"Tony Blinken, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Sunday that it is possible that Russia would invade eastern Ukraine, and even US military assistance would be unlikely to prevent it. Blinken, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said Russia seems to be trying to intimidate Ukrainians by massing thousands of troops along the border, but it added that “it’s possible they are preparing to move in.” Blinken said the United States is looking at providing military assistance to Ukraine, but that is “very unlikely to change Russia’s calculus and prevent an invasion.”"
"Ukraine says top commander held after base stormed" by Jim Heintz | Associated Press March 24, 2014
KIEV — A base in Crimea was stormed by pro-Russian forces....
And there was a Vitali Klitschko sighting.
Russia took control of Crimea after what it called a coup in Ukraine, and last week it formally annexed the region, a move that Western countries say is illegitimate.
The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia in the dispute, but Moscow appears unmoved....
In Donetsk, one of the major cities in eastern Ukraine, about 5,000 people demonstrated in favor of holding a referendum on secession and absorption into Russia.
Eastern Ukraine is the country’s industrial heartland and was Yanukovych’s support base.
Donetsk authorities on Friday formed a working group to hold a referendum, but no date for it has been set.
Russia has deployed thousands of troops in its regions near the Ukrainian border and concerns are high that it could use unrest in the east as a pretext for crossing the border.
What, U.S. spoil the WMD excuse?
On Sunday, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov of Russia was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Moscow plans no further military intervention in Ukraine and the number of Russian troops in the area of the Ukrainian border does not exceed international treaty limits.
(Blinken)
Tony Blinken, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Sunday that it is possible that Russia would invade eastern Ukraine, and even US military assistance would be unlikely to prevent it.
Blinken, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said Russia seems to be trying to intimidate Ukrainians by massing thousands of troops along the border, but it added that “it’s possible they are preparing to move in.”
Blinken said the United States is looking at providing military assistance to Ukraine, but that is “very unlikely to change Russia’s calculus and prevent an invasion.”
He said US and European economic sanctions are working to isolate Russia.
--more--"
"Ukraine to be focus of Hague nuclear summit; US, allies hoped to forge strategy on Moscow" by Toby Sterling | Associated Press March 24, 2014
THE HAGUE — Nuclear terrorism is officially the main topic for world leaders at a two-day summit in the Netherlands starting Monday. In practice, the Ukraine crisis is expected to overshadow those talks.
Related(?): Malaysian Flight 370
UPDATE: Ukraine Leader In New Leaked Recording: 8 Million Russians In Ukraine "Must Be Killed With Nuclear Weapons"
The Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague will form the backdrop for an emergency meeting of Group of Seven leaders on Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a confrontation between Russia and the West that is reminiscent of the Cold War.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia is not attending, instead sending Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is to hold talks with Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said the event’s timing means world leaders can discuss Ukraine and Russia face to face.
‘‘I think these multilateral summits are an excellent opportunity for world leaders to discuss bilaterally and also amongst smaller groups of countries various issues which are high on their minds,’’ Rutte said.
The hope is that the United States and its European allies can forge a common strategy for dealing with the Ukraine threat, despite their differences on policy toward Moscow.
Ironically, Ukraine is already a success story in the international effort to curb the spread of nuclear material.
The country voluntarily gave the nuclear weapons housed on its soil back to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Following through on a 2010 summit promise, it recently disposed of its remaining stock of about 176 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Experts on nuclear terrorism said the frantic diplomacy focused on the Ukraine upheaval shouldn’t divert from the goal of better security of nuclear material.
‘‘International attention can turn in a moment,’’ said Deepti Choubey, a senior director at the nongovernment Nuclear Threat Initiative. ‘‘The attentions of terrorists do not.’’
Delegations from 53 countries, including the leaders of the United States, China, and Japan, have started to arrive in the Hague.
They will meet to negotiate on reducing and securing supplies, and keeping them out of terrorists’ hands.
So when is the nuclear false flag, and where?
*****************
Notable absentees from the summit are North Korea and Iran, excluded by mutual consent.
The summit is the third since President Obama launched the series in 2009 shortly after taking office, saying that reducing the risk of a terrorist attack with either a nuclear weapon or a ‘‘dirty bomb’’ was one of his most important international policy goals.
Delivered by plane?
Related: Obama's Nuclear Nonsense
That about sums it up.
Rutte agreed, saying that while progress has been made, ‘‘it’s not nearly enough.’’
He told reporters in The Hague that 146 nuclear ‘‘incidents’’ were reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency last year alone. Although they mainly were about material that temporarily went missing, ‘‘the possibility of a serious incident continues to hang over us.’’
Because countries usually regard protecting nuclear weapons and facilities as a confidential sovereign matter, the summits center on individual commitments by participants and conclude with a non-binding accord.
Still, they already have reached tangible results.
And those results are?
--more--"
And this is all about pushing a trade deal?
"US official lobbies for trans-Atlantic trade pact" by James Kanter | New York Times March 24, 2014
BRUSSELS — Completing a landmark trans-Atlantic trade agreement could help Europe wean itself from reliance on Russian energy supplies, the US trade representative, Michael Froman, says.
Froman made his comments here Saturday before a visit by President Obama that is scheduled to start Tuesday evening, with a summit meeting of European Union and US officials set for the following day. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, now being negotiated, is among the items Obama is set to discuss with Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso, the union’s top officials.
Obama’s visit, scheduled before the crisis erupted in Crimea, will be his first to Brussels since he took office. Energy is expected to be a key topic because of the heightened tensions with Russia.
Russia has cut natural gas supplies to Europe a number of times in the past decade during disputes with Ukraine and other trans-shipment countries, prompting severe shortages in parts of the union.
Encouraging the export of US natural gas to Europe “is yet another rationale for completing” the trade talks, Froman told the Brussels Forum, a conference organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Which means the price won't be going down here!
Froman suggested that if a far-reaching trade agreement were in place, it would be a good deal easier for the Energy Department to grant licenses to companies wishing to export shale gas from the United States. “If you’re a free trade agreement country, those licenses are deemed to be in the public interest,” Froman said during a panel discussion with the European Union trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht.
Earlier Saturday, Froman told reporters that “recent developments just underscore the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship,” adding, “From both a strategic and economic perspective, the rationale for the TTIP could never be stronger.”
Hmmmm!
Who benefits?
Although European and US officials trumpet the importance of the trans-Atlantic alliance, there are thorny elements in the relationship. The last time the two sides held a similar meeting, in Washington in November 2011, the United States was concerned that European leaders’ insistence on austerity was a threat to the global economy.
Looks like they have gotten on board.
More recently, relations were soured by National Security Agency spying, including tapping of the cellphone of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Her bluster about that is just for show.
The start of negotiations for a trade deal was announced with great fanfare last year, and European officials, eager to find ways of stoking confidence in the region’s beleaguered economy, expressed optimism about reaching an agreement by 2015. Since then, in the course of four rounds of talks in Brussels and Washington, progress has been slower than many officials had hoped.
There are widespread concerns among Europeans that any agreement with the United States would jeopardize environmental and food safety standards. Some US companies are concerned that protections for investors will not be part of a deal. Even in the relatively straightforward area of tariff reductions, the two sides have yet to reach agreement on how various industrial sectors should be treated.
Another round of talks is expected to be held in Washington before summer.
There are many companies willing to export US natural gas. There also is demand in union member countries like Poland and Lithuania for US energy as part of efforts to break their reliance on Russian sources. Russia supplies about a quarter of the union’s natural gas needs, but some former members of the Soviet bloc are almost entirely dependent on Russian energy.
Yet a number of US manufacturers doubt the wisdom of the United States’ exporting cheap shale gas.
So do I!
“We’re not trying to block anything,” Heinz Haller, president of Dow Europe, Middle East, and Africa, told a separate panel at the Brussels Forum. But he suggested that exporting shale gas could raise US energy prices at a time when “the US needs to repatriate a lot of industry.”
That's why!
“There is nobody who is saying we should not have free trade in this, but only when it makes economic sense,” Haller said.
In other words, the trade can only be free if it is rigged in their favor.
Even so, there are 28 gas export permits awaiting approval by the Energy Department. Approvals typically take three or four months, said Nelson W. Cunningham, a former White House adviser who now is president of McLarty Associates, a consulting firm.
Cunningham said that even without a trans-Atlantic trade pact in place, export approvals should be accelerated to help Eastern Europe secure non-Russian sources of energy.
He said US authorities should consider allowing companies “to jump the queue” for export licenses if they could show the gas would go to Eastern Europe.
Also see: Vladimir Putin creates the bipartisanship Washington needs
They are always partisanly bipartisan when it comes to empire and war.
Time to lace up the sneakers again.
They are always partisanly bipartisan when it comes to empire and war.
Time to lace up the sneakers again.
