city, did the US agree to the terms of a peace treaty which, if implemented in 1953, would have spared the North Koreans decades of privations.</span><br />
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-15821346507225242272018-04-29T16:57:00.001-07:002018-05-04T08:27:46.979-07:00A Snake in a Net<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(83, 83, 83); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #535353; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">If the Russians wanted to sow chaos in the US via the 2016 election, they succeeded beyond their wildest hopes: the president, who is theoretically the most powerful man in the world, is like a snake caught in a net, able to move about, but unable to escape the net, writhing desperately, via Twitter, as his handlers look for any way to eliminate him, whether for fornication, money-laundering, or more importantly, cozying up to Russia. </span><span style="text-indent: 28.4px;">As the Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign for ‘collusion’ with an ‘adversary’ appears to be wrapping up, American newscasters no longer bother to preface their accusations against Russia with any qualifying language, such as ‘So-and so claims’ or ‘Evidence appears to point to’. They simply declare as fact that ‘Russia poisoned a former KGB agent and his daughter in Great Britain’. They ‘wonder’ in feigned puzzlement what the Russian president might have thought he would gain by ordering an attack on foreign soil, but fail to report Russian assurances that had Novichok really been used, anyone touched by it would </span><span style="text-indent: 28.4px;">be dead.</span></div>
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<a href="about:invalid#zClosurez" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">So determined are the US and its allies to build a case for war with Russia that they appear indifferent to the possibility that this might lead to the end of human life on earth. As part of this charade, Britain’s Foreign Secretary announced that his country has no quarrel with the Russian people, claiming that ‘They are not surrounded’. But that claim, suggesting that this is a false Russian belief, was strictly for domestic consumption. Russians <i>know</i> that their western borders, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, are lined with NATO troops, tanks and missiles, while many Brits — like many Americans — do not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ9r0xZNcg3zdZ9olDc30mJ1eOb3zYs0u1EPkC9qX-OgY8HeVLRiXnuSTEhDr66GDSDyt0K84gdpAZJTNQ-7yMPEOm8fUMEyZmgLWynnc4d85BxHhbQFHwOcxCtLzmFqzE0K9bO3JsNqb2/s1600/images-5.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ9r0xZNcg3zdZ9olDc30mJ1eOb3zYs0u1EPkC9qX-OgY8HeVLRiXnuSTEhDr66GDSDyt0K84gdpAZJTNQ-7yMPEOm8fUMEyZmgLWynnc4d85BxHhbQFHwOcxCtLzmFqzE0K9bO3JsNqb2/s400/images-5.jpeg" /></a>The fact that Prime Minister Theresa May mounted a vigorous campaign among NATO countries to ensure that they would join her in expelling Russian officials in retaliation for the Skripal poisoning, does not mean that the British public is aware of NATO’s actions on the ground. Europeans, however, are aware that their troops have moved (or rather been moved) steadily eastward, since the dissolution of the Communist military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in the early nineties. That awareness is attested by the small number of Russians each of them expelled, for a total of about a hundred. (There are 28 countries in the European Union, eight of which — Portugal, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Luxembourg — failed to expel any.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For France, Germany and the others to expel a handful of diplomats each, is, after all, a small price to pay for the continuing ‘protection’ of NATO against a neighbor with whom all do business. During Angela Merkel’s three hour trip to Washington to talk business she artfully assured a journalist that when she declared several months ago that Europe had to start taking matters into their own hands <i>as Europeans</i> she meant that it had to beef up its contributions to NATO and not expect the US to foot the costs of their protection. This, on the heels of Macron’s insistence that Trump not trash the crucial treaty with Iran, and pundits warned that doing so would demonstrate to Kim the futility of entering into agreements with the US.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Suddenly, these nuances seemed irrelevant, as the presidents of the two Koreas embraced on the demarcation line and proceeded to enjoy a formal dinner with their spouses, as if there had not been 70 years of strife between them, aided and abetted by the US. Newscasters emphasized the uncertainty of the ultimate outcome of the rapprochement, attributing what was obviously a heartfelt North-South reunion to President Trump’s sanctions, and almost betting that Kim would renege on his promise to denuclearize. However, it apparently did not occur to them that it was Little Rocket Man who had pursued the superior strategy, forcing the US to ‘come to the table’ by demonstrating that he could hit any American city. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Giving credit where it is due, even a snake in a net recognizes that. </span></div>
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Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-27889012799907379712018-04-27T10:28:00.001-07:002018-04-27T10:32:00.574-07:00Conflicting Media Attitudes Toward NewsToday's news reminded me of the nineteen-seventies call for a New World Information Order by Third World leaders. Their case for responsible reporting was rudely rebuffed by the West, which still clings to the fallacy that the media is a watchdog over government, while resisting any notion of 'governmental control over it. Since the birth of internet news sites, this stance, while appearing to correspond to the highest ideals, has been exposed as a sham.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Mb94EtStbr5Ooz4wKsMH32HsGHCBnRYvCCU9hbqrHG7oPwwNHx-PdBIEAK4bxMaio6YaDNOrRu5eZNBnvvKfzjdKtO8n860o8qxG11JwK4ybtOKNbjC4XIgW0LFxkq5WFkGuA5bDVWvf/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Mb94EtStbr5Ooz4wKsMH32HsGHCBnRYvCCU9hbqrHG7oPwwNHx-PdBIEAK4bxMaio6YaDNOrRu5eZNBnvvKfzjdKtO8n860o8qxG11JwK4ybtOKNbjC4XIgW0LFxkq5WFkGuA5bDVWvf/s400/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div>
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The battle between Western notions of news, which was gradually imposed on corporate news entities around the world, and a burgeoning internet free-for-all has failed thus far to modify the underlying assumptions that color news reports in the US as opposed to other 'western' nations, such as France, for example. <br />
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Today's reports on the historic encounter between the leaders of North and South Korea provide a stunning example of these fundamental differences. In the US, the emphasis has consistently been 'let's not let our hopes run away with us: we've seen all this before'. Francd 24, meanwhile, revealed the details of the statement published by the two sides, which enumerates the many ways in which they plan to cooperate. <br />
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The differences are so stark as to force the question: Is the US emphasis on low expectations and 'bad news' part of the overall charade consistently played out by American leaders to the effect that things are rarely as good as they seem, implying constant readiness on the US's part to demonstrate that it is the 'indispensable nation', by stepping in at the slightest hint of discord anywhere?Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7364174239954243773.post-90073300861100857642018-04-26T15:37:00.000-07:002018-04-26T15:39:24.771-07:00Will Trump Resign?<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 28.4px;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUvEivM9Iu1Reaxj7jif0dKkZTDQ_iT3V-MkSksNbl2SQwmGlNL4kRG8rld7ViYgqVeR3AqLhxrM6FyvK2FifljABPFnx94foFkeuvPEK7N-WD4OihTfaJbyddfO8XQOEIHnp4hIi2CmPc/s1600/images-6.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUvEivM9Iu1Reaxj7jif0dKkZTDQ_iT3V-MkSksNbl2SQwmGlNL4kRG8rld7ViYgqVeR3AqLhxrM6FyvK2FifljABPFnx94foFkeuvPEK7N-WD4OihTfaJbyddfO8XQOEIHnp4hIi2CmPc/s400/images-6.jpeg" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">This morning on the most-watched ‘talk show’ the brilliant California lawyer for the sex worker Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, who has been impressing television audiences since the start of that spotlight case, mentioned that he had often predicted that ‘Trump will not finish his term’.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">That prompted me to look up the articles in which I had predicted that the president would resign. Here are the links: </span><a href="http://www.otherjones.com/2017/08/when-democracy-backfires-reprinted-from.html" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">http://www.otherjones.com/2017/08/when-democracy-backfires-reprinted-from.html</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"><a href="http://www.otherjones.com/2018/01/my-take-on-trump.html">http://www.otherjones.com/2018/01</a> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"><a href="http://www.otherjones.com/2018/01/my-take-on-trump.html">my-take-on-trump.html</a>,</span><a href="http://www.otherjones.com/2018/03/us-teens-fighting-for-our-lives.html" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 153); color: #000099;">http://www.otherjones.com/2018/03/us-teens-fighting-for-our-lives.html</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">, </span><a href="http://www.otherjones.com/" target="_blank"><span style="text-indent: 28.4px;">http://www.otherjones.com/2018/04/will-trump-resign.html</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">, </span><span style="text-indent: 28.4px;">http://www.otherjones.com/2018/04/media-first-mentions-trump-might-resign.html</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">.</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 28.4px;">(All of these links work, even though not all turned blue…).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Avenatti’s prediction followed a recording of the President saying things on an earlier morning show that basically guaranteed he could be accused of perjury by the Special Counsel. It appeared to show the President contradicting himself in such a flagrant manner about the Stormy Daniels affair that he could no longer escape serious legal implications. After claiming for weeks that he knew nothing about a payment to the young women accompanied by an agreement that she would not talk about her affair with Trump a few days before the election, this morning he blurted out that Michael Cohen, a sometime lawyer, but mainly ‘fixer’ for the president, “represented me on that cray Stormy Daniels affair”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The French President’s stunning address to a joint session of Congress yesterday doesn’t stand a chance of being held over today for further analysis (which it richly deserves), preparations for the upcoming meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un are relegated to an inside page, as newscasters discuss the extent of the President’s blunder. (Yesterday, in an unprecedented move, Cohen announced he was ‘taking the fifth’ meaning the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution which reads “No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” which allows persons accused of a crime to refuse to answer questions in court. This appears to be the first time that a lawyer to the President of the United States has ‘taken the Fifth’, and the media is falling all over itself with glee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As the official White House doctor, a youngish Admiral in the US Navy who has served under three presidents, withdraws his nomination to head the largest federal agency, ‘Veterans Affairs’, after being accused of various kinds of bad behavior, the President, who offered him the job because he likes him, is looking increasingly like a cartoon character. Simultaneously, the stunning congressional address yesterday by France’s youngest president, Emanuel Macron, filled with references to America’s great leaders, was the sharpest counterpoint anyone could imagine to the cartoonish White House occupant.</span></div>
Deena Strykerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17439532247611757662noreply@blogger.com0