This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
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Sunday, March 02, 2014
I am going to be joining friends to prepare and watch the Oscars because we just love great movies.
I'm still waiting for there to be "Oksanas" as well as "Oscar."
I need to be leaving and may even be late at 1:39 PM, but, I have to leave this thought.
When are we going to have decent leadership in these nations that understand the limits of government and the importance of recognition of international laws, including the right of every human being to have a normal longevity.
This overreach by Russia in the Ukraine is no different than that of Bush/Cheney. It is all old world and belongs nowhere near any reasonable person in the year 2014. Bush and Cheney believed they could simply toss out UN Inspectors and ride into Iraq with self-righteous indignation over the shouts of the global community. Now, Russia is doing the same thing. Two wrongs don't make it right.
The more powerful countries of the world actually believe it is okay for people to die. They actually believe they have the right to say who lives and dies. That has to change and soon.
There are maritime laws and laws of the sea that dictate outcomes when sovereign nations are robbed of their marine assets.
This is impressment by Russia. That is illegal.Russia's powerful presence imposes a will against the Ukrainian government which robs it of it's assets.And if Russia adopts the Ukraine's assets as their own, that is piracy.
“Ukraine’s Navy flagship the Hetman Sahaidachny has come over to our
side today. It has hung out the St Andrew’s flag,” Sen. Igor Morozov, a
member of the committee on the international affairs, told Izvestia.
“The crew has fulfilled the order by the chief commander of Ukraine’s
armed forces Viktor Yanukovych.”
The ship recently took part in counter-piracy patrols with EU naval
forces and was sailing towards its homeport of Sevastopol, Naval Today reports....
The strangest rightwing propaganda I heard this week in reaction to the reports by Secretary Hagel regarding the military budget was, "As the USA reduces it's military footprint the rest of the world increases theirs."
Ya think? Evidently in past administrations they considered allies as a security risk when considering their assets are not considered important to the USA.
There is no reason why the USA needs duplicity in arms or influence where allies are more than capable to be their own regional partners.
Online pictures showed doctors treating the injured. Photo: SMP
...A Xinhua reporter (click here) on the spot said several suspects have been
controlled, while police are still questioning people in the station.
The reporter said that firefighters and medical workers have arrived
on the scene, and injured people have been rushed to hospital for
emergency treatment. The arterial road of the station has been cordoned
off.
A doctor with the Kunming No.1 People's Hospital told Xinhua over the
phone that medical workers of the hospital are busy treating the
injured, adding that they are still unsure of the exact number of
casualties.
According to Xinhua reporters at the hospital, a dozen of bodies were
seen at the hospital. As of 0:00 a.m. Sunday, more than 60 victims in
the attack have been sent to the hospital, emergency registration
records showed....
This is downtown Kunming. It is the capital of the Chinese province of Yunnan. The star in the map to the right is Beijing. It is about 400 miles from Hong Kong.
Yunnan Province borders with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. I am sure the Chinese are seeking knowledge of those that conducted this attack and any connection to other violence in the region.
It said it was deeply concerned about the tens of thousands
of people it was treating, particularly for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. A presidential spokesman alleged to the BBC that Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) was biased in favour of Rakhine's Muslim Rohingya
minority. MSF is one of the biggest providers of healthcare in Rakhine....
By JANE PERLEZ
The villagers’ accounts (click here)back up a United Nations
investigation, which concluded that the attack on Du Chee Yar Tan that
night resulted in the deaths of at least 40 men, women and children, one
of the worst instances of violence against the country’s
long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims. They were killed, the United Nations
says, by local security forces and civilians of the rival Rakhine ethnic
group, many of them adherents of an extreme Buddhist ideology who were
angered by the kidnapping of a Rakhine policeman by some Rohingya men....
China needs to end it's concerns about Tibet and simply engage in allowing a peaceful religious organization the right to exist. When hatred is allowed to be the tone of any country, it sometimes results in violence against those that hate. I don't know the particulars of the attacks in Yunnan Province capital city, but, if this is China's 911 it needs to be serious about it's tone in the region. Hatred is a method to seek control among the masses, but, results in instability and fuels war and terrorism.
US boldness (click here)in challenging Beijing coupled with China's less tough
reaction mark how much the two powers value their relationship
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 26 February, 2014, 11:21am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 26 February, 2014, 7:43pm
When the Dalai Lama came to Washington in 2009 on one of his frequent
lecture tours, Barack Obama did not invite him to the White House as
the new US president sought to start on the right foot with China.
More than four years later, Obama went ahead last week with his third
meeting as president with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. China
called in a US diplomat to protest but the encounter appeared almost
routine, with no stronger repercussions immediately by Beijing. The episode represents a subtle shift in the complex relationship
between the world’s two largest economies as both sides cut through the
veneer of hope for broad co-operation and prioritise key interests....
GMA Network BANGKOK - Myanmar has allowed (click here) Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to resume
work in parts of the country, days after it ordered it to close its
clinics, but not in the western strife-torn state of Rakhine, the
medical aid group said. The United Nations and human rights groups say
at least 40 Rohingya were killed by security forces and ethnic Rakhine
Buddhist civilians in a restricted area of the state in January....
Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the Iranian nuclear scientist killed in Tehran on
January 11, with his son, Alireza. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images
ByDan Raviv CBS News March 1, 2014, 6:23 PM
...Although Israel (click here) has never acknowledged it, the country's famed
espionage agency - the Mossad - ran an assassination campaign for
several years aimed at Iran's top nuclear scientists. The purpose was
to slow the progress made by Iran, which Israel feels certain is aimed
at developing nuclear weapons; and to deter trained and educated
Iranians from joining their country's nuclear program. At
least five Iranian scientists were murdered, most of them by bombs
planted on their cars as they drove to work in the morning. Remarkably,
the Israeli assassins were never caught - obviously having
long-established safe houses inside Iran - although several Iranians who
may have helped the Mossad were arrested and executed. In
addition to strong signals from the Obama Administration that the U.S.
did not want Israel to continue the assassinations, Mossad officials
concluded that the campaign had gotten too dangerous. They did not want
their best combatants - Israel's term for its most talented and
experienced spies - captured and hanged....
Thursday Feb 9, 2012 3:16 AM
Mehdi Marizad
Fars via AP file
A
car that was bombed by two assailants on a motorcycle in Tehran on Jan.
11, killing Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan, is
removed by a mobile crane. The photo was distributed by the
semi-official Iranian photo agency Fars.
Ah, only if Bush and Cheney could rule the world Israel could, too.
Mehdi Hasan
The Guardian
On the morning of 11 January (click here) Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the deputy head
of Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, was in his car on his
way to work when he was blown up by a magnetic bomb attached to his car door. He was 32 and married with a young son. He wasn't armed, or anywhere near a battlefield. Since 2010, three other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in similar circumstances, including Darioush Rezaeinejad,
a 35-year-old electronics expert shot dead outside his daughter's
nursery in Tehran last July. But instead of outrage or condemnation, we
have been treated to expressions of undisguised glee....
...2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;...
President Yeltsin knew that economic strength and trade was vital to global peace. President Putin should be ashamed in turning his back on Russia's past leadership.
There is no threat of terrorism in the Ukraine, except, from Russia and it's unilateral disregard of Ukraine's sovereignty and right to peace within it's borders. The longer Russia remains a divisive force within the Ukraine, the longer there will be threats by Crimean extremists. Their lives were never at risk and have invited overwhelming power within their sovereign nation of the Ukraine to carry out violence against other citizens. They exhibit hatred to their countrymen.
Ms. Yarovaya can hardly state she is the champion of anti-corruption. It would appear there is more pretense in the Russian government than actual governing.
The New Times says Yarovaya, (click here)a vocal supporter of bills targeting foreign
non-government organisations and anti-corruption measures, lived in a
luxury apartment in Moscow worth nearly US$3 million (S$3.7 million)
that she had not declared. -- FILE PHOTO: AFP
MOSCOW, March 01, /ITAR-TASS/. The decision (click here) adopted on Saturday,
March 1, by the Federation Council, upper house of the Russian
parliament, which allows the president to send troops to Crimea, an
autonomy within neighbouring Ukraine, aims to protect life and security,
Irina Yarovaya, chair of the Security and Anti-Corruption Committee in
the State Duma (lower house of parliament), said.
“Terrorism is the most dangerous crime around the world. But it is
fascism and terrorism that have proclaimed their power in Ukraine and
pose a real threat to the life and security of Russian citizens living
in Ukraine and undoubtedly to the brotherly people of Ukraine,” she
said.
Yarovaya reiterated the repeatedly pronounced position of Russian parliamentarians that power in Ukraine was seized by force....
Those are illegitimate reasons for Russia to be occupying the Ukraine and Crimea. The fault is the international community. They actually trusted Russia to be an honest member of those seeking protections of the people of the Ukraine and it's sovereign state. It would seem as though when power was posed to President Putin, the Ukraine sovereign status was temporary and invasion at the first opportunity. The international community had no indication President Putin was actually untrustworthy in the safety of the people.
He has represented the Ukraine people that straddles both sides of the deaths of citizens in recent weeks and all administrations from 2007. He has authority to speak for the people from a genuine understanding of the leadership during that period.
Dave Urbanski
Sergeyev said Russia’s actions violate a 1994 agreement safeguarding Ukraine; it’s known as the Budapest Memorandum,
and all five members of the permanent security council — the U.S., the
United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia — agreed to it. Sergeyev is now asking the four nations besides Russia to make good on their promises.
“Now what we are doing is we are addressing for other guarantors (of
Ukraine’s sovereignty) to perform their guarantees,” Sergeyev told
reporters Reuters noted.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dismissed Sergeyev’s criticisms and
described the council meeting on the Ukrainian crisis as a “game
without rules.”...
Russia is losing credibility in a faux emergency caused by their military. Russia is imposing anarchy within the Ukraine and calling it an emergency. Russia is seeking to dissolve The Ukraine sovereign right to exist within it's legal borders. Perhaps the Russian military needs to come to New York City to kidnap the Ambassador and replace him as well. Russia has no legitimate place within the Ukraine or Crimea, except for it's leased lands and waters. With this forceful insult to the country Russia actually has no legitimate place at all anywhere near the people of the Ukraine.
The Russia presence in the Ukraine is a direct threat to the people and the people have and are suffering because of it.
The Budapest Memorandum was signed in 1991 by Bill Clinton, John Major,
Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma - the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia
and Ukraine.
Published December 5, 1994 The Presidents (click here) of Ukraine, Russian Federation and United States of
America, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed three
memorandums (UN Document A/49/765) on December 5, 1994, with the
accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Through this agreement, these countries (later to include China and
France in individual statements) gave national security assurances to
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The Joint Declaration by the Russian
Federation and the United States of America of December 4, 2009
confirmed their commitment....
Russia in it's illegitimate invasion of the Ukraine is daring the global community to stop it. Russia has taken a very precarious international position in violating treaties the Russia Duma has been a signator and ratified.
It would seem Russia is the only nation willing to put the people of the Ukraine in the line of fire and potential deaths and yet today they want to offer humanitarian aid. Truly this is a paradox the Russian President needs to unwind. Brut force and military might is not the way of the world when at all avoided. I thought President Putin understood the deescalation of global tensions to bring about improved quality of life to end extremism.
Any resistance of the Ukraine people against the Russia presence in their country is legal and backed by international law. They are being provoked to protect their homeland from an illegal invasion.
Personally, I wish the Ukraine people would simply go about life as it should be and simply ignore the soldiers stationed in their country for no clear reason, except, the deceptions of the Russia President. The violence is caused by the unlawful in the Crimea and not the people of mainland Ukraine.
The Paralympics are suppose to begin in Sochi on Friday. What reassurances does any nation have given Russia is using any excuse to put troops in the region?
Paralympic gold medallist Hannah Cockroft will light the
flame to celebrate the Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi, which start on
March 7.
More than 600 guests, including many Paralympians, will
watch on as Stoke Mandeville becomes the first place to be involved in a
Paralympic torch relay outside of the Games’ hosting country.
The
Heritage Flame project has been supported by £155,000 from the National
Lottery through Arts Council England’s grants for the arts programme....
There has to be international observers, especially with the upcoming events this week. No country can pretend there aren't increased risks with the unsettling events in the Crimea.
