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

[angelburst29]

Russia: Manhunt underway after deadly gun attack on sightseers (video)
http://www.euronews.com/2015/12/30/russia-manhunt-underway-after-deadly-gun-attack-on-sightseers/

An historic fortress in southern Russia was the scene of a deadly shooting targeting sightseers on Tuesday evening.

Who was behind the bloodshed is unclear.

It happened in the ancient city of Derbent in Dagestan, a mostly-Muslim republic in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus region, where Moscow has been fighting Islamist insurgents for years.

Caucasus region, where Moscow has been fighting Islamist insurgents for years.

The Interfax news agency says the tourists were local residents visiting a viewing platform at the Unesco World Heritage site when shots were fired from a nearby forest.

The party included two border guards, one of whom died, Interfax reported. At least 11 other people were injured.

A manhunt is now underway for the attackers who fled the scene.

Russia is struggling to quell a simmering Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, where some rebels have sworn allegiance to the group calling itself Islamic State.



ISIS Russia Attack: Islamic State Group Claims Shooting In North Caucasus, Report Says
http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-russia-attack-islamic-state-group-claims-shooting-north-caucasus-report-says-2245321

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a shooting in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan that killed one and injured 11, SITE Intelligence Group said Thursday. The attack occurred Tuesday night near the citadel of Derbent, reportedly Russia's oldest city.

"With the help of Allah, the warriors of the Khalifate were able to attack a group of Russian special service officers in the city of Derbent in southern Dagestan, killing one officer and injuring the others," the terrorist monitoring organization quoted ISIS as saying Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Gunmen reportedly opened fire at people standing by the ancient citadel, which was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 2003. A law enforcement official told Interfax Wednesday that at least 65 bullet casings were recovered at the scene, AFP reported.

Russia has had heavy security presence in the largely Muslim North Caucasus region since the separatist wars that were waged in Chechnya in the 1990s. Islamist rebels in Dagestan, a restive region just east of Chechnya, have been making several efforts to join ISIS.

At least 118 people were killed in the region between January and November as a result of the conflict, AFP reported, citing the Caucasian Knot news portal, which monitors militant activities in the North Caucasus.



Russia: ISIL claims deadly Dagestan shooting
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=811_1451559758

ISIL says it was behind a gun attack at an historic fortress in southern Russia that left one person dead and 11 others injured.

A group of sightseers appeared to be targeted by Tuesday night’s shooting at Derbent in Dagestan in the North Caucasus where Russia is fighting Islamist rebels, some of whom have sworn allegiance to the extremist group.

But the person killed and one of those hurt were later reported to be border guards or, according to some sources, members of Russia’s FSB security service.

A message attributed to ISIL on a jihadist website hails a successful attack on the FSB and the escape of the gunmen.

 

[Dirgni]

I do not know if this threat is the right place for this.

Fear mongering or something more serious?

http://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/id_76528892/muenchen-polizei-warnt-vor-terroranschlag.html

München: Polizei warnt vor Terroranschlag

31.12.2015, 23:04 Uhr | dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, dpa
München (dpa) - Die Polizei in München hat am Silvesterabend vor einem Terroranschlag in der bayerischen Landeshauptstadt gewarnt. Sie hätten konkrete Hinweise, die sie nicht unter den Teppich kehren könnten, sagte eine Sprecherin. Menschen sollten Ansammlungen vermeiden. Vor allem sollten sie nicht zum Hauptbahnhof und zum Bahnhof Pasing gehen. Über den Kurznachrichtendienst Twitter wollte die Polizei die Öffentlichkeit auf dem Laufenden halten.

Munich: Police warns of terrorist attack

Munich Police warns that there could be a terror attack in Munich at New Years Eve in Munich. They had concrete warnings, they could not ignore, a speaker tells. People should avoid large groups. They should not go to Munich central station and Pasing station. Munich polices is informing via twitter.

https://www.rt.com/news/327605-muenchen-terror-attack-warning-police/

German police evacuate 2 train stations in Munich, warn of imminent terror threat
German police have evacuated the central railway station of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, as well as another station in Pasing due to an imminent terror threat. On Twitter and Facebook, Munich police have asked people to avoid crowded places amid the ongoing New Year celebrations.
Polizei München said on Facebook that the stations, which have already been emptied, will not be operating and will be kept sealed off. Police also asked to follow their further instructions.

The warning has been issued “due to a serious indication of terror attack threat in Munich area.”

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

Munich police warn of imminent terrorist attack, evacuate 2 stations over fears.....stay safe if you're out tonight

— Mat Keeling (@keelingover) December 31, 2015

https://www.rt.com/news/

German police evacuate 2 train stations in Munich, warn of imminent terror threat
German police have evacuated the central railway station of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, as well as another station in Pasing due to an imminent terror threat. On Twitter and Facebook, Munich police have asked people to avoid crowded places amid the ongoing New Year celebrations.

https://www.rt.com/uk/327556-armed-police-london-nye/

2,000 armed police deployed to ‘shield London’s New Year festivities from terror attack’

Thousands of police officers will be patrolling London on Thursday night to protect the capital’s New Year’s Eve celebrations from a terrorist attack, it has emerged.
However, the annual mayor’s fireworks display, which attracts thousands of people each year, will actually see fewer officers than last year.

Some 4,200 officers were on duty in 2014 compared with the 3,000 deployed this year.

Scotland Yard and the Mayor of London’s office say there will be a greater number of civilian stewards on duty than previous occasions.

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that every firearms officer in London will be on duty. According to the Times, all 2,000 of them have had their holiday leave canceled.

Met chairman Ken Marsh told the Telegraph the armed officers would provide “greater cover” in case of a terror attack.

“I would ask anyone who is traveling into London for the ticketed New Year’s Eve event to arrive in plenty of time,” a spokesperson for the Met told the Guardian.

“We will be supporting stewards with additional entry searches to the ticketed event, which is likely to mean it will take longer to get into the viewing areas.

“We will also be working closely with our partners at British Transport Police, who will have additional armed officers in and around central London transport hubs throughout New Year’s Eve.”

In a statement, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said the capital’s fireworks display will be a “momentous occasion, uniting millions of people across the country and overseas.”

Members of the public are encouraged to go out and enjoy the firework display, which will be accompanied by the chimes of Big Ben as 2016 arrives.

However, London is one of many cities on alert in Europe. In the past year, at least seven terror plots have been foiled by British security services.

Britain’s terror threat level remains severe.

Following the Paris attacks in November, Prime Minister David Cameron said the threat is “very real,” adding Britain must not “sit back and wait for them [Islamic State] to attack us.”

Other cities around the world have tightened security in an effort to prevent terror attack.

In Belgium, a scheduled annual New Year’s Eve fireworks show has been canceled over fears of an attack.

“Unfortunately we have been forced to cancel the fireworks and all that was planned for tomorrow [Thursday] evening,” Mayor Yvan Mayeur told Belgian broadcaster RTBF.

“It’s better not to take any risks.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/31/cities-around-world-tighten-new-years-eve-security-amid-terror-attack-fears

Cities around world tighten security amid New Year's Eve terror attack fears

London, Paris, Moscow, Brussels, Ankara, Madrid and New York among cities taking extra precautions for end-of-year celebrations ...

 

[sToRmR1dR]

RT’s special report on 2015: Rise of ISIS, Russia not so isolated, EU migrant crisis

https://www.rt.com/news/327610-rt-2015-report-video/

With 2016 just around the corner, RT takes a look at the events that formed the departing year, including those that didn’t make into the media spotlight for some reason.

Islamic State horrors

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), the terrorist organization that spread chaos and horror in both the Middle East and Europe, made it into the headlines more often than others terror groups last year. Not taken seriously in 2014, IS became stronger in 2015, seizing cities in Iraq and Syria and organizing atrocious terrorist attacks, including mass shootings in Paris and the downing of a Russian passenger aircraft in Sinai, among others.

Migrant flow into EU

The burning issue of last year, the refugee crisis saw European leaders desperately searching for a way to manage the huge streams of asylum seekers leaving war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East. As refugees started storming train stations, violating state borders, and staging riots over mistreatment and red tape, waves of anti-refugee protests began sweeping Europe. This has resulted in a rightist shift in the political landscape of a number of European countries, including France, Poland, Denmark, Sweden.

Off MSM’s menu

However, some of 2015’s biggest topics received scant coverage in the main stream media, if they were covered at all. The war on terror completely overshadowed the revelation that oil was being smuggling into Turkey by Islamic State. In the same fashion, stories about the French service dog, Diesel, killed during a Paris anti-terror raid, enjoyed much wider coverage than terror bombings in the Middle East and Africa.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Happy New Year in the Skies: Russia's Anti-Daesh Drive Never Stops in Syria

http://sputniknews.com/world/20160101/1032573419/russia-syria-mission-daesh.html

Russian warplanes continued their mission in Syria on New Year's Eve, according to RIA Novosti.

On December 31, Russian soldiers stationed at the Hmeymim airbase in Syria celebrated the New Year and received gifts from the Russian Defense Ministry, RIA Novosti reported.

The servicemen met the New Year at 00:00 Moscow time, standing in order and listening to Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual New Year's address near a 15-meter-high Christmas tree.

Notably, the address was accompanied by the roar of the combat aircraft's engines as Russian pilots went ahead with their sorties despite the holiday.

Also in attendance in Hmeymim were traditional Snow Maiden and Father Frost, who wished the servicemen "to put an end to terrorism in the Syrian Arab Republic as soon as possible and to return home as heroes, from palm trees to the Russian birch and fir trees."

Each soldier was presented with a travel bag, a thermal mug, a food set containing sausage, cheese, red caviar and sweets, as well as a T-shirt with an image of the Su-30 fighter and the date of the beginning of the Russian air campaign.

The Russian air campaign was launched on September 30, 2015, when more than fifty Russian warplanes, including Su-24M, Su-25 and Su-34 jets, commenced precision airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria at the behest of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Late in December, Russian Defense Ministry officials said that Russian fighter jets had completed a total of 5,240 sorties since the start of the air operation against Daesh militants in Syria.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

I do not know if this threat is the right place for this.

Fear mongering or something more serious?

http://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/id_76528892/muenchen-polizei-warnt-vor-terroranschlag.html

München: Polizei warnt vor Terroranschlag

31.12.2015, 23:04 Uhr | dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, dpa
München (dpa) - Die Polizei in München hat am Silvesterabend vor einem Terroranschlag in der bayerischen Landeshauptstadt gewarnt. Sie hätten konkrete Hinweise, die sie nicht unter den Teppich kehren könnten, sagte eine Sprecherin. Menschen sollten Ansammlungen vermeiden. Vor allem sollten sie nicht zum Hauptbahnhof und zum Bahnhof Pasing gehen. Über den Kurznachrichtendienst Twitter wollte die Polizei die Öffentlichkeit auf dem Laufenden halten.

Munich: Police warns of terrorist attack

Munich Police warns that there could be a terror attack in Munich at New Years Eve in Munich. They had concrete warnings, they could not ignore, a speaker tells. People should avoid large groups. They should not go to Munich central station and Pasing station. Munich polices is informing via twitter.

https://www.rt.com/news/327605-muenchen-terror-attack-warning-police/

German police evacuate 2 train stations in Munich, warn of imminent terror threat
German police have evacuated the central railway station of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, as well as another station in Pasing due to an imminent terror threat. On Twitter and Facebook, Munich police have asked people to avoid crowded places amid the ongoing New Year celebrations.
Polizei München said on Facebook that the stations, which have already been emptied, will not be operating and will be kept sealed off. Police also asked to follow their further instructions.

The warning has been issued “due to a serious indication of terror attack threat in Munich area.”

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

Munich police warn of imminent terrorist attack, evacuate 2 stations over fears.....stay safe if you're out tonight

— Mat Keeling (@keelingover) December 31, 2015

https://www.rt.com/news/

German police evacuate 2 train stations in Munich, warn of imminent terror threat
German police have evacuated the central railway station of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, as well as another station in Pasing due to an imminent terror threat. On Twitter and Facebook, Munich police have asked people to avoid crowded places amid the ongoing New Year celebrations.

Bavaria's Minister Says Daesh Behind Planned Terrorist Attack in Munich

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160101/1032566452/daesh-panned-attack-munich.html

Daesh terrorist group is behind a planned terrorist attack in the German city of Munich the Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Munich Police Department said earlier they had information of a terrorist attack planned in the city for New Year's Eve, urging people to avoid crowds. Later, police evacuated two train stations in Munich over high possibility of the attack.

The German Die Welt newspaper quoted Herrmann as saying that the information was obtained from a friendly intelligence service and it was necessary to immediately step up the security measures in the city.

In late December, Austrian police stated that several European capitals received a warning from a "friendly intelligence service" about possible terrorist attacks during the holiday season.

 

[Cosmos]

Putin signs bill allowing reciprocal impounding of foreign nations’ property:
https://www.rt.com/politics/327435-putin-signs-russian-bill-allowing/

President Vladimir Putin has signed amendments to a bill that restricts foreign states’ right not to observe certain Russian legal procedures if these states themselves introduce measures restricting Russia’s legal immunity.
The amendments would change Russian civil and arbitration codes by introducing the principle of limited legal immunity for a foreign state. They detail the procedure of initiating a lawsuit against a foreign nation and serving court warrants to its representatives. The document also prescribes the role of various Russian state agencies in court cases against foreign states.

The amendments are a part of a law that was signed in early November and will come into force on January 1. It allows Russia to impound the property of foreign states, so long as Russian courts rule that these nations have damaged the economic or other interests of the Russian Federation. Before this act was introduced, such steps were only allowed on condition the government of the country in question agreed to them.

The new bill was drafted by the government as a reciprocal measure after several countries this year executed the rulings of international courts and impounded the assets belonging to the Russian state.

For example, in early July, the media reported that Belgium and France had frozen Russian state companies’ assets and curtailed their agencies in these countries. The move was in connection with the June 2014 ruling by the International Criminal Court in The Hague that ordered Russia to pay compensation of $39.9 billion, $1.85 billion and $8.2 billion, respectively, to three companies connected to the once-powerful oil giant Yukos, which was dissolved in 2007.

The Russian Foreign Ministry described these steps as blatant violation of international law and promised to contest these decisions. Vladimir Putin said that Russia would challenge the decision to seize its assets. The president added that the country didn’t recognize the ruling of the Hague court, as it doesn’t participate in the European Energy Charter.

In comments to the newly introduced law on reciprocal impounding of foreign states’ assets, the Justice Ministry wrote that the main idea behind it was to ensure a “jurisdiction balance” between Russia and foreign states. “The number of lawsuits against the Russian Federation is constantly growing and this happens without asking for our agreement for participation in these cases,” a government source told Kommersant daily. Therefore, recognizing rulings by foreign courts is equivalent al to conceding national sovereignty, the source added.

Also in July, the Russian Constitutional Court decided that no international treaty or convention has precedence over national sovereignty, and decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) should be upheld only when they don’t contradict basic Russian law. In mid-December, President Putin signed into law a bill allowing the Constitutional Court to overrule the decisions of international courts if such decisions contradict the principle of supremacy of the Russian Constitution.

Step by step...

 

[Cosmos]

Putin just signed a very interesting new national security strategy for 2016:
https://www.rt.com/news/327608-russia-national-security-strategy/

Should be read carefully:

Russia’s national security strategy for 2016 in 9 key points

President Vladimir Putin has signed the country’s national security strategy for 2016 with color revolutions and biological weapons named as primary threats to Russia. Here are nine key points you want to know about the document.

1. “Color Revolutions” and corruption among key threats to Russia’s security

Listed among threats to national security are “color revolutions” and their instigation, the undermining of traditional values, and corruption.

Who could be engaged in such activities? According to the document, “radical social groups which use nationalist and religious extremist ideologies, foreign and international NGOs, and also private citizens” who work to undermine Russia’s territorial integrity and destabilize political processes.

The activities of foreign intelligence services, terrorist and extremist organizations, and criminal groups are also classified as threats.

2. US complicates things with bio weapons threat

The growing number of countries in possession of nuclear weapons has also increased certain risks, the decree says. Indeed the risk of countries gaining possession of and using chemical weapons, as well as biological weapons, has risen as well, it elaborates.

“The network of US biological military labs is expanding on the territories of countries neighboring Russia,” it said. “Russia’s independent foreign and domestic policy has been met with counteraction by the US and its allies, seeking to maintain its dominance in world affairs.”

3. NATO expansion goes overboard

The North Atlantic alliance advance towards Russia’s borders is a threat to national security, according to the document. Processes of militarization and arms build-ups are unfolding in regions neighboring Russia, it says, adding that “the principles of equal and indivisible security” are not being respected in the Euro-Atlantic, Eurasian and Asia-Pacific regions.

Nonetheless, Russia is still interested in a fair dialogue and good relations with NATO, the US and the EU, the strategy says. Under the partnership, it’s important to enhance mechanisms “provided by international treaties on arms control, confidence-building measures, issues related to non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the expansion of cooperation in the fight against terrorism, the settlement of regional conflicts,” it says.

4. Ukraine figures

US and EU support of the coup in Ukraine has led to a deep split in Ukrainian society and prompted an armed conflict, the decree stated. The rise of far-right nationalist ideology and the intentionally-created image of Russia as an “enemy” in Ukraine have made it a “long-term source of instability in Europe and directly at the Russian border.”

5. No to nukes?

Russia may be ready to discuss curbing its nuclear potential, but only based on mutual agreements and multi-lateral talks, the document states. Curtailing Russia’s nuclear potential will only occur if it were also to “contribute to the creation of appropriate conditions that will enable a reduction of nuclear weapons, without damaging international security and strategic stability.”

At the same time, Russia plans to prevent any military conflicts by maintaining its nuclear capabilities as a deterent, but would resort to the military option only if all other non-military options had failed.

6. Info warfare

Secret services have become increasingly active in using their capabilities in the struggle for international influence, the document highlighted.
“An entire spectrum of political, financial, economic and information instruments has been brought into struggle for influence in the international arena.”

7. When to use military force

The strategy allows the use of military force only in cases when other measures to “protect the national interests” are ineffective.

8. Money matters

Russia’s economic stability is in danger mainly because of its low level of competitiveness and its resource-dependent economy.

Among other threats is “a lag in the development of advanced technologies, the vulnerability of the financial system, the imbalance of the budgetary system, the economy going offshore, the exhaustion of the raw materials base, the strength of the shadow economy, conditions leading to corruption and criminal activities, and uneven development of regions.”

The fact that Russia is dependent on the external economic environment doesn’t help matters, the document reads. Economic restrictions, global and regional crises, as well as the misuse use of the law, among other things, will have a negative impact on the economy, and in the future could lead to a deficit of mineral, water, and biological resources.

“The growing influence of political factors on economic processes, as well as attempts by individual states to use economic methods, tools of financial, trade, investment and technology policies to solve their geopolitical problems, weakens the stability of the system of international economic relations.”


9. What’s next for the economy?

Understanding the problems faced by the country’s economy, the Russian government plans to take measures to deal with them. To ensure economic security, the country will need to balance its budget, prevent capital outflows, and reduce inflation, the document states.

“To resist the hazards to economic security, the government… will carry out a national social and economic policy involving … strengthening of the financial system, ensuring its sovereignty and the stability of the national currency”.

Russia also considers developing relations with China, India, Latin America and Africa as highly important. 

A quite clear and on the point strategy, for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.

So if other things continue to fail (in respect to western impunity on the world stage, or more precisely, towards russia), Putin will allow using military force to protect its national interests. Which I guess implies, if everything else does not work, that boots on the ground would be a part of that last option.

 

[angelburst29]

Putin just signed a very interesting new national security strategy for 2016:
https://www.rt.com/news/327608-russia-national-security-strategy/

I see the Document that Putin just signed into Law - as serious. It's like a "shot across the bow" to the U.S./NATO forces and I would include Turkey - in that they are close to crossing the line, with their military build up on Russian Borders. Putin's laying it all out "in black and white" as a Legal warning. And China is backing Russia!

Russia, China ready for joint anti-terror measures — Russian Foreign Ministry
http://tass.ru/en/politics/848064

"We proceed from the fact that the Chinese partners have taken an important step towards the creation of a solid legal framework to effectively combat terrorism," the Russian Foreign Ministry says.

MOSCOW, December 31. /TASS/. Moscow welcomes the adoption by the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress on December 27 of the Law "On Combating Terrorism," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

"We proceed from the fact that the Chinese partners have taken an important step towards the creation of a solid legal framework to effectively combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," the ministry said. "The contents of the document, in our view, testify to the fact that China in its development relied on the basic norms and principles of international law, as well as take into account the experience of other countries, including Russia, in the sphere of organizing counter-terrorism activity." "We express our confidence that the adoption of this legal act will promote the further strengthening of the dynamic Russian-Chinese counter-terrorism cooperation within the framework of our two countries’ privileged strategic partnership," the ministry said. "Moscow and Beijing together stand for the preservation of the central coordinating role of the United Nations in global anti-terrorism efforts, which should be free from politicization and preconditions, for the creation of a broad antiterrorist coalition against the Islamic State terrorist organization (outlawed in Russia), for the adoption of comprehensive measures to counteract the phenomenon of foreign terrorists-militants, including in the context of reduction of risks for the Central Asian region," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

According to the ministry, the Russian-Chinese Counter-Terrorism Working Group meets on a regular basis. In late October, consultations at the level of deputy foreign ministers in charge of cooperation in the fight against international terrorism were held in Beijing. "The bilateral cooperation at the key international venues - the UN, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Eurasian Group on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism (EAG) is progressively expanding," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "Russia and China not only objectively assess the difficult global terrorism situation, but also demonstrate their willingness to take joint action for its improvement."

 

[angelburst29]

Welt: Ruble May Become Important Currency in 2016
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2015/12/welt-ruble-may-become-important.html

Experts making predictions for 2016 advised readers to pay attention on such currencies as the Russian ruble, as the currency markets may soon offer surprises, writes Welt.

The ruble in 2016 may make an unexpected manoeuvre. Due to the huge expanses of the country and its vast resources, the Russian currency has every chance to become the currency of global importance. Although the commodity crisis will put further pressure on the Russian economy, the potential for recovery of the ruble in 2016 is very large, the newspaper wrote. "If the oil price during the year begins to recover, it will give a boost to the ruble," says Ronald Schneider, an expert on emerging markets from Raiffaisen Capital Management.

It is possible that in the near future, the Russian currency will start to grow, notes the author. "By the end of 2016 the Russian currency will rise by 20%", says Steen Jakobsen, chief economist Saxo Bank. He sees a potential factor for the recovery of the ruble will not only be a sharp increase in oil demand in the new year, but also a global disappointment in the Federal reserve system of the USA. Despite the fact that the positions of the various analysts about the precise estimates of the growth of the ruble varies, all the experts came to a common opinion that in the next year, the Russian currency is ready for recovery, the paper concludes.



Imam arrested in Russia’s south-west planned to set up radical religious cell
http://tass.ru/en/politics/848046

MOSCOW, December 31. /TASS/. An imam arrested in the city of Belgorod in Russia’s south-west allegedly had plans to create a radical religious cell, source familiar with the reasons for his detention told TASS. According to the unnamed source, during the search in the house of worship security officers seized extremist literature, in addition to weapons and explosives.

"Leader of the Peace and Creation religious organization Faizullah Ismailov, an adherent of Salafism (radical branch of Islam), planned to create a Salafi cell in Belgorod," the source said.

"During the searches in the house of worship, plenty of extremist literature was seized, in addition to weapons, including of the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islam international terrorist group outlawed in Russia." According to the prosecutor’s office, "during Islamilov’s detention in his office in the house of worship on December 12 FSB officers discovered an automatic pistol, a handgun, three ball cartridges, a fragmentation hand grenade, a fusee for hand grenades and 737 grams of TNT."

According to the source, the organization’s book contains the name of Alexei Pashentsev (Abdul Malik al-Rusi), one of the leaders of the Dagestani criminal underworld, who was actively involved in organizing and carrying out terrorist attacks in Volgograd (in southern Russia). He was killed in February 2014. The source noted that some of the parishioners of the Belgorod mosque whose spiritual leader Ismailov is take part in the armed conflict in Syria on the side of the Islamic State (IS terrorist group outlawed in Russia).



Finland holds three Russians detained at US request — ombudsman
http://tass.ru/en/politics/848017

Moscow welcomes Finland's decision to release Russian national Yury Yefremov earlier arrested at the request of the US.

Russia hails Finland's decision to release Russian national Yury Yefremov as the decision was taken proceeding from the fact that the United States had not provided sufficient evidence, Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ombudsman for Human Rights, Democracy and Supremacy of the Law Konstantin Dolgov told TASS on Wednesday.

"We welcome this decision of the Finnish authorities as it was taken on the basis of insufficient evidence provided by the United States which had been pushing for Yefremov's extradition to the US," Dolgov said. At the same time, Dolgov said that Finland was holding another three Russians, who were arrested at the requests of the US. "We are hopeful that the Finnish authorities will reveal the same responsible attitude towards these Russians and will also take a decision not to extradite them to the US," he said.



UN General Assembly president blames US invasion of Iraq for emergence of Islamic State
http://tass.ru/en/world/848039

According to him, It was necessary to seek a more democratic and inclusive society in Iraq as well as an agreement that would protect the interests of minorities.

UNITED NATIONS, December 31. /TASS/. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a wrong step, which provoked interfaith enmity and paved the way for emergence of the Islamic State (IS, terrorist group outlawed in Russia), President of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft has told TASS.

According to him, It was necessary to seek a more democratic and inclusive society in Iraq as well as an agreement that would protect the interests of minorities. Lykketoft noted that Iraq’s unfortunate experience had to be taken into consideration while resolving the conflict in Syria. According to the plan endorsed by the UN Security Council, in January Damascus and the opposition will sit down at the negotiating table, and the talks will be followed by the formation of the transitional government, the Constitutional reform and elections, he noted.

He noted that the United Nations should pay as much attention as possible to the protection of minorities in Iraq and Syria. "We have to deal with it in any future United Nations involvement in creating and maintaining peace. Otherwise you will have ongoing civil wars for a very long time and with big international implications."

 

[angelburst29]

Russian President Putin's New Year Address to the Nation
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/51128

December 31, 2015 Moscow

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, friends,

In a few moments, we will see in the New Year of 2016. The sensation of this wonderful moment between the past and the future is familiar since childhood. We look forward to it with joy, hope and excitement, believing in the best.

Traditionally, we celebrate it with our families, with all our near and dear ones. Of course, not all manage to see the New Year in with their families.

People have to work at hospitals and production facilities, perform their service and combat duty, defend our borders, and be on regular duty ensuring our security on land, at sea and in the sky.

We are grateful to all those who are always on their post, day and night, weekdays and holidays. Today, I would like to extend special greetings to those of our service members who are fighting international terrorism, defending Russia’s national interests at distant frontiers, showing their willpower, determination and staunchness. Though, these are the qualities we need all the time, whatever we are doing.

The success of the entire nation depends on the efficient labour and achievements of each one of us. We are united by the same goals, by our common desire to benefit our Motherland and by our sense of responsibility for its future.

In the outgoing year of 2015, we marked the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Our history, the experience of our parents and grandparents, their unity in times of trouble and their willpower shall always serve as an example for us. They have helped and will help us to meet all current challenges with dignity.

Friends,

On this New Year’s night, we feel especially strongly just how much our near and dear ones mean to us. It is so important for all to be healthy and everything to be fine. For our parents to be surrounded by love and care, so that all the good things they have ever taught us come back to them.

Let our children grow smart and active, while love and responsiveness, kind-heartedness and compassion support us in our everyday chores.

There are a few seconds left before the New Year. Let us wish each other success and happiness.

Let us thank each other for understanding and support, for sympathy and responsiveness we give each other.

And let us raise a toast to the prosperity and wellbeing of Russia!

Happy New year to you! Happy 2016!



Vladimir Putin Voted Jerusalem Post’s Person of the Year
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160101/1032587091/putin-poll-person-year-2015.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the person of the year for 2015, according to a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Post.

“Twenty-nine percent of respondents chose Putin as their person of the year,” the newspaper reported on Friday.

In second place was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, chosen by 16 percent of voters, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took third place with 15 percent.

Three percent picked Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, two percent Pope Francis and two percent US President Barack Obama; 33 percent of those asked said they didn’t know.

The survey of 527 Israeli adults was taken on Tuesday by the Jerusalem Post and its Hebrew-language sister publication. In addition to their person of the year, respondents were also asked about the greatest cause for concern internationally, and domestically.




United States President Obama's New Year Address to the Nation aka ...... ;)

Obama: ‘Sizeable Percentage’ of World Leaders Are Out of Their Minds
http://sputniknews.com/us/20160101/1032565426/obama-seinfeld-world-leaders.html

On Wednesday evening, the seventh season of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee premiered online, featuring President Barack Obama.

The duo cruised around in a Corvette, touring the grounds of the White House, chatting comfortably. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the conversation was when Seinfeld asked the president, “how many world leaders do you think are just completely out of their mind?”

“A pretty sizable percentage,” Obama answered bluntly.

“Part of what happens is these guys, I think the longer they stay in office, the more likely that is to happen,” he continued.

“They lose it,” Seinfeld interjected.

“At a certain point your feet hurt, and you’re having trouble peeing, and you have absolute power…,” Obama lamented.

Another noteworthy tidbit the president revealed is that he blows off steam by swearing.

"Bad stuff or stupid stuff is happening constantly, right? Every day. So you just have to be able to just make fun of — wow, that was even dumber and more annoying than usual. That's when cursing is really valuable,” the president told the comedian.

The episode concludes with Obama commenting on being able to drive a 1963 Corvette, stating: "This is a childhood dream.”

 

[angelburst29]

Syria and the Final Solution: A German-Syrian Peace Declaration
http://journal-neo.org/2016/01/01/syria-and-the-final-solution-a-german-syrian-peace-declaration/

I received a revelation at a strategy session the other day at our offices in Germany. Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Syria are still at war with the Axis powers of World War II! That’s right, refugees from the region are now streaming into enemy territory by the hundreds of thousands. Someone, maybe Vladimir Putin, has to broker a peace treaty, and soon.

Not many reading this will know there are many nations technically at war still with Japan and Germany, as well as other Axis powers, technically that is. When the Allied nations of Britain, France, the US, and USSR assumed supreme authority over the German state in 1945, there was scant documentation of the exactitude of Axis powers’ surrenders and dispositions. For Germany in particular, it has been argued that the defeat at the hands of Allied nations was in fact a debellation, or obliteration by warring of a sovereign state. However, the nation’s identity is intact I assure you, even if it is by nature a vassal of Britain and the United States still. It is in this “technicality” we may find an apt solution to the chaos in the Middle East now, and in particular for Syria. Please allow me to explain.

Imperialism Redux

The killing fields we witness today in Syria and other parts of the Middle East are in reality part of an ongoing struggle for secular, tribal, and national independence. Since before World War I, the region has been at war with itself, and with what can be termed “westernization” of core Islamic beliefs. Without extending this piece into an historical study, it’s fair to say what we are witnessing is a “reenactment” of conflict akin to that during both world wars. World powers are leveraging the same ideologies, groups, and peoples that colonial powers have for generations. Cementing this fact is fairly easy, as luck would have it. All we have to do is outline past allegiances with those we see today, in order to galvanize the idea history is repeating. Let’s look at one group in particular, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Obama administration’s backing of the organization through something called the Presidential Study Directive-11. To fully understand the significance of this, we need to understand the early foundations of the group, as well as the current status across the Arab world. The Obama administration acts out today, the same geo-strategic Machiavellianism past US governments have.

Established in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher named Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood grew out of the fundamental ideal of casting off so-called westernization. Most scholars would agree, the brotherhood came about in answer to the secular Young Societies organized by none other than the legendary T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. It is the figure of the enigmatic Lawrence that delivers us to the current state of affairs in an around Damascus, Syria. As was the case back then, the “brotherhood” has been used to leverage imperial mechanisms.

Assigned by British Army Intelligence to form up an Arab army of revolt against the Ottoman Turks, Lawrence later became disillusioned with the partitioning of Arabia after the war. He was particularly disenchanted by the crown’s efforts to establish a Jewish state in the middle of Palestine. But this is a subject of much speculation. What is clear however, are the relative allegiances and foreign policies that still hold imminent sway in the region. As for Lawrence, his mysterious death in 1935 is now widely accepted to have been an assassination, rather than a simple motorcycle accident. Lawrence’s dream of an independent Arabia was undone with a document know as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was largely influenced by a prominent family we see in trenched in business in the Middle East today. The largely secret Sykes-Picot negotiations were heavily influenced by the so-called Balfour Declaration, which was essentially an agreement between the British crown and the notorious banking family Rothschild. The reader can glean the essence of this negotiation to create Israel out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and Arabia here. The essence of this agreement can be gleaned from the words of the Sultan of Turkey when Zionists had offered to buy Palestine out from under the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan replied that his people had won their Empire with blood, and owned it.

The deal ended up with the Rothschild’s and others funding Britain’s European war, with drawing the United States in, and ultimately with the Ottomans being carved up as suggested, right along with bashing Germany and Russia into the poor house of war torn creditors of these bankers. As we see today, Putin’s Russia is the only nation exempt from crippling national debt, but that’s another tale.

Who Are the Real Nazis?

Remember I lead into this story discussing a missing peace treaty in between Syria and Germany? This story tells of a world famous supporter of Arab independence and a little publicized proposed meetup in between Lawrence and Germany’s Adolf Hitler. Lawrence, like other veterans of World War I, detested the idea of still more war ravaging Europe. So it was Arabia’s most prominent western celebrity was killed in a political assassination on the eve of World War II. With this in mind it is important to take note of the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood was aligned with Hitler and the Nazis in World War II. Here we see the same colonial and imperialistic strategies progressing to today. The idea of a free and cohesive Middle East is ripped apart by the same old world power struggles yet again.

Lawrence of Arabia planned, organized and led a national rebellion of the Arab peoples and gave them the first opportunity in centuries for becoming an important Middle Eastern power. His and his Arab comrades’ efforts were thwarted by Anglo-French and Zionist interests. These interests were far too powerful for the Arabs to overcome, as is the case we see happening today. T. E. Lawrence said as much before his death; “the opponents of Arab nationalism had bigger guns, that was all.”

On this line of thinking it seems pertinent today to remind the world of the so-called Syria–Lebanon campaign, also known as Operation Exporter, in World War II. This was the Allied invasion of Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon in 1941. Back then western media was censored to reduce the negative affects the invasion might have on public opinion. This dynamic shows us, the ideals of T.E. Lawrence and others were greatly feared, just as they are to this day. The battle for Syria and Lebanon saw fighting in the same places we see ISIL, Al-Queda, so-called moderate jihadists and other “proxy” fighters killing one another today. The ancient city of Palmyra and many parts of Iraq were bloodstained until the Armistice of Saint Jean d’Acre basically turned Syria and Lebanon over to Britain. Syria and these other nations declared war on Nazi Germany afterwards, but there never was a cessation document officially signed in between Germany and these states. The British, Americans, French and Soviets probably deemed it unnecessary, but this is beside the point, Syria and Lebanon are sovereign nations.

An Anti-Arabian Strategy Unfolds

In his epic book on the Arab revolt during World War I, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence describes the western betrayal of the Arab people, and the shift in his own beliefs. This account, via the Institute for Historical Review frame’s Lawrence’s transformation, and helps lay the groundwork for World War III we see playing out worldwide now. Lawrence knew back then, as some know now, our current Middle East crisis is all about fragmenting and weakening Arabs. The wars we see now are not even about Islam. Muslims are just an easy target and a convenient lever to escalate the conflicts in between peoples.

The point of my revealing all of this, in particular the non-existent instrument of peace in between these Islamic nations and Germany, is that the real battle is and always has been the subversion of Arabia by western influences. Secondly, my purpose is to suggest a symbolic and meaningful treaty an author such as Bashar Hafez al-Assad might draft. Such a treatise between Syria and Germany may well help us forego trillions of dollars spent, and millions dead or displaced. On the former I’ll say this. The foreign policy efforts from Washington, London, and Brussels toward the Middle East have had absolutely nothing to do with the betterment of the people on the streets of those cities. This is fundamentally clear, as we see T.E. Lawrence’s greatest fears reenacted once again – and ultimate war is no friend of the normal citizen. As for the second point, here is my summary and suggestion.

A Peaceful End Game

A German reconnaissance aircraft aloft over Syrian territory right at this moment is flying over enemy territory. By any convention we know of, until hostilities in between any existent former Axis power have been officially decreed to have ended in between nations, then that state of war could technically still exist. A treaty now, in between Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and other nations who’ve not officially signed such declarations accomplishes three very important functions.

First and foremost, for instance, a Bashar Hafez al-Assad brokered “truce” in between these nations forwards the concept of Arabian independence T. E. Lawrence advocated. Assad as the catalyst would indemnify many Islamic tenants, and refute for millions the potential of a new Ottoman Empire, which some profess is in the works. Secondly, a treaty in between Germany and Syria in particular, would vehemently realign the western alliance strategy. Or in other words, dash any neocon or bankster play to destroy and fragment the Middle East further.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the German republic finalizing the past and casting off the last vestiges of the Nazi legacy, would once and for all free the German people from the yoke of allied control. For make no mistake, Germans have been living in a vassal state without control or recourse, for over seventy years now. Even to this day vestiges of fear and mistrust impinge upon Germans as some sections of the UN Charter still cast the republic in a suspicious light. While some proclaim Chancellor Angela Merkel is simply a puppet of Washington, pen and paper decrees literally ensure the German state is still not independent. In short, an Assad brokered treaty would cement the notion Germany is a nation of free will. For some here in Germany, this sort of action would be well received. Most literate Germans might proclaim, “it’s high time” the nation was allowed genuine independence from the Allied powers. It’s high time all sovereign nations and people’s be granted the right to their respective freedoms. It is in these sorts of “technicalities” we find all of the chaos and killing going on in our world. Europe aligned in peace with Middle Eastern countries, and more importantly on the ideological side of Russia, equals world peace by the sheer magnitude of the proposition. Germany is one key to a resolute peace, for American and Britain alone stand no chance at hegemony alone. At least this is my theory.

 

[angelburst29]

2016: Russian Documentary Aims to Avert Nuclear War - Western Media Still Busy Demonizing Putin

If ‘World Order’ is a piece of propaganda, it is sophisticated and serves certain higher values, not the interests of individuals or power for power’s sake. In effect, it is a wake-up call to avert nuclear war by reining in exceptionalism and safeguarding the principles of the UN Charter.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russian-documentary-aims-avert-nuclear-war-western-media-still-busy-demonizing-putin

The Russian documentary World Order, released by the state broadcaster Pervy Kanal on Sunday, 20 December and posted on youtube, received some attention in Western mainstream media, which is not always the case with news generated in Moscow. Euronews, in particular, drew on a minute or two out of this one hour forty-nine minute film to present good tidings to the world: President Putin had just publicly stated that he is ready to cooperate with European countries on shared concerns including terrorism, environmental issues and organized crime notwithstanding the sanctions being applied to Russia over Ukraine. This happy finding ignores completely the nature and overall content of the film in question, which heads in a direction 180 degrees at variance with the Euronews spin, as I will explain in a minute.

Meanwhile, BBC reporting on New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world on Friday morning, 1 January, showed Vladimir Putin delivering his 2016 greetings to his countrymen over the caption “Russia names Nato as threat to security.” In a classic propaganda exercise, the editorial staff of the British Broadcasting Company merged two very different pieces of news that bear the same dateline: the anodyne salutation of the Russian president and the 41 page National Security doctrine which he had signed earlier in the day. This is propaganda not only because the stories were unrelated but because the Nato threat is covered explicitly in just one page out of the 41, which take in a great many other security metrics such as education, import substitution, religious and spiritual convictions. I mention this case because the major arguments set out in the Russian Security Doctrine flagged by the BBC are precisely the same as those in World Order. For both, ultimate authorial responsibility rests with one man: Vladimir Putin.

Thus, one might ask why interpretation of the film was positive and interpretation of the doctrine is negative. With this arbitrariness and unimaginable superficiality driving the news that Western elites, not to mention the general public, take in with their morning coffee is it any wonder that we hear repeatedly that Russian state behavior is unpredictable? And is it any wonder that even well-meaning fighters for peace in the West are misguided about what constitutes the way forward in relations with Russia if we are to formulate an alternative to the War Party that controls Washington and Brussels.

In what constitutes a rare exception to the meager coverage given by mainstream media of the airing of the documentary World Order, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper correctly identified the form and rather significant bits and pieces of its content. In “Vladimir Putin: ‘We don’t want the USSR back but no one believes us,” Allison Quinn, their Kiev- based reporter, correctly likens the new film to the documentary Crimea. A Way Home, released in mid-March on the same state channel to coincide with the anniversary of the ‘Crimean Spring.’ Like that documentary, World Order is built around interview segments. Quinn tells us vaguely that although the film includes ‘interviews with other political figures and leaders, Mr. Putin is undoubtedly the headliner.”

As indicated by the title of Quinn’s article, he and his editors, chose to stress Putin’s denial in the film that Russia is just the USSR with another name and that it is seeking to restore the Soviet empire. He also correctly calls attention to an exchange between Putin and the interviewer that was featured in the film’s trailer, where the President spoke about nuclear war as necessarily catastrophic for the planet, as something he could not imagine anyone deciding upon, while also speaking of Russia’s ongoing modernization of its nuclear arsenal and the key place of nuclear arms as deterrent in the country’s military doctrine.

These and a couple of other points picked up by Quinn are indeed among the most newsworthy sound bites in the film. However, the Telegraph, like all other MSM, has missed entirely what the documentary is about. Moreover, their reporter says nothing about who directed the documentary, about who the ‘political figures’ appearing in it are.

Without mincing words, the documentary World Order is a devastating critique of US global hegemony in the name of democracy promotion and human rights ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. It is directly in line with the Russian President’s first repudiation of the American unipolar world issued in his speech to the Munich Security Conference in February 2007 and his further, ever more explicit exposes in a succession of speeches that took on specific manifestations of ‘American exceptionalism.’

World Order illustrates through graphic footage and the testimony of independent world authorities the tragic consequences, the spread of chaos and misery resulting from US-engineered regime change and color revolutions, of which the violent overthrow of the Yanukovich regime in Ukraine in February 2014 is only the latest example. The very title of the film follows on Vladimir Putin’s address to the 70th anniversary gathering of the UN General Assembly in September 2015 which had as its central message that world order rests on international law, which in turn has as its foundation the UN Charter. By flouting the Charter and waging war without the sanction of the UN Security Council, starting with the NATO attack on Serbia in 1999 and continuing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 up to its illegal bombings in Syria today, the United States and its NATO allies have shaken the foundations of international law.

What constitutes the ‘added mile’ in Vladimir Putin’s reasoning set out in World Order is his identification of the root cause of the failure to bring the USA back to reason all this time. It lies not in given individuals, like Barack Obama or George W. Bush, but in the mentality of Western, and in particular American elites formed by their impunity, their ability to walk away from the catastrophes their policies create without any feeling of responsibility, without being held to account. Their evasion of responsibility and failure to learn from error come from being the richest and militarily most powerful nation on earth.

World Order presents lurid evidence of the brutality which flows from American policies when functioning if flawed states are converted into failed states through color revolutions, as has happened across the Middle East and North Africa since the new millennium. We are shown Saddam Hussein’s final moments before execution, then the denunciation of this judicial murder by Muammar Gaddafi before a laughing audience of Arab League deputies, then the barbaric mob murder of Gaddafi himself followed by the exultant face of Hillary Clinton after this triumph of US foreign policy. We also listen to Gaddafi’s detailed prediction of the vast flood of refugees and spread of jihadists in North Africa that would follow should his regime be toppled. And we are given video footage from the 2015 refugee flows into Europe with their mob scenes at state borders that bear out those warnings.

The foreign interviewees in World Order comprise an impressive and diverse selection of leaders in various domains, including American film director Oliver Stone, former National Security Council director for Russia under George W. Bush and current managing director at Kissinger Associates Thomas Graham, former IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former president of Pakistan Perwez Musharraf, former French foreign minister and premier in 2005-07 Dominique Villepin, former president of Israel Shimon Perez, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and deputy leader of the Die Linke party in the German Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht. These are the participants making substantial statements. Others, like UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, put in cameo appearances.

The remarks by and about Strauss-Kahn and Perwez Musharraf support the film’s charge that the USA plots against and destroys foreign leaders who dare to oppose America’s total control over global flows of money, goods and people. Wagenknecht, who is an outstanding and at times fiery orator, addresses the question of Germany’s subservience to American Diktats and its de facto circumscribed sovereignty. All of these testimonials play to Putin’s long-standing argument, reiterated in the film, that the West European allies of the USA are nothing more than vassals. She and others also support the Russian allegation that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) represent another area in which the USA is undermining the global institutions (WTO) so as to impose its will on all nations in violation of international law.

Finally, with regard to content, Vladimir Putin’s closing remarks about the place of nuclear arms in Russia’s military doctrine must not be played down. Saying aloud that Russia has not and will not brandish its nuclear truncheon, is, in effect doing just that. All of this is of one piece with the way Russia’s aerospace forces have conducted their attacks in Syria on the Islamic State and on the armed opposition to Assad these past two months. The use of heavy bombers flying from the Kola peninsula on 15,000 km missions with the help of night-time in-flight refueling; the use of cruise missiles fired from frigates in the Caspian Sea at distances of 1300 km to targets in Syria; and the use of cruise missiles launched from Russian submarines in the Mediterranean have all had a political dimension far exceeding military necessity in the Syrian theater: they demonstrate Russia’s capability of waging global war, including global nuclear war. These actions are also depicted in the film.

Is World Order propaganda? It most certainly is. Is it directed primarily at the Russian domestic audience, as the Telegraph newspaper insists? No. Like all of Putin’s foreign policy addresses, whether delivered abroad or at home, as in the Valdai Discussion Club, whether issued with subtitles in English or not, its primary audience is in Washington, D.C. with a secondary audience in Brussels. One may suppose that the purpose is not to touch off or accelerate an arms race but, on the contrary, to bring the other side to its senses and persuade it of 1) Russia’s seriousness about defending militarily what it sees as vital national interests and 2) its ability to deliver massive destruction to an enemy even in the face of a possible first nuclear strike, and so to reinstate the Mutually Assured Destruction deterrence that America’s global missile defense was supposed to cancel out.

As I said in my introduction, no MSM outlet has taken the time to explain who made this film. Its director and co-author is in fact one of the most intelligent and fair-minded presenters on Russian television, Vladimir Soloviev, who is best known today for prime time evening debates on hot domestic and international issues in which the ‘other side,’ whether Ukrainian or American or the Russian opposition parties in the Duma, is always present in what amounts at times to astonishing openness of discussion on live television, when it does not descend into shouting matches. Soloviev has a Ph.D. in economics from the Institute of World Economics and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was an active entrepreneur in the 1990s and spent some time back then in the USA, where his activities included teaching economics at the University of Alabama. If he is the author of propaganda, one can be certain it is sophisticated and serves certain philosophical and ethical values, not individuals or power for power’s sake.

As Euronews reported, in World Order Vladimir Putin lists several areas of common concern over which Russia is prepared to cooperate with the West. Indeed these very same prospective areas of cooperation come up repeatedly in the public writings and speeches of the relatively few ‘fighters for peace’ who are trying to draw the world community back from the brink into some kind of détente.

However, pulling that raisin out of cake is to seriously misunderstand the very clear dominant message coming out of Russia: that the destruction of world order by US-led ‘democracy promotion’ and spread of ‘universal values’ will not be tolerated and that Russia has set down certain red lines, such as against NATO expansion into Ukraine or Georgia over which it will fight to the death using all its resources. We ignore these messages at our peril. (Article continues - go to link).

 

[Voyageur]

Putin just signed a very interesting new national security strategy for 2016:
https://www.rt.com/news/327608-russia-national-security-strategy/

I see the Document that Putin just signed into Law - as serious. It's like a "shot across the bow" to the U.S./NATO forces and I would include Turkey - in that they are close to crossing the line, with their military build up on Russian Borders. Putin's laying it all out "in black and white" as a Legal warning. And China is backing Russia!

[...]

These points are very interesting, from:

Color revolutions = "...foreign and international NGOs, and also private citizens” who work to undermine Russia’s territorial integrity and destabilize political processes." George Soros - check!

etc...

 

[Cosmos]

2016: Russian Documentary Aims to Avert Nuclear War - Western Media Still Busy Demonizing Putin

If ‘World Order’ is a piece of propaganda, it is sophisticated and serves certain higher values, not the interests of individuals or power for power’s sake. In effect, it is a wake-up call to avert nuclear war by reining in exceptionalism and safeguarding the principles of the UN Charter.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russian-documentary-aims-avert-nuclear-war-western-media-still-busy-demonizing-putin

The Russian documentary World Order, released by the state broadcaster Pervy Kanal on Sunday, 20 December and posted on youtube, received some attention in Western mainstream media, which is not always the case with news generated in Moscow. Euronews, in particular, drew on a minute or two out of this one hour forty-nine minute film to present good tidings to the world: President Putin had just publicly stated that he is ready to cooperate with European countries on shared concerns including terrorism, environmental issues and organized crime notwithstanding the sanctions being applied to Russia over Ukraine. This happy finding ignores completely the nature and overall content of the film in question, which heads in a direction 180 degrees at variance with the Euronews spin, as I will explain in a minute.

Meanwhile, BBC reporting on New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world on Friday morning, 1 January, showed Vladimir Putin delivering his 2016 greetings to his countrymen over the caption “Russia names Nato as threat to security.” In a classic propaganda exercise, the editorial staff of the British Broadcasting Company merged two very different pieces of news that bear the same dateline: the anodyne salutation of the Russian president and the 41 page National Security doctrine which he had signed earlier in the day. This is propaganda not only because the stories were unrelated but because the Nato threat is covered explicitly in just one page out of the 41, which take in a great many other security metrics such as education, import substitution, religious and spiritual convictions. I mention this case because the major arguments set out in the Russian Security Doctrine flagged by the BBC are precisely the same as those in World Order. For both, ultimate authorial responsibility rests with one man: Vladimir Putin.

Thus, one might ask why interpretation of the film was positive and interpretation of the doctrine is negative. With this arbitrariness and unimaginable superficiality driving the news that Western elites, not to mention the general public, take in with their morning coffee is it any wonder that we hear repeatedly that Russian state behavior is unpredictable? And is it any wonder that even well-meaning fighters for peace in the West are misguided about what constitutes the way forward in relations with Russia if we are to formulate an alternative to the War Party that controls Washington and Brussels.

In what constitutes a rare exception to the meager coverage given by mainstream media of the airing of the documentary World Order, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper correctly identified the form and rather significant bits and pieces of its content. In “Vladimir Putin: ‘We don’t want the USSR back but no one believes us,” Allison Quinn, their Kiev- based reporter, correctly likens the new film to the documentary Crimea. A Way Home, released in mid-March on the same state channel to coincide with the anniversary of the ‘Crimean Spring.’ Like that documentary, World Order is built around interview segments. Quinn tells us vaguely that although the film includes ‘interviews with other political figures and leaders, Mr. Putin is undoubtedly the headliner.”

As indicated by the title of Quinn’s article, he and his editors, chose to stress Putin’s denial in the film that Russia is just the USSR with another name and that it is seeking to restore the Soviet empire. He also correctly calls attention to an exchange between Putin and the interviewer that was featured in the film’s trailer, where the President spoke about nuclear war as necessarily catastrophic for the planet, as something he could not imagine anyone deciding upon, while also speaking of Russia’s ongoing modernization of its nuclear arsenal and the key place of nuclear arms as deterrent in the country’s military doctrine.

These and a couple of other points picked up by Quinn are indeed among the most newsworthy sound bites in the film. However, the Telegraph, like all other MSM, has missed entirely what the documentary is about. Moreover, their reporter says nothing about who directed the documentary, about who the ‘political figures’ appearing in it are.

Without mincing words, the documentary World Order is a devastating critique of US global hegemony in the name of democracy promotion and human rights ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. It is directly in line with the Russian President’s first repudiation of the American unipolar world issued in his speech to the Munich Security Conference in February 2007 and his further, ever more explicit exposes in a succession of speeches that took on specific manifestations of ‘American exceptionalism.’

World Order illustrates through graphic footage and the testimony of independent world authorities the tragic consequences, the spread of chaos and misery resulting from US-engineered regime change and color revolutions, of which the violent overthrow of the Yanukovich regime in Ukraine in February 2014 is only the latest example. The very title of the film follows on Vladimir Putin’s address to the 70th anniversary gathering of the UN General Assembly in September 2015 which had as its central message that world order rests on international law, which in turn has as its foundation the UN Charter. By flouting the Charter and waging war without the sanction of the UN Security Council, starting with the NATO attack on Serbia in 1999 and continuing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 up to its illegal bombings in Syria today, the United States and its NATO allies have shaken the foundations of international law.

What constitutes the ‘added mile’ in Vladimir Putin’s reasoning set out in World Order is his identification of the root cause of the failure to bring the USA back to reason all this time. It lies not in given individuals, like Barack Obama or George W. Bush, but in the mentality of Western, and in particular American elites formed by their impunity, their ability to walk away from the catastrophes their policies create without any feeling of responsibility, without being held to account. Their evasion of responsibility and failure to learn from error come from being the richest and militarily most powerful nation on earth.

World Order presents lurid evidence of the brutality which flows from American policies when functioning if flawed states are converted into failed states through color revolutions, as has happened across the Middle East and North Africa since the new millennium. We are shown Saddam Hussein’s final moments before execution, then the denunciation of this judicial murder by Muammar Gaddafi before a laughing audience of Arab League deputies, then the barbaric mob murder of Gaddafi himself followed by the exultant face of Hillary Clinton after this triumph of US foreign policy. We also listen to Gaddafi’s detailed prediction of the vast flood of refugees and spread of jihadists in North Africa that would follow should his regime be toppled. And we are given video footage from the 2015 refugee flows into Europe with their mob scenes at state borders that bear out those warnings.

The foreign interviewees in World Order comprise an impressive and diverse selection of leaders in various domains, including American film director Oliver Stone, former National Security Council director for Russia under George W. Bush and current managing director at Kissinger Associates Thomas Graham, former IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former president of Pakistan Perwez Musharraf, former French foreign minister and premier in 2005-07 Dominique Villepin, former president of Israel Shimon Perez, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and deputy leader of the Die Linke party in the German Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht. These are the participants making substantial statements. Others, like UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, put in cameo appearances.

The remarks by and about Strauss-Kahn and Perwez Musharraf support the film’s charge that the USA plots against and destroys foreign leaders who dare to oppose America’s total control over global flows of money, goods and people. Wagenknecht, who is an outstanding and at times fiery orator, addresses the question of Germany’s subservience to American Diktats and its de facto circumscribed sovereignty. All of these testimonials play to Putin’s long-standing argument, reiterated in the film, that the West European allies of the USA are nothing more than vassals. She and others also support the Russian allegation that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) represent another area in which the USA is undermining the global institutions (WTO) so as to impose its will on all nations in violation of international law.

Finally, with regard to content, Vladimir Putin’s closing remarks about the place of nuclear arms in Russia’s military doctrine must not be played down. Saying aloud that Russia has not and will not brandish its nuclear truncheon, is, in effect doing just that. All of this is of one piece with the way Russia’s aerospace forces have conducted their attacks in Syria on the Islamic State and on the armed opposition to Assad these past two months. The use of heavy bombers flying from the Kola peninsula on 15,000 km missions with the help of night-time in-flight refueling; the use of cruise missiles fired from frigates in the Caspian Sea at distances of 1300 km to targets in Syria; and the use of cruise missiles launched from Russian submarines in the Mediterranean have all had a political dimension far exceeding military necessity in the Syrian theater: they demonstrate Russia’s capability of waging global war, including global nuclear war. These actions are also depicted in the film.

Is World Order propaganda? It most certainly is. Is it directed primarily at the Russian domestic audience, as the Telegraph newspaper insists? No. Like all of Putin’s foreign policy addresses, whether delivered abroad or at home, as in the Valdai Discussion Club, whether issued with subtitles in English or not, its primary audience is in Washington, D.C. with a secondary audience in Brussels. One may suppose that the purpose is not to touch off or accelerate an arms race but, on the contrary, to bring the other side to its senses and persuade it of 1) Russia’s seriousness about defending militarily what it sees as vital national interests and 2) its ability to deliver massive destruction to an enemy even in the face of a possible first nuclear strike, and so to reinstate the Mutually Assured Destruction deterrence that America’s global missile defense was supposed to cancel out.

As I said in my introduction, no MSM outlet has taken the time to explain who made this film. Its director and co-author is in fact one of the most intelligent and fair-minded presenters on Russian television, Vladimir Soloviev, who is best known today for prime time evening debates on hot domestic and international issues in which the ‘other side,’ whether Ukrainian or American or the Russian opposition parties in the Duma, is always present in what amounts at times to astonishing openness of discussion on live television, when it does not descend into shouting matches. Soloviev has a Ph.D. in economics from the Institute of World Economics and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was an active entrepreneur in the 1990s and spent some time back then in the USA, where his activities included teaching economics at the University of Alabama. If he is the author of propaganda, one can be certain it is sophisticated and serves certain philosophical and ethical values, not individuals or power for power’s sake.

As Euronews reported, in World Order Vladimir Putin lists several areas of common concern over which Russia is prepared to cooperate with the West. Indeed these very same prospective areas of cooperation come up repeatedly in the public writings and speeches of the relatively few ‘fighters for peace’ who are trying to draw the world community back from the brink into some kind of détente.

However, pulling that raisin out of cake is to seriously misunderstand the very clear dominant message coming out of Russia: that the destruction of world order by US-led ‘democracy promotion’ and spread of ‘universal values’ will not be tolerated and that Russia has set down certain red lines, such as against NATO expansion into Ukraine or Georgia over which it will fight to the death using all its resources. We ignore these messages at our peril. (Article continues - go to link).

Yep and almost the full documentary is availabe by now in english here:
https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,40382.msg622610.html#msg622610

Well worth the watch and share...

 

[angelburst29]

2016: Russian Documentary Aims to Avert Nuclear War - Western Media Still Busy Demonizing Putin

If ‘World Order’ is a piece of propaganda, it is sophisticated and serves certain higher values, not the interests of individuals or power for power’s sake. In effect, it is a wake-up call to avert nuclear war by reining in exceptionalism and safeguarding the principles of the UN Charter.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russian-documentary-aims-avert-nuclear-war-western-media-still-busy-demonizing-putin

Yep and almost the full documentary is availabe by now in english here:
https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,40382.msg622610.html#msg622610

Well worth the watch and share...

Thank You Pashalis - for providing a link to the video's in the Documentary. Very much appreciated.