First, this is an pic of a list of cities in the Ukraine were nationalists have stormed local government buildings (some attacks were successful, other were not). Sure looks to me like one more step towards a civil war: 2nd, for context, here is an interesting report on how such revolutions are prepared: (thanks to J. for sending this to me!!)
In the recent weeks I have been struggling with very unpleasant thoughts which I want to share with you in the hope that you will help me make sense of the doubts and dilemmas I am dealing with. To explain what I am referring to, I will use a few of the examples which elicited these thoughts in me: Syria: Readers of this blog might remember that when the
This from the BBC: Ukrainian opposition leaders have issued an ultimatum to President Viktor Yanukovych, after talks failed to resolve the political stalemate. Vitali Klitschko said he would lead pro-EU protesters “on the attack” in the capital, Kiev, if the government refused to call snap elections. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said compromises “might be possible”, but the opposition should avoid ultimatums. Notice the difference in tone? Opposition: ultimatum, attackRegime: compromise,
Sent to me by an old friend:
This is a picture taken off a live stream from the Grushevski street in the center of Kiev at 10:45EST today: The riot police has only been given the right to use water cannons, teargas and flash-bang grenades. In the meantime, the cops are burned alive by Molotov cocktails and the US is introducing sanctions against “Ukrainian officials responsible for the violence in the center of Kiev”.The Saker
It just happens that a group of lawyers make a report on human rights in Syria. It just happens that they had previously done the same in the former Yugoslavia. It just happens that their report is based on one single and anonymous source. It just happens that this anonymous source claims to have been employed by the Syrian regime to, you guessed it, make photos of dead bodies. It
As always, Lavrov makes a brilliant case for his point of view. I still think that Russia made a major mistake, but I can’t help liking Lavrov a lot and finding him absolutely brilliant. I hope that he has some kind of game-plan I am not aware of.It’s a long press conference, but at least listen to his reply to the first question as it is about Syria and his
This is what Lavrov said today in reaction to the disinvitation of Iran: “this is a mistake, but not a disaster”. He also pointed out that Iran had been disinvited for saying exactly the same thing as Russia: that Geneva I could not be “interpreted” as mandating Assad’s departure. And then he added: “so what, they are going to disinvite us next? this is crazy!”.Guys, I am sorry, but Russia
OMG – it happened: Under US pressure UN “disinvites” Iran from Geneva II talks. Now that is a direct challenge to Russia which logically should cancel its participation to the conference. Syria, I believe should do the same.Screw them. This is a farce and neither Syria nor Russia should agree to participate in a farce organized by the side which lost the war. I hope that Assad and Putin will
Yesterday some very serious riots took place in Kiev. The Yanukovich government has passed a new law which attempts to restrict the kind of rioting the Ukraine has seen in the past months, and the response of the rioters was a full scale assault on the riot police. What I find the most appalling is that the government is ordering the riot cops to just stand there and hold their
It took a lot of zigs and zags, but eventually common sense seemed to have prevailed and the UN has officially announced that Iran will be invited as a full participant to the Geneva 2 conference. The Obama Administration should probably commended for being rational and not gone down the insane road of trying to negotiate something in Syria without inviting Iran. Most of the credit in this case goes
JohnM has just posted an interesting commentary about the current events in Syria which, I think, deserves to be fully quoted. Here is what he wrote: What I’m thinking is that as part of an Assad/Russia deal with the “non-Islamic rebels” (label is arbitrary and largely inaccurate) is this current battle between generally (this is a VERY fluid and fuzzy dividing line) the foreign fighters versus the local fighters. This
First, thanks to gallier2 for pointing out this rather surprisingly reasonable video about Dieudonne and the “quenelle” gesture; this report even features a short interview of Alain Soral who explains what is really going on. I never would have thought that the BBC could still produce such a more or less well balanced and reasonable report. Second, as I have mentioned in a previous report, Minister of the Interior Manuel
The warfare around the quenelle gesture is reaching a new new heights in France were representatives of the plutocratic elites are now seriously considering the following options:a) banning the latest show of Dieudonneb) closing down his theatre in Parisc) jailing Dieudonne d) making the quenelle gesture a criminal offenceand, I kid you not,e) create a special cell with representatives of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs and the
Beautiful documentary about young women in the Syrian NDF:
In my recent post about the bombings in Volgograd I wrote the following: The Dagestani terrorists have learned the lessons of Chechnia well, and they are never trying to hold on to any territory or to create some kind of Wahabi statelet in Dagestan: quite to the contrary, day after day after day, the security forces engage the Dagestani terrorists who each time end up either captured or dead (mostly
I have recently written about the amazing (and hilarious) scandal taking place in France, and slowly in the rest of Europe, around the “quenelle” (For those of you who missed it, you can get the background info here). I will spare you all the recent political developments, but let’s just say that the anti-quenelle hysteria and that the French Minister of Internal Affairs is considering making the gesture illegal (he
