"Ex-Ukrainian leader to run for president" by Kathy Lally and Will Englund | Washington Post March 28, 2014
KIEV — Yulia Tymoshenko, who for a decade has made Ukrainian politics an impassioned melodrama, said Thursday she would run for president in the May 25 election.
(Blog editor was shocked when he read it, and my first reaction was the U.S trying to force another retreaded leader that has already been rejected by Ukranians)
The former prime minister, who was freed from prison a month ago and released from the hospital a week ago, is facing what may be her last opportunity to reclaim the affection of Ukrainians that she squandered after the Orange Revolution of 2004 thrust her into a position of power.
On a day when Ukraine reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that will bring the country as much as $18 billion in loans, plus an additional $9 billion in associated assistance from the West — as well as a day when the UN General Assembly voted, 100 to 11, in favor of a nonbinding resolution declaring Russia’s annexation of Crimea illegitimate — Tymoshenko asked for another chance.
Okay, the U.N vote is not surprising since most countries on the planet don't want a larger country and force taking them over, but that isn't what happened here. Russia was basically invited in and they have done it all without a shot, but I'm not getting angry at the spin today.
A new poll suggests that it’s a slim one.
She has always been a bundle of contradictions. But that hasn’t necessarily been a handicap in Ukraine.
She was the chief nemesis of ousted leader Viktor Yanukovych, who ensured that she spent most of his presidency incarcerated. Yet she has tended to get along well with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yanukovych’s sponsor. She made her fortune in the natural gas business. She met her downfall over a natural gas deal with Russia, which Yanukovych said was too generous to Moscow.
She was skimming off proceeds from sales, folks. It's called corruption, and because she is a Western tool they jailed her for it.
Putin said last year that Tymoshenko should be released from prison, where she had been sent for ‘‘abuse of office.’’
On Thursday, she said, ‘‘I consider Vladimir Putin to be Ukraine’s enemy number one.’’
The flip certainly can't be seen as anything but a provocation considering the recent statements she has made that are omitted in this WaPo whitewash.
That, of course, comes after Russia’s takeover of Crimea and Putin’s threats against the rest of Ukraine.
Except they are not threatening anyway, pos pre$$!
Tymoshenko, who is from the eastern, Russian-speaking city of Dnepropetrovsk, portrays herself as a Ukrainian heroine, with her unmistakable blond braid wrapped around her head.
The Wicked Witch of the East (Hillary will be of the West when she is awarded the presidency)!?!
If she is to make headway in the eight weeks before the election, she has to overcome two rivals: Petro Poroshenko, the ‘‘chocolate king’’ of Ukraine, and Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion turned politician.
Okay, Klitschko already out in case you have forgotten.
According to one national poll, conducted March 14-19 by the Center for Social and Marketing Research, Poroshenko is on top, with support from nearly 25 percent of registered voters, followed by Klitschko with nearly 9 percent. Tymoshenko was running third, backed by slightly more than 8 percent of voters.
I smell a rigged election and regime change, don't you?
Among several other candidates, Oleh Tiahnybok, leader of the right-wing All-Ukrainian Union ‘‘Svoboda’’ party, considered by Russia to be a dangerous extremist, was favored by fewer than 2 percent of voters, according to the poll.
Think Nazis, but they are "our" Nazis, so.....
Tymoshenko’s announcement was a reminder to Ukraine that steadying the nation is not what she’s about. Her bickering with her Orange Revolution partner, Viktor Yushchenko, helped to undermine progress after 2004.
Is she the one who poisoned him?
She declined to pursue the sorts of legal reforms that might have enabled her to stay out of prison when a vindictive Yanukovych came after her after his election victory in 2010.
She has been in the limelight for half of Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign nation — years during which it fell far behind its Western European neighbors economically and failed to cement an identity as a unified nation.
But she’s tough and determined, and her supporters, though limited in numbers, adore her.
I've kind of had to with the cult of personality crap with leadership. That is dangerous.
The IMF deal, extended over two years, is part of a far-reaching effort to keep Ukraine from plunging into default and to steady the country as it attempts to build democratic institutions.
They already had them, but never you mind that. The price of fuel is going up, per IMF order.
Enjoy your newfound "freedom," Ukranians.
You want the old government back or the Russians to come in now?
The money from the IMF comes with stringent conditions.
No kidding, but bankers must be $erviced fir$t.
Ukraine is facing a period of sharp cutbacks in social spending. The interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said Thursday the government expects the gross domestic product to decline 3 percent with the new package of loans and reforms. He said it would decline 10 percent without it.
Can you prove that, lying puke?!
At a news conference in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, President Obama called the IMF agreement ‘‘a major step forward.’’
‘‘This is a concrete signal of how the world has united around Ukraine,’’ Obama said, adding that the agreement would help spur democratic and economic reforms in the country.
OMG! He's terrible. What a tool!
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Maybe someone can talk some sense into him:
"Obama, Francis differ on nature of private session" by JULIE PACE and NICOLE WINFIELD | Associated Press March 28, 2014
VATICAN CITY — Face to face for the first time, President Obama and Pope Francis focused publicly on their mutual respect and shared concern for the poor on Thursday. But their lengthy private discussion also highlighted the deep differences between the White House and the Catholic Church on abortion and birth control.
No war and peace talk?
The gaps were evident in the differing accounts Obama and the Vatican gave of the meeting....
Okay, I'm given a choice between believing the Pope or this White House?
Guess who loses that one.
The meeting inside the grand headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church marked a symbolic high point of Obama’s three-country visit to Europe. For a president whose approval ratings have slipped since winning reelection, it was also an opportunity to link himself to the hugely popular pope and his focus on fighting poverty.
A POLITICAL PHOTO-OP and CAMPAIGN EVENT even when meeting with the POPE!
(Blog editor gets up and walks away from computer because he needs to cool down)
‘‘Those of us as politicians have the task of trying to come up with policies to address issues,’’ he said following the meeting. ‘‘But His Holiness has the capacity to open people’s eyes and make sure they’re seeing that this is an issue.’’
And you have failed, sir.
The president said the plight of the poor and marginalized was a central topic in their talks, along with Middle East peace, conflicts in Syria, and the treatment of Christians around the world. Social issues, he said, were not discussed in detail.
Oh, so the mass-murdering wars of conquest WERE discussed!
However, the Vatican left out any reference to inequality issues in its description of the meeting. In a written statement, church officials instead said discussions among not only the pope and president but also their top aides centered on questions of particular relevance for the church leaders in the United States, making veiled references both to abortion and a contraception mandate in Obama’s health care law, which is under review by the Supreme Court.
Who swore before God before issuing the statement?
For Obama, the meeting with the pope marked a departure from the intense focus on the situation in Ukraine, which dominated his first three days in Europe.
That, and his off-hand comment about a nuclear bomb obliterating an AmeriKan city.
Obama has visited the Vatican once before as president, meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. But his meeting with the current pope was more highly anticipated, given their shared economic philosophies and Francis’ global popularity.
Obama and Francis, two of the world’s most recognizable men, both appeared nervous as they shook hands before entering the Papal Library.
‘‘I’m a great admirer,’’ Obama said to the smiling pope. The two men then sat across from each other at a wooden desk for a private meeting that lasted 52 minutes, beyond the half-hour that had been scheduled.
Obama extended an invitation for the pope to visit the United States. Speaking in his native Spanish, the Argentine pope replied, ‘‘Why not?’’
Walsh wants him to come to Boston.
What a security nightmare that would be, as well as an excellent change for a false flag to incite Christians against Muslims.
And jwhose agenda would benefit?
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UPDATE:
"Summing up, Obama got a picture with a smiling pope splashed across the front page of every American paper, while Francis avoided some needless internal heartburn. The meeting may not have changed the world, but it was still fun to watch two savvy tacticians operate, both aware of the other’s agenda and both purposeful in pursuing their own."
UPDATE:
"Summing up, Obama got a picture with a smiling pope splashed across the front page of every American paper, while Francis avoided some needless internal heartburn. The meeting may not have changed the world, but it was still fun to watch two savvy tacticians operate, both aware of the other’s agenda and both purposeful in pursuing their own."
That's the whisper in the ear after the meeting?
Maybe the pillow talk can talk some sense into him?
Maybe the pillow talk can talk some sense into him?
"Michelle Obama’s diplomatic style strikes the right chord with Beijing" by Krissah Thompson | Washington Post March 28, 2014
BEIJING — Michelle Obama’s team billed her visit to China, with her daughters and mother tagging along, as a goodwill tour unconnected to the political tensions that complicate the relationship between the global superpowers.
It turned out to be a somewhat more substantive swing through this massive country than expected, displaying Obama’s deft ability to mix diplomacy with her personal narrative before flying home late Wednesday afternoon....
I'm tired of "news narratives" claiming to be reality.
Her final stop was at a restaurant in a province near China’s border with Tibet in a silent expression of her support for that community. ‘‘I would argue that her approach was more effective than lecturing,’’ a senior White House official said. ‘‘There wasn’t any one thing to censor.’’
Obama’s visit flooded China’s airwaves and newspapers. The US Embassy here tracked the views of videos, photos, and stories of the first lady and said they had reached 1 billion.
Your tax dollars at work?
Michelle Obama’s visit came 19 years after Hillary Clinton gave a historic speech at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where she equated women’s rights to human rights and condemned the practice of forced abortions. Obama did not see herself competing with Clinton’s rebuke.
Clinton’s remarks became a feminist credo, but they were not aired in China. Obama’s speech at Peking University’s Stanford Center was posted in full on Weibo, a Twitter-like service. China’s Ministry of Information chose not to censor it.
I get censorship in the form of omissions and obfuscation.
She called for open access to information — a major issue in China, where news is censored and websites are routinely blocked.
They $elf-cen$or here, so it's no big deal. Call themselves the free press, but that actually is me.
But Obama did so in such a way that her remarks, which were mostly about encouraging students to study abroad, came coated in careful language and personal asides.
We call it a newspaper over here.
Obama spoke of the open exchange of ideas as ‘‘messy’’ and did not directly call out China. ‘‘My husband and I are on the receiving end of plenty of questioning and criticism from our media and our fellow citizens,’’ she said. ‘‘And it’s not always easy, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.’’
Except a "shield" law.
John Thornton, a former president of Goldman Sachs who leads Global Leadership at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said that he has not always given the Obama administration positive reviews but found the first lady’s speech ‘‘pitch perfect’’ for China, where sincerity paves the way for connections.
The banker liked it, huh?
For Chinese officials, Obama’s tour broke ground in first lady diplomacy. For the first time, a leader’s wife invited a US first lady for a visit. Peng Liyuan, who has styled herself after Western first ladies by representing China abroad, spent a full day with Obama.
She met with the wife of the family that has taken China to the cleaners and built a family fortune, according to the NYT investigative team?
That is connecting with ordinary people?
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