"China and Russia Said to Block Creation of Antarctic Marine Reserves
SYDNEY, Australia — International talks in Australia on establishing two marine reserve areas, each larger than Texas, in the waters around Antarctica ended in failure on Friday, with some delegates to the negotiations saying that China and Russia had resisted the proposals.
The United States and New Zealand had jointly proposed the creation of a 500,000-square-mile reserve in the Ross Sea, in the hopes of alleviating pressure on Antarctic species facing the effects of climate change and fishing.
Related: Global Warming Caused ISIS
A second major proposal, from Australia, France and the European Union, would have set up a series of four reserves in the east Antarctic waters, covering about 386,000 square miles.
But neither was approved at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which ended Friday in the Australian city of Hobart after two weeks of talks among government officials, scientists and environmentalists from 24 countries and the European Union.
Any one of the commission’s member states can block a major proposal like the creation of a marine reserve. The commission does not make its deliberations public, but several nonvoting delegates from nongovernmental organizations said China and Russia were the only countries to speak against the two proposals.
“The overall political situation, where Russia is in a political confrontation with other countries, mainly Western or NATO countries, overshadows negotiations” at international forums like the marine commission, said Grigory Tsidulko, a Russian member of the nongovernmental organization Antarctic Ocean Alliance, who attended the talks.
Well, we know who to blame for those.
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That's long distance over which to build a pipeline:
"Ukraine, Moscow clinch deal on Russian gas supply" by Raf Casert | Associated Press October 31, 2014
Okay, who farted?
BRUSSELS — Moscow and Kiev clinched a deal Thursday that will guarantee that Russian gas exports flow into Ukraine throughout the winter despite their intense rivalry over the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
In a signing ceremony following protracted negotiations, the two sides promised to get the gas flowing into Ukraine again after a long and bitter dispute over payments.
European Union energy chief Guenther Oettinger said that ‘‘we can guarantee a security of supply over the winter,’’ not only for Ukraine but also for the EU nations closest to the region that stood to suffer should the conflict worsen.
In this age of global warm.... never mind.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, announced the ‘‘very important agreement’’ between the two sides.
‘‘There is now no reason for people in Europe to stay cold this winter,’’ he said.
The agreement long hinged on the question of whether Ukraine was in a position to come up with the necessary cash to pay for the gas. ‘‘Yes, they are,’’ a confident Oettinger said. He said the $4.6 billion deal should extend to the spring.
Oettinger said it was ‘‘perhaps first glimmer of a relaxation in the relations between neighbors.’’
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine said the amount his government would pay for Russian gas would fall in line with global oil prices, which have tumbled in recent weeks....
Being driven down by the Saudis in tandem with the U.S. to punish Russia; however, the price is now dropping so low it is hurting the U.S. shale market! Duh!
President Vladimir Putin of Russia and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, agreed this month on the broad outline of a deal, but financial issues, centering on payment guarantees for Moscow, bogged down the talks.
Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in June after disputes over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March.
Yeah, except it wasn't an annexation. The Crimeans voted to join Russia.
Readers, if the propaganda pre$$ is going to keep repeating lies....
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And my printed Globe missed this next item:
"Evidence indicates Ukraine used cluster bombs on cities" by Andrew Roth | New York Times October 21, 2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian army appears to have fired cluster munitions on several occasions into the heart of Donetsk, unleashing a weapon banned in much of the world into a rebel-held city with a peacetime population of more than 1 million, according to physical evidence at the scene and interviews with witnesses and victims.
That's a war crime, and the U.S. and Israel have done the same thing.
Sites where rockets fell in the city on Oct. 2 and 5 showed clear signs that cluster munitions had been fired from the direction of army-held territory.
The two attacks wounded at least six people and killed a Swiss employee of the International Red Cross based in Donetsk.
If confirmed, the use of cluster bombs by the pro-Western government could complicate efforts to reunite the country, as residents of the east have grown increasingly bitter over the Ukrainian army’s tactics to oust pro-Russian rebels.
Gee, I can't wonder why they would be bitter.
Further, in a report released late Monday, Human Rights Watch said the rebels have most likely used cluster weapons in the conflict as well, a detail The New York Times could not independently verify.
Meaning they likely did not because HRW and the Times would have proof of it. They didn't shoot down the Malaysian plane, didn't use banned weapons, etc, etc.
The army’s use of cluster munitions, which shower small bombs around a large area, could also add credibility to Moscow’s version of the conflict, which is that the Ukrainian national government is engaged in a punitive war against its own citizens.
Now I know why this was ignored in print.
The two October strikes occurred nearly a month after President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a cease-fire agreement with rebel representatives.
“It’s pretty clear that cluster munitions are being used indiscriminately in populated areas, particularly in attacks in early October in Donetsk city,” Mark Hiznay, senior arms researcher at Human Rights Watch said, in e-mailed comments after the report was completed. “The military logic behind these attacks is not apparent, and these attacks should stop, because they put too many civilians at risk.”
Press officers for the Ukrainian military denied their troops had used cluster weapons during the conflict and said the rocket strikes against Donetsk in early October should be investigated once it was safe to do so.
They also said that rebels in the area had access to powerful rocket systems from Russia that could fire cluster munitions.
However, munition fragments found in and around Donetsk and interviews with witnesses indicate that the cluster bombs that struck on Oct. 2 and 5 were most likely fired by Ukrainian troops stationed southwest of the city, according to Human Rights Watch and a review by the Times.
Human Rights Watch said in its report that cluster weapons have been used against population centers in eastern Ukraine at least 12 times, including the strikes on Donetsk, during the conflict, and possibly many more. The report said that both sides were probably culpable, in attacks that “may amount to war crimes” in a grinding conflict that has claimed at least 3,700 lives, including those of many civilians.
The report, which included incidents uncovered by the Times, said there is “particularly strong evidence” that Ukrainian government troops carried out the two October attacks against Donetsk.
An August cluster-munitions attack on the village of Starobesheve, which was in Ukrainian Army hands, was probably carried out either by pro-Russian rebels or by Russian troops, the report said.
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My printed paper carried this instead:
"Ukraine parliament says 100s died in battle
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A report by Ukraine's parliament revealed Monday that more than 300 soldiers were killed during a weeks-long battle that marked a crushing setback in the military campaign to root out pro-Russian separatist forces in the east.
The report is the first official confirmation of the scale of a defeat in the city of Ilovaisk that critics of the country's military command have described as the result of disastrous leadership.
One might even say war criminal leadership.
It is believed the ultimate number of servicemen lost may be even greater, and the parliamentary inquiry into the Ilovaisk battle complained that military authorities have failed to cooperate.
"Neither the Defense Ministry nor the General Staff has responded to queries from the investigating committee about losses in the armed forces," the committee said in a statement.
Ukrainian forces mounted an assault on Ilovaisk in early August only to eventually find themselves besieged by heavily armed separatist fighters.
The city and surrounding villages still bears signs of heavy shelling.
A cease-fire deal struck a month ago by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the rebel leadership is often violated.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday "there's a long way to a cease-fire, unfortunately," given the number of people who have been killed since the deal was struck. Europe is seeking full compliance with the cease-fire, clear border controls and local elections in eastern Ukraine in compliance with Ukrainian law, and not under auspices of the rebels.
Speaking in Slovakia, where she met with its prime minister, Robert Fico, Merkel said Ukraine's territorial integrity must be ensured "not just on paper" and that the cease-fire plan has to become effective in all its details.
It's amazing how arbitrary such demands are.
The U.N. estimates more than 300 people have been killed since the cease-fire was announced, and at least 3,660 people have been killed over six months of fighting.
In Ilovaisk city in August, government troops sustained heavy losses of life attempting to flee the area and were easily picked off by rocket and artillery fire as they fled in columns. AP reporters counted more than 30 charred Ukrainian military vehicles on the route out of the city in early September, when the battle had come to a close.
Shades of the highway to Baghdad.
The defense minister in command at the time resigned last week.
Ukraine maintains that rebel forces have been amply supplied with weaponry by Russia and that their military setbacks would not have occurred without Moscow's interference. Russia denies such claims.
The intensity of fighting in the east has abated since late September, when the warring sides agreed on the nominal cease-fire, but shelling continues daily.
On Monday, a powerful explosion shook the largest rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, causing shockwaves that were felt over a radius of several kilometers. Numerous buildings, including the Shakhtar Donetsk football club, were damaged as a result.
The explosion, which occurred at a rubber processing factory used to create components for ammunition, was succeeded by multiple barrages of outgoing rockets fire from the city.
--more--"
UPDATE: Bodies of 286 women discovered, 400 listed missing in east Ukraine
"Pro-Western parties lead in Ukraine poll; President claims victory, but few in pro-Russian east able to cast ballots" by David M. Herszenhorn | New York Times October 27, 2014
KIEV — Pro-Western parties won an overwhelming majority in Ukraine’s Parliament, President Petro O. Poroshenko declared on Sunday, citing exit polls.
The new Ukraine.
How come Scotland didn't do exit polls?
The results, if confirmed by official tallies expected on Monday, would complete a transformation of the government that began in February when the former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, fled after sustained, bloody street protests over his decision to align more closely with Russia.
The country remains on war footing against pro-Russian separatists in the east.
Expanded power for pro-Western parties is certain to be cheered by the United States and its European allies, which have staked a huge political and financial bet on Ukraine’s ability to emerge from its current crisis as a stable state, and especially to be able to repay its debts.
Making this election result stink.
The United States and European nations are also eager to end the worst violence on the continent since the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, and to resolve the most dangerous dispute between the West and Russia since the Cold War.
I find it odd that they are eager to end the violence and resolve the dispute when they have done more than anyone to cause it.
That, however, will probably hinge as much on President Vladimir Putin of Russia as on Poroshenko, who has promised voters to unshackle his country from the Kremlin’s grip.
An overwhelming pro-Western majority may also pose a challenge for Poroshenko as he tries to convince residents of the embattled east that their interests are also a priority in Kiev. Such skepticism is likely to be heightened because of the inability of so many residents of eastern Ukraine to participate in Sunday’s election.
Then the election is completely illegitimate.
Between the war zone and Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March, international election observers said as many as 5 million people were unable to cast ballots.
It wasn't annexed, but you get my point.
The exit polls showed Poroshenko’s own coalition party running first in the polls but falling far short of winning a controlling majority on its own. That means he would be forced to form a coalition, probably in partnership with People’s Front, the party led by Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk.
Another U.S. ally.
“It’s crystal clear that we have to reset the Parliament, the government, and to establish the new rules in my country,” Yatsenyuk said after casting his own ballot here in Kiev, the capital. “We strongly believe that the new government, together with the new Parliament and the president, will deliver real changes.”
Heard that one before. Hope they are not for the worse.
Yatsenyuk, standing with his wife, Tereza, and 10-year-old daughter added, “This is a first tremendous and crucial step to make Ukrainian politics, more clear, more transparent, more responsible and more accountable.”
If his party, People’s Front, posts as strong a showing as the exit polls suggest, it would increase the likelihood that Yatsenyuk would remain in the prime minister’s post in a new government. According to the constitution, the government must resign and a new government must be chosen by the Parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada.
One party that is generally regarded as pro-Russian appeared in a position to clear the threshold for forming a faction in the Parliament, according to the exit polls. That party, the Opposition Bloc, includes some of Yanukovych’s former allies with strong ties to the embattled east.
The party could ultimately prove crucial to future negotiations with Putin and to resolving the simmering conflict in the east.
The party is led by Yuri Boiko, a former deputy prime minister and energy minister under Yanukovych. Boiko also has served as energy minister and was head of the Ukrainian national energy company, Naftogaz, from 2002 to 2005, giving him extensive business dealings with Russia.
The Opposition Bloc was also heavily supported by Sergiy V. Liovochkin, a former chief of staff to Poroshenko and one of Ukraine’s wealthiest businessmen. Liovochkin had a falling out with Yanukovych over the response to the protests last fall and attempted to resign.
So that, too, is controlled opposition to make it appear there is some sort of representative democracy regarding this fraud of an election.
To supporters of the uprising in Ukraine, including Yatsenyuk, the vote on Sunday represents the chance to secure a pro-European path, fulfilling ambitions that were thwarted when Yanukovych, under Russian pressure, broke a promise to sign political and trade accords with the European Union last November.
Although a new president, Poroshenko, was elected in May, the membership of the Legislature did not change. As a result, the Parliament still included allies of Yanukovych who had pushed through draconian laws in January aimed at stopping the protests by curtailing rights to free speech and assembly.
To opponents of the protests, the vote was an attempt to seal an illegal overthrow of the government, with the legitimacy of the balloting further clouded by the inability of many residents of the embattled east to participate.
That's right.
International observers said the election was technically well organized in the areas of the country that remained under the control of the Ukrainian government.
Clearly sensitive to this, and to the government’s continuing lack of control in the war zone, Poroshenko did not appear as expected at a polling station in Kiev on Sunday morning. Instead, his wife, Maryna, appeared alone and announced that her husband had made a surprise trip to the east to observe voting there.
Poroshenko visited two polling stations in the city of Kramatorsk, then returned to the capital to cast his vote, his office said.
Yeah, that legitimizes the whole thing.
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UPDATE: Ukraine’s Stunning Election-Results
"Ukraine looks to reform with an eye on Europe" by Peter Leonard | Associated Press October 28, 2014
KIEV — A day after Ukraine’s most ardently pro-European parties pocketed a resounding collective election triumph, thoughts turned Monday to a reform agenda that could bring pain and progress in equal doses.
Is that what they voted for?
Although the outcome of Sunday’s vote is in part the fruit of a surge in anti-Russian sentiment, Moscow says it will recognize the result and it urged Ukraine’s new order to grapple with the country’s most pressing problems.
With 72 percent of the vote counted Monday, the three main Western-leaning parties alone stood to win a combined 54 percent of the vote. Coalition negotiations were already underway.
Parliament is now largely purged of the loyalists of former president Viktor Yanukovych, who sparked months of protests — and eventually his ouster in February — with his decision to deepen ties with Russia instead of the European Union.
That's a blast from the past.
Of the European-minded parties, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s Popular Front had 21.9 percent of the vote, while President Petro Poroshenko’s party had 21.5 percent. A new pro-European party based in western Ukraine was running third with 11 percent.
The Fatherland party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has argued strongly for NATO membership and is likely to join a pro-Europe coalition, had 5.7 percent of the vote.
What happened to the Opposition Bloc?
Poroshenko last month laid out an ambitious agenda envisioning significant changes to Ukraine’s police, justice and tax systems, defense sector and health care — all to be completed by 2020.
Among the tougher decisions ahead will be allowing the cost of utilities in the cash-strapped country to float in line with market dictates.
‘‘Ukraine is pregnant with reforms,’’ said political analyst Oleksiy Haran. ‘‘The elections showed that both the government and voters expect structural changes to bring Ukrainians closer to the European Union.’’
Whatever the IMF demands.
Haran said measures to simplify regulations for private enterprise and to attract investment need to be adopted first.
Hopeful business owners in Ukraine complain that if excess red tape doesn’t kill their ventures at birth, corruption does so further down the road. For that reason, initiatives to curb graft and overhaul the justice system should follow suit, Haran said.
Poroshenko has also said he wants to see Ukraine become more self-reliant for its energy needs and farm out more powers to local government.
Except in the east.
Details of the policies to be pursued are one key subject of coalition negotiations.
In a reflection of the crisis in Ukraine, Poland’s defense minister said Monday that his country will move tens of thousands of troops toward its eastern borders in a historic realignment of a military structure built in the Cold War.
Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said the troops are needed in the east because of the conflict in Ukraine. ‘‘The geopolitical situation has changed; we have the biggest crisis of security since the Cold War and we must draw conclusions from that,’’ he said.
He said that at least three military bases in the east will see their populations increase from the current 30 percent of capacity to almost 90 percent by 2017, and that more military hardware will be moved to those bases as well.
Russia had criticized Ukraine’s election campaign before the vote but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Moscow would recognize its outcome.
“It is very important that in Ukraine, at last, there will be a government that is occupied not with . . . the pulling of Ukraine either to the West or to the East, but with the real problems that are facing the country,’’ Lavrov told Russia’s Life News.
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"Russia defends rebel vote in eastern Ukraine" Associated Press October 30, 2014
MOSCOW — Russia angrily dismissed on Wednesday the EU’s warning that it would not recognize local elections organized by pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine, saying that the rejection of the vote could derail a fragile cease-fire deal.
Western powers are such assholes these days.
Moscow has pledged to recognize the vote set for Sunday, but President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine has warned that the elections would violate a cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk last month.
Of course his fraud vote a few days ago is fine.
The EU also warned that it would not recognize the vote, which ‘‘would run counter to the letter and the spirit of the Minsk Protocol and disrupt progress towards finding a sustainable political solution in this framework.’’
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the rebel vote would be in breach of the constitution and national law.
‘‘These ‘elections’ will seriously undermine the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, which need to be urgently implemented in full,’’ he said in a statement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded quickly by saying that the original Minsk agreement foresaw local elections in the rebel-held territories between Oct. 19 and Nov. 3. It said that Poroshenko later set elections in the rebel-controlled areas for Dec. 7 without consulting with them.
This month, Poroshenko signed a law offering autonomy to the areas controlled by the rebels. The Ukrainian Parliament, however, is yet to spell out specifics needed to implement the law and hold the vote. The rebels have been critical of the law, dismissing it as a propaganda gesture.
That seems to be all we are getting from western governments these days.
While the cease-fire helped reduce hostilities in eastern Ukraine, fighting has continued around the main rebel-held city of Donetsk and a few other areas as the warring parties have failed to reach agreement on a control line that would separate them.
Are cluster bombs still being dropped?
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the rejection of Sunday’s vote ‘‘could undermine the entire process of peaceful settlement.’’
‘‘The most important thing now is to do everything to support the fragile cease-fire, start economic and humanitarian efforts to rebuild the region and engage in a lasting political dialogue,’’ it said.
Who would have ever thought the Russians would be the reasonable ones?
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Now for the unreasonables:
"At Berlin Wall, Kerry warns against another Cold War" by Matthew Lee | Associated Press October 23, 2014
BERLIN — Surrounded by relics of the Cold War, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and his German counterpart warned Wednesday against a return to the bitter divide between east and west over the current crisis in Ukraine.
Under gloomy skies and a steady rain, Kerry and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited one of the few remaining sections of the Berlin Wall.
Seems ironically appropriate.
They emphasized that western nations do not seek confrontation with Russia and implored Moscow to move quickly to fulfill the terms of an agreement to end the fighting between the government and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine....
Ahead of next month’s 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kerry and Steinmeier met German high school students about the age that Kerry was when he lived in divided Berlin after World War II while his father was a US diplomat.
I really don't want to go down memory lane here.
On his way to a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Kerry swung by the former Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing point between the American and Soviet sectors of Berlin during the Cold War.
Earlier with Steinmeier, Kerry said he hoped the Ukraine crisis would not spark another Cold War and maintained that the West’s tough stance against Russian intervention in Ukraine was only standing up for peoples’ basic freedoms.
It already has, and I'm tired of western war-monger's and their duplicity.
‘‘These freedoms are still being threatened in too many parts of the world and they are even being threatened right here in Europe,’’ he said.
That's why the EUSraeli empire has to bomb everywhere?
--more--"
What do you mean Kerry couldn't make it home?
"John Kerry’s aging airplane grounded" by Bradley Klapper and Matthew Lee | Associated Press October 17, 2014
VIENNA — The United States might be the mightiest military and economic power in the world, but when it comes to shuttling its top diplomat around the globe, it is beginning to look like a poor orphan.
The endless feeding of tax loot to the war machine, Wall Street, and Israel has even affected the War Department's diplomatic arm?
For the fourth time this year — and the second time in three months — Secretary of State John F. Kerry was forced to fly home commercially when his aging Air Force Boeing 757, known in military parlance as a C-32, was grounded on Thursday with a mechanical problem in Vienna.
He better be careful. Israel is mad at him.
Kerry, heading back to Washington from nuclear talks with senior European and Iranian officials, made light of the situation, telling aides: ‘‘If the hardest thing that happens in a given day is that you have to fly commercial, your life is pretty good.’’
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif chuckled when he learned of Kerry’s predicament. ‘‘So it is not just our planes,’’ Zarif said. Iran has not been able to refurbish its pre-1979 fleet of Boeing aircraft because of heavy US sanctions.
Related: Commercial jet demand lifts Boeing results
Not enough to make sure the SecofState has a decent plane.
Officials say far more than appearance is at stake, particularly in the midst of world crises such as Ebola, the military campaign against Islamic State militants, the crisis in Ukraine, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the Iran nuclear talks.
Without access to the secure phone links and classified data on his plane, Kerry was effectively out of the loop during the nine-hour flight from Vienna to Washington. Aides said he had to cancel or reschedule calls with world leaders and other members of President Obama’s national security team.
‘‘In the world we live in, we do high-stakes diplomacy via phone and secure phone,’’ said spokeswoman Jen Psaki. ‘‘None of that is possible when any secretary of state is flying on a commercial plane without secure communications.’’
Yet somehow it ends op on Wikileaks.
‘‘Every minute of their day is scheduled,’’ she said. ‘‘There is not a single flight where Secretary Kerry isn’t calling in via secure phone to an interagency meeting or receiving sensitive national security information or reading classified information or briefings.’’
Before his trip, Kerry had logged more than 566,000 plane miles this year, according to the State Department. That is nearly 1,220 hours or more than 50 days in the air.
What is the carbon footprint on all that taxpayer-funded globe-trotting?
Problems with the 1990s-era Air Force fleet that ferry America’s top officials are not new, and secretaries of state have long complained about the aircraft they must fly for business.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encountered aviation breakdowns when she was in office, including a tire that burst on landing in the United Arab Emirates, leading to an unscheduled overnight stay in Dubai. But she never resorted to flying commercially.
Yet the problems seem to be becoming more frequent and more serious.
Thursday’s incident was the fourth with one of Kerry’s planes this year. Two problems — in Switzerland in January and in Britain in March — were resolved with only minor delays.
--more--"
And just when things get going up....
"It was the second major accident in a week for the commercial space industry, which has been widely promoted in recent years as an alternative to costly government programs. On Tuesday, an unmanned rocket launched by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., which was carrying cargo to the International Space Station, exploded 15 seconds after launching. SpaceShipTwo and Orbital’s rocket are very different in design and purpose, but both are part of an effort to bring private investment into the space business, until now largely the realm of government agencies like NASA and the military. The list of would-be astronauts includes celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber, and Angelina Jolie.....
Good thing they were not on that flight.
A rocket with no astronauts aboard that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up Tuesday night a few seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. The Orbital Sciences rocket rose a short distance from the launch pad and then exploded in a ball of orange flame....
The U.S. makes nothing but crap these days.
The company behind the dramatic explosion of a rocket being launched on a space station supply mission promises to find the cause of the failure and is warning residents to avoid any potentially hazardous wreckage. Orbital Sciences Corp.’s unmanned Antares rocket blew up just moments after liftoff on the Virginia coast Tuesday. Meanwhile, early Wednesday, the Russian Space Agency launched its own cargo vessel from Kazakhstan, and the spacecraft arrived at the international space station six hours later with 3 tons of food....
What?
It was the third spacewalk in three weeks outside the orbiting lab. This time, it was on the Russian side of the house, and went so well that it wrapped up more than two hours early."
Must have been Gravity."
I guess the Globe didn't get an invitation to the Valdai Club, either.
"Poland’s Sikorski under fire over interview on Ukraine" | Associated Press October 22, 2014
WARSAW — Poland’s former foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, came under fire Tuesday from the prime minister and political opponents over a US magazine interview in which he allegedly said Russia’s president offered Poland the opportunity to jointly carve up Ukraine in 2008.
I'm not believing it!
Sikorski, now the parliamentary speaker, was quoted as saying in Sunday’s issue of Politico Magazine that President Vladimir Putin of Russia ‘‘wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine.’’
He said Putin made the offer to Donald Tusk, then prime minister of Poland, in Moscow in 2008.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, described Sikorski’s comments as false.
‘‘First, we don’t know much about the work of this publication,’’ Peskov told Russian news website Gazeta.ru. ‘‘In general, this information seems like a fable.’’
It was a U.S. magazine, right?
In a news conference on Tuesday, Sikorski was vague about whether he made those exact remarks to Politico Magazine, and told journalists to refer to another interview he gave to a Polish media website. He said there that he didn’t hear Putin’s words firsthand, but stressed that they were treated in 2008 as ‘‘surrealistic’’ or a joke.
Later in the day, he held a second news conference where he said his memory had failed him in the interview with Politico Magazine, and that the bilateral meeting between Tusk and Putin didn’t take place in Moscow but at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.
Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, who is in the same party as Sikorski, criticized him for dodging reporters’ questions on the issue at the first conference. Political opponents want him fired, saying there is no room in politics for what they called irresponsibility.
Kopacz said she expected Sikorski to directly answer reporters’ questions.
‘‘I will not tolerate this kind of behavior,’’ Kopacz said.
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Also see: September is a Wonderful Time For a World War
Yeah, except it started in Syria not Europe.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Ukraine rebels to hold election, despite criticism" by Nataliya Vasilyeva | Associated Press November 02, 2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — Rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine prepared Saturday to elect legislators and executives in a vote that has been roundly condemned by the international community but backed by Russia.
Work at some polling stations in the largest separatist-controlled city of Donetsk was disrupted by a sudden intensification of hostilities. Artillery and small-weapons fire could be heard in northern districts of the city near the airport, which has been the focus of heavy fighting for weeks.
Separatist authorities say Sunday’s votes in the Donetsk Peoples Republic and Luhansk Peoples Republic will lend legitimacy to their aspirations for self-determination.
‘‘We have put too much at stake on the altar of the victory, and through this election we are legitimizing our government and thereby separating from Ukraine even further,’’ said rebel election chief Roman Lyagin.
Western governments and the United Nations say the vote violates the terms of a cease-fire agreement, signed by Russia, Ukraine, and rebel leaders in September, that envisioned local elections being held under Ukrainian laws.
The White House has denounced the planned elections as being contrary to Ukraine’s constitution.
Like this government ever cared about constitutions, and what business is it of theirs to even comment? Does anyone criticize our rigged farces?
In a statement, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Friday that the United States is warning Russia not to use the results of the voting as a pretext to make military moves into Ukraine.
If that isn't the hypocritical pot hollering kettle!!
The European Union and the United Nations have also criticized the vote, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said that the Minsk agreement foresaw local elections in the rebel-held territories between Oct. 19 and Nov. 3.
‘‘There is a chance to use the Nov. 2 vote to bring the situation into the constructive course instead of thoughtless and groundless inciting of confrontation,’’ the ministry said in a statement last week.
Campaigning has been negligible, and there are fears that unrest may break out on the day of the vote.
So what agent provocateurs has the U.S. and Ukraine government deployed?
It is unclear how many people will be able to vote, as rebel officials say they have no access to central Ukrainian electoral rolls. Polling station workers on Friday made final preparations by sticking rebel government labels on voting urns bearing the Ukrainian national emblem.
No established international monitoring group is overseeing the vote, although a collection of European far-right and communist political activists has traveled to the region, offering to act as observers.
Thus they will be whole-heartedly denounced by the propaganda pre$$. Read it here first.
Attitudes toward the election in Donetsk are a mix of fatalism, despair, and enthusiasm.
Tatyana Chaban, chairwoman of an election commission in Donetsk, said she has helped organize Ukrainian votes for the past decade.
‘‘If someone had told me a year ago that I would be working in an independent state, I would never have believed it,’’ Chaban said. ‘‘But since I decided to stay in Donetsk . . . I accepted this government and will now live under its laws.’’
Retiree Vera Dvornikova, who has been living in a basement in Donetsk for three months and has been without heat or electricity for the past month, said she saw no point in voting.
Thank you, pro-U.S. Ukraine government and your cluster bombs.
Btw, that reminds me to note how shallow and superficial are so many of these stories. They don't tell you anything, and all they do is push mind-manipulating imagery at you.
‘‘They want election. What elections, when there are no people left here?’’ Dvornikova said. ‘‘I will not go to vote until they pay me my pension.’’
--more--"
"It isn’t yet legal, for instance, to fly small, camera-toting drones for business purposes. But a farmer might find them useful for monitoring crops, or a realtor for shooting video of an oceanfront estate, says David Merrill, vice president of product at 3D Robotics, a drone-maker in Berkeley. 3D Robotics is betting sales will skyrocket as commercial drone uses are authorized; the company recently attracted the backing of Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. (We did discuss the dangers of being conked on the head by a malfunctioning drone -- which aren’t insignificant.)"
Maybe it was the dirty windows that caused the crash.
Also see: The perils of weak-kneed ecumenism with Russia
Hundreds bid farewell to bishop
