Russia Begins Operations in Syria: End Game for the US Empire?

[angelburst29]

American lawmakers push bill to counter Putin message.

Russia propaganda machine gains on U.S.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/27/russia-propaganda-machine-gains-on-us/?utm_source=RSS_Feedutm_medium=RSS

The Washington Times - Sunday, December 27, 2015

Russia has reorganized and intensified its international propaganda machine so effectively over the past decade that some Western lawmakers and diplomats say Washington now is badly losing a global messaging war to the increasingly modernized blitz of anti-U.S. content from Moscow-backed news operations.

Since 2005, the global satellite network Russia Today — recently renamed RT — has grown into a worldwide operation perhaps best described as Moscow’s version of the BBC. As of this year, RT claimed to be available to an audience of some 700 million across more than 100 nations, where viewers can soak in its Fox News-style 24-hour television content in English, Arabic and Spanish.

This is not to mention the expansion of RT’s Web-based news platforms in those languages, as well as German and French, the best known of which is SputnikNews.com, which launched last year. The site’s English language content has become so successful at penetrating the American digital landscape that it has been linked by the Drudge Report.

What is most mind-boggling, some U.S. lawmakers say, is how Moscow has brought about this propaganda revolution during a post-Cold War period in which America’s own government-financed news operations, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America have remained largely stagnant in terms of their reach around the world.

“It’s remarkable to see the sophisticated media offense that Putin is conducting across Eastern Europe, Central Europe, the Middle East and Latin America through Russia Today,” said Rep. Edward R. Royce, California Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“We’re just not countering it effectively,” Mr. Royce told The Washington Times, asserting that the federal Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees RFE/RL, VOA and a slate of other taxpayer-funded international news outlets, is essentially broken.

For years, Mr. Royce has been calling for an overhaul of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, asserting that its management structure is bloated and disorganized — the board is run by nine part-time White House-appointed members who meet once a month — and that its flagship news operations lack a clear mission focus.

Mr. Royce is pushing legislation with Rep. Eliot L. Engel of New York, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s ranking Democrat, that would establish a full-time, day-to-day agency leader for the Broadcasting Board of Governors and attempt to reduce duplication among the organization’s more than 60 services to free up funding for newer and more forward-leaning initiatives.

But officials with the Broadcasting Board of Governors say they already are spearheading internal reforms.

Leaders in the House and Senate have not put their full weight behind the Royce-Engel legislation, although it moved swiftly through the committee in May.

At the time, Mr. Engel lamented that products of the Broadcasting Board of Governors were being drowned out on the world stage by Russian media and by a slate of other actors such as the Islamic State in the Middle East, who are “flooding the airwaves and covering websites with propaganda and misinformation.”

“During the Cold War, the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other U.S.-backed broadcasters were the global gold standard for transmitting honest, unbiased news around the world,” the New York Democrat said. “Today, the need for that information is just as great.”

He suggested that the Broadcasting Board of Governors has failed to engage in strategies to penetrate its content into the world’s evolving media space.

“Modern technologies have provided new avenues for disseminating lies and distortions to massive audiences,” Mr. Engel said. “Unfortunately, America’s ability to respond effectively hasn’t kept pace.”

‘Pervasive propaganda campaign’

The sentiment has echoed in Eastern Europe, where one high-level diplomat says Russia’s expanding slate of state media operations has come to dominate the airwaves over the former Soviet republics, while the presence of Western-backed content has shrunk.

“This is an information war, and we’re losing,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told The Times in a recent interview, claiming that a full 60 percent of cable TV channels available in his nation are Russian-language programs reflecting Moscow’s policies and perspectives.

Mr. Linkevicius said RFE/RL and VOA audio content is being piped into Lithuania and other nations in the region via the Internet rather than FM radio stations.

Sources at RFE/RL say a portion of the blame should be placed on regional governments that have done little over the past decade to encourage local broadcasters to carry RFE/RL and VOA content.

“The places we’re trying to reach right now are very difficult to get to for a radio broadcast,” an RFE/RL employee said on the condition of anonymity. “Back in the early 2000s, we had 35 or so local affiliates taking our products even within Russian territory. But they were forced off the airwaves by the Russian government over a period of three to four years to the point where we now have no broadcast affiliates there at all.”

With regard to the former republics, the employee said, officials are “looking for every single effective way to get in, but getting the transmissions in is a tough nut to crack.”

The RFE/RL employee also argued that the value of online streaming of radio and video content should not be discounted across the region, including in Estonia, which he described as “one of the most wired countries in the world.”

One example may be the recent expansion of Current Time, a joint RFE/RL and VOA television news venture aimed at Russian-speaking audiences in countries bordering Russia. In addition to securing prime airtime on stations in several nations, including Lithuania, Current Time has as many as 2 million people inside Russia accessing its content via the Internet, he said.

But some U.S. officials say Moscow’s propaganda dominance over the region must be countered more effectively.

Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told Mr. Royce’s committee in March that she and other American diplomats were scrambling to “harden European resilience” to the “Kremlin’s pervasive propaganda campaign [that is] poisoning minds across Russia, on Russia’s periphery and across Europe.”

Ms. Nuland said the Obama administration was working with the Broadcasting Board of Governors “to ramp up efforts to counter lies with truth” and noted that the board was committing $23.2 million to Russian-language programming during 2015 — a 49 percent increase over the previous year, and requested an additional $15.4 million for 2016.

The total annual budget for operations funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors has been in the $730 million range during recent years. The figure is higher than the $307 million that the independent Moscow Times recently reported as RT’s budget but notably less than the $1.3 billion Moscow is expected to spend on state media operations in 2016.

When it comes to audience reach, the Broadcasting Board of Governors claims to be winning, with all the organization’s operations reaching an estimated audience of 226 million people a week worldwide. Although RT claims to be available to 700 million people around the world, an RT spokeswoman told The Times, the organization’s weekly audience is estimated at just 70 million.

Opposing ‘narratives’

Still, some argue that the Obama administration has failed to grasp the gravity of the situation.

Jeffrey Gedmin, who was president of RFE/RL from 2007 to 2011, wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal last year that “VOA and RFE/RL are doing good work, but suffer from the Obama administration’s lack of vision and strategy.”

Claiming the outlets are “hindered by U.S. public diplomacy’s fixation on new media without proper consideration of content and what our larger aims should be,” Mr. Gedmin said that “we need to stop playing defense and go on the offense as we did during the Cold War.”

He noted that little of RT’s programming is about Russia. Instead, the network’s content is focused on advancing three main “narratives: American and Western leaders are hypocrites; the American and Western military-industrial complex seeks to dominate the world; and America and the West are in decline.”

Articles appearing on SputnikNews.com follow a similar narrative trajectory. One listed in the website’s “most discussed” column last week bore the headline: “‘Diabolical’ Obama Actions Lead to Weakening of America.”

SputnikNews and RT are peppered with stories that often diverge toward the grotesque rather than the “click bait” of some major American news websites. For instance, “Polar Bear Fed Firecracker in Russian Arctic (DISTURBING VIDEO)” was among the “most read” articles on RT’s English-language website last week.

While such content swirls through cyberspace, RT’s more serious side also has a global reach and has turned the organization into a sophisticated diplomatic networking engine for Moscow.

A slate of noteworthy guests turned up at the organization’s 10-year anniversary gala in the Russian capital this month. Among those reportedly in attendance was retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, former Defense Intelligence Agency director, whom sources say was seated at a table with Mr. Putin.

RT employees reject the notion that their organization is propaganda.

“The term ‘propaganda’ is something that is lobbed at RT by certain political and media establishments that do not like to see their narratives of the world being challenged, as a way to invalidate inconvenient points of view,” an RT spokeswoman said on the condition of anonymity. “It is also a charge that is rarely, if ever, put to the VOA, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Euronews, or many other news outlets that receive public or compulsory funding.”

Such comments hang in the backdrop as debate quietly rages in Washington over the posture of the U.S. government’s taxpayer-funded media — and particularly the future of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

An essential point often missed about RFE/RL, VOA and other entities such as the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks is that the content they produce “is not propaganda,” said Laurie Moy, a spokeswoman for the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

“It’s the beauty of this agency,” she said. “The way we’re structured, there is a clear firewall that prevents the government from dictating control over our journalists. It’s our belief that true journalism, unbiased and uncensored information, is the best counter to propaganda.”

Ms. Moy and others inside the Broadcasting Board of Governors oppose the proposed Royce-Engel legislation, arguing that lawmakers should be careful about tinkering with the structure.

Reducing bureaucracy?

Broadcasting Board of Governors Chairman Jeff Shell testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month that the organization is pursuing internal reforms, including institutionalizing the position and power of the board’s CEO.

Ms. Moy and CEO John Lansing went further in recent comments to The Times, asserting that the Royce-Engel proposal would add a layer of bureaucracy that could challenge the integrity of the various news organizations beneath the Broadcasting Board of Governors while making it more difficult for them to streamline toward a single, potent mission focus.

“Right now we have one board and one CEO that oversees all of the broadcasters and makes sure our broadcasting aligns with U.S. interests,” said Ms. Moy. “This bill would create two boards, one that would oversee VOA and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which are federal entities, and then another that would oversee our entities that operate as grantees, including RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

“So you will have created two media organizations, with two boards and no single oversight of both,” she said. “At a time when Russia and China and others are centralizing their media efforts, this bill would split us up, and that would actually make it harder to achieve this more focused mission that the legislation claims to intend.”

Mr. Lansing added in a statement that the bill would take the strategic deployment of all U.S. international media activities and “degrade them into media entities that are competing rather than cooperating, would limit their access to U.S. foreign policy goals, and would severely inhibit the ability for the U.S. to present a coherent strategic alternative to foreign propaganda.”

Disagreement over the legislation could not be more stark. Mr. Royce told The Times that one of the central aims of his bill is to “reduce bureaucracy at the BBG” and reduce wasteful overlapping of efforts among the many news outlets operating beneath the organization.

He pointed to a 2013 report by the Government Accountability Office that highlighted how nearly two-thirds of the Broadcasting Board of Governors‘ 69 services producing content for particular languages and regions “overlap with another BBG service by providing programs to the same countries in the same language.”

Mr. Royce also said his legislation would require “consolidation of existing offices” maintained by different services as well as a “right sizing” of certain operations to free up more than $100 million from the Broadcasting Board of Governors‘ budget that could be spent on programs such as finding ways to penetrate markets around the world more effectively.

“We need to think back to how Ronald Reagan used American programming in the 1980s,” said Mr. Royce. “I personally remember my experience as a foreign exchange student visiting East Germany, and I remember how effective the news broadcasts for young people who were listening there. I talked to Germans in East Berlin and in Dresden. I saw it for myself.”

 

[angelburst29]

Who runs Russia with Putin?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34866597

When Vladimir Putin first came to power, he was asked in an interview which of his colleagues he trusted most.

He named five people:
Nikolai Patrushev
Sergei Ivanov
Dmitry Medvedev
Alexei Kudrin
Igor Sechin

Fifteen years later, these men still form President Putin's core group and dominate the strategic heights of Russian government and big business:

Mr Patrushev was director of the FSB internal security service from 1999 until his appointment as Secretary of the Russian security council in 2008

Mr Ivanov has been Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. Since 2011, he has been head of the presidential administration

Mr Medvedev was President from 2008-12, forming part of the ruling "tandem" with Mr Putin, and is now Prime Minister

Mr Kudrin, Finance Minister until 2011, no longer holds a formal position but still appears to offer advice to the president on financial and economic matters

Mr Sechin, who has held senior positions in the presidential administration and government, is chief executive of Rosneft, the state oil company

This core group illustrates two important points about who runs Russia.

First, there has been continuity in terms of the personnel closest to Mr Putin. Real reshuffles are rare, and very few have been evicted from this core group.

Second, the heart of the leadership team is made up of allies who served with Mr Putin in the KGB, in 1990s St Petersburg, or both.

This core group also includes others whom the president trusts to implement major infrastructure projects, such as Arkady Rotenberg, one of those responsible for the Sochi Winter Olympics, as well as several regional figures and senior bureaucrats.

Many of these figures held senior positions even before Mr Putin's rise to power.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, formerly Minister of Emergency Situations, was a prominent party political figure in the second half of the 1990s and leader of the United Russia party from 2001-05.

Such figures convene in the security council, one of the most important organisations for co-ordinating high-level decision-making and resources.

At the same time, the Russian administrative system - the so-called vertical of power - does not function well: policy instructions are often implemented tardily and sometimes not at all, so others have important roles helping develop and implement projects.

One such individual is Yuri Trutnev, elected as a regional governor in 2000, and then appointed Minister for Natural Resources and Ecology in 2004.

In 2013, he was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary to the Russian Far Eastern Federal District, a high priority post for Mr Putin.

Russian observers also point to the role played by Vyacheslav Volodin in helping Mr Putin run Russian politics since 2011.

Mr Volodin rose through regional and then national party politics, before being appointed to government positions.

He established the influential All-Russian Popular Front in 2011, which makes an increasingly significant contribution to formulation, implementation and monitoring of the leadership's policies.

Mr Volodin was subsequently appointed First Deputy Head of the presidential administration, responsible for overseeing a "reset" of Russian domestic politics since 2012.

Alongside continuity in the core leadership team, there has been a growing need for effective managers to implement its policies.

Indeed, rather than shrinking, as some commentators have suggested, the leadership team appears to be expanding.

There are several rising stars who play increasingly important roles in party politics and administration.

One is 39-year-old Alexander Galushka, who is a member of the Popular Front and many of the president's and prime minister's advisory committees.

He was appointed Minister of the Far Eastern region in 2013.

This leads us to the final point about who runs Russia with Mr Putin - while the President is the central figure, he is part of a team, which itself is part of a system, and therefore highlights the importance of effectiveness in implementing tasks.

All the individuals have reputations for hard work, loyalty and proven effectiveness in completing difficult tasks in business, state administration and politics.

As one Russian close to Mr Putin has observed, he did not choose them for their pretty eyes, but because they get things done.

 

[Windmill knight]

He noted that little of RT’s programming is about Russia. Instead, the network’s content is focused on advancing three main “narratives: American and Western leaders are hypocrites; the American and Western military-industrial complex seeks to dominate the world; and America and the West are in decline.”

What these guys fail to understand is the simple fact that RT's narratives are essentially true, and people are thirsty for truth.

 

[angelburst29]

He noted that little of RT’s programming is about Russia. Instead, the network’s content is focused on advancing three main “narratives: American and Western leaders are hypocrites; the American and Western military-industrial complex seeks to dominate the world; and America and the West are in decline.”

What these guys fail to understand is the simple fact that RT's narratives are essentially true, and people are thirsty for truth.

I agree, plain Truth - hurts those trying to cover it up!

In the article, it states that the Broadcasting Board of Governors are trying to spearhead internal reforms by introducing the Royce-Engel proposal, into the Senate. Since this proposal has been in the works and is now coming out in the press, I wonder if this process (in any way) had contributed or played a part - in Mikhail Lesin's death in a Washington Hotel?

 

[angelburst29]

Top Putin aide says book reflects Kremlin's "values and guiding principles".

Russia: Book of Putin quotes 'given to officials'
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-35189754

28 December 2015 = Officials across Russia have been given a 400-page book of "prophetic" quotes by President Vladimir Putin as a new year gift, it's reported.

The collection, entitled Words That Change The World, was sent to as many as 1,000 people by one of Mr Putin's top aides, Vyacheslav Volodin, according to the business newspaper RBK. Recipients include MPs, regional governors and civil society representatives. In an accompanying letter, Mr Volodin says the book should be seen as a guide to the Kremlin's "values and guiding principles". He's also reported to have recommended it to a recent meeting of officials as "required reading for any politician".

The book is said to include the text of 19 speeches by Mr Putin, and highlights key quotes in bold that the introduction says "predicted and preordained" world events. Among the texts are a 2007 speech in Munich in which Mr Putin accused the US of courting disaster by seeking to dominate the global order, and his 2014 address to Russian parliamentarians fiercely defending the annexation of Crimea.

The book is edited and published by Network, a pro-Kremlin youth movement. "We noticed that everything Putin says to some extent comes true," member Anton Volodin - said to be the brains behind the book - tells RBK. "Putin's words can be described as prophetic."

But the Kremlin itself appears keen to distance itself from the project in public. Mr Putin's official spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, says he hasn't heard anything about the book and therefore can't answer any questions on it.



Russia Calls On US To Drop Troops And Weapons From Baltics, Eastern Europe
http://www.ibtimes.com/russia-calls-us-drop-troops-weapons-baltics-eastern-europe-2240834

Russia called on the U.S. Monday to reconsider storing military hardware and as many as 5,000 troops across Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, Reuters reported. The remarks from the Kremlin’s Foreign Ministry accusing the U.S. of escalating tensions in Europe come as ceasefire violations continue in Eastern Ukraine.

“The current large-scale military preparations by the United States under a completely fabricated precursor of protecting its allies from a nonexistent ‘Russian threat’ does not only not correspond to the interests of peace and security in Europe, it simply once again confirms Washington’s goal of escalating tension and disrupting stability on the continent,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to Russian government-backed source Sputnik International.

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, several Eastern European and Baltic states called for an increased NATO presence in the region to counter Russian aggression and have also increased their own domestic military budgets. Russia has continued to deny direct military involvement in Ukraine with regular troops; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual televised remarks with journalists this month that Russia had been working in Ukraine during the continuing conflict.

“We never said there weren’t people [in Ukraine] who work on resolving various issues there, including in the military sphere,” Putin said.

The Kremlin’s call for the U.S. to back down comes after a deadly weekend in Eastern Ukraine, where the conflict between government forces and Russian-backed separatists has taken the lives of over 9,000 people since the annexation. One Ukrainian solider and one civilian were killed over the weekend, and observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe came under fire while monitoring the ceasefire, reports said.

Both sides agreed to a Dec. 23 ceasefire to last through the holiday season and new year, and have now blamed each other for the continuing violations.



Two major explosions rip through Syrian city of Homs
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/major-explosions-rip-syrian-city-homs-151228101947464.html

At least 32 people have been killed and 90 others wounded in two explosions in the Syrian city of Homs, UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The blasts, one from a car bomb and another from a suicide bomber, hit the Zahra district in the middle of the city on Monday, the group said.

Syria's state news agency SANA reported two car bomb blasts, but gave a lower toll of 19 dead and more than 100 wounded.

It was the second major attack in the city since a ceasefire deal took effect earlier this month, paving the way for the government to take over the last rebel-controlled area of Homs.

Twin blasts on December 12, also in Zahra, killed at least 16 people. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed reponsibility for that attack, saying it had detonated a suicide car bomb.

The blasts came as hundreds of fighters and their families were being evacuated from three areas in Syria to Lebanon and Turkey.


Under the Homs ceasefire deal, at least 700 insurgent fighters and members of their families left the last rebel-controlled area of the city, al Waer district, on Monday.

The United Nations oversaw implementation of the deal.



German lawmakers irked by NATO plane deployment
http://news.yahoo.com/german-lawmakers-irked-nato-plane-deployment-174417352.html

A NATO force of reconnaissance planes that includes German personnel will be sent to help Turkey police its border, drawing ire from politicians in Germany who said on Sunday they were not consulted.

"The government must immediately inform parliament of the details of this deployment, in particular what missions will be assigned to these planes and the destination of any data they collect," Tobias Lindner, the green party's head of defence matters, demanded in German daily Bild.

Though the mission involves sending German troops abroad, the government said it has no plans to consult the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament.

The defence ministry noted the deployment was aimed at carrying out airspace surveillance and not armed operations.

NATO plans a temporary transfer of AWAC aircraft from the west German base in Geilenkirchen to the Konya base in central Turkey, Germany's defence ministry wrote in a December 18 letter revealed Sunday.

Germany contributes about 30 percent of the NATO personnel serving on the 17 Boeing E-3A Sentry AWAC planes in Geilenkirchen, according to the letter to the Bundestag's defence committee.

It was not immediately clear how many planes were to be sent to help Ankara "ensure Turkish security" in view of conflicts in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

A NATO official at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels told AFP that the additional support measures for Turkey, a key member, included an increased AWACS presence, enhanced air policing plus a stepped up naval presence, including port calls, exercises and maritime patrol aircraft in the eastern Mediterranean.

The US-led alliance is also "reviewing long standing defence plans for Turkey," the official said.

"All this shows a strong commitment by allies to the defence of Turkey and will contribute to increasing stability in the region."

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said early this month the alliance was working on new support measures for Turkey but insisted the commitment predated Ankara's shooting down of a Russian jet along the Syrian border.

Tensions have been high since Ankara downed the Russian warplane which it said had violated its airspace and ignored repeated warnings.

Sahra Wagenknecht, vice president of radical left party Die Linke, called the mission "highly dangerous" and demanded a vote in the Bundestag.

The head of the Bundestag's defence committee, Social Democrat Wolfgang Hellmich, said the timing of the news was "a bit curious" given that lawmakers were away for the holidays and have not yet taken up the matter.

The lower house was consulted in early December on German plans to contribute up to 1,200 of its soldiers to international operations battling Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

 

[angelburst29]

Russia expects the US to abandon plans on deploying and stationing military equipment on NATO’s eastern flank, Russia’s Foreign Ministry official spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

Diplomat: NATO Equipment Deployment near Russian Borders Contradicts Its Commitments
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941007001628

Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of US Army Europe, said in mid-December that Washington plans to establish maintenance sites for equipment caches in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Estonia by late 2016, and in Hungary in 2017, Tass reported.

"If implemented, such measures will be close to violating the key provision of the Russia-NATO Founding Act of 1997 under which the alliance is obliged not to deploy significant combat forces on the territory of the mentioned countries on a permanent basis," Zakharova said.

"The forward basing of equipment is exactly permanent military presence," she said, adding that the fact that the personnel will be formally rotated makes no difference here.

"We would like to hope that the overseas architects of the new Cold War are aware of the risks and negative consequences of the forced militarization of the one of the calmest regions of the world in military terms and will show political will and abandon the schemes and methods of the bloc standoff epoch," she stressed.

The US general’s statements confirm the earlier announced plans of the Pentagon on deploying the military equipment on the eastern flank to hold exercises on the rotation basis, Zakharova said. The Russian side has repeatedly warned against the move.

The diplomat stressed that these plans under far-fetched pretext of protecting the allies from the alleged Russian threat "once again confirm Washington’s intention to escalate tensions and undermine stability on the continent."



Syria: It’s Not a Civil War and it Never Was
http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/28/syria-its-not-a-civil-war-and-it-never-was/

The weapons are foreign, the fighters are foreign, the agenda is foreign. As Syrian forces fight to wrest control of their country back and restore order within their borders, the myth of the “Syrian civil war” continues on. Undoubtedly there are Syrians who oppose the Syrian government and even Syrians who have taken up arms against the government and in turn, against the Syrian people, but from the beginning (in fact before the beginning) this war has been driven from abroad. Calling it a “civil war” is a misnomer as much as calling those taking up arms “opposition.” It is not a “civil war,” and those fighting the Syrian government are not “opposition.”

Those calling this a civil war and the terrorists fighting the Syrian state “opposition” hope that their audience never wanders too far from their lies to understand the full context of this conflict, the moves made before it even started and where those moves were made from.

When did this all start?

It is a valid question to ask just when it all really started. The Cold War saw a see-sawing struggle between East and West between the United States and Europe (NATO) and not only the Soviet Union but also a growing China. But the Cold War itself was simply a continuation of geopolitical struggle that has carried on for centuries between various centers of power upon the planet. The primary centers include Europe’s Paris, London and Berlin, of course Moscow, and in the last two centuries, Washington.

In this context, however, we can see that what may be portrayed as a local conflict, may fit into a much larger geopolitical struggle between these prominent centers of special interests. Syria’s conflict is no different.

Syria had maintained close ties to the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. That meant that even with the fall of the Soviet Union, Syria still had ties to Russia. It uses Russian weapons and tactics. It has economic, strategic and political ties to Russia and it shares mutual interests including the prevailing of a multipolar world order that emphasizes the primacy of national sovereignty.

Because of this, Western centers of power have sought for decades to draw Syria out of this orbit (along with many other nations).

[...] Attempts to strip the government of legitimacy predicated on the fact that it stood and fought groups of armed militants arrayed against it by an axis of foreign interests would set a very dangerous and unacceptable precedent. It is no surprise that Syria finds itself with an increasing number of allies in this fight as other nations realize they will be next if the “Syria model” is a success.

Acknowledging that Syria’s ongoing conflict is the result of foreign aggression against Damascus would make the solution very simple. The solution would be to allow Damascus to restore order within its borders while taking action either at the UN or on the battlefield against those nations fueling violence aimed at Syria. Perhaps the clarity of this solution is why those behind this conflict have tried so hard to portray it as a civil war.

For those who have been trying to make sense of the Syrian “civil war” since 2011 with little luck, the explanation is simple, it isn’t a civil war and it never was. Understanding it as a proxy conflict from the very beginning (or even before it began) will give one a clarity in perception that will aid one immeasurably in understanding what the obvious solutions are, but only when they come to this understanding.

 

[sitting]

Here's the new 2016 cover for the Economist Magazine. Worth a look. Interpretations vary, and this Youtube commentary is one possibility out of many.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bNsJUJwHwE

Interesting that from the tech world, they chose Gates and Musk. But not Zuckerberg ... nor Page & Brin. And no Tim Cook as well. (Maybe the latter 4 are not nearly as sinister as the former 2. Just my speculation.)

There's much on the economy. With years of previous "crashes" highlighted. The appearance of Greenspan is to me somewhat ominous. In my opinion, the most devious Fed chair to have lived. Pure evil. Orchestrated (on orders from Kabbalists) the greatest asset bubble ever.

FWIW.

PS
Mods, please relocate to proper thread if deemed appropriate. Thanks.

 

[angelburst29]

Who killed Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31693234

Two arrests have been made over the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a crime for which multiple theories still exist.

Was he killed in order to cow opposition to President Vladimir Putin at a time of mounting economic problems? Or because he opposed Russia's alleged covert war in Ukraine?

Or was he shot in full view of the Kremlin in an attempt to discredit Russia's leaders or even intimidate them, or incite a rebellion against them?

The Russian leader sought to quell speculation over Kremlin involvement in the death of one of his opponents when he condemned Nemtsov's "brazen murder" and called for an end to the "shameful" political killings that have marked modern Russia.

Foreign intelligence services

Mr Putin publicly condemned Nemtsov's murder, saying it was "entirely provocative in nature".

"Provocation" is Kremlin code for an attack aimed at destabilising the Russian state. As to who might be behind such an attack, the Kremlin's "chief spin doctor", TV anchorman Dmitry Kiselev, made clear who he thought stood to benefit most.

"When he was alive, Nemtsov was no longer necessary to the West, he had no prospects," he said. "But dead, he was a lot more interesting."

It is a standard line on Russian state-run media that the CIA orchestrated the uprising in Ukraine last year and anti-Russian unrest in other ex-Soviet states in recent years.

However, in the absence of any evidence, few people would take seriously the idea that the CIA staged the killing of Nemtsov in the hope of sparking a violent opposition reaction to President Putin's rule.

Boris Nemtsov murder: Russia hunts 'Chechen mastermind'
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35192858

Russian investigators say a Chechen security officer ordered the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, but he is believed to have fled abroad.

Mr Nemtsov, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead in central Moscow in February.

Russia's Investigative Committee (SK) is set to formally charge five Chechens - currently under arrest - with carrying out the "contract killing".

But Ruslan Mukhudinov - the suspected organiser - is still at large.

In a statement (in Russian), the SK said a separate indictment would be drawn up against Mr Mukhudinov "and other, as yet unidentified figures". An international arrest warrant was issued for Mr Mukhudinov last month.

Mr Mukhudinov served in the Chechen "Sever" (North) Battalion as the driver for Ruslan Geremeyev, an associate of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

According to Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer for Mr Nemtsov's family, the investigators have exaggerated Mr Mukhudinov's role, and "the masterminds are high-ranking people".

"Mukhudinov hasn't been caught, or questioned, his whereabouts are unknown, so you cannot talk about him being the one who ordered the killing," said Mr Prokhorov, quoted by Interfax news agency.

Kadyrov associates

Mr Nemtsov - once a Russian minister - was shot on the night of 27 February on a bridge near the Kremlin.

The liberal reformer had sharply criticised high-level corruption in President Putin's Russia and the Kremlin's role in the Ukraine conflict.

In October the Moscow court handling the murder case rejected a request from Mr Nemtsov's daughter, Zhanna Nemtsova, for President Kadyrov to be questioned.

The Chechen president has run the Russian republic in the North Caucasus with an iron fist, enforcing Russian control there against separatist rebels and other opponents.

The alleged gunman in the Nemtsov case, Zaur Dadayev, was previously deputy commander of the North Battalion and was another ally of Mr Kadyrov.

In March, after Mr Dadayev's arrest, Mr Kadyrov wrote in defence of him, saying he was "sincerely devoted to Russia, ready to give his life for the motherland".

But he added that Mr Dadayev had been angered by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It has been suggested that the murder may have been a reprisal for comments that Boris Nemtsov made in support of Charlie Hebdo employees.

Besides Mr Dadayev, the other four facing murder charges are: the brothers Shagid and Anzor Gubashev, Khamzat Bakhayev and Tamerlan Eskerkhanov.

 

[angelburst29]

No Sanctions On Santa: Kremlin Takes Aim At West In Flawed Holiday Card
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-peskov-christmas-card-/27455940.html

When do geopolitics get onto a Christmas card?

When the Kremlin wants to make merry in a holiday message to journalists -- at the expense of the West.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov took aim at U.S. and EU sanctions, travel bans on Russian officials, and low oil prices that have battered the country’s economy in a New Year's and Christmas greeting card, according to a Kremlin pool reporter who says he got one of the missives.

The front of the card, posted on Twitter by Komsomolskaya Pravda reporter Dmitry Smirnov,
https://twitter.com/dimsmirnov175/status/681744301517307904

shows the snow-dusted onion domes of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral beneath the words "Administration of the President of the Russian Federation" in gold type. Ornate lettering wishes the recipient a happy New Year and Christmas, which in Russia is celebrated on January 7.

The message inside is less typical. It seeks to make light of the sanctions the United States and EU have imposed on Russia in response to its interference in Ukraine over the past two years, while also taking a jab at U.S. efforts to build coalitions and brushing aside the oil price plunge that has drained the country's coffers.

It goes like this:

"You can't slap sanctions on Grandfather Frost [the Russian Santa Claus]

The New Year needs no visas

A coalition forms all by itself for celebrations round the tree

Unlike oil, champagne isn't getting any cheaper.

Let's make this fairy-tale reality last all 365 days!"

The greeting card was promptly picked apart by critics who pointed to a number of flaws.

2016 will be a Leap Year with 366 days, not 365, some pointed out.

Others questioned why the fact that champagne prices are not falling would be a good thing -- or lamented that the cost of bubbly is rising in Russia, where a ban on many Western foods has driven prices up and inflation is expected to be about 13 percent in 2015. Wages, by contrast, are down 9.2 percent this year.

News of the greeting card came a day after it emerged that a book compiling quotations and speeches by Putin is being sent to officials as a New Year's gift -- a move Kremlin critics likened to Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong 's Little Red Book.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

BREAKING:

Moscow Imposes Additional Economic Measures Against Turkey

http://sputniknews.com/business/20151230/1032486132/moscow-turkey-sanctions.html

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday signed a decree on the implementation of additional economic measures against Turkey starting January 1, the Cabinet of Ministers’ press service said in a statement.

"By signing this decree [we] approve a list of certain types of services, which are being provided on Russia's territory by organizations under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Turkey, as well as organizations controlled by citizens of the Turkish Republic and (or) organizations under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Turkey which are prohibited starting January 1, 2016," the statement read.

According to the decree, Moscow banned Turkish tourist agencies, hotels, and companies providing guest services from operating in Russia.

The list also extends to construction work, activities in architecture, and the lumber industry.

Moscow's relations with Ankara deteriorated after a Russian Su-24 aircraft had been downed on November 24 by a missile fired from a Turkish F-16 fighter jet over Syria.

In November, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on introducing economic measures against Turkey, including a food imports embargo as well as restrictions in tourism, investments, charter flights and a number of construction projects.

 

[angelburst29]

John McCain Blows Lid as US-Russian Sanctions Fall Apart – US Orders Russian Rockets for New NSA Spy Satellite
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/12/29/john-mccain-blows-lid-as-us-russian-sanctions-fall-apart-us-orders-russian-rockets-for-new-nsa-spy-satellite

Back in October 21WIRE reported one massive dilemma for Washington and the NSA.

Currently, the NSA’s new GPS III national security satellite is sitting in a United Launch Alliance (ULA), co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, hanger somewhere between Alabama and South Texas.

The NSA has two choices: wait three years for Jeff Bezos to develop his Blue Origins rocket engine for fellow tech mogul Elon Musk’s Space X (or through Musk’s own ‘Falcon Heavy’ project which is six years off), or get their new spy satellite up in the air now – with the help of the Russians and their RD-180 engine. There is one bigger problem in the background: Washington are meant to be leading sanctions against Russia – over the downing of MH17, which the Russians did not shoot down.

Interestingly, it is John McCain who is closely allied to rogue militants in Kiev who, according to all available evidence, are more likely to have shot down flight MH17 back in July 2014.

Not surprisingly, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is going nuts (again).

Back in June McCain unleashed a scathing rant against his fellow Republicans in Washington’s anti-Russian ‘alternative media’ megaphone website The Daily Beast, screaming at the time:

“Why in the world would anyone think we would want to continue dependency on Russian rocket engines, which traces up to the corrupt mafia that is around Vladimir Putin?” McCain said to The Daily Beast. “The American people should ask a question of these appropriators: Why are you taking care of Vladimir Putin’s cronies?”

Does McCain have a financial interest in ULA’s domestic competitors who are vying for this same deal? Or is the geriatric war hawk simply upset because his own Cold War-style diplomatic house of cards is starting to collapse? Certainly, this latest breach will send ripples back across the Atlantic as European nations currently suffering under the US-led sanctions regime will be left wondering, “what’s the point?”

Regardless, this latest debacle has only exposed another fundamental flaw in Washington’s half-baked ‘Russian sanctions’ project…

RT.com

The US has ordered 20 additional RD-180 rocket engines from Russia, days after US Congress lifted the ban on the use of Russian engines to get American ships into space. However, the move has been lambasted by some politicians in Washington.

United Launch Alliance announced that it placed an order for more RD-180 rockets to be used by Atlas V launch vehicle, on top of 29 engines that the company has ordered before US sanctions against Russia were introduced over Crimea last year.

Under last year’s National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, the Department of Defense is prohibited from signing new or modifying existing contracts for launches using engines designed or manufactured in Russia.

 

[angelburst29]

A U.S. Professor has said that the U.S. and Europe are growing increasingly hostile towards Russia due to the fact that they underestimated Moscow’s increasing military and economical power.

Anti-Russian Propaganda Shows West Is Running Scared Of Russia
http://investmentwatchblog.com/anti-russian-propaganda-shows-west-is-running-scared-of-russia/

Professor Vladimir Golstein, associate professor of Slavic studies at Brown University in Rhode Island, says that the anti-Russian propaganda perpetrated by the West is now backfiring.

“People who orchestrated this whole geopolitical scheme of bullying Russia definitely miscalculated … You don’t want to wake a sleeping bear but that’s exactly what [the US] State Department did,” he told Iranian television.

Presstv.com reports:

Golstein said the Obama administration’s approach towards Russia reflects the perspective of the 1990s when Russia was devastated with Perestroika, a political movement within the country’s Communist Party that began in the 1980s, which is sometimes argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

American officials and military analysts have acknowledged that Russia’s military campaign against terrorist groups in Syria has been successful and has achieved Moscow’s central goal with relatively low costs.

Three months into Russia’s military operations in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved his main goal of stabilizing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and could sustain the mission at this level for years, Reuters reported on Monday, quoting unnamed US officials.

The acknowledgment comes despite public assertions by US President Barack Obama and his top aides that Putin launched an ill-conceived mission in support of President Assad and that it will likely fail.

The report also noted that since the onset of Moscow’s military campaign in Syria on September 30, Russia has suffered minimal casualties and, despite domestic fiscal woes, is handily covering the operation’s cost, which analysts estimate at $1-2 billion a year.

A US intelligence official said the Russian mission is being funded from the country’ annual defense budget of about $54 billion.



Anti-Iran language by GOP ‘typed up in Netanyahu’s office’
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/12/29/443648/US-Israel-Iran-sanctions-/

US Senate Republicans’ attempt to prevent President Barack Obama from lifting the Iran sanctions is politically motivated and spearheaded by the Israeli lobby in the United States, says a political analyst in Texas.

New legislation, introduced by Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), is aiming to force Obama to provide a wide-ranging report on a possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program before sanctions are lifted at the beginning of the new year, The Hill reported.

“There is a connection between these Republican senators and the Israeli lobby and there is a connection between the Republican Party generally and the Israeli lobby because the pro-Zionist neoconservative part of the American right has completely hijacked the Republican Party and has owned it for a considerable number of years,” a former Senate candidate, said on Thursday.

He said that it is necessary to “understand how political this is in terms of the connection between campaign cash and the Israeli lobby.”

Based on the legislation, the Obama administration needs to certify to the US Congress that there is no military-related activity in Iran’s nuclear program.

The legislation has, so far, been backed by 10 GOP senators, including 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio, as the White House is preparing for removal of the sanctions as part of the July nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.


Dankof said, “We have these Republican senators who are going along with something that clearly is being typed up in Benjamin Netanyahu’s office virtually, including statements that are absolutely beyond the pale in terms of insanity and doing so in exchange for all of this campaign cash.”

“Marco Rubio is the hand-picked boy of Sheldon Adelson, the leading Jewish Zionist financier in the Republican Party who wants Rubio to be the next president of the United States, and Senator Ayotte, Republican from New Hampshire, is backed by seven different single-issue Israeli-orientated political action committees including the Republican Jewish Coalition,” he noted.

Earlier this month, Sen. Ayotte spearheaded a letter to President Obama, also signed by 34 other Republicans, calling the removal of sanctions a “mistake” in the wake of recent missile tests in Iran.

Tehran has insisted that missile tests are not part of the agreement with the P5+1 group of countries.



Norway Says 60 Tons of Raw Uranium Transported to Iran
http://www.voanews.com/content/norway-says-60-tons-of-raw-unranium-transported-t-o-iran/3123042.html

STOCKHOLM— Norway says it has helped verify a shipment of 60 tons of raw uranium to Iran as part of an international deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that experts from the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority “verified and controlled the transportation” of the uranium from Kazakhstan to Iran on Dec. 27.

Iran is receiving raw uranium in exchange for sending most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia under the July 14 nuclear agreement.

The deal aims to reduce Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons – something Tehran says it has no interest in doing.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende said Norway was supporting the deal by helping “ensure Iran’s excess enriched uranium is replaced by natural uranium, so that the commitments in the agreement can be met.”



US accuses Iran of conducting rocket test near warships
http://www.mail.com/news/world/4037284-us-accuses-iran-conducting-rocket-test-warships.html#.7518-stage-hero1-6

Iranian naval vessels conducted rocket tests last week near U.S. warships and commercial traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the American military said Wednesday, causing new tension between the two nations after a landmark nuclear deal.

The vital strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is the route for nearly a third of all oil traded by sea, is crucial for ships taking part in the war against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. In the past, Iran has threatened to block the strait, which lies at the entrance of the Persian Gulf.

While the United States has complained previously about other Iranian war games and maneuvers there, Saturday’s incident comes after a series of weapons tests and other moves by the Islamic Republic following the nuclear deal.

Iranian media and officials did not immediately discuss the tests Wednesday. Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said in a statement that Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval vessels fired “several unguided rockets” about 1,370 meters (1,500 yards) from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, the USS Bulkeley destroyer and a French frigate, the FS Provence. Raines said commercial sea traffic also was nearby, though the missiles weren’t fired in the direction of any ships.

Raines said the Iranian vessels announced over maritime radio that they’d carry out a live fire exercise only 23 minutes beforehand. Iran’s “actions were highly provocative,” Raines said. “Firing weapons so close to passing coalition ships and commercial traffic within an internationally recognized maritime traffic lane is unsafe, unprofessional and inconsistent with international maritime law.”

A French military official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to publicly named, confirmed the rocket fire took place Saturday. However, the official said the French military did not consider it to be a threatening event as the rocket fire clearly wasn’t directed toward the Western fleet.

 

[angelburst29]

The US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has restarted production of plutonium-238 after almost 30 years.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-us-department-of-energys-oak-ridge-national-laboratory-has-restarted-production-of-plutonium-238-after-almost-30-years/ (Video)

In an effort to avert an outer space energy crisis, the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has restarted production of plutonium-238 (PU-238) after almost 30 years. The civilian stockpile of the plutonium isotope used to power the radiothermal generators (RTG) that make electricity for US deep space probes has dwindled to only 35 kg (77 lb), so the first 50 g (1.7 oz) of plutonium oxide produced by the laboratory marks a major turnaround in American space capabilities.

PU-238 is an unstable isotope of plutonium with a half life of 87.7 years. As it decays into uranium-234, each gram produces about 0.5 watts of thermal power, which allows small RTGs to power spacecraft far from the Sun or on the surface of planets without the need for solar panels.

It’s a system that’s been very successful since the Apollo program, but since the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina stopped producing PU-238 in 1988, NASA has been relying on a stockpile of the element purchased from Russia in 1993. Only half of what remains meets specifications, so ORNL says that there’s only enough left to power two or three NASA missions. Though PU-238 is produced in nuclear reactors, extracting it requires a prohibitively expensive isotopic separation process, so special production lines are needed.

To remedy this, ORNL is developing a new production line under a US$15 million program. The process involves taking neptunium-237 (NP-237) feedstock from the Idaho National Laboratory, converting it to neptunium oxide, then mixing it with aluminum, and pressing it into high-density pellets. These are then bombarded with radiation in ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor to turn the NP-237 into NP-238. This, in turn, decays quickly into PU-238.

 

[angelburst29]

Come Again? U.S. State Department Claims It Brought Peace to Syria in 2015
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/29/come-again-state-department-claims-it-brought-peace-syria-2015/

State Department spokesperson John Kirby is raising eyebrows after he released a recap of 2015 “success stories” in which he credits the United States for bringing “peace” and “security” to Syria and “stepping up” to help the country’s people at a difficult time.

“The United States and many members of the international community have stepped up to aid the Syrian people during their time of need,” wrote Kirby in his laudatory year-in-review released late last week. He went on to claim that “the United States has led the world in humanitarian aid contributions since the crisis began in 2011.”

“Led by Secretary Kerry, the United States also continues to push for a political transition in Syria, and under his stewardship, in December, the [United Nations] Security Council passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution that puts forward a roadmap that will facilitate a transition within Syria to a credible, inclusive, nonsectarian government that is responsive to the needs of the Syrian people,” the report continued.

Using the hashtag #2015in5words to highlight last year’s wins, Kirby boasted: “Bringing Peace, Security to Syria.”

Kirby’s claims of victory did not go unnoticed, with Foreign Policy reporter David Francis writing on Monday: “When it comes to Syria, ‘peace’ and ‘security’ might not be the best choice to describe what the United States delivered there in 2015.”

And indeed, a roundup of empirical evidence paints a far more bleak picture.

The United Nations Security Council reported in August that the Syrian conflict has now killed 250,000 people and displaced 12 million. According to a report released by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency in March, more than 80 percent of Syrians were living in poverty in 2014.

What’s more, despite the role of U.S. military intervention in fueling the rise of ISIS and conflict in Syria and Iraq, the American humanitarian response is severely lagging. The United States has admitted just 1,854 Syrian refugees since 2012, and according to the administration of President Barack Obama, 10,000 will be resettled next fiscal year.

This compares with 2.1 million Syrian refugees registered by the UN in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon; 1.9 million Syrians registered by Turkey; and nearly 30,000 in North Africa. All of these numbers are likely low, as many refugees do not register.

Further, these numbers fall well below calls for the U.S. to resettle at least 100,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year, with some demanding open borders at a time of dramatic human displacement.

In addition, many have argued that U.S. aid donations are dismally inadequate, given the country’s status as the biggest economy in the world.

While aid falls short, U.S. intervention continues to escalate—despite warnings that there is no American military solution.

According to the calculations of journalist Chris Woods, November 2015 “saw the greatest number of Coalition actions yet reported in the 16-month war,” with the U.S. and allies conducting 232 bombings in Syria, as well as 529 in Iraq. And earlier this month, the United States announced it is deploying more special operations forces to Iraq, where they will be given license to operate unilaterally in neighboring Syria.

Meanwhile, a report released by Amnesty International earlier this month found that ISIS has formed a formidable arsenal, in part thanks to large stockpiles of U.S. weapons seized from Iraqi forces and Syrian opposition.

Kirby’s declaration of “success” in Syria was not, however, the only controversial claim in his annual roundup. Also included under the hashtag #2015in5words were “Protecting Arctic Climate and Communities” and “Open Door to Free Trade.”

 

[angelburst29]

The humanitarian cargo includes mobile power stations, multi-seat tents, blankets, utensils and food (canned meat and fish).

Russia sends more than 40 tons of humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan
http://tass.ru/en/politics/847786

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. The Russian Emergencies Ministry has sent more than 40 tons of humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan. "Today, under instructions from the Russian government, the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft has departed from Ramenskoye airport in the Moscow region to the Kyrgyz city of Osh to provide humanitarian assistance to the population of Kyrgyzstan affected by a devastating earthquake," the ministry’s spokesman said.

The aircraft will deliver to Kyrgyzstan more than 40 tons of humanitarian cargo, including mobile power stations, multi-seat tents, blankets, utensils and food (canned meat and fish). A series of earthquake shocks occurred in southern Kyrgyzstan overnight on November 18. The epicenter was located from 35 to 45 kilometers from the regional center — the city of Osh. According to the Kyrgyz authorities, about 140 houses were damaged, some of them are considered to be a total loss. The Kyrgyz authorities asked Russia to render assistance in dealing away with the aftermath of the earthquake.



Normandy Four agrees to extend Minsk deals to 2016 — Kremlin
http://tass.ru/en/world/847941

The Normandy Four has agreed to extend the validity of the Minsk Agreements to 2016 after a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

"The leaders thoroughly discussed the still tense and unstable situation in southeast Ukraine in the context of implementation of the agreements coordinated in Minsk February 12, 2015," the Kremlin reported.

"They agreed to extend their validity to 2016. The importance was noted of further work of the Contact Group to fully and comprehensively implement the Minsk Package of Measures," it said.



US declares pre-New Year hunt for Russians, 20 orders issued
http://www.pravdareport.com/news/world/29-12-2015/132974-hunt-0/

The Russian Foreign Ministry possesses data on the US plans to detain no less than 20 Russian citizens around the world.

The corresponding orders have been issued by the US authorities, Konstantin Dolgov, Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law reported. 'Law enforcement agencies of the US make use of unlawful methods of its extraterritorial law application to the Russian citizens in the third countries.

We have registered 22 cases of the US authorities' issuing orders to detain Russians in the third countries for the time being as well as for their extradition to the US,' the diplomat said. Dolgov added that such a practice contradicts international rules of law and violates agreements of mutual legal aid on criminal cases.

Pravda.Ru reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry had previously convicted the official Ankara, which had initiated a detain and deportation of the Russian journalists, who had been working on the border of Turkey and Syria.



U.S. Doesn't Consider Detention Of Russians Abroad Violation Of Treaty
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2015/12/us-doesnt-consider-detention-of.html

The arrest by US law enforcement of Russian citizens on the territory of third countries is not related to the Russian-American Treaty on mutual legal assistance, 1999, said a specialist in public relations of the Ministry of Justice Mark Abueg to the agency Sputnik.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner on Human Rights, Konstantin Dolgov, said that Washington issued 22 warrants for the arrest of the Russians in third world countries for their extradition to the US. According to him, "this practice... is contrary to... the provisions of the Treaty on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters of 1999".

"The 1999 agreement is an agreement on mutual legal assistance between the United States and Russia, the purpose of which is to assist in the gathering of evidence and other information in the field of criminal justice," said Abueg.

The representative of the U.S. Department of Justice added that "it has no relation to the detention of fugitives from justice. The U.S. and Russia are not parties to the Treaty on extradition."



Lavrov: Washington Is Opposed To The Establishment Of Europe's Own Military Forces
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2015/12/lavrov-washington-is-opposed-to.html

The Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an exclusive interview to the TV channel "Star" said that Russia has no plans to send troops to the territory of countries who are members of NATO.

"I'm sure everyone understands that no tanks or Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will enter the territory of NATO members, none of this is even being considered", – said Lavrov.

The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry commented on the attitude to Russia towards the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. According to him, the United States claimed that the Baltic and Eastern European countries will calm down only when they join the Alliance. However, Lavrov said, that did not happen.

Lavrov said that new members of the Alliance began to use its membership for regular attacks on Russia.

"Since becoming members of NATO, they behave quite differently: they use this membership to come on and attack us via their constant rhetoric. I think they just used their hysterical position against Russia and attempted to represent the will of the people of Crimea as if our aggressive aspirations to NATO have moved to these frontiers", – said Lavrov.

In addition, the head of the Russian foreign Ministry said that Washington is opposed by all means to the establishment of Europe's own military forces.