Related: The Ukrainian Missile Crisis
"US says Russia tested cruise missile in violation of treaty" by Michael R. Gordon | New York Times July 29, 2014
WASHINGTON — The United States has concluded that Russia violated a landmark arms-control treaty by testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile, according to senior US officials, a finding that was conveyed by President Obama to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a letter Monday.
It is the most serious allegation of an arms-control treaty violation that the Obama administration has leveled against Russia and adds another dispute to a relationship already burdened by tensions over the Kremlin’s support for separatists in Ukraine and its decision to grant asylum to Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.
Related: Snowden Was a Russian Spy
"It's official, insofar as I an be considered official, based on the credibility of my reasoning powers, that Snowden is a Snowjob. This is the same diversionary disinfo shit that we have seen time and time again from Liars Incorporated; a division of International Central Banks. Why anyone bothers to pay any attention to this guy or his Mossad handler, Greenwald, is beyond me. Yeah, that's the way they do it. They snag some undercover, enterprising journalist and set him up as an oracle of truth and they team him up with a renegade spy that is still a spy, for the purpose of disseminating redacted portion of half truth for the purpose of keeping the same old same old operational.
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I didn't like the interview, either.
At the heart of the issue is the 1987 treaty that bans medium-range missiles, which are defined as ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles capable of flying 300 to 3,400 miles.
That accord, which was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who was then the Soviet leader, helped seal the end of the Cold War and has been regarded as a cornerstone of US and Russian arms-control efforts.
Obama administration officials concluded by the end of 2011 that the cruise missile test was a compliance concern, officials have said. Rose Gottemoeller, the State Department’s senior arms-control official, first raised the violation concern with Russian officials in May 2013.
In January, The New York Times reported that US officials had informed NATO allies that Russia had tested a ground-launched cruise missile, raising serious concerns about Russia’s compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF Treaty.
No such concern regarding Israel, and when AmeriKa tortures in violation of treaties, well....
The State Department said at the time that the issue was under review and that the Obama administration was not yet ready to formally declare it a treaty violation.
Just waiting for the right time, huh?
In recent months, however, the issue has been taken up by top-level officials, including a meeting this month of the Principals’ Committee, a Cabinet-level body that includes Obama’s national security adviser, the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of state, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Senior officials said the president’s most senior advisers unanimously agreed that the test was a serious violation, and the allegation will be made public soon in the State Department’s annual report on international compliance with arms-control agreements.
“The United States has determined that the Russian Federation is in violation of its obligations under the INF Treaty not to possess, produce, or flight-test a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a range capability of 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles,” that report will say.
In his letter to Putin, Obama underscored his interest in a high-level dialogue with Moscow with the aim of preserving the 1987 treaty and discussing steps the Kremlin might take to come back into compliance. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a similar message in a phone call to Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.
Obama has determined that the United States will not retaliate against the Russians by violating the treaty and deploying its own prohibited medium-range system, officials said. So the responses might include deploying sea-launched and air-launched cruise missiles, which would be an allowable response under the accord.
Oh. This is all an excuse to escalate war.
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Meanwhile, back on the ground:
"Fighting again forces international team in Ukraine to retreat" by Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times July 29, 2014
SHAKHTYORSK, Ukraine — Fierce fighting gripped a dozen towns in eastern Ukraine on Monday, blocking an international police force from reaching the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which is now near — or even in the middle of — a battlefield.
Fighting near the crash site forced a convoy of 20 cars carrying Dutch and Australian police officers to turn back. The police officers were hoping to secure the area to permit the recovery of the remaining bodies from the jetliner crash and to enable an international investigation.
The road to the site is violently contested between pro-Russia rebel fighters and the Ukrainian military because it is also a route for supplies to reach the rebels holding Donetsk, the provincial capital, and for their wounded to be evacuated.
The convoy set out from Donetsk and stopped in Shakhtyorsk, one of the towns at the center of fighting Monday, when artillery explosions could be heard ahead.
The convoy started forward again but turned back before reaching the crash site because of the risk to the delegation, even though the separatists were willing to let it proceed, apparently toward Ukrainian army positions.
Fighting raged farther east along the highway as well, overnight and through the day. Outside Shakhty-20, a coal mining town on the road, a photographer who was passing through Monday morning saw the scorched hulks of Ukrainian armored personnel carriers in the road, and the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.
The Ukrainian offensive was intensive enough that the separatists’ military commander — a Russian citizen who uses the name Igor Strelkov, or Igor the Shooter — held a news conference Monday to deny rumors that he had fled the city or that important positions had fallen.
“Everywhere, the fight was tough,” he said. “They attacked from the north and the south. As a result of the fierce fighting, most of the advance was pushed back.”
The Malaysian airliner was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, on July 17 when it fell from the sky over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard. Ukrainian and US officials say a Russian-made surface-to-air missile fired from territory held by separatist rebels brought the jetliner down. The Kremlin and the rebels say the Ukrainian government was responsible.
Asked at the news conference if he had shot down the plane, Strelkov said he would not have known how, even though he once served as a guard in an air defense unit.
He also denied that his forces had the type of missile the United States says brought down the plane. “I did not have under my command any Buk systems, so I could not have ordered them to shoot at the airplane of Malaysia Airlines,” he said. “My subordinates did not do it.”
In Kiev, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the government’s security council, said the Ukrainian offensive had made gains, capturing a hilltop World War II monument complex that rebels have used for weeks as a stronghold. The claim could not be independently verified. In Donetsk, Strelkov said the site had not fallen.
Though there were clear signs of fighting near the debris fields of Flight 17, Lysenko insisted Monday that government forces were respecting an agreement to cease hostilities within a 24-mile radius of the site.
Lysenko said government forces had approached the wreckage site from the south but had not been engaged in fighting and did not control the debris.
“At the plane crash site, the Ukrainian military does not conduct any military operations,” he said. “There is a ban on this. However, we have information that terrorists from time to time are shelling the plane crash area, in particular from mortars and artillery, in order to destroy all possible evidence.”
The shooting down of Flight 17 may amount to a war crime, according to Navi Pillay, the top UN human rights official. Pillay, in Geneva, assailed the pro-Russia rebels Monday for imposing a “reign of fear and terror” in the region and said “every effort will be made to ensure that anyone committing serious violations of international law, including war crimes, will be brought to justice, no matter who they are.”
UN monitors issued a report Monday saying that although “casualty figures are hard to gauge reliably,” the best available estimates were that at least 1,129 people have been killed and 3,442 have been wounded in the fighting in eastern Ukraine since mid-April.
In Moscow on Monday, the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, repeated a Russian call for the United States to make public whatever proof it has that Flight 17 was brought down by a missile fired from rebel-controlled territory.
Oh, it's one of those "trust us" situations again? Ha!
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"US and Europe agree to escalate sanctions on Russia" by Jack Ewing | New York Times July 29, 2014
Three strikes, your out.
FRANKFURT — The United States and Europe put aside their differences and agreed Monday to sharply escalate economic sanctions against Russia....
In some cases, the Europeans may actually leapfrog what the United States has done, forcing Washington to try to catch up.
The agreement came during an unusual five-way video conference between President Obama and his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy in advance of a European Union meeting scheduled for Tuesday....
US and European officials said the leaders agreed that Russia has not only not backed down since the shooting of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet but has accelerated its involvement in Ukraine’s burgeoning civil war....
I'm sorry, but the endless war propaganda has me exhausted.
The steps risk direct harm to European interest, by curbing business with Russia and courting countersanctions from Moscow.
Yes, your governments just told you to go f*** yourselves.
But in contrast to previous debate this year over how aggressively to confront President Vladimir V. Putin over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, political and business leaders in Germany — the crucial player in determining Europe’s response — now appear united behind the need to take more stringent action.
Several prominent German business leaders indicated in recent days that they supported tougher sanctions or were at least resigned to them, giving Chancellor Angela Merkel more political leeway at home to back what is expected to be the most far-reaching response yet by Europe to Russia’s behavior in Ukraine.
“In light of the most recent escalation, new sanctions are unavoidable,” Hannes Hesse, executive director of the German Engineering Federation, which represents makers of machinery and heavy equipment, said in a statement.
It's “urgent.”
*******************
The sanctions would have major consequences for other European countries, notably the French weapons industry and the British banking industry. But they have been developed in a way that limits some of the most direct risks to European interests. France, for example, would be free to deliver to Russia the first of two warships it is completing in a French shipyard.
They have also been developed with an eye toward spreading the potential pain to Europe among its biggest economies — Germany, Britain, and France.
I hope it's worth it, citizens of those countries. I hope a war for nothing is worth it.
Germany’s economic vulnerability may be broader than that of the other nations, reflecting the substantial commerce between Germany and Russia and Germany’s position as a bridge between the economies of Eastern and Western Europe.
Recent surveys show that optimism among business is sagging because of concern about Ukraine, and economists have begun predicting that the German economy could stagnate or even shrink as a result.
Yes, putting you back in rece$$ion is worth ginning up a war over the a piece of ink and paper.
So who is going to throw the first BRIC?
Planned restrictions on the export of equipment for the oil industry would most likely affect ZF Friedrichshafen, a company in the city of Fried-richshafen in southern Germany that makes equipment for energy producers as well as auto parts and other goods. Last year, ZF Friedrichshafen’s sales in Russia soared 60 percent to more than 400 million euros, or about $540 million.
This year sales have stagnated, and the company is worried that Russian customers will turn to Asian suppliers instead.
That fear is widespread. “Just the announcement of sanctions has caused some Russian customers to stop ordering from German firms,” because they are worried that delivery of the products will be blocked, said Monika Hollacher, a Russia expert at the German Engineering Federation. “The Chinese have already taken major market share. In a situation like what we have now, that will accelerate further.”
Related: Putin's Pivot
German exports to Russia and Ukraine will fall by more than $8 billion this year, according to an estimate by the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations.
The shift by the business community parallels growing impatience by German political leaders with Putin and Russia.
Looks like U.S. pressure to me.
Christiane Wirtz, spokeswoman for Merkel, told reporters Monday that “a completely new situation has emerged which makes further measures necessary,” in the wake of the crash. The chancellor would be willing to travel to Brussels this week if needed to push through stronger economic sanctions, Wirtz said.
Hmmmm!
Just what Obama was hoping for, the crash stiffening their spines!
In Moscow, Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said that while Moscow clearly did not welcome the measures it had no plans to impose sanctions on Europe in response.
“We do not want to act tit-for-tat,” he said, adding that he was sure Russia could overcome any difficulties caused by the sanctions. “Maybe we will be even more independent and more confident in our own course.”
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So it's just tat, tat, tat, isn't it?
"Pay $50b for Yukos, court orders Russia; Moscow vows to fight ruling over oil producer" by Danica Kirka | Associated Press July 29, 2014
LONDON — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government must pay $50 billion for using tax claims to destroy Yukos, once the country’s largest oil producer, and its Kremlin-critical CEO, an international court has ruled.
Monday’s verdict by the Permanent Court for Arbitration increases the economic and diplomatic isolation of Russia as it faces new, potentially painful sanctions from Western powers.
The court, a body that rules on corporate disputes, said the Russian government owes the money to the former majority shareholders in Yukos Oil Co.
Moscow vowed to fight the decision, raising the prospect of a new round of legal battles as the shareholders seek to enforce the decision by seizing Russian state-owned assets in 150 countries around the world.
Want to get a war going?
They can attempt to seize any assets used for commercial purposes. That means that while embassies are safe, planes, art, commercial property, gas pipelines, and oil rigs are not.
‘‘It’s the end of the beginning,’’ said Tim Osborne, the executive director of GML, formerly Group Menatep Ltd., whose subsidiaries brought the suit to the court in The Hague.
The court said Russia used tax claims to take control of Yukos in 2003 and silence its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an opponent of Putin who had begun to use his vast wealth to fund opposition parties.
Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint as he boarded a plane in Siberia that year and spent more than a decade in prison as Yukos’s main assets were sold to a state-owned company. Yukos ultimately went bankrupt.
He must have been one of the criminal oligarchs Putin cleaned out.
Monday’s ruling, one of the largest commercial arbitration awards in history, adds to Russia’s economic problems just as the United States and European Union are debating further sanctions against the country because of its support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.
I suppose they will turn further to China then.
Though the country has ample reserves, uncertainty over the impact of the sanctions has seen economic growth forecasts plummet and investors are pulling money out of the country at almost twice the pace as last year.
So my propaganda pre$$ says.
The court’s three-member panel, chaired by Yves Fortier, Canada’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, determined Russia was not acting in good faith to collect taxes when it leveled massive claims against Yukos, even though some of the company’s tax arrangements might have been questionable.
The state launched ‘‘a full assault on Yukos and its beneficial owners in order to bankrupt Yukos and appropriate its assets while, at the same time, removing Mr. Khodorkovsky from the political arena,’’ the court said.
The blunt verdict contrasts sharply with earlier cautious rulings from other international courts, which were carefully phrased to avoid blaming the Russian leadership for destroying Yukos.
Hey, we need war propaganda now.
The dismantling of Yukos and the arrest of Khodorkovsky were a defining moment in Putin’s rule.
It was then that his government began to take back control of the country’s energy industry and sought to reassert itself internationally as a force to be reckoned with rather than a crumbling post-communist shell.
Putin most recently went on to assert Russia’s claims over Crimea, annexing the peninsula on the Black Sea in March, and to offer support to rebels in Ukraine’s east.
Except he didn't annex it. They voted to join Russia.
But hey, what is the sense quibbling about a distortion and lie willingly and knowingly repeated day after day, 'eh?
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Time to put the issue to bed.
"Air Algerie plane’s black boxes arrive in France" Associated Press July 29, 2014
PARIS — The remains of the 118 victims from the Algerian passenger jet that went down in Mali last week have been ‘‘pulverized,’’ making identification extremely difficult, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France said Monday.
How can that be when it wasn't shot down, and when even those had bodies.
The two black boxes, which were quickly found, arrived in France on Monday, and six engineers are already working on them, Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said.
Analysis of the data and voice recorders will be essential in trying to determine why the Air Algerie flight fell from the sky Thursday.
However, it was not immediately clear whether the boxes were in decent enough shape to be read. French authorities say extremely bad weather was the likely cause but rule out nothing.
French cover up in full force, for were it terrorism the French people would demand Hollande get the hell out of Africa.
Victims from 15 countries were aboard the aircraft, leased by Air Algerie from the Spanish company Swiftair, and 54 of the passengers were from France — nearly half. Mali is directing the investigation, but France is taking a leading role and the identification of victims will take place there.
Fabius said the pilot of the MD-83 had asked to turn back after telling the control tower he wanted to change route due to the weather — the first time an official said the pilot wanted to abandon the trip from Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, to Algiers.
Fabius reiterated that ‘‘it is too soon to [say with] certitude’’ why the aircraft went down some 50 minutes after takeoff.
The search for victims is carried out under extremely difficult conditions because the ‘‘remains are pulverized,’’ the heat is overwhelming, and there is extreme difficulty of communication and transport, Fabius said.
Up to 50 French experts, being joined by others from Mali, Algeria, Spain, and other countries, are sifting through tiny airplane parts at the site, secured by 200 French troops. The transport minister said if the black boxes are intact, analyzing them will still take several weeks.
That looks more like a shoot-down than a crash due to weather.
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I suppose they are praying that cover story will be believed.
In a papal first, Francis visits Pentecostal church
"Francis apologized for Catholic persecution of Pentecostals during Italy’s fascist regime."
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Georgia girl struck by plane on Florida beach dies
Elegant Louvre Garden in Paris infested with rats
My newspaper is infested with them, too.
Fighting blocks access to site of jetliner crash" by Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times July 30, 2014
I'm already not wanting to read it, and I'm not buying a paper today after previewing what a pos it is.
ROZSYPNE, Ukraine — The sprawling fields of debris where Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine, leaving a gruesome enough
scene as it was, took on new macabre elements Tuesday as the zone
became a front line in the war here....
See: The Ukrainian Missile Crisis
The fighting that has now roughly bisected the debris zone, [and] the prospect of a long investigation potentially presented an obstacle to Ukraine’s larger goals of retaking Donetsk and defeating the rebels....
The Ukrainian army said it was pressing an offensive to surround Donetsk, the separatist capital, and also to push insurgents away from the crash site, but denied it was fighting in the debris fields, even as a front now split the site in two....
The Donetsk People’s Republic, the main rebel group in eastern Ukraine, announced Tuesday that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was serving the interests of Ukraine and the United States, and would be banned from the crash site. It was unclear whether the foreign forensic teams and police contingents would also be ordered to leave.
Separatist fighters were drifting away from the area Tuesday afternoon, with a half-dozen glum-looking and exhausted gunmen hunkered down in trenches on the western edge. The men did not bother to venture out to check the documents of people in a car creeping through the area.
One of the fighters in a roadside trench, who gave only his nickname, Trojan, said Ukrainian forces now controlled the village of Grabovo, the site of a field where the main landing gear, the wings, and the rear cone of the Boeing 777-200’s fuselage hit. Behind him lay a cargo pallet from the flight. “The plane isn’t relevant now,” he said. “We’re being attacked.”
This village, where the cockpit fell in a field and pancaked, and where many bodies landed, was still being contested Tuesday, a day when fighting also raged in a half-dozen other cities in eastern Ukraine....
Nothing about those.
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Obama joins Europe in expanding sanctions on Russia" by Peter Baker and Alan Cowell | New York Times
The carefully orchestrated actions on both sides of the Atlantic were designed to demonstrate solidarity in the face of what US and European officials say has been a stark escalation by Russia in the insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Until now, European leaders have resisted the broader sorts of actions they agreed to Tuesday, and their decision to back such stiff sanctions reflected increasing alarm that Russia is not only helping separatists in Ukraine but directly involving itself in the fighting.
“Today is a reminder that the United States means what it says and we will rally the international community in standing up for the rights and freedom of people around the world,” Obama said.
As we collect all your data and movements and allow Gazan children to be murdered. This guys words sound more hollow every day.
European governments moved ahead despite concerns that Europe would also pay an economic price.
Meaning they would rather screw the citizens they are supposed to serve in favor of banker's and their wars. I expect Europe's streets will soon be full of protesters.
Oh, right, they already are over Israel, something my jew$paper is keeping from me.
For many travelers, time to say goodbye to loyalty plans
That completes our flight.
UPDATE: Shocking Analysis of the ‘Shooting Down’ of Malaysian MH17