As a result of western crimes against Iraq, a person continues to serve time in prison. "Strangely enough, that person is not any of those who initiated the offensive on Iraq. Instead, he's the man behind exposing American crimes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay: A whistleblower called Julian Assange." Marzieh Hashemi, journalist and presenter of Secret Files.
This 21:09 minute video debate has beenc republished from Attack on Freedom of Speech (19/4/19) | PressTV (but see note below - Ed).
This program from Press tv Iran is interesting and useful in bringing us up to date. Iranians know a thing or two about oil production and the oil market. The issues of peak demand and peak production are very hard to estimate and no-one here pretends to have the answers, but a number of factors are canvassed, including US President Trump. As usual, however, in such programs, population growth and economic growth are skirted around. Similarly, increasing efficiency among OECD countries is taken as a given, and increasing consumption among 'developing' countries is also taken as a given. The elephant in the room is, of course, when does peak demand meet peak production.
The projection stems from several factors. One of the major reasons is the expectation of a drastic rise in the number of vehicles on the roads.
Economic Divide caught up with Dr. Ali Shams Ardekani to discuss the future demand of oil. He should know a thing or two about the oil industry. He serves as the President of the Iran Business For Future.
He is the current head of the energy commission for the Ministry of Oil, Planning and Development and the Ministry of Industry and Mining in Iran. People across the world are getting more and more mobile. They are expected to use more cars for transportation and also trucks for transiting consumer goods as fast as possible.
PressTV presenter discusses with his two guests how Syria has, after more than 7 years, triumphed over tens of thousands of terrorist invasders, who were armed and paid for by the United Sytated, IIsrael, Saudi Arabia and their allies.
Russian and Iranian English television broadcasters need to issue invitations to Teresa May, Boris Johnson, Niki Haley, Macron, Donald Trump et al, to defend their aggressive stances against Russia, Syria, and Iran,” says candobetter.net’s James Sinnamon. Unbelievable accusations against sovereign states are issuing from the governments of the United States, Australia, the UK and Europe. We are talking about the lines run by US-NATO on the Scripal spy poisonings and the so-called chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, which they have refused in the UN to investigate on the ground. Despite the total implausibility of these stories, the western corporate press, which includes ABC Australia and SBS, promote them uncritically. Yet the purpose of these stories is to provide excuses for war. The only beneficiary of the promotion of war is the military-industrial-media complex. The only thing working against this complex is the alternative media, which happens also to include English programs run by Iran’s Press TV Iran and Russia RT. Why are these programs so popular, especially RT? It is because they appeal to intellectuals because they are so much more complex and nuanced than the frustratingly illogical confabulations that pass for mainstream news in the Anglosphere. Press TV Iran’s The Debate is an especially robust forum.
In a stunning abuse of power, one of the main theatres of initial promotion is the United Nations. The US ambassador, Niki Haley, continues to make outlandish claims in the bullying style of her predecessor, Samantha Power. It is like watching gangster molls with airs, who do not realise that they are being live-broadcast as they threaten plans to assassinate or otherwise remove presidents, invade countries, and bomb cities, all based on totally fabricated enemy ‘profiles’ of popular elected leaders as bad guys. In fact, if war-profits were not a consideration, you would be reminded of jealous children in a playground bullying their more popular colleagues.
The major threats to modern civilisation: war, overpopulation, overconsumption, and energy resources scarcity. For a few years ago after the fall of the Soviet Union, war seemed a remote pastime, carried out between small tribal states, but then it began to metastacize from former Yugoslavia, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, then to Libya. Next was Syria and, at the same time, Ukraine. It is like watching the events leading up to the First World War. If you didn’t look at the regional oil and gas interests and rival hegemonies for countries that would afford access to them, then the whole thing seemed inexplicable. Even so, many people whose lives and lifestyles are not yet threatened, just cannot believe that people who have power would do such harm, apparently just out of ego and a desire for even more money.
James Sinnamon (the man who built Candobetter.net) suggests that PressTV Iran and RT could be still more effective, if they issued invitations to the leaders making accusations, to defend these on PressTV Iran and RT.
“I think that Russia, Iran and other nations, who are defending countries like Syria from military aggression, as a matter of urgency, could use their newsmedia - Russia's RT and Sputnik and Iran's PressTV even more effectively.
Perhaps those who conduct debates and interviews on Press TV Iran - Marcia Hashemi and Waqar Rizvi - and Russia's Oksana Boyko, Afshin Rattansi, [1] Sophie Shevardnadze and others - could, prominently and repeatedly, issue standing invitations to the likes of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Nikki Haley et al., or their delegated spokespersons, to put their views on their programs and have those views discussed and debated.
Surely, if Theresa May et al. are so confident that they are speaking the truth, they would jump at the opportunity to show, to the audiences of RT and PressTV, how the views presented by those stations are wrong?Of course, I don't expect that Theresa May et al. will acccept. If they don't RT and PressTV should include their names in lists, displayed prominently on their sites, of all Western political leaders who have declined to appear on RT and PressTV.
Given that hundreds of thousands have already been killed by military aggression, just since the Gulf War of 1991, and that the stakes for humanity are so high if this pattern is not stopped, I see know of no reason for the managers of RT and PressTV to pull any punches from now on.”
Sinnamon adds that, Afshin Rattansi, of Going Underground, leads the way to some extent because he is always issuing invitations to his detractors to appear on "Going Underground". If those who declined to be interviewed by Mr Rattansi were prominently listed, his impact would be even greater.
In Syrian Girl's Facebook Ban Linked to Russia-gate Twitter Purge? - an Exclusive Interview (30/9/17) | Russia Insider, Charles Bausman reported that Facebook had blocked SyrianGirl's account after she had criticised Kurds.
Syrian Girl, the Australian activist, Youtuber, and social media powerhouse, tweeted on Thursday evening (EST) that her Facebook account has been blocked for her exposure of fraud during the Kurdistan referendum. She had 75,000 followers.
She also has 70,000 followers on Twitter, and 75,000 subscribers to her excellent Youtube channel.
She gave Russia Insider (RI) an exclusive interview on Friday, explaining that Facebook acted without warning, (which is unusual - usually they give people a chance to correct whatever is upsetting the censors), and so far have not responded to emails.
She speculated that perhaps her page had been caught up in the anti-Russian Twitter / Facebook purge currently unfolding. (Twitter removed 200 Russian accounts that targeted Facebook during election - USA Today)
…
This of course follows the evidence-free beat-up that alleged Russian interference somehow caused American voters to elect Russia's allegedly favourite candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton the chosen favourite of the American corporate elite, including Zuckerberg himself.
As revealed by Julian Assange of Wikileaks, "Zuckerberg Colluded with Hillary Clinton Campaign":
Mark Zuckerberg's claims this week that Facebook was fair to Donald Trump during the 2016 election just took another serious blow.
The Facebook founder and CEO personally met with Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta a year before the 2016 election, according to an email released by Wikileaks.
The news comes a day after Wikileaks' Julian Assange dropped a bomb onto the heads of Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, alleging they colluded with Hillary Clinton's 2016 election campaign.
Assange Tweeted Thursday, linking the emails sent back and forth between John Podesta and Sandberg which reveal Sandberg wanted Clinton to win "badly." Assange said the women met privately numerous times during Clinton's campaign.
Assange included one email from Sandberg to Podesta, Clinton's campaign manager, which is particularly damaging in which the Facebook executive pledged to help elect Clinton.
This outrageous attempt at thought control and censoring of political information by Zuckerberg, as well as Google, YouTube and Twitter, shows that in a true democracy, the news media upon which we all depend, must be taken out of the hands of the corporate owners and placed in the hands of the people.
Alternatively, rival newsmedia and social media that are run transparently, and with a charter to promote a free contest of ideas, should be established.
This could easily be done with public funds and with popular support within purportedly democratic countries like Australia, France, Germany and the UK. Should this not occur, then alternatives could be set up. One such alternative is the community-owned minds.com.
Another alternative is for sovereign countries like Russia and Iran, which are independent of United States' hegemony, set up their own alternatives to Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. If they were also run transparently and with a charter to promote a free contest of ideas, they would very quickly draw away much of the current audiences of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Such an initiative would surely cost those countries only a fraction of what they are currently obliged to spend on defence.
In fact, Russia has already set up Yandex an alternative to Google. Hopfeully, Yandex will soon be expanded to include more in English. Hopefully, also, other alternatives to Google, Facebook, and Twitter will soon be established.
Over time their need for defence expenditure would be greatly reduced as more and more people in Western countries are able to see through the lies of the corporate newsmedia. We could well see the end of war altogether.
See also: "Russia Threatens to Ban Facebook" (2/10/17) | Russia Insider by Tyler Durden – Russia demands data of Russian citizens be kept on servers physically located in Russia, "The push to 'Fight Foreign Propaganda' is the same as government book burning" (28/9/17) | Medium by Caitlin Johnstone.
It is weird that the mainstream press and the US-NATO war machine continue to put out the same stories as if they were spam-bots. You would think that real human beings could come up with something more convincing. It is known, however, that people tend to believe a message they often hear repeated, to the detriment of their own eyes and reason, so perhaps this is the intentional modus-operandi of the US-NATO-military industrial media complex. The only way to combat the oft-repeated lie is to repeatedly question it, which we are doing here. Once again the US-NATO deep state war-machine has tried to use the UN like Lucy's football for Charlie Brown, to give authority to accusations against the Syrian government which it actually has no reliable basis for. The consequences could be truly awful - but what do spambots care about World War 3?
Without credible evidence, without witnesses, without indications, the American president, Donald Trump, and the mainstream news media again have the US trying to convict President al-Assad of 'war-crimes against his own people'. They will try to use this as a pretext for another bloody 'regime change' in the mould of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine, either to keep an enlarge their military footprint in the Middle East or to obtain concessions from peace-keeping Russia.
It is alarming that President Trump is now marching along obediently to the same evil old tune as Hillary Clinton did, since a primary difference between their platforms was that he would not pursue baseless interventions in the Middle East.
His new stance is suspicious of a sudden loss of power to the neocons who surround him, given that his new US State Secretary said, only last week, that the US would leave the Syrian people to decide who would lead them, and not seek regime change. The chemical weapons story is an old one and not a very good one. Four years ago the news was almost identical, when it was resoundingly repudiated, for example by the Swiss UN investigator, Carla del Ponte. See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188. Since then we have heard it many times, picked up then dropped, picked up then dropped again. We republish here a superb 5 April debate and argument from PressTV on this vital subject. In an exercise of logic unfamiliar in the western media, the moderator here asks for a list of for and against points regarding benefits to the Syrian Government or the 'Rebels' in engaging in the purported chemical attacks.
In this episode of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Marwa Osman, a journalist and political commentator from Beirut, and Michael Lane, the founder of the American Institute for Foreign Policy in Washington, to discuss a recent suspected chemical attack in the Syrian province of Idlib.
In this riveting Press TV video-debate, Gearóid Ó Colmáin, a political analyst and journalist from Paris, and Sean O'Grady, a finance editor with The Independent from London, discuss France's nationwide demonstrations against the government's controversial changes to labor laws. These 'reforms' are really an attempt by the EU to disorganise democracy in France and impose the savage capitalism of the Anglophone countries, Britain, the United States, and Australia. Gearóid Ó Colmáin is amazingly on the ball and candid on the disorganising purpose of mass immigration. O'Grady typifies the globaliser rhetoric. One thing not mentioned by Gearóid here is that the very high land and housing prices in the Anglophone system (a) drive wages up because people have to pay rent (b) drive up the cost of everything else (c) increase base-costs for business (d) erode profit margin. It isn't the workers who use up the profits; it is the property speculators who rely on continuous increase in demand through mass immigration. Listening to O'Grady's 'case' one has to wonder whether he actually believes what he is saying, in which case, does he go round with his eyes shut? This Video first published on PressTV, Iran, http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/05/20/466608/Massive-antireform-labor-protests-France
"France’s labour regulations have famously been symbolised by the labour code, a weighty 4 thousand page treatise. But the government now wants to loosen a number of rules. By proposing controversial reforms, the French government aims to curb the country's unemployment rate. But at what cost? These reforms will give employers more scope to lay off workers and cut costs and make it easier to fire workers on economic grounds when companies run into difficulties. Protests against the controversial labor reforms have exploded all over France. With just over a year to go until France’s 2017 presidential election, President Hollande is making a final attempt to cement his place in French history, be it of notoriety with these controversial reforms." (Press TV, Iran). This Video first published on PressTV, Iran, http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/05/20/466608/Massive-antireform-labor-protests-France
American boots on the ground. We hear this all too often throughout the world and now the war ravaged country of Yemen is the latest victim of US military troops. But why Yemen and why now and what are these troops trying to accomplish in a country that is facing a brutal war against it by Saudi Arabia, a war that Washington has given the green light to.
Above 23:30 minute video is from the PressTV YouTube Channel.
See also: Ansarullah Furious at US Military Build-up in Yemen (8/5/16) | FARS News Agency
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Adapted from PressTV article Russia to supply Saudis with Iskander missile complexes (4/7/15) In recent years, particularly since 2011, Russia has, been an obstacle to the plans by the United States and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, to re-establish global hegemony through further bloody wars of aggression such as those fought against the people of Iraq and Libya. |
However, the surprise visit to Russia by the ruler of Saudi Arabia earlier this year after it had launched a war of aggression against neighbouring Yemen and whilst it continued to arm and fund the hordes of terrorists who had been attempting to invade Syria since 2011, would have been of concern to anti-war activists across the globe.
On 4 July, as Saudi Arabia's war continued, it was reported in the in the Iranian PressTV article republished below, that Russia is supplying to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia its Iskander ballistic missile systems.
If the sale proceeds, it will be hard to continue to see Russia in 2015 as that much morally superior to the Tsarist Empire that helped start the First World War in 2014 or the police state of Josef Stalin.
Russia has announced its readiness to provide Saudi Arabia with Iskander tactical missile systems, a Russian official says.
"If we, let's say, begin the talks today they will certainly take some time," Tass news agency quoted Igor Sevastyanov, a deputy director general of Russia's state weaponry trading corporation Rosoboronexport, as saying on Friday.
"I think if Saudi Arabia wants buying [sic] this equipment, Russia will supply it," he added.
Sevastyanov added that a number of procedures must be carried out for the process of delivery of such a weapon to begin.
A Saudi delegation has also been presented with coastal guard ships and patrol vessels at the International Maritime Defense Show IMDS-2015 underway in the city of St. Petersburg.
The development comes amid Riyadh's incessant aggression against Yemen, which has killed and injured hundreds of people over the past weeks.
Saudi Arabia has been attacking different areas in Yemen since late March, without any authorization from the United Nations and heedless of international calls for the cessation of its deadly campaign against the Arabian Peninsula country.
In an unprecedented move, Russia and Saudi Arabia also on June 18 signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.
The deal was signed after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman in St. Petersburg on the same day.
Saudi Arabia recently signed a slew of deals with France worth billions of dollars to buy patrol ships, border guard helicopters and planes from the European country.
MR/HSN/HMV
Previously published (3/5/15) on PressTV
The US State Department has been criticized for its move to deny a visa to an Iraqi Christian nun planning to reveal ISIL atrocities to Congress.
Sister Diana Momeka was part of an Iraqi delegation that was scheduled to testify before the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee later this month.
Momeka has been a frank supporter for the Christians who have been killed and deported by the ISIL 1 terrorist group.
Other members of the delegation received visas to the US to speak in Washington about the persecution of minorities of the region.
The US consulate in the Iraqi semi-autonomous region of Erbil, Kurdistan rejected her visitor visa application earlier this week.
According to the US State Department, the Christian nun was "not able to demonstrate that [her] intended activities in the United States would be consistent with the classification of the visa."
The nun was the only Christian in the group that was set to head to the US on an invitation from American NGOs.
The criticism came from Nina Shea of the conservative Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom in an op-ed in National Review Online.
"She told me in a phone conversation that, to her face, consular officer Christopher Patch told her she was denied because she is an 'IDP' or Internally Displaced Person. 'That really hurt.' Essentially, the State Department was calling her a deceiver," Nina Shea said in the op-ed.
ISIL destroyed Sister Diana's home forcing her and 50,000 others to flee back in August.
Shea explained that State Department officials concluded from the nun's application process and interview to obtain a visa that Sister Diana "could be falsely asserting that she intends to visit Washington when secretly she could be intending to stay. That would constitute illegal immigration, and that, of course, is strictly forbidden. Once here, she could also be at risk for claiming political asylum, and the US seems determined to deny ISIS's (ISIL) Christian victims that status."
Sister Diana, who is from an Iraqi town of 50,000 mostly Christian residents, was forced to leave her home by ISIL in August.
Since then, she has received refugee status and has been an outspoken critic of ISIL and other terrorist groups creating mayhem in Iraq and elsewhere.
HDS/AGB
1. ↑ 'ISIL' is generally considered to be synonymous with 'ISIL'. Elsewhere on this site, the term 'ISIS' is used.
The most relevant and/or most incisive articles and video or audio broadcasts will be linked to from this page. Sites that will be linked to include the Russian news services, RT and Sputnik International, the Iranian PressTV news service, the English translation of the independent French Voltaire Net, the English translation of the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the independent Canadian-based Global Research and other independent sites LandDestroyer and PaulCraigRoberts.org.
Story 1 includes video (9:50).
See also:
People of Ayn al-Arab regain control of cultural center and 48th Street (17/10/14) and People of Ayn al-Arab repel new ISIS assault, recapture more areas (18/10/14) from SANA and Mythology and The Islamist State (18/10/14) by William Blum on Global Research.
Update, 17 Oct 14: from Syrian Free Press and RT: Kurdish forces repel Daash-ISIL mercenaries from Kobani. See Appendix.
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In an interview, conducted with Press TV on October 15, 2014 Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya explains in the reasons behind the ISIL (also known as ISIS) attack on the Syrian town of Kobani (Ain al-Arab) in the Syrian Kurdish autonomous region. Mahdi shows that the supposed campaign of bombardment against ISIS is illusory, with few bombs being dropped on ISIS fighters and far more being dropped on Syrian infrastructure. Turkey, whilst pretending to oppose ISIS is supporting ISIS against the Syrian Kurds to the point of provoking mass unrest against the Turkish government in which 40 Turkish Kurds have died. |
 Female Kurdish fighter
featured in the film |
Towards the end of the video, although the fighting around Kobani looks grim in many ways, Mahdi reminds us that Syria has many friends in the world. As well as people of good will in the West, there are the governments of Iran, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, many Latin American countries and the resistance movement,
1.↑ Previously published on Global Research as Nazemroaya: Crushing Kobani's Kurds is a Prerequisite to an Invasion of Syria. This was apparently only published on the front page of Global Research. Unlike other stories published on Global Research, this story does not seem to appear on a separate page. The YouTube page is here. - Ed.
Editorial introduction: Seven decades ago, the civilised world, including Australia, fought a terrible and bloody war to save humanity from German Nazism, Italian Fascism and the murderous Japanese Empire. The cost to humanity was appalling: 60 million died and much of the world's productive capacity was destroyed.1 Had the Nazis won, the cost to humanity would have been even more terrible as a new era of enslavement and mass murder would have commenced.
All this has apparently been forgotten by the mainstream newsmedia in their reporting of the Ukraine conflict. The grim images of hundreds of Ukrainian thugs in Nazi regalia hurling petrol bombs and rocks at the Berkut riot police from November last year until February has also apparently been forgotten by the reporters as they give uncritical airplay to the hysterical denunciations of those resisting the Kiev junta by the likes of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Now, four months after the February coup, the Nazi government that these thugs helped to power is waging a brutal war against Ukrainians, in the east of the country, who refuse to submit to the authority of the Nazi anti-Semites in Kiev.
As the East Ukrainian self-defence forces fight ever more effectively against the Kiev junta's military forces, the United States, their European puppets and the mainstream newsmedia become ever more hysterical and deceitful in their denunciations of those Ukrainians and their allies across the border. As the war against the people of East Ukraine has continued and ever more civilians are killed and their homes destroyed and even reporters are deliberately killed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded of the international community that the actions of the Ukrainian government be recognised for what they are: crimes against humanity and a violation of international law, and that those responsible, including Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, be prosecuted accordingly.
A more detailed article by the Iranian PressTV news service, is included as an appendix.
The Russian Investigative Committee has declared Ukrainian interior minister Arsen Avakov and Dnepropetrovsk regional administration head Igor Kolomoisky internationally wanted, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax on Saturday.
"Investigative Committee investigators have issued a directive on declaring Arsen Avakov and Igor Kolomoisky wanted in a criminal case dealing with the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare, aggravated murder, the obstruction of professional activities of journalists, and abduction. This directive has been forwarded to the Interior Ministry's main criminal investigations department.
Avakov and Kolomoisky have been put on the international wanted list valid on the territories of all Interpol member-states," Markin said.
Avakov and Kolomoisky have been accused of organizing a number of crimes, including murder, the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare, the obstruction of professional activities of journalists, and abduction, which are covered by Russian Criminal Code Articles 33, 205, 356, 144, and 126, he said.
Russian investigative committee charges Ukrainian officials with war crimes2
Russian investigative committee charged Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Dnepropetrovsk Region Governor Igor Kolomoyskyi with war crimes, the committee's official spokesman Vladimir Markin said Friday.
"Under the criminal case, launched on the grounds of a crime of using forbidden warfare, a first degree murder, interfering with the professional activity of journalists and kidnapping of people, a notice has been given of charges against Igor Kolomoyskyi and Arsen Avakov," he said in a statement.
Markin said earlier, the investigators believed the recent kidnapping of Zvezda television channel journalists and the preceding illegal detention of journalists from the same channel, as well as several other Russian journalists were conducted with the knowledge of Avakov, Kolomoyskyi and Defense Ministry officials.
On June 14, Russia's Zvezda (Star) channel reported the second detention of its journalists in Ukraine in the past two months reporter Evgeny Davydov and sound engineer Nikita Konashenkov were captured in Dnepropetrovsk and held in the Justice Ministry building. The journalists were released and arrived in Moscow two days later.
Both journalists were visibly bruised, and were ushered to an ambulance to be taken to a hospital for screening.
On Tuesday, a Russian TV journalist and a sound engineer were killed in a mortar attack near Ukrainian city of Luhansk.
A total of five media workers have been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the year.
It's beyond understanding that killings of journalists occur in 21st century Europe – expert
Five media workers killed in Ukraine since beginning of year - Reporters Without Borders
Russian reporters' death shows criminal essence of Ukraine's punitive operation - CSTO
East Ukrainian self-defence forces reject Kiev's ultimatum to disarm, republished from article of 22 June 2014 on PressTV.
– republished from PressTV.
Russia's Investigative Committee has put Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Igor Kolomoisky, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, on the international wanted list over charges of war crimes.
The committee spokesman, Vladimir Markin, said Saturday that the two Ukrainian officials have been put on the international wanted list, which is valid in the territories of all Interpol member states.
Avakov and Kolomoisky are wanted in a "criminal case dealing with the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare, aggravated murder, the obstruction of professional activities of journalists, and abduction," said Markin.
The committee spokesman did not rule out the possibility of adding more Ukrainian officials to the wanted list.
"Investigators are taking measures to establish all persons from among commanders and servicemen of Ukraine's armed forces, 'the National Guard of Ukraine' and (far-right ultra-nationalist movement) Right Sector militants involved in conducting a punitive operation against the civilian population in Ukraine's southeast, which has killed many civilians," said Markin.
The spokesman continued by saying that more than 40 investigators are working with people arriving from Ukraine, who have suffered from crimes. According to Markin, the investigators have so far questioned 2,400 eyewitnesses and over 1,000 people who have arrived in Russia from Ukraine's troubled east and who have filed applications to Russian investigators for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
On June 20, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko ordered the government forces to observe a week-long unilateral ceasefire in the country's southeastern region. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that he is concerned that despite the truce, Kiev's military operation "is increasing."
Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking parts in the east have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in the southeastern regions in mid-April in a bid to root out the protests there.
The government in Kiev says it is targeting armed protesters, but reports say many civilians have been caught in the fighting. According to the United Nations, at least 356 people, including 257 civilians, have been killed in the clashes since May 7.
CAH/HJL
1. ↑ Even if the Second World War could not have been avoided — and some political participants believe it could have been, notably UK Labor politician Konni Zilliacus (1894-1967), — the death toll should not have been anywhere near as great for the Western Allies. (As terrible as these losses were, they were still only a fraction of the death toll suffered by countries like the Soviet Union, Poland and China.) The Second World War, in the West could easily have ended by 1943. The overthrow of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in July 1943 and the all-too-brief liberation of the entire Italian Peninsula from the yoke of fascism is only one of a number of examples where the opportunity for a quick victory over Nazi Germany was thrown away. Evidently because the manufacturers of the Western Allies' war materials stood to gain far more by prolonging the war than by ending it, the war was needlessly prolonged. This will be the subject of another article. How the terrible defeats of 1941 and the vastly more terrible death toll — at least 20 million — suffered by the Soviet Union in that war, could have been avoided will be the subject of another article too. - Ed
2. ↑ At times, the link to the Voice of Russia web-site is not good in Australia. When I clicked on the link my browser displayed the message: "502 Bad Gateway — nginx". In fact, no pages from Voice of Russia (http://voiceofrussia.com/) can be downloaded at the moment. - 10:31PM 22 June 2014, Ed
 Valery Bolotov, Lugansk self-defence forces' commander, rejecting Kiev junta's ultimatum
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Pro-Moscow forces have rejected a 'truce' plan proposed by Western puppet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as the war against eastern parts of Ukraine by Nazis and their mercenary and NATO allies continues. The leader of the self-declared Lugansk People's Republic, Valery Bolotov, said on Friday that pro-Russia forces will not lay down their arms until a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the area. |
On Friday, Poroshenko announced a one-week cease-fire plan aimed at curbing the militancy in the restive east. The plan reportedly includes an amnesty for anti-government protesters who lay down arms, and tighter controls over Ukraine's border with Russia. Poroshenko also urged that pro-Russians should use the opportunity to disarm and leave the Ukrainian territory.
On the same day, the Kremlin issued a statement, saying the move was "not an invitation to peace and negotiations but an ultimatum".
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking parts in the east have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations in the southeastern regions in mid-April in a bid to root out the demonstrations there.
The government in Kiev says it is targeting armed protesters, but reports say many civilians have been caught in the shelling. According to the United Nations, at least 356 people, including 257 civilians, have been killed in the clashes since May 7.
HRM/MHB/MAM
I was not able to embed the short PressTV broadcast, so, instead, I have included snapshots of the Broadcast, below. If you wish to view the 40 second broadcast, please visit the PressTV page. - Ed
Whilst this report is helpful, informative, and an indispensible alternative to the lying mainstream presstitute media, I find the presenter's style in describing the fight for survival by East Ukrainians against the Kiev Nazis and their mercenary allies to be unnecessarily restrained. - Ed
All the evidence seems to suggest that, to the contrary, President al-Assad is a courageous and humane national leader who has capably led his country against the foreign terrorist proxy invasion since March 2001. Had Syria been less capably led, the cost to the Syrian people by now would have been even greater than the already terrible death toll, put at more than 70,000 by most estimates. In all probability, the Syrian government would have been overthrown, Syria would have been partitioned and bloody sectarian strife similar to what occurred in Iraq after the United States and its allies invaded in 2003, would now be under way.
Above video of 33 minutes, 36 seconds duration can also be viewed here.
Video of 4 minutes, 13 seconds duration can also be viewed here.
Readers may be interested to compare President al-Assad's words with those of Australian Foreign Minister Bob Car 10 months ago in July 2012 in an interview with SBS television's Anton Enus. In that interview, both Bob Carr and Anton Enus predicted the imminent overthrow of the Syrian Government and made claims, contrary to the known evidence of the time, that the Syrian Army and 'pro-government militias' had committed atrocities against the Syrian people.
Video of 5 minutes, 57 seconds duration can also be viewed here.
It is striking that while, on the one hand Russia and China are criticised by Bob Carr and Anton Enus for vetoing motions for military intervention against the Syrian Government on the United Nations Security Council, on the other hand the tragic consequences for the Libyan people of the failure of Russia and China to veto the resolution for a "no-fly zone" in 2011, are not even mentioned.
No mention is made either of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in which Australia participated. That invasion was found by the UK Government Chilcot inquiry to have been in breach of international law.
Many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a result and President al-Assad is rightly resolved not to let the likes of Carr and Obama and the governments of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and other criminal entities on the international arena do the same to his country.
Australia's current Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr, ruled the state of New South Wales from 1995 until 2005. Unlike President al-Assad, whose country has, faced threatened invasions of Syria for much of the time since he assumed office, he was formally democratically elected Premier of New South Wales in 1995.
However, many of the policies Carr imposed or attempted to impose --- privatisation, the massive expansion of global-warming coal exports, enabling the trashing of bushland in Western Sydney against popular protest, etc. -- were harmful to the public and the environment and benficial to vested wealthy corporate interests. Had President Bashar al-Assad ruled Syria as ineptly and unconscionably as Carr ruled New Sout Wales, he would have been removed from office a long time ago.
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